Sadly, I have deleted the file quite some time ago… BUT… there was an alive torrent, few days ago - at least, according to someone that PM me. Frankly, he didn’t send me the link, so I can’t say where to pick up it, yet I’m pretty sure it could be “almost” easy to find out, with a little of google-fu!
…or, maybe, if there is some interest, it is always possible to regrade the new BD to be similar to PAL DVD, as following: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/126297
(do note that I used that old HDTV, but the new BD has the same colors)
Necro-up this ancient thread to just say project is “Absolom”-tely abandoned 😄 as a blu-ray has been released.
Released projects
Projects in progress
Planned projects
0–9
7 Inch Curve
400 Boys
A
Aadi (2016 film)
Alguien se acerca
The American (1927 film)
Amy Makes Three
Anaagat
Aztec Warrior
B
Banglasia
Big Bug Man
Bill Cosby 77
Black Water Transit
Blazing Samurai
Blood Sweat and Wars
Blue World Order (film)
Broken (1993 film)
Bukowski (upcoming film)
C
Cassy and Jude
Chief Zabu
City of Lies
Cocksucker Blues
Creators: The Past
The Creature of the Sunny Side Up Trailer Park
Cutting Loose
D
Dau (film)
The Day the Clown Cried
The Debtors
Delighted (2016 film)
La Digue (film)
Division 19
E
The Elder
Empires of the Deep
F
A Fall from Grace
The Fantastic Four (unreleased film)
Filming The Trial
Find Your Voice
First Platoon
Fit to Print
Flesh Color
For Which We Stand
G
Game in the Sand
The Gettysburg Address (film)
H
Hackers Wanted
Heaven’s Hell
Henchmen (film)
Heretiks
Hippie Hippie Shake
A Home with a View
Humor Risk
I
I Love You, Daddy
I Spit on Your Rave
Imsai Arasan 24th Pulikecei
Into the Darkness (film)
K
King Conqueror
L
Lupin the Third: Pilot Film
M
Machan (unreleased film)
The March of Time (film)
The Marshal of Windy Hollow
Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story
Mga Kwento ni Lola Basyang
Michael Jackson: The Last Photo Shoot
Mugworth
Museum of Government Waste
My Best Friend’s Birthday
My Brother, Borat
Mysteries of a Barbershop
N
Nothing Lasts Forever (film)
O
Orson Welles’ Magic Show
P
The Pied Piper of Cleveland
Podia Ser Pior
Prankstar
Prisoners (1981 film)
The Prophecy of the Lake
Q
Queen of Media
S
Sin-Jin Smyth
Slashed
Split Decision (unreleased film)
Spring Break '83
Strange Portrait
T
The Temple (film)
Temptation (2004 film)
Theresienstadt (1944 film)
Those Who Wander
The Three-Body Problem (film)
To Live for the Masses
Torpedo Squadron
U
The United
W
A Woman of the Sea
Y
You Above All
Young Woodley (1928 film)
Z
Zeroville (film)
These movies were never released; I plan to discover the negatives, scan them with the best scanner at 8k, then project the result on a silver screen and point to it a VHS camera and record video, to get the feelings of the “ol’ good times”; of course, audio will be mono (either using the central channel of a 5.1 track, or a randomly chosen one out of a stereo track - original mono tracks will be surroundized and only central channel will be used).
First project will be released not before 2034, and subsequent titles each every six or seven years; they will be released on NTSC VHS cassettes recorded in ELP mode, that were bought new during the '90s and kept in a safe place since then; but, as they are in a limited number (6789 at present), you should hurry to get one!
I’ll keep this thread updated when the first project will be ready to be released, so keep an eye on it!
Special thanks to A. Pril Sfool for his out-of-season extraordinary help.
EP6: used a 1.33:1 alternate take from deleted scenes, and inserted into the original 2.35:1 version; it can be a “punch in the eye” for many, but, who knows, maybe someone could appreciate it!
First, thanks for the efforts of anyone! Any help is really appreciated!
Second: I have not a home connection for the moment, nor a lot of time to work on my projects (not only this)… 😦 surely, “I’ll be back!” but when, who knows?!?
VHS and laserdisc should share the same colors.
I am curious to see the difference between VHS and BD(DVD); can you post few screenshot comparisons? Thanks!
US blu-ray has the same color grading of DVD: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=10732&d2=10733&c=4286
Dunno about audio, though.
Here I am! 😃
Sadly, I have no access to my computer, nor to a fast internet connection for the moment, and it won’t change for some time (few weeks? few months? who knows!)
Just checked the Italian PAL laserdisc (released in 1990); the blurred poster is there, but the Coke cooler is untouched - it is definitely not orange, and, albeit resolution is low, the logo can be seen.
(sorry for the horrible picture, can’t capture it right now…)
And the mix is the original one - at least, according to that youtube video; no added choir, for example. Of course it is dubbed in Italian, but songs are in English.
Sure, but AFAIK Luke, in that scene, was near his home, not near Mos Eisley, hence there should be no houses, I guess.
Just saw the images added in the first post, and I repeat: amazing, great job!
Please note that, in this shot, you added some space on top, where it should have been some image on top of the vaporator, there is now empty space - my hint is to cut out at the same point of the original frame. I appreciate the shadow, that is barely visible in the original, but I’d rotate it towards left, taking subsequent shots as reference, because the shadows there are more visible (so, also shadows in next “molested” shots should be fixed). I know they are small things, but probably you wanted to know our opinions, right? 😉
I must admit that, after seeing your great work, it makes me want to work back on that “always delayed” extended version! 😄
Last thing: I like the “molested” version, apart houses that should not be there; but the rest is good, perfectly in line with the Special Edition. IMHO, you should release the “molested” version without the houses.
Eagerly waiting to see the next restored scene!!!
Added, thanks!
West Side Story is a transfer of the original 70mm six-track audio mix.
On laserdisc? Or on DVD, Blu-ray?
I feel like John … amazed, but at the same time annoyed.
I must admit that, even if you Lucasized it, it will blend quite well with the Blu-ray; but agree that those houses should not be there!
But you did a very good job, kudos! Hope to see also the other scenes restored - not too much Lucasized, though! 😉
If you will do a new version without houses - added clouds are OK to me - I’ll use it for my (future planned but always delayed) Star Wars Extended Edition.
As for Toy Story, it’s the original mix while the Blu-ray has a DTS-ES 6.1 remix.
Thanks, added!
List updated; added DVD titles available with full bitrate.
“Proof of concept” of custom laserdisc-size covers:
Took the Italian Vinyl Edition as template:
You must admit almost all, here, would be more than happy to see the laserdisc format alive, again.
New movies on a long-time dead format… and, of course, anybody knows that it will never happen - even if a Digital Laserdisc built upon BD technology will lead to a 1.2TB monster disc that could contain an entire UHD long saga as Star Wars, or few long TV series seasons on HD, or… well, a lot of things!
OK, back on Planet Earth, and on topic: would be possible to get a laserdisc “Renaissance” on Blu-ray? I think so!
Laserdisc is not (only) an analog video format (with analog and/or digital audio); it’s much more than this! It brought us a lot of innovations - widescreen, director’s cut, digital audio, multichannel audio, multi audio tracks, special editions, box sets etc. and, without it, probably DVD and BD would never have existed.
We love that physical, huge disc… that big cover (better if gatefold, perfect if within box set) with great arts, liner notes… often inserts that were not mere chapter lists, but insights of interesting facts about the movie, or the format itself…
Video wise, even if it was top notch at the times, it can’t stand HD (and UHD) formats of nowadays; still, sometimes its color timing (I guess the digital color grading was not applied on them) was similar to the one seen in the theaters (apart the obvious problems due to format and transfers); and sometimes it still has colors and/or contrast better than DVD and/or BD.
Audio wise, it’s still a great pleasure to listen to a laserdisc track; very often they used the theatrical mixes, while not all the times those mixes were used for the DVD and BD editions, in particular when we talk about mono and stereo tracks.
Said so, I don’t want to say that laserdisc is perfect, and blu-ray is a bad format, at the contrary: blu-ray is a great format itself - very good definition, lossless multichannel audio; still, sometimes, the content is not… well, “right”?
We got blu-ray editions with “wrong” colors and/or contrast, audio mixes, poor covers etc. - a format that good deserves more than this.
Now, you are asking yourself: ‘What all this has to do with a so-called laserdisc “Renaissance”’?
Well, let me explain. We would love to get laserdisc back to life. We all know it will not be possible (unless a crazy multi-millionaire guy would do it for us, at loss, but it will not happen, probably…). Still, we can do something to bring laserdisc “spirit and/or flesh” in the blu-ray world. How?
Packaging:
recently, Disney, Warner and others have made a sort of analog revival, offering laserdisc/vinyl sized covers for their blu-ray and DVD - they called “Vinyl Edition” here in Italy.
They are a bit scarce in comparison to many laserdisc gatefold covers, but it’s a start! Think also that it is possible (not too easily, I must admit) to make custom jackets for our blu-ray and DVD discs - a guy even made ones for his laserdiscs! http://www.aheroneverdies.com/2014/04/craft-corner-making-laserdisc-covers.html
Video:
laserdisc is only standard definition, but in few rare cases it is the only (or the best) version available - as for title availability, or for its cut, or for the aspect ratio - for a given title; of course, this could be captured and placed onto a simple DVD; but blu-ray offers, apart the standard resolution compatibility, also the chance to use AVC instead MPEG-2, to get better quality at the same bitrate, and other improvements; also, it’s possible to upscale the video to 720p/1080p, not to increase actual resolution (that is not there), but to get proper 24fps (23.976fps), in case you have PAL movies, or want to avoid possible interlacing problems. Or, if you want to just add scenes/shots (or even single frames) that are not present (or are censored) in the BD version.
But the previous case is not so common; more common (even if still rare in general) is that laserdisc colors could be better than the ones found on blu-ray - because quite some laserdisc titles used release or interpositive prints as color reference, while it’s widely known that blu-ray use usually negative print (to get better resolution), and then try to color regrade it digitally to get colors as close as possible to release print (that were 20, 30, 40 years older than laserdisc master) - or, simply put, they regrade it to be more “modern” (teal & orange, anyone?).
In this case, laserdisc could be used as color reference to regrade the blu-ray; of course, it will be close to impossible to get the same identical colors (and, as written before, probably the laserdisc colors aren’t perfect, and should need some color correction), but with the proper tools and skill it’s possible to retain most, if not all, of the “laserdisc spirit”.
Example - Waterworld (top WEB, middle LD, bottom HD regraded as laserdisc) (crop frame):
Link to full screen comparison (WARNING: NSFW, but the movie was PG-13, so I guess it’s OK to post a link to it; mods, feel free to remove it if it’s not appropriate):
http://ultimateaspectratio.ga/Waterworld_WEB_Vs_FCV3_frame_062749.html
Now, take in account that WEB version basically shares the same color grading as HD-DVD, blu-ray and DVD, even if it’s not perfectly the same, but we are there; and the regrading is not 100% faithful to the laserdisc color (also because I tried to remove the slight magenta blanket) - I’d say 95% up to 99%, depending on the scene, but it perfectly retains it spirit, color and contrast wise.
Also, I didn’t watch the movie in theaters at the time, but I have it in both NTSC, DS and DTS, and PAL Italian, and I distinctly remember the reviews about how good the transfer was - one said “colors are theatrical accurate”; can’t vouch for this, of course, but maybe the reviewer watched the movie in theater few months earliers, and his memory was relatively fresh - surely more, in comparison, than the one of the author of a recent blu-ray review, that probably did watch the movie (if it’s the case) in theater 15, 20 years early…
Indeed, I was quite disappointed when I bought the DVD, to discover that its colors was not as good as the laserdisc - as well as the HD-DVD - but a lot more muted, dull, with a lot of magenta in the sky and/or water - and, in a movie like this, there is A LOT of shots with water and/or sky!
Despite the fact we can’t say for sure if the laserdisc colors are more theatrically accurate than blu-ray, I can’t think the latter has better colors than the former… do you agree?
Audio:
it seems that almost all laserdisc mixes are the original, untouched theatrical ones - for convenience, lazyness, or else; Cinema DTS audio tracks, which were compared directly, are almost always identical to the LD DTS, apart the fact that obviously the former lack the LFE channel; some DVD editions may have imported them from LD, untouched - keep an eye at earlier 384kbps AC-3; but DTS track was almost always half bitrate on DVD (while full bitrate on LD) and often AC-3 tracks were “lighter” than the ones found on LD, in particular when the original tracks were matrixed surround, and the AC-3 were mere 192kbps…
Also, in many cases blu-ray uses remixed versions, or reconstructed ones - like upmixing original mono to 5.1 - and often does not offer the original track - sometime you can see a 1.0 in the audio track list, but it’s not a guarantee it’s the original one, and not simply a folddown of the remixed one…
Add to this the fact there are many commentaries and isolated score and/or effect tracks exclusive to laserdisc!
So, you can get the laserdisc audio and mux it with the blu-ray video (“vanilla”, or regraded as laserdisc, to get the complete experience). Do note that it’s possible to capture digital audio bit-perfect, even if PCM and DTS should be converted from 44.1KHz to 48KHz to be DVD/BD compliant, while AC-3 will remain untouched! Usually it is preferred, when both PCM and analog tracks have the same content, to capture only the PCM; but if the Japanese chose to use the analog tracks for their own language, instead PCM, there will be a reason… (more info about this in my post “Why laserdisc soundtracks are better…” here: https://forum.fanres.com/thread-1107.html)
At the end, you could get the best of both world: blu-ray superior definition, excellent compression codecs that avoid (almost always) all that nasty artefacts seen on DVD, along with laserdisc content (in rare cases) or color grading/contrast (more common) and untouched (with AC-3 tracks) or almost untouched (DTS/PCM tracks) