Williarob

alexp120 said:

This thread is about the scanning of a theatrical release print, so, this version would be the theatrical cut.

I know of at least one cut that was made on all the British prints: the scene in Cuba after the plane crash where the Xenia slides down the rope and attacks Bond, the “good” girl tries to intervene and is grabbed by the bad girl and told to “wait your turn” before being pushed to the ground. That 10 seconds or so is not in any of the British prints. It is however in this print, so I believe this is the uncut version.

Great - thanks!

Can anybody here capture this?

https://hollywoodsuite.ca/movies/highlander/

Fuddlyduddly said:

I don’t know if this would be of any help, but I caught Highlander on TV and it was the theatrical cut, in widescreen and HD. It also has the shot of the cop spilling coffee on himself, and presumably has the unaltered effects shots at the end.

Cool. Did you record it? If not, what channel was it on and is it going to be on again anytime soon?

The screen I saw it on in '89 was at a small seaside town in the east of England. I seriously doubt it had a 70mm setup. In fact I know it didn’t because I just checked their website and it says “The 35mm projector used from 1988 to 2013 is now on display in the theatre cafe & gallery.” So, assuming I’m not mis-remembering, and this is not The Mandella Effect, it’s more likely that British prints may have the line, while those from other markets may not.

I remember the Jewish line too. (I first saw the film at a cinema in the UK in '89). However, I do have access to an original US Theatrical print and the line is censored on the print:

Those relatively flat audio lines on the optical track are where the word “Jewish” should be. This makes me wonder if all the US prints were censored from the beginning.

Here is the full clip:

https://mega.nz/#!oJ1xgKaL!5qoVEcJFRYralVJv20yNcMr0fF1fAOLyx4WV6cvlgYw

If you change the delay to play the audio 20 frames (-833 ms ?) earlier to match the waveform printed on the film (since the sound head is further down inside the projector, in order to have picture and sound in sync during projection, the audio needs to be at the same point as the picture when the picture is in the gate. So the part of the optical track for this frame already passed through the gate 20 frames ago…) you can more easily see where the dialog is missing (you can check this by switching to audio track 2 in the provided clip).

Maaga said:

Is there any link to the 1.3 windows 10 installer? I was able to use the 1.2 windows installer on my windows 7 PC but the program isn’t showing up after a fresh install on my windows 10 PC.

https://mega.nz/#!K9ZwFIgR!I5BnMQ_zvhj9SDpgRzr4Y9JYc1QM6nBME7GVk5ntjkc

calculon559 said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Williarob will be using Dre’s new correction for an update that will also replace many of the patched-in Blu-Ray frames with new 4K print scans (some from an LPP print, some from a 1997 SE print).

Will there be any frames used from the 4K Disney+ version or have they got all the frames from prints now?

In some instances, the bluray frames could not be color matched to the print. If there are no print sources for a frame and the D+ frames match better, then they will be used. But the goal is to minimize the amount of footage from non 35mm sources used in the 4Kxx projects.

Oohteedee already partially “despecialized” the D+ versions of ANH and ESB using 4K77 and 4K80 sources. (Most of the 4K80 footage he cleaned himself, since that’s not done yet) if that’s what you’re looking for. He calls them “D+77” and “D+80”. Hopefully a D+83 will follow in the not too distant future, and all three D+ projects will quickly be upgraded to use the physical media when that becomes available next month.

In 1971, the industry standard size of the aperture gate was changed from 2.35:1 to 2.39:1, slightly reducing the height. The reason for this was to hide those ugly laboratory splices:

which are very distracting when almost every single shot change gives you a white flash of glue at the top and bottom.

So, while on the film, the image is printed at 2.35:1 (after being unsqueezed), it would have been projected at 2.39:1.

However, with 4KXX we made every effort to clean these up, and the same is probably true of the official Blurays (Either that or they just cropped them out).

Sometimes they’re just too big for that aperture plate to hide:

But at 24 fps you barely notice these big blobs of glue.

The 1080p version is available ready to burn, with menus etc. Not much point creating an ISO for the 4K version, as most people can’t burn it, and those who can probably won’t be able to play it anyway.

If you reduce the bitrate far enough to fit it on a BD50, it may or may not play on your UHD player (most won’t). blank BD 100 M discs are not cheap, and many will not work on your stand alone UHD player.

