cpalmer2k

There were various HDTV broadcasts of “Titanic” prior to the 2012 re-release but sadly I haven’t managed to put my hands on an unedited version yet. I believe most of the TV broadcasts still airing today use the pre-2012 HD master (because they had to use an alternate take of the drawing scene to make it TV friendly). That may have changed though. It will be interesting to see after the recent re-release in theaters if we actually see a 4K Blu-Ray release anytime in the near future.

This is something I’ve been working towards for awhile now, but I want to finally announce that I am working on a project to produce a 35mm scan of “Home Alone 2”. I have an original 35mm release print of the film in excellent condition. This has always been one of my favorite Christmas films, and since I have the print anyway I’d love to get it scanned and out into the public.

I originally planned to begin this project back in 2018, but at the time my daughter had just been born. She developed a milk allergy and had to have expensive formula (nearly $500 a month!) so it went on the back burner. Recently the print drew my attention again and I decided to try to move forward with my project. I’ve located a scanner who is willing to work with me, and the film is prepared for shipment.

I’m curious if any other fans of this film are interested in contributing to the scanning project which will run about $1200 with shipping, etc. Any contributors will receive access to a “Preview” release of the scan as soon as I get the hard drive back and can render a rough Grindhouse style version. I anticipate the process from shipping the film out to preview release to take 2-3 months based on the information provided by the scanner. My goal is to ensure that this isn’t one of those projects that drag on forever before anyone gets to see results. The “Grindhouse” style preview will be available to contributors as soon as reasonably possible. Obviously tweaking and full editing of a “final” release will take some time to perfect, but major contributors can also get access to the original high resolution scan files if you would like to tweak or do your own restorations using them.

If anyone is interested in contributing please PM me.

I thought only the German release was a BD-50? I realize the downloads were out there. I was referring to locating a physical copy of the German version that would ship to the USA. Either way though I expect the scan to still look better.

This is something I’ve been working towards for awhile now, but I want to finally announce that I am working on a project to produce a 35mm scan of “Home Alone 2”. My plan is to send the 35mm release print I own out for scanning within the next month. Why Home Alone 2 some might ask? Well, the existing Blu-Ray release in North America isn’t one of Fox’s best efforts. It is crammed onto a BD-25, and even their recent 25th Anniversary Re-Release doesn’t correct that issue. There is a BD-50 release overseas, but it is difficult to find now. This has always been one of my favorite Christmas films, and I think it deserves a good release.

My plan is to do a BD-50 release, and possibly even a 4K release as the software and ability to do encodes at that resolution continues to advance. I also hope to include some “special features” like original trailers, and anything else I can locate along those lines.

If anyone is interested in participating I certainly will welcome contributions towards the scan/release. Those who contribute will receive early access to previews of the release, etc.

Also I know the question will be asked, but at this point I don’t have plans to do “Home Alone 1”. There is a Russian print available on eBay very cheap at the moment if anyone would like to do a joint project. Home Alone 1 has been released on a BD-50 from a full 4K remaster with special features including deleted scenes, so the commercial release of it is much better than what is available for “Home Alone 2”.

Thank you! I’ve been wanting to do a project with this film for awhile. It looks like they mistitled it at first which explains how my saved eBay searches missed. I’ll pursue this print

x5gb said:

dark_jedi said:

We could have probably made a really nice Blu-ray from this file, sucks being dead in the water, I miss all our Team projects and shit lol.

The Sky HD version I hae was on Usenet (the present retention just misses it by a month or two) so I’m sure other people grabbed it and have it sitting on a hard drive somewhere and hopefully it will re-surface sometime (it was on around the time just before the Sky Star Trek’s were up), the WEB-DL and that file overlaid with each other would create a really nice version.

Any chance another provider would have more retention? I’ve searched a few groups but can’t turn it up

I’m pretty sure the version everybody has sent is the Amazon Web-DL. I share your pain. This movie hasn’t aired on a premium movie channel in the USA in three years now. I’ve been watching for it. Most of the TV airings cut it up and leave out entire scenes to make room for more commercials. The Web-DL version Dark Jedi sent information on is by far the best I’ve seen. Honestly I still prefer the 1.85:1 version of this film to the original 2.35:1 version too. I wish they had gone that route on Amazon.

I am hoping someone can help me out with a Christmas request/project. One of my favorite movies is “Christmas with the Kranks”, yet it never has received a Blu-Ray release in any market. I see where the Sky Cinema family of networks in the UK is airing this movie many times coming up in the next week. Could someone possibly record this film for me in HD? It only airs on Lifetime/FX/FXX in the USA, and they either speed it up or cut out portions to make room for more commercials. I’m looking for a nice clean copy to work with.

Edit: I realize a few Web-DL rips are out there but none are very good quality.

I will be happy to return the favor by recording anything you might need for a project in HD from US TV.

Does anyone by any chance have HD recordings of any of the “Police Academy” films (1-7) from TV airings on non-premium channels? Typically the TV airings of these films are edited for language/nudity, but do show a few scenes that aren’t in the theatrical versions. These “TV Edits” are available on various sites in SD form, but not in HD form. I would love to locate TV airings of them and “merge” them to make a complete version. I have good recordings of the theatrical versions from the HDNet marathon earlier this year, and I also have the UK Blu-Ray collection that I can use for source material.

Just to revive this thread I see where FOX has just released a 25th Anniversary Blu-Ray of “Home Alone 2”. The bad thing is they’ve still stuck with the same BD-25 version they had in the past. Amazon must be cracking down on import discs as well. I have been unable to locate the foreign BD-50 version on either Amazon Germany or eBay. If anyone has, or can easily pick up a retail copy of the BD-50 version I would gladly pay the costs and postage to the USA.

