pipefan413

Things are moving to the next stage: the scans are going ahead!

This means that we need one last push to get both of these to 100% so we can pay the entire scanning fee for both, shipping, and cover the cost of tapes for backup and an external hard drive to store the working copy of the raw scans.

In practice, this means the total remaining for both scans after all pledges have been paid is $179 in USD + £80 in GBP.

If you can help please let me know. Even if it’s only a small donation, that makes all the difference as this gets right into the final stretch!

There are also currently $145 in pledges still outstanding (i.e. pledged but not actually paid yet). We’ll be paying the scanner imminently, so it is really important that anybody who hasn’t yet sent their donation does so as soon as possible to avoid a shortfall. If you can do it within the next 24h that would be amazing, but don’t worry if you can’t, just obviously the sooner the better. Thank you again for your support!

Thanks to a handful of new pledges, film 1 is now looking a little more like a reality ($370 to 100%, but will get scanned at $220) and film 2 is now fully covered apart from hardware costs (about $190 to get it to 100%)!

Please let me know if you can spare a bit of cash toward either or both as this is getting closer and closer to done but it isn’t quite there yet…

Thanks to all who have already supported these projects!

As of today, $617 has been pledged for film 2 and it’s well on its way to the scan being fully funded, with only $118 left to find to fund the scan itself and another $170 or so to cover the storage hardware cost. Film 1 still needs a fair bit of love.

What I’m going to do is try to get film 2 scanned as soon as possible and then hopefully as that progresses I can drum up a little more interest in film 1 (which is a cracking cult film that’s pretty well liked by those who’ve seen it). If you’ve messaged me to show interest but haven’t yet sent a donation across, you’ll probably have a PM from me to check in; if you haven’t yet reached out and might be interested in either or both of these two projects, then please do so soon! Things are at the point where they’re moving forward but there’s still a shortfall to be covered.

C’mon. Take a bite. Y’know you want to.

Film 1 still needs another $327.50 but film 2 is now well on its way with only $257.50 left to find to scan the whole thing. EDIT: Now only $207.50 to find for film 2!

If you’ve not already reached out and are curious to hear more about these, please do get in touch. Even if you can only afford a small donation, it would still help. Enough small donations coming in might be the difference between these being scanned or not!

These are now a little over 50% funded (at least in pledges, not actually collected yet). There’s roughly $327.50 to go for film 1 and $382.50 for film 2, so if we can drum up $710 in the next 3 to 4 weeks, both of these can potentially get scanned very soon.

Stands at the window; invites you in

For the time being, I’m going to leave this thread somewhat dark and mysterious, but I have a question: are there many horror fans around here?

I ask because I have the opportunity to scan two 35 mm prints of vampire films that have been treated rather poorly by official home video releases over the years. One is from the 80s, the other is earlier than that. Incidentally, both of them will probably have crossover interest for people who are into sci fi and/or fantasy, since they star actors who have appeared in film franchises like STAR WARS, ALIEN, and THE LORD OF THE RINGS…

The specific prints in question are printed with materials (stock and dyes) that are highly resistant to fading over time, so I am hopeful that colour reproduction on both should be excellent. One is an LPP (low-fade positive print) that is reportedly in exceptionally good condition; the other is a Technicolor IB (imbibition) print made with incredibly stable dyes that pretty much never fade at all (or at least I’ll be long dead before they do). A looked after Tech IB is, more or less, immortal.

I cannot fully fund the cost of scanning these on my own, so am looking for supporters to donate to cover the costs of getting the scans done. I will make zero profit from this, and in fact I expect it to cost me a fair bit, especially if there is limited interest. It is categorically not intended as an exercise in piracy, but rather as a private project in the interests of preserving two of my favourite films in a form that more accurately reflects how they originally looked in cinemas, since neither has been officially released in anything approaching that condition by any distributor to date.

THESE WOULD BE STRICTLY PRIVATE AND MUST NOT BE RE-SHARED ANYWHERE WHATSOEVER. IF THERE IS ANY DOUBT ABOUT THIS AT ALL, ASK ME.

Please PM me if this sounds like it might be something you’d like to get your teeth into. The sooner, the better, because if it can get fully funded within the next month or so then I can potentially get both scanned at the same time and save a little bit of cash in the process.

PROGRESS

Scanning costs: 92% pledged (of which 87% has been received)
Storage costs: 72% pledged (of which 93% has been received)

$128 (USD) + £60 (GBP) to go!

TheHutt said:

Nope, 2.0 mono would be also reproduced from the center. In a Dolby Surround system, if L and R are identical, they are routed to the center.

This is broadly correct except that it isn’t quite handled that way by the current generation of Dolby’s upmixer/dematrixer (which is, perversely, simply called “Dolby Surround” even though that was the original name of the really basic home tech they used back even before Pro Logic was a thing). It seems the current DTS upmixer does route 100% to C (unless you’ve got the AVR set to LPF the low end out to your sub or whatever) but Dolby Surround actually sends mid-low sound via a LPF to the L and R speakers, with the majority (but not the whole thing) going to C.