Most UHD players have a USB input, and can play MKV files, so why not just put that file on an external drive or USB stick and plug that in? Why bother with burning a disc at all? Is it really worth all that extra effort just to see a menu and click play? The end result is exactly the same: you watch the movie on your TV.

If all you want is a case on the shelf, then print one out and stuff an SD card or USB stick inside it.

No, it did not.

MrPib said:

MaestroDavros said:

a_o said:

I wonder what Mike Verta thinks of the 4k version on Disney+ and coming to UHD later this year, when compared to the product or progress of his work on Legacy.

He hated the colors of the Reliance Media restoration from which these new masters are sourced from. The raw SDR colors of the Disney+ look very similar to the RM (muted and washed out), but as DrDre pointed out on the 4K Restoration of Star Wars thread the HDR adds back a lot of color and looks far more saturated.

He discusses is here: https://vimeo.com/123475322

And here: https://vimeo.com/122877129

Usenet 😃

I think most of the links you’ll find now will be dead, so I posted a link to it here: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1302045/action/topic#1302045

bkev said:

Hi all,

Just wondering if a 1.4 with DNR was ever released. I’ve searched through some of the usual channels and had no luck. The restoration work regardless is a triumph, but I would prefer one with that color grading and a slightly smoother picture.

It’s possible I’ve never said it before, so congrats to Team -1 and Williarob. You have absolutely achieved commercial-grade work and we are all beyond grateful.

v1.0 No DNR used a single color correction per reel, which was just a white balance to the soundtrack or the sprocket holes. Sanjuro used that as the basis for his grade, so applying his grade to the original master was therefore very easy - my starting point was more or less the same as his.

However, when I did the DNR version, I started with a shot by shot color grade, this time trying to color balance each shot based on it’s content. So almost every single shot was given a new grade. After that I applied the DNR on a scene by scene (sometimes shot by shot) basis which took weeks. After that was done, it became obvious that the removal of all that noise made the remaing dust, dirt and scratches really stand out. So I spent another month cleaning the whole film frame by frame. Finally, I replaced about a dozen shots using a scan of the '97 SE print, or the alternate Tech, or the LPP instead of just the Bluray. These new inserts were color matched to the new grade, and DNR’d immediately, so they don’t currently exist in an original No DNR 1.o format.

So, given all of those changes, there is simply no way to just drop the DNR master file into Sanjuro’s project file and apply his grade - it just wouldn’t work - the input colors would be totally different, so the output colors would also be totally different.

So the only way to apply the Sanjuro grade to the DNR version is to do it shot by shot with Dre’s color matching tool OR go back to the original No DNR version 1.0 and start again with the months of work I already did. Neither of which appealed to me after 5 years of working on Star Wars. If you want to generate the 2000 LUTs required and a project that applies them to the DNR version, I’m happy to render it out for you using the original master file, but I just don’t have the time or the enthusiasm to do that myself.

Oohteedee has done some work on a new DNR version, starting with the original NoDNR 1.0, but really we have both been waiting for @DrDre to complete his own regrade of 4K77 so that we can apply that grade instead; and for some more sources to be available: e.g. the new official 4K blurays coming in March and our own rescan of the '97 SE print. Since DNR 1.0 was released, we also now have a 4K scan of the LPP, and some elements from another foreign print, all of which can be used to make improvements.

So. Eventually, there will be an updated DNR version with some new shots and a more consistent color grade, but it’s really not a priority at the moment, especially since we haven’t even finished a v1.0 of 4K80.

TOOT is a plugin for AVISynth: https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=78338

I believe TOOT analyzes every pixel and whenever Two Out Of Three versions of the same pixel are the same and one is different, the one that is different will be ignored. That way, any random drop outs or anaomlies unique to each capture (and not on the original source) are removed.

So capturing the same disc 3 times, or capturing multiple copies of the same title can yield cleaner results. I haven’t used it in years, but I do have multiple copies of the same 16mm Moonraker TV Spot, which I plan to scan and run through TOOT to see how well it cleans them up. Obviously, unlike with laserdisc capture, the scans will need to be stabilized, color matched and aligned with each other before trying this, so that’s an extra step and may mean it can never find 2/3 matches… Worth a try though!

