digitalfreaknyc

marin888 said:

You definitely have problems with noise reduction & reddish color.
There is no grain and untouched ts file definitely must have them.
Check your settings for recording. But why reddish color?

AMC HD Rip 720p & BD 1080i
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/161879
720p & BD 1080i - Picture 2
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/161575/picture:1

And here is comparison for noise reduction, it have same effect like you have.
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/151114

Again, that’s what it looks like on my TV. Has nothing to do with the way it’s being encoded.

I use the default settings on the Hauppauge when I encode. Does anyone else have it and have this problem?

I don’t know what you’re showing me in your comparison.

For further comparison, here’s the 720p vs the AMC.
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/161881/picture:0

And, finally, the AMC vs MY HBO 1080i
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/161882/picture:0

marin888 said:

Your first record of AMC HD Saga have excellent quality but now Epic looks really bad and 720p release (14.5GB) looks proper (colors, grain).

Why your first AMC record look proper and now Epic looks unwatchable…

So we need someone who can make or have proper record and send it to you.
Problem solved.

OK let’s get real: my version of Epic doesn’t look “really bad.” You’re comparing screencaps which is ALWAYS a dangerous thing to do. Had I released my 45GB file, you’d all be perfectly fine with it. Trust me. However, since we have a direct comparison to something that’s not been re-compressed, you’re noticing differences. However, I’d be perfectly fine watching my recording until the end of days, if there were no other alternative. And I’d be none the wiser.

In fact, I’ll bet you take that AMC recording and compare screencaps to the HBO and it will have all the same problems.

There’s nothing I can do about cable systems re-encoding their signals when they send them out. There’s only ONE system that doesn’t do that. It’s FIOS. And, unfortunately, I can’t get it in my apartment building.

Croweyes1121 said:

I’m not acting like every shot has subtitles at all. I’m simply saying that you will have to re-encode the blu. And you will have to upscale the HBO footage. That in and of itself WILL lesson quality, however slightly. For the third time, I’ll be THRILLED to be proven wrong about this. And I’m not the one doing all the work, so more power to you, my friend. 😃

Dude. VRD doesn’t re-encode. I don’t know why you keep going on about this

Croweyes1121 said:

As I said, I could be wrong. I’m not saying it won’t look better. I’m just questioning how much better it will look after you re-encode it to hardcode subs and upscale the HBO footage. If a 1080i straight rip of the HBO version surfaced, I’d happily replace the 720p copy I have. But that would be a direct rip from the source. Again, yours may look incredible and prove me wrong…and I’ll be happy to be wrong if that’s the case. 😃

Like I said, go do a cap comparison between the 720p and the 1080p. Stop speculating. You act like every single shot of both films has subtitles.

JayArgonaut said:

digitalfreaknyc said:
What are you blabbering about? Someone else can try to cap it in 1080i like I did but if their cable company re-encodes (like almost all do), it will look just like mine does

DFNYC, thanks for your efforts over the years and your attempt to capture this for us.

Maybe they did it using DVB-S?

I know nothing about DVB-S, unfortunately.
Like I said: these guys seem to be full of crap. Why would they be looking for a “proper” 1080i, considering their 720p had to be sourced from one.

marin888 said:

I can’t believe that no one want to share 1080i with you, not even upload anywhere else, damn, it’s broadcast few times in whole USA. It was even available On Demand.

If this is true, then we don’t need to worry.
The Godfather Epic HBO
http://www.hbo.com/schedule?focusId=623569&productIds=392254
Television

Thursday, March 3, 11:00PM ET - HBO ZONE EAST
Friday, March 4, 2:00AM ET - HBO ZONE WEST
Sunday, March 20, 9:00PM ET - HBO SIGNATURE EAST
Monday, March 21, 12:00AM ET - HBO SIGNATURE WEST
Friday, March 25, 10:45PM ET - HBO ZONE EAST
Saturday, March 26, 1:45AM ET - HBO ZONE WEST

But still I can’t believe that no one want to share damn 1080i record over most famous Fans-World site. Shame, shame, shame.

What are you blabbering about? Someone else can try to cap it in 1080i like I did but if their cable company re-encodes (like almost all do), it will look just like mine does

Croweyes1121 said:

Hey, I’m not telling you how to spend your time, lol, if you want to replace the HBO theatrical footage with the blu-ray footage, hardcode that to match the extra scenes, and upscale the HBO shots to 1080p, be my guest. I was just pointing out that, in the end, I’m not quite sure what it is that’s going to be gained through doing all that. Maybe it’ll look tons better and I’ll eat my words. :: shrug ::

If that’s the case, then why did you want it so badly in the first place?

You could easily see the difference by comparing screencaps of the 720p and the blu-ray

Croweyes1121 said:

Yes. If you’re re-encoding, you’re reducing quality, period. It’s like up sampling an audio file to a higher bitrate. You don’t gain anything. You actually LOSE a slight bit by altering it in the first place. I can make a 192kbps MP3 into a 320kbps MP3, but I’m still creating a copy of a copy, and the upsampled file will actually lose quality compared to the original. Make sense?

I’m aware of that. However, I’m going to dare you to see a difference.