This is presumably based on the hypothetically improved bass response of L and R speakers (which are potentially, though not necessarily, floor standing speakers) vs a C speaker (which is usually 2 woofers and a tweeter in a horizontal arrangement, with somewhat limited bass response and a focus on mids instead). In my setup, which has fairily mid-to-treble focused side speakers, this fails miserably and sounds ridiculous so I force the DTS mode instead for 2.0 dual mono and use “Direct” mode for 1.0 to route to C based on the number of channels alone with no fancy upmixer/dematrixer stuff being brought into it.

SilverWook said:

Mind you, this is an old screencap from a few years back.

Beautiful! That’s exactly what I was after. Thanks mate!

I may be the only one wondering this but pushes glasses up nose which particular version of the Saul Bass Warner logo does this have at the start? Apparently some prints of this film have a slightly different version than usual for some reason (slightly different typeface and slightly different text underneath the logo). Really annoys me that Warner now replaces the logos instead of doing what they used to do and just adding the new logo on the start then playing the film including the original logo.

Williarob said:

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

This appears to be v1.2; is v1.3 still floating about somewhere?

joshuabri said:

Hello, all. My name is Brian - my middle name is Joshua. Different people address me by either, so take your pick. I’ve actually been registered on this site for about two years, but only recently became active. I don’t remember how I found this site originally, be it Harmy’s Despecialized, Adywan’s Revisited, or prequel edits. My extreme disappointment in TRoS has inspired me to attempt fan-editing on my own rather than just downloading others’ work. This is only possible because I had to replace my computer last year; I bought my previous one in 2003! So far my wife and daughter have been accommodating of the immense time investment fan-editing requires. I really enjoy fan-editing and hope to continue making edits and contributing back to this great community beyond this train wreck of a movie.

I was born too late to see the originals in theaters, so I grew up with VHS tapes recorded from TV broadcasts. I was into the expanded universe after the Thrawn trilogy came out, but by the time the Yuuzhan Vong were introduced, I had come to the realization that few of the books truly felt like Star Wars to me, and I hated the concept of the Yuuzhan Vong, so that’s pretty much when I abandoned the EU. I was happy when Disney wiped it away, although Disney hasn’t done any better.

This resonated with me. I always felt like the EU stuff felt like it didn’t feel “authentic”, or part of the same canon. Which… well, it makes sense, considering it was created by completely different creative people. Some of it was decent nonetheless, though!

SpacemanDoug said:

does anyone know how the mono sounds on the 4K version?

I mean it isn’t out yet so probably not, apart from reviewers like this one: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Jaws-4K-Blu-ray/265299/#Review

… except that he said that it has “DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0” when the box clearly states that it’s “DTS Digital Surround 2.0 Mono” so uh… hmm.

crissrudd4554 said:

No, no one sent me the track however I am waiting til the new UHD is released to hear if it’s any different than the mono on the regular BD (doubt it since it’s still being provided as a DTS Digital Surround 2.0 Mono). I don’t have a 4K player but hopefully someone who does and gets the new release will chime in.

I do, but I don’t have a 4K display so I am highly unlikely to buy it just to check that… I’m curious though and I’ve made significantly stupider purchasing decisions before, so you never know.

If you still want the 2012 BD 2.0 “mono” DTS, I’ll happily share. I’ve actually asked a related question over on The Other Forum which you might be in a position to answer, by the way… although the post I’m replying to here implies an answer, coincidentally or otherwise.

SilverWook said:

How does one take something that looked perfectly fine as a DVD extra and make it worse?

If you want a more appropriately framed version of Anatomy of a Dewback for 16:9 screens, gimme a shout.

crissrudd4554 said:

JawsTDS said:

We need a Jaws equivalent of hairy_hen here to analyze all these mixes thoroughly.

I’ve been thinking of making another comparison video. Can someone rip the mono track from the BD and send it to me??

Clearly time has passed but did anybody ever send you this?

Moiisty said:

Someone make a fanedit making the perfect jaws version then

It sounds like perhaps fixing the sync error on the most recent Blu-ray might be the way to go. I’m considering it, but there are probably many more capable people out there who could do a better job. EDIT: having read more on this it actually seems like the 1997 LaserDisc with the missing line spliced in from the 2005 DVD might actually be the best shout here. I’d like to give that a bash if anybody is able to send sources (I have the 2012 BD but no LaserDisc or NTSC DVD).

yotsuya said:

To be blunt, this is the same thing they did with the GOUT. They took what they had lying around and put no effort into it.

It is precisely what they did with GOUT, yes.

xandermac05 said:

I had a look at the old and new versions of ANATOMY OF A DEWBACK and THE BEGINNING. The former is on the 2011 box set and the latter is on the 2001 TPM DVD.