Tomas Stacewicz said:

Williarob said:

What started out with some parts from an old VCR moving the film and a digital still camera, is now a full size standard 35mm cinema projector with a 4K Black Magic camera (and special lens) pointed directly into the projector.

Sorry for bumping this old message, but being a Blackmagic Camera fan boy, I’m curious to know what BM camera you are using? Is it the Blackmagic Cinema Camera 4K? Or perhaps the recent Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K? Captured RAW or on ProRes?

It’s the very first Blackmagic 4K camera - the one that looks like this:

We bought it new as soon as it became available.

Yeah, that shot could really use a Do over… It had quite a lot of damage:

Looking at it now I can see a lot of smearing and other artifacts caused by all the cloning, painting, and other processing I used to clean it up. But, I’ve learned a few new tricks in the last 3 or 4 years - I feel like I could do a better job fixing that shot today.

I’ll circle back to it one of these days and update it.

I have a CLD-99 Which has a built in comb filter which can be adjusted or disabled via the remote. My capture card (an Osprey 100e) also has a configurable comb filter, I have an Extron YCS 100, an NEC Scan Converter IDC-3000, a DVDO iScan VP-50, a Faroudia digital video processor NR series, an Extron DVS 304 and finally I have a Toshiba DVD Recorder with an excellent comb filter that I can use to pass through the signal to the capture card. I’ve tried them all and they all have their own pros and cons. For example, with the comb filter on, the osprey card can completely remove the rainbowing, at the cost of introducing little checkerboard patterns of noise:

So what I should probably do is capture each disc a few times via different routes and use TOOT (Two out of three) to average them… But what I usually do is just capture them once and then deal with the issues using software, effects and filters.

My reason for capturing the discs is that I am usually more interested in the PCM audio tracks, or using the video track as a color reference.

Usually there is a DVD or Bluray with much better picture quality available, so maximizing laserdisc video quality is rarely a priority for me. I just try to make it look presentable.

For rare titles, only available on laserdisc, like the US theatrical cut of Highlander, or the Star Wars trilogy, I seek out 35mm or 16mm film versions for the picture, and use the laserdiscs just for audio and color reference 😃

YRK01 said:

I have the DNR version. Is that one constant bitrate?

Yes, I believe so. CBR of 40 MB/s on the 1080p Mkv. 4K version is probably VBR.

This site was pretty much built on capturing these Star Wars Laserdiscs, so most of us old timers here have some experience. I captured my first mismatched OT laserdisc set in 2002. The Empire Disc was from the faces set, while the other two were from the Widescreen Collection. At the time, my captures were no where near as good as the ones being done here by Dr Gonzo, Cowclops, Citizen, etc, but nearly 20 years (and 5 LD Players) later I’m still preserving laserdisc titles to this day.

Tomas Stacewicz said:

Williarob said:

Simple: It was encoded with a lower average bitrate. A lot of people struggled to play 1.0 smoothly, so we encoded the later version at a lower bitrate and heard fewer complaints.

Yeah, I noticed that. You have implemented a more dynamic bitrate compared to V.1.0 which was more close to 80 Mbps regardless of content, whereas V.1.4 jumps all over the place and actually has a higher bitrate compared to V.1.0 where it is needed (i.e. bright scenes) and much lower when there is much darkness in the image.

Thanx for the response.

Tomas

Yes 1.0 was constant bitrate, 1.4 is variable for greater efficiency.

Since the 3:2 pulldown is completely reversible (unlike true interlaced video) I think you’ll find converting your 60fps capture back into frame accurate (capable of being GOUT Sync’d) full frames at 23.976 fps with no interlacing and no duplicates is much harder than if you just capture it at 29.97 and then IVTC it with a single line in an AVISynth script:

AVISource(“c:\path\to\my_29_97_LD_Capture.avi”).Tfm().tdecimate()

Or simply open it in Virtualdub, go to Video -> Filters -> Add -> IVTC and choose Reduce Frame Rate, Auto, Adaptive, Click OK and then save your file.

Simple: It was encoded with a lower average bitrate. A lot of people struggled to play 1.0 smoothly, so we encoded the later version at a lower bitrate and heard fewer complaints.