You_Too

Doctor M said:

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/columns/the-rumor-mill/true-lies-abyss-2014-x-files-twin-peaks

Just sayin'...

James Cameron has also said he might wanna convert T2 to 3D.

And considering the direction he's going nowadays, this is about what I expect from those releases:

Matt_Stevens said:

I still have my DVHS recorded Cable broadcast. 1.78:1 open matted and more detail vs the 2.35:1 DTheater DVHS release, which was DNR'd/filtered. Moron studios.

Unfortunately, the 5.1 on the DTheater is far better than the 5.1 on the Cable broadcast. 

I'm just hoping for a Blu-Ray thatgets it right. But it'll probably be turned teal.

You mean you have an open matte version in full HD? If so, we'd love if you could provide us with that version instead for this project.

Moth3r said:

Sorry if this is obvious, but have you checked the histogram to see if there are any pixels with luma in the 236-255 range? On occasion, there is detail in this range that gets clipped for display, but can be recovered by reducing the white level.

I always try recovering as much as possible but here it's a lot of 255-whites where there should be more detail. It was pretty much the same with T2.

Just wanted to point some things out so everybody is prepared that this won't be a perfect release either, though we'll do our best of course!

First of all, this one just like T2 has some severely crushed whites. They're lost and no way to bring them back.

Then there's also some smearing present which is in the source. Check this shot DJ posted:

Look at the guy on the far right in the background and you'll see that there are two of him. This is not as visible in motion though, but I wanted to point it out just so you know it's in the source and can't be fixed.

EDIT: Actually this scene was fixed by DJ's IVTC/deinterlacing script but some scenes still have some smearing or blending.

No I meant that when captainsolo said "V2 with DTS" I thought he referred to our 97 SE. I explained that our version of GOUT is what we call V2.

Maybe I'm just confused... haha

@captainsolo: I'm sure you'll enjoy it! And actually with V2 we refer to our version of the originals. We've never had any V1 of the 97 SE before. :)

Kingherb said:

Great work i can definitely see the extra detail coming through especially in the lighter areas in the backround.

Yeah, one of the worst things of this transfer is how blown out the whites are. There's almost no detail to dig up there. In a proper transfer there should've been a lot more detail in the bright areas.

Now it is official, we have our final settings for T2 and it's the ones you saw in the screenshots above.

Since you might not notice the improvement in detail in those shots, I'm putting another shot here in full resolution, before and after. This time the first shot is raw, so it's even got the wrong aspect ratio.

dvdmike said:

Mine for comparison, I think you struck the best balance.

Thanks! And yes, in yours there's too little red and you've crushed the blacks slightly.

But don't worry, our version will look great! And if a new master turns up, be sure that we'll fix it if we can. But since James Cameron said that he's thinking about a 3D conversion of T2, I bet he will do the same as with Titanic: Not only change the color timing but also insert or remove stuff using CGI.

Some details on what's been done to T2:

The reds have been reduced in intensity to remove some of the very saturated pink-ish skin tones. It wasn't possible to correct that issue more because if removing the pink from skin tones completely, reds would turn orange.

The overall RGB balance has been corrected since it was missing just a slight bit of green.

Whites are crushed in this master and the rest had a bit too bright gamma, giving some colors an undersaturated look, this has been improved by making dark areas slightly darker without crushing the black level, and the whites have been taken down from 255 to 240 while balancing the close-to-whites so they blend better, not looking as blown out.

Might not be visible in these small shots, but we've dug up some extra detail from within the grain, and sharpened it to correct the blur caused by the incorrect aspect ratio resizing that had been done to the master. Now it's got the correct aspect ratio and more detail is visible too.

Matt_Stevens said:

Crap. Wish I had known of this. I need to pay more attention!

Don't worry, I'm sure others here will help you to get a copy, or put it on myspleen so you can download it.

AntcuFaalb said:

Also, what did you think of the Drew Cummings "The Making of: Terminator" documentary I sent to you and You_Too? Was the quality good enough?

I think it was good enough. It was a bit blurry but that's natural since it was a TV documentary from the 80's shot on video.

Yeah, I have to add that this frame by frame Colourlike function by AntcuFaalb is amazing when it does work, and I guess it should work nicely for matching a lot of high resolution material without crushed whites and blacks. But Colourlike itself is not perfect so it does react weirdly sometimes.

About FOTR EE: Like I've stated before, the problem with this one is that they did at least two passes of their weird color timing choice. First they color timed each scene separately + seem to have made some global color changes at the same time, (like turning some grey and blue into dark cyan/teal) then they added the green tint. They also oversharpened some shots. If I remember correct, one of them is where Frodo tells Aragorn he's leaving the fellowship.

The shot of Aragorn that Harmy posted is a good example of where they color timed one scene separately. They gave that scene a cold tone overall.

Ah, I already had those. I hoped you had some bigger 35mm scans!

Actually, after checking that shot with the kids in photoshop, the only really visible difference when matching them up, BD vs 35mm is that in the 35mm, the hue of reds is more towards orange.

So your bottom pic there is WAY more correct than the top one.

Would you mind sharing the 35mm stills you have? They might prove useful if they're in good quality.

Kingherb said:

I'm interested to see Terminator 2 from this project, i was really disapointed with the dnr on the blu-ray release, i read that the japanese release does not have this problem.