ANATOMY OF A DEWBACK:

Aspect ratios are both wrong, 4:3 with silly wee widescreen box in the middle, though the 2011 one has the frame more squished horizontally than the 2020 one does. The two encodes have different scanline arrangements (2011 is interlaced, 2020 uses interleaved fields); I’m wondering if that’s something to do with why 2020 one has significant interlacing artefacts, but 2011 doesn’t. They both have artefacts, I mean, but the 2020 one is much worse in places. There’s a bit around the 12 second mark where a rope is swinging about, bobbing up and down, and in the 2011 it seems VLC can de-interlaced it reasonably acceptably but the 2020 one just seems not to improve regardless of interlacing being on or off, which makes me think it’s the interleaved rather than interlaced video causing the issue to at least some extent.

Fixed it!

Right, so… THE BEGINNING is perfectly fine on the old DVD version of THE PHANTOM MENACE. That’s something, although it’s incredibly frustrating that we couldn’t just get that encode ported over to the Blu-ray box set (and got an aliased abomination instead). ANATOMY OF A DEWBACK, however, is another matter.

This featurette was released in 1997, I think around the time they were shooting THE PHANTOM MENACE in England. The original 1997 web video (which was encoded to stream over the internet on a 56k modem, using RealPlayer) is long since deleted, but I kept a recorded copy of the files and recently dug them out to have a look. The video appears to be 320 x 240 pixels (4:3) but this includes black letterboxing; without the letterboxing it’s more like 320 x 192 px, which is a somewhat unusual aspect ratio of 5:3. Although this is the native aspect ratio of 16 mm film, this featurette seems to have been shot on video so it’s probably more significant to note that 5:3 was used in some countries as an early “widescreen” format for a while, presumably as a compromise between theatrical 1.85:1 and 1.33:1 (a.k.a. 4:3) home video. This original version looks something like this, if you crop off the letterboxing from the top and bottom:

On the 2011 Blu-ray, the featurette was for some reason encoded to display as (almost) 5:3 “widescreen” on a 4:3 television screen. The trouble is, even in 2011, those were a dying breed, and definitely aren’t anywhere near as prevalent in 2020. The result of this is that the vast majority of people will watch this on a 16:9 screen, but the “widescreen” image will not even come close to filling the display on account of being restricted by the 4:3 box. The actual image is a very rough looking 700 x 430 or so pixels, inside a 720 x 540 pixel 4:3 frame. It’s “open matte” to some degree as it hasn’t been framed correctly for this release, but it’s also skewed toward one side, with the left side not cropped enough and the right side slightly over-cropped compared to the old web video. It also appears to have been slightly squashed horizontally. That one looks like this:

The 2020 Blu-ray is different again, with the image being about 720 x 440 but this time it’s been cropped much more noticeably on the right-hand side than the 2011 transfer was. As a result, it can’t be restored back to an accurate representation of the original framing, and to be honest, it looks like crap overall when compared to the 2011 version. It’s also noticeably stretched horizontally, from less than 700 px (I’m guessing 640 px) to 720 px:

Since the least cropped (and least aliased) reasonably modern source seems to be the 2011 disc, I cropped and upscaled that (without sharpening the hell out of it) to fill a 16:9 screen, in order to ditch the letterboxing and attempt to fix (as far as possible) the slightly deformed aspect ratio. Since a bit had been cut off the right hand side, I also cropped a little bit off the left to recentre the image, adding equal borders on the left and right to fill a 16:9 screen and upscaling to 720p. Since the source was interlaced, standard definition NTSC, I deinterlaced it with QTGMC. Do not expect this to look like HD footage, because it’s not, and it shows… but it’s a heck of a lot better than the 56k web streaming version and is framed better than either of the official Blu-ray Disc versions as well.

Here’s the 1997 web version with the letterboxing removed, then the remaining frame upscaled to fill a 5:3 frame inside a full-screen 16:9 display, to show what the ideal framing would look like:

Then the same thing but cropped in slightly on all sides to better match the available picture information in the 2011 Blu-ray version (since the 2011 BD version is slightly cropped on the right as well, I cropped in on all sides to restore the original 5:3 aspect ratio):

This was used to work out the most accurate crop and size adjustments for the 2011 video.

The end result is a precisely 5:3 frame with black bars at the sides to fill a 16:9 screen at 720p, instead of a tiny 5:3 frame inside a 4:3 box in the middle (which would have been great when we all used 4:3 TVs but is extremely inconvenient nowadays).

It may seem like I’m new here, but I’ve been around for many years under a username that I’ve always regretted choosing (which will probably be apparent to regulars of “the 'Spleen”) and was sitting on the sidelines watching things unfold for many years before that. The pipefan413 username is what I’ve been using as consistently as possible to identify myself for the purposes of relative anonymity while releasing bits and bobs and helping here and there in small aspects of the community that’s grown around the preservation of these films over the years; please respect this and don’t mention the older username that’s still in use elsewhere due to the inability to change it. You might know me from the Millions Of Voices audio compilations (which I only compiled, I don’t make audio mixes myself as a general rule although I have done some stuff with encoding and sync) or perhaps from other preservation/restoration/editing projects I’ve posted about elsewhere that don’t involve Star Wars.