There is a very big difference between going from 192 to 320.

However, as we’ve seen, there isn’t as big a difference between 720 and 1080. To be honest, had I not posted those screencaps, I doubt anyone would have had a problem with the 1080i version, had I posted it.

Croweyes1121 said:

So what, would you upscale the HBO footage to 1080p? Wouldn’t that marginally reduce quality?

How would upscaling reduce quality? Does it for Harmy?

Croweyes1121 said:

I don’t know, the 720p looks so strong that I feel like recreating every transition and doing all of the editing over again just to use the blu-rays for the non-extra scenes would be pretty pointless. IMO. If a 1080i version doesn’t surface, I’m more than pleased with the 14.5GB 720p version. It is an unofficial version of the films, after all. If I had a choice of watching the 720p as-is or a version spliced together between the blu-rays (which look better than the 720p) and your 1080i rip (which looks worse than the 720p), then it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other. Add to that re-worked transitions that may or may not be as perfect and smooth as HBO’s, and I really don’t see the reason for doing all that. I’d probably wind up watching the 720p in the end anyway. At least the quality is consistent throughout.

No. I’d use the HBO version for transitions. Everything that’s NOT in the BD’s, would be the HBO. So 90% would be the BD’s with the 10% being the 720p.
I wouldn’t use mine for anything

stretch009 said:

digitalfreaknyc said:

stretch009 said:

Nick66 said:
Hopefully, whoever uploaded that 720p will put a higher bitrate 1080i out there; luckily, the 720p looks pretty damn good.

They said in there NFO that they are planning on uploading a 1080i version but it would take them a ‘while’.

This confuses me. Why would they need “a while” when they clearly sourced the 720p from it. Just upload the original file and it’s done.

“Date: 2016-01-18”
“1080i will come, checking to see if we can get a better
source…” (NFO)

I know. That’s what I said. Why would you check to get a better source when you’ve clearly sourced your 720p from a 1080i. All they did was downgrade it.

However, this may all be moot. I’m thinking of just re-editing the whole thing together. Think of it as the Harmy version of The Godfather Epic. Just splice the parts together from the official blu-ray that are from the original films and upscale the Epic-specific transitions and scenes.

I’m sure it would take me forever but it would yield better results than what I got, unfortunately. The funny thing is that it doesn’t look bad at all. It’s just that it looks worse than the 720p. If we didn’t have that comparison, I’d be fine with it.

stretch009 said:

Nick66 said:
Hopefully, whoever uploaded that 720p will put a higher bitrate 1080i out there; luckily, the 720p looks pretty damn good.

They said in there NFO that they are planning on uploading a 1080i version but it would take them a ‘while’.

This confuses me. Why would they need “a while” when they clearly sourced the 720p from it. Just upload the original file and it’s done.

So I finally captured this today and, well, the results weren’t good

Here’s the comparison between the 720p version that’s been released (14.5GB) and my 1080i from my Time Warner digital cable.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/161575/picture:0

I tried using BOTH Hauppauge machines that I own but it doesn’t matter. It’s the source material going into the box. I even tried the HBOGo version and it still doesn’t have the detail that this 720p version does.

I would suggest that if ANYONE knows the people who originally captured this that they beg for a 1080i release. I have a feeling that, however they got it, they got it from an uncompressed HBO feed, which is why it’s so clear, even for a 720p version.

I’m bummed. Seriously.

Skyfocker said:

mheath182 said:

analog said:

Video will be slightly higher (slightly higher bitrate), but the biggest difference is audio - the MKV includes higher quality main soundtrack (lossless, I believe - at least in the cases of SW and ESB) and several more tracks for different languages.

So not REALLY worth the investment in a Blu-Ray burner then? Sound isn’t amassive issue to me as I only play through a sound bar or TV Speakers anyway.

I work in a theatre and got some friends together to watch SW 2.5 AVCHD on the BIG screen. I couldn’t A-B it with the MKV, but I seriously had ZERO complaints. Not sure if it’s worth the investment. Unless you want the extra gigs to be able to have a BR with a fancy menu and extras, etc…

This sounds amazeballs to me. I really wish I could have that experience. Is it as simple as just hooking up a player to the projector there?

Memorex said:

digitalfreaknyc said:

At the risk of getting bashed for this, I’ve talked to several people who, like myself, have calibrated monitors and we all agreed that the contrast/brightness on both Empire and Jedi is way low, for some reason. SW looks perfect but both Empire and Jedi just seem to be quite dark. Did something change there?

I’ve had similar issues with certain movies looking a bit dark on my calibrated monitor, but look just fine on my calibrated tv?

It looks very dark on both. Certain Jabba shots are far too dark.

At the risk of getting bashed for this, I’ve talked to several people who, like myself, have calibrated monitors and we all agreed that the contrast/brightness on both Empire and Jedi is way low, for some reason. SW looks perfect but both Empire and Jedi just seem to be quite dark. Did something change there?

Harmy said:

EGOvoruhk said:

CatBus said:

Harmy’s always tried to make his encodes Blu-ray compliant in the past. I suspect the creation on non-compliant streams will be left to the re-encoders out there.