That's right, the japanese version doesn't have that heavy DVNR, so you can see the grain and everything. Though it's been slightly stretched vertically and thus blurred a little bit, but this will be corrected in our version.

I also think that overall, T2 needs a slight saturation increase as well as balancing out the pink skin tones.

AntcuFaalb said:

Doctor M: Using ColourLike with every=1 will generate one histogram for the entire clip it operates on. If you open the histogram in a text editor, you'll only see one set of histogram values. It does not balance the color on a frame-by-frame basis. It only samples and updates the histogram "every" number of times.

I took a peek at the source code recently (it's in C++) and verified that this is the case. It's stupid behavior, but that's how it works!

If you want it to work on a shot-by-shot (or frame-by-frame) basis, then you need to generate histograms for each shot, manually. An example:

myclip = AVISource(...)

clip_one = myclip.Trim(0, 23)

clip_two = myclip.Trim(24, 47)

clip_one.WriteHistogram("shot1.txt", every=1)

clip_two.WriteHistogram("shot2.txt", every=1)

clip_one.ColourLike("shot1.txt", "shot2.txt")

Is there any way for you to change the source code and somehow create a new version that would work frame by frame? Or does that code you posted actually work frame by frame? (Even if it's slow)

Jetrell Fo said:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/35mm-Print-STAR-WARS-THE-PHANTOM-MENACE-LIAM-NEESON-/181122903796?pt=US_Film&hash=item2a2bc42ef4

Bid now starts @ $499.00

Damn... If my economy was just a bit better I would not hesitate. I'd personally go through the work of restoring that print.

@MrBrown: No idea if it could be put on the disc. I think DJ has already started burning discs so I guess it's too late anyway. But no worries! I'll put a link here in the thread when the time comes. And somebody made an alternate cover for DJ so maybe we can post both. But I don't know if the other cover is ready yet.

@jimjimmyjones85: I'm glad to hear that!

Anyway guys, I just wanted to post a statement regarding blu-ray disc donations: Since the cases, professionally printed covers as well as shipping is all paid by dark_jedi, smaller donations like one disc or two can unfortunately not be accepted since they won't nearly cover the expenses for all that.

I suggest that when some people here receive their discs, they could help us out by helping those who couldn't get any discs the first time. And if we won't upload it on myspleen ourselves, feel free to do that as well. I'll gladly supply you with the full res cover file to accompany the torrent, or for your own printing.

vadertyme said:

For those of us interested in supporting Team Blu thru disc donations, are there any details on how to go about doing this?

Just send a pm to dark_jedi. He's the one taking care of the donations.

If he doesn't reply, inbox full or whatever, send me a pm and I'll forward your message to him over email.

Oh you know that if I didn't have *insert large number here* projects going on and coming up, I would gladly have helped you! I hope you'll find some nice and helpful partner because I know you do have some great ideas.

Good luck!

AntcuFaalb said:

NeverarGreat said:

This couldn't have waited another year?

No. The 2004 DVD set doesn't deserve a 10-year anniversary celebration, just a 9-year one.

^_^

And when we celebrate the anniversary of the 2004 DVDs, it will be like celebrating the anniversary of some dead celebrity, except this time it's about the original SW trilogy...

rockin said:

Sigh, and to think, the sterile looking blu-ray is going to be the version people will remember from now on.

Not once somebody will make a blu-ray from a print like that. I think it's just a matter of time.

guiser said:

On my calibrated display the DVD shot doesn't actually look more pink to me (when viewing the face and clothing).  The second image actually seems more pink in that regard, but the background elements are definitely cooler.  Perhaps it is more noticeable since the face is what the viewer will be focused on the most when watching the scene.

The contrast in the second image seems a bit low, but maybe that is just because it is sitting right next to the first which has higher brightness and contrast.

We would never be able to get a perfect match with the DVD since it's sourced from a different print, and what we did was an automatic process. Actually we don't want a perfect match because of the oversaturation, crushed whites and shadow detail of the DVD.

What I mentioned is also the reason why our version won't look as bright as the DVD. The DVD has contrast pushed beyond what it would've looked like on film, which we correct in our version.

mikeaz123 said:

Had a 35mm print of Conan at one time, although it was mostly faded.  I do agree that the blu ray is off, but  I'll be curious to see the final results.  The screen cap of the snow seems a bit warmer than it should be.

Maybe your print wasn't a US theatrical print? If I got this right, the color timing was different in other countries.

Anyway, you should see the DVD of the US theatrical, it's oversaturated at parts and even more red than those screens. And at some parts, blue colors are undersaturated. We used the same color balance as that DVD in each shot, just dialing it down slightly to keep a more natural look, which is what we believe is closer to how it looked in the theaters.

Here's a comparison that clearly shows the difference in the snow.

Top: US theatrical DVD
Middle: Our new version
Bottom: Retail blu-ray

EDIT:

Just wanted to add that we will not even consider changing this. If somebody wants a different color timing it's up to them to make their own project. We used the references we had, which was the US theatrical DVD and the Netflix HD version, and they both look the same. I also have to add that DJ only had the ending from the Netflix version.

By the way, here's that shot in the same kind of comparison:

Here you can clearly see that the theatrical DVD looks more pink than our final version.