Since my original post I have acquired a 16mm print of “Home Alone 2” and still have access to the 35mm print I previously mentioned. The 16mm print is very nice, but like many of that era it has a 4:3 “Pan and Scan” effect instead of being scope.

I actually have a very nice UK release print of Home Alone 2 now that I’m sitting on the fence with. I’m debating whether to re-sell it, or whether to hang onto it and try to have it scanned later on down the line.

Does anyone have an Amazon/eBay link to the exact import version you’re referring to? I’ve bought three different discs and ended up with 3 different versions of the USA release repackaged, even though two were advertised as “imports”

Thanks to Beber for another donation

Thanks to FrankT for his donation as well!

Thanks to Soupdrinker0 and another unidentified person for your donations. They are the first ones. I will continue to post updates.

slumberdore said:

How much has been raised so far?

Several people have expressed interest, but to date no contributions towards the $375 target have actually been received.

If anyone else is interested in participating/contributing to this project please send me a PM. I’m hoping to finalize and send the payment early next week.

JayArgonaut said:

cpalmer2k said:

JayArgonaut said:

Yeah, I saw that listed on the Spleen. Have you watched it and if so, what’s your verdict? Do you prefer the fan edit or the theatrical?

Not yet, haven’t had a long enough block of time to sit down and view it. I’m looking forward to it though, I have been searching for the full version of it for awhile now.

I did download the Russian version of “Titanic” listed above and it is definitely the older version and appears to be complete.

You ended up with more than you bargained for, an uncut pre-2012 version, a cut version that you can show to your students and also an extended fan edit. 😃

Still looking for the “Cut” version for my students. The US TV version isn’t truly cut, as I say they just removed things like the g-d in front of g-d d–n, or the bull in front of s–t. The rest of the sentences are there, which makes ZERO sense to me.

Not sure on that, but if you find a way to do it let me know. The software I typically use for Blu-Ray creation can’t handle the 25fps. It turns the audio into an awful sped up chipmunk sounding track. I tried locking the frame setting in, and it still doesn’t do it right.

stretch009 said:

cpalmer2k said:

JayArgonaut said:

Yeah, I saw that listed on the Spleen. Have you watched it and if so, what’s your verdict? Do you prefer the fan edit or the theatrical?

I did download the Russian version of “Titanic” listed above and it is definitely the older version and appears to be complete.

It’s on a Russian site and I think it has Russian audio as well as English. That definitely doesn’t mean it’s a “Russian version”, it could be from the UK, etc;,. I’ve been downloading from Rutracker long enough to know that.

True, I wasn’t sure what exactly to call it so I figured “Russian version” would be clear to those following. You’re right, it does have both English & Russian audio. Russian is primary, English is the second stream. It is definitely from the European realm though because of the frame rate, and the 21st Century Fox opening instead of the Paramount one we get here in the USA.

JayArgonaut said:

Yeah, I saw that listed on the Spleen. Have you watched it and if so, what’s your verdict? Do you prefer the fan edit or the theatrical?

Not yet, haven’t had a long enough block of time to sit down and view it. I’m looking forward to it though, I have been searching for the full version of it for awhile now.

I did download the Russian version of “Titanic” listed above and it is definitely the older version and appears to be complete.

I know this is slightly off topic, but this week I did (Finally!) locate a copy of the fan edited Titanic Q2 Extended Edition. The version I found is the full 40GB Blu-Ray edition that incorporates ALL the deleted scenes to make the movie 34 minutes longer than it originally was. (Sadly it uses the BD material, so it is post-2012 as well)

Now all I get is an error message on that site that won’t translate 😦

Colson said:

cpalmer2k said:

I think we might finally have a way to piece together the film as it originally aired. Saturday VH1 here in the US aired the “TV” version of Titanic with the alternative version of the drawing scene. The transfer was beautiful though, and in the correct aspect ratio. The only logo/bug on the screen was a tiny VH1 logo that sat in the black bar space at the bottom of the screen. It didn’t show on any part of the movie itself. I missed the first half of the film, but they are scheduled to re-air it two more times. I’ve set both to record just to be safe. I didn’t detect any censorship other than the drawing scene but I plan to watch it all the way through when it re-airs to make sure.

If it is complete as I believe it would be very easy to edit the drawing scene from the 2012 version into this TV version of the pre-2012 version to make it complete as it originally was.

That’s great to hear! Keep us posted.

Unfortunately this is a bust. There are some edits in the movie after all. They’ve partially edited some of the profanity at least, but not completely. For example where he said g-d d–n liar it is now d–n liar everywhere. It IS the cleanest and probably best quality cable airing I’ve ever seen though because the VH1 logo is completely out of the picture, and the transfer is very good, but it isn’t the uncut pre-2012 version we needed

I think we might finally have a way to piece together the film as it originally aired. Saturday VH1 here in the US aired the “TV” version of Titanic with the alternative version of the drawing scene. The transfer was beautiful though, and in the correct aspect ratio. The only logo/bug on the screen was a tiny VH1 logo that sat in the black bar space at the bottom of the screen. It didn’t show on any part of the movie itself. I missed the first half of the film, but they are scheduled to re-air it two more times. I’ve set both to record just to be safe. I didn’t detect any censorship other than the drawing scene but I plan to watch it all the way through when it re-airs to make sure.

If it is complete as I believe it would be very easy to edit the drawing scene from the 2012 version into this TV version of the pre-2012 version to make it complete as it originally was.