Then how about a request for a proper full sized Blu-ray image, or a “master” sized MKV, like TN1 is planning? That way encoders could encode from a proper source, rather than a re-encode. I don’t mind encoding it myself, but an encode of an encode is never good

If your 2.35:1 TV doesn’t have a function to zoom in letterboxed video, so that it fits exactly I’d be very surprised, because that would be incredibly stupid, since all 2.35:1 Blu-Rays are released with black bars, and even all streamed media on iTunes, Netflix and Ultraflix and such have them AFAIK, so without this function there would be zero point to such a TV from the legally purchased media point of view.

Also, my master-file for the 1080p release would be somewhere around 300-400GB with my current AVI masters but since I’m planning to move to image sequences for master for v3.0, the master will probably be more like 1TB.
So I’m not likely to release that and anything else would already be a re-encode

Actually, believe it or not, iTunes 2.35 movies have no black bars.

towne32 said:

digitalfreaknyc said:

Harmy said:

joefavs said:

Watched this last night, and good lord does it look wonderful. All of the 35mm stuff is integrated so much more smoothly than it was on the workprint. Now I’m really hoping that debated SW 2.6 actually happens, because this near-GOUTless wonder is so far ahead of the other two.

Actually, instead of making a v2.6 SW, I’m thinking about making v3.0 a quick 1080p update for all three movies. Essentially, for color correction just upscaling the 720p masters and applying it as a chroma (color) layer over the 1080p BD and replacing the Despecialized shots with just quick 1080p 35mm cleanups and then making v4.0 the final polished versions with new color corrections and more careful cleanup and rotoscoping and stuff (for SW, this would basically be almost the same as working on v2.6 and for the other two, it should be a fairly fast process, since by that point I should have all the 35mm shots ready at 1080p anyway).

I’m confused. What good would upscaling 720p be? Why not just start with the 1080p masters that we have?

It sounds like the chroma is being upscaled.

Isn’t that going to just cause confusion if a faux 1080P release is put out?

Harmy said:

joefavs said:

Watched this last night, and good lord does it look wonderful. All of the 35mm stuff is integrated so much more smoothly than it was on the workprint. Now I’m really hoping that debated SW 2.6 actually happens, because this near-GOUTless wonder is so far ahead of the other two.

Actually, instead of making a v2.6 SW, I’m thinking about making v3.0 a quick 1080p update for all three movies. Essentially, for color correction just upscaling the 720p masters and applying it as a chroma (color) layer over the 1080p BD and replacing the Despecialized shots with just quick 1080p 35mm cleanups and then making v4.0 the final polished versions with new color corrections and more careful cleanup and rotoscoping and stuff (for SW, this would basically be almost the same as working on v2.6 and for the other two, it should be a fairly fast process, since by that point I should have all the 35mm shots ready at 1080p anyway).

I’m confused. What good would upscaling 720p be? Why not just start with the 1080p masters that we have?

Harmy said:

I went to teh, I searched (simply, no advanced search) “harmy” and it was the third link in the results. Then I went and searched “despecialized” and same thing. But with the TUIG guide linked in the first post, you don’t even need tehp.

I was looking for a new post OR an updated post. Never thought to look at a first post to see updated links there. Regardless, I got it from Spleen anyway.

Thanks!!!

stretch009 said:

dogdoctor said:

Wazzles said:

When someone downloads it from wherever Harmy uploads it to then uploads it themselves. So it just depends on how long it takes them to download it, really.

Ah. I thought Harmy just did a direct drop to the main sites. But that explains why the various versions there are not all uploaded by the same user. Makes sense now. Thanks for the clarification. Back to patiently waiting…

No need to wait, it’s at Tehparadox right now.

No it’s not. I checked.

RDPlissken said:

digitalfreaknyc said:

mrbarbar said:

Does anyone know if there is a 1080p version available yet?

There won’t be a 1080p because there is no 1080p. 1080i is the broadcast.

Isn’t there any 1080i capture file in circulation yet?

Not from what I’ve heard. Does anyone know?

mrbarbar said:

I don’t live in the US so please forgive my ignorance. Does HBO broadcast in 720p and 1080i?

1080i

mrbarbar said:

Does anyone know if there is a 1080p version available yet?

There won’t be a 1080p because there is no 1080p. 1080i is the broadcast.

marin888 said:

It will take some time, just need to follow movies, cut piece by piece out and sync them.

Who say there is no retail subs… check it out…
English Subs from extras DVD/BluRay cover 46 min of additional scenes, not included GF 3. So there will left few minutes to transcript to complete subs, I mean for full English subtitles.

BTW
RetroGamerGuy10 January 18, 2016 at 6:11 PM @ godfathermuseum

There’s a new 14.5GB 720p HDTV recording from the scene group BATV out now. They claim 1080p is coming soon, and they’re just making sure they’re using the best source/recording possible. Anyone with an IPT account can corroborate this with a simple search 😃

I have no idea what IPT is.
If that’s the case, then I’m not going to rip mine just yet. I’ll wait and download.

Wow. That’s going to be insane, considering there is no retail for this version.

Does it have subtitles?