singhcr

Hi Colson,

Sorry for the late reply. I got a chance to sample the scan on my OLED in a pitch dark room where I watch my movies, whereas before I was sampling on my PC monitor.

The primary issue I noticed was that the image was much too dark to the point where I found it unwatchable in its current state. It could stand perhaps even a full stop increase in brightness. If not an eyeball measurement, I suppose one could use ideally the Apple TV 4K transfer as a reference, or the Blu-ray.

The image also has what looks like either a shift of the film in the scanning aperture or something like that, because oftentimes I can see the frame line on the top of the screen and/or the upper corners of the film frame and that often shifts from reel to reel. Not anywhere as important as the brightness issue, but something I thought I’d bring up.

Did you also say that the MKV is synced to the BD’s 5.1 mix if I chose that route?

Thanks again for your hard work so far.

Thank you for the response to my PM about the file size. That makes sense!

I will watch it on my OLED for a good color reference, but the one thing I noticed right away doing a quick look on my PC is that the pre-credits sequence in the facility seems to be skewed green quite a bit compared to the rest of the film. The first reel change is around 13 minutes which is just after the credits sequence is over.

The Cinema DTS sounds great!

One other request: could the final version be made available with a Blu-ray file structure so I can burn it onto a disc? If not, is it difficult to strip out the video and audio from the MKV and author it myself into a BD?

I really appreciate all the hard work that went into this project.

Colson said:

Hypothetically, if I were to buy the Goldeneye print, how should I store it?

The best way is to freeze it using the CMI packaging method. NASA freezes their Apollo footage, for example, but they have precise humidity controlled cold archive chambers that are unattainable for most archives let alone every day folk like you and me. But the CMI method allows you to use household freezers and commonly available supplies to safely freeze and preserve film.

http://www.wilhelm-research.com/subzero/CMI_Paper_2003_07_31.pdf

I have a 16mm Disney archive and preserve my prints this way. Colder is better to prevent color fade for all prints and backing degradation for acetate or nitrate prints, but unlike undeveloped film that isn’t sensitive to relative humidity, developed film sure is. 20-40% RH is the range, 20% being ideal. You basically bag the print with two pieces of dried mat board, and bag it again and throw it in the freezer along with a relative humidity indicator card.

If you don’t have a freezer that large, you could use a fridge. Failing that, the next best thing to do is keep them cool and dry. Use vented film cans like these (http://urbanskifilm.com/supplies.html) or drill holes in the cans you have. Modern prints like Goldeneye are almost certainly mylar/polyester backing and don’t suffer from vinegar syndrome or catch on fire like nitrate, but high temp/humidity will accelerate color fading regardless.

Feel free to PM me if you want to talk more.

Well, I am a lucky ducky. I got a chance to see a 35mm print of The Killer as they were showing it as part of a Chow Yun-Fat festival at the Trylon Microcinema in Minneapolis.

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http://www.trylon.org/media/uploadart/Killer_560x315.jpg" />
BUY TICKETSEMAIL REMINDER

THE COLD HARD CHARM OF CHOW YUN-FATTHE KILLERThe Trylon microcinema

Mon Jul 27 7:00 9:15 
Tue Jul 28 7:00 9:15 
(1989, 35mm, 111m) dir John Woo w/Danny Lee, Sally Yeh. Woo’s over-the-top style and signature white doves would be first displayed inThe Killer’s tightly choreographed action set-pieces. Yun-Fat plays an assassin who takes on one more job to make up for accidentally blinding a lounge singer. But, there’s never a last job is there?

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The print was a bit beat up at times and I imagine it's not a super accurate color reference, but it was a treat to see. The film has a diffuse look overall, but the detail is far, far higher than any DVD. The movie, at least this print, has a warm hue to it. Whites tend to be more on the yellow side. When viewing it on film, the movie now has a strong dreamlike quality to it.

The moment the movie got to the church at the start, I was in heaven. I've never seen such detail before! Let's hope a proper BD transfer will surface eventually.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=14290

I will try and find the official press release, but there's not much more information on this other than the fact that it's getting restored as part of a push to save classic Chinese cinema.

ABT will have a full blown 4K restoration next year, so at least eventually we will get a proper copy of this film. I am guessing this is an upscale of some sort.

Mike O said:

Harvey Weinstein has almost as much to answer for as Lucas, but he's not the only offender. The state of Hong Kong action cinema on video is fucking apalling, how many films don't have he mono track and have crappy transfers? It's extraordinary. 

 Thank goodness for laserdiscs! They are consistently the only way to get original mono mixes for these films. Even American movies released on BD often have no lossless original sound mix if they were originally in stereo or mono.

I have a Sony 8mm camcorder that could play these. A good tape has a notable uptick in PQ over a VHS copy, but the audio is not as good. Were they significantly cheaper, I would like to try these. I am guessing these are not letterboxed.

zeropc said:

singhcr said:

How do you encode a matrixed 2.0 PCM audio track, exactly? I have the PCM stereo file from Jonno but I need to author it with the surround flags.

don't touch it. the audio is already properly flagged. just add the pcm to your project. if you're going for a simple remux with tsmuxer, run the pcm through eac3to and export as .w64 or tsmuxer wont recognize the audio file. don't worry, you're not re-encoding. you just change the container. if you use mkv, then this step is not needed.

One last question. If I leave the audio format as 2ch PCM, won't the receiver try and make a 5.1 mix instead of the 3.0 matrix format that Dolby Stereo is supposed to have? If I remember correctly Dolby Pro Logic II and its newer variants try and make 5.1+ mixes out of formats that are less than 5.1. Unless I have a very old receiver that only has Pro Logic decoding, won't I be trying to add extra channels that were not intended to be used unless I have a audio track with a specific Lt, Rt flag?

Thanks!

Thanks for the info. FYI, I can add PCM files directly to TsMuxer for BD authoring as-is. I've never had to use *.w64 before.

zeropc said:

dts 2.0 never worked for me. my amplifier wont properly decode it, as i always only get a stereo output. even blu-ray authors say that dts 2.0 can create problems at the end user level, like i have.

best option is to simply stay pcm for 2.0 (incl. matrix encoded audio) sources. file size is mostly not even relevant. pcm ensures the highest compatibility.

btw, if you use .dtshd files with tsmuxer/mkvtoolnix make sure to add a -21ms delay. you can also add the delay in eac3to and then you can add the new .dts in tsmuxer/mkvtoolnix without problems

this delay only applies to dts-hd files. normal dts core can just be added without any delay.

Thanks for the info. How do you encode a matrixed 2.0 PCM audio track, exactly? I have the PCM stereo file from Jonno but I need to author it with the surround flags.

Could someone kindly instruct me as how to D/L this on myspleen? I am totally unfamiliar with this process. Thanks DJ for sharing this!

Does anyone have any experience with using the DTS-HD Master Audio suite? TLD is encoded in Dolby Surround which means it has a matrixed center channel and not a simple stereo mix.

I converted the PCM mix to a DTS-HD MA Rt, Lt surround mix. It is a *.dtshd file. I can mux the video and the PCM audio together and play that but when I mux the video and DTS audio I cannot play back the .M2TS file or ISO on my computer without it freezing. I tried changing the extension of the audio to *.DTS as that is what the 5.1 mix is on my TLD BD but that does not solve the issue. In both cases of the DTS muxing TsMuxer gets a corrupted frame that it has to resync to the audio.

Any ideas as to how to solve this? Could I just make a Lt, Rt LPCM mix instead?

bendermac said:

hey guys.

i won the auction for tldl and tswlm (both deluxe ws edition - white cover). if you need the pcm i can give the lds , when they finally arrive, to zeropc. he has the capture tools i currently lack.

let us know.

cheers :)

Sounds great!

I have captured the audio for The Living Daylights (I assume that is what TLDL stands for?) and Jonno is syncing it to the BD video already. I can capture the TSWLM PCM audio if zeropc does not have the time to do so.

Chris

Stamper said:

singh, you need to reencode like in dts-hd ma to put the surround flags back. Then the track is correctly tagged. That's what I did for the Alien LD tracks.

Thanks!

Flexicon9 said:

Please don't feel you have to go overboard in the future, DJ.  Make sure we have all made it worth your while to make things like this happen.  This is a spectacular presentation and I cannot wait to see it, but I hope you get back at least what you put into it next time.  Hopefully more so it all evens out if you take a loss in materials from one project to the next.  Meanwhile, this should arrive just in time for my B-day and I cannot thank you enough for this massive, massive amount of work, blood, sweat, tears and talent you must have put into this project.  In fact I want to thank the entire team for these glorious efforts.  Simply amazing beyond belief.

I agree. These covers/slips are beyond what most studios do.

I still can't believe you made slips! :) 

You are a lucky man!

This is slightly off topic, but how do I capture a Dolby Surround PCM track? Aren't the surround flags lost if I do a "dumb" stereo recording?

You are welcome. You can cross TLD, YOLT, OHMSS, and OP off the list as I have all but OP captured already from the MGM LD's.

Update: OP has been captured.

After comparing the non-CX LD with the VHS, I'll have to give the nod to the LD for overall fidelity. I guess LALD didn't get a very good recording for home video, which is a shame as the theme song at least sounds stellar on LP.

It looks like all of these movies have widescreen PCM releases, but I only have these for

TLD, OHMSS, Octopussy, YOLT

I have analog sound LDs for

Dr. No, FRWL, Goldfinger, LALD, AVTAK.

For now I'll capture the PCM tracks and hopefully someone here will have the PCM tracks or the LDs to share. If not I'll grab what I have in CX. I thought that the CX analog could sound better than 44.1/16 PCM as analog doesn't have any sampling rate but it seems that digitizing the magnetic masters gives far better sound than digitizing an analog copy of that master at 192/24, assuming both LD tracks came from the same source.

Oh well, whatever sounds best is what I'll take. 

The Aluminum Falcon said:

Especially excited to hear a TLD PCM track. captainsolo raved about that ahwile back if I remember correctly. The video to sync to from the BD is also pretty decent.

Yeah, I know the feeling!

OHMSS's PCM track has also been captured.

I got a VHS copy of Live And Let Die and am recording that now. If anyone has a PCM version to share that would be preferred.

If anyone needs their PCM or analog stereo/mono tracks ripped please let me know.

Jonno,

Wonderful! Thanks for helping me out. I'll take your word that you know how to sync but I appreciate the offer of the links. I look forward to the PM.

I've managed to get the digital recording working and I've captured the PCM audio for The Living Daylights. The mix is remarkably clear and detailed. I am curious to see how it compares to the CX encoded analog mix, as I can capture that at 192/24.

I've found out that CX doesn't always turn on even if the disc is encoded for it, so I've ordered a remote as this function is not availiable on the front face of the player.

Unfortunately Live and Let Die is not CX encoded and the first 20-30 minutes are almost unlistenable due to a great deal of hiss and what sounds like a 60 Hz hum due to something not being grounded. I'll have to grab a VHS tape and get the HiFi track from it for that movie.

I'll post more as I progress. Anyone willing to sync these for me?

zeropc,

Thanks for the information. I believe I'll ask someone to sync the audio for me as the last time I tried this I spent a good week and didn't get anywhere on it so I'm sure someone who's more experienced would be able to do this a lot faster.

If anyone's willing to sync my captured LD audio to the Blu-ray video (once I can get my ASIO recording woes solved..) I would be most grateful. We could then share the synced audio for those who want to make their own custom BD's.

The only other thing I ask is that the audio remain untouched which means no hiss reduction, etc. Sometimes one side of an LD is louder than the others so that might require an overall volume change to match the rest of the movie but other than things like that I'd prefer to leave the audio as-is.

I have a bit-perfect digital as well 192/24 analog ASIO recording capabilities so I'm sure these will sound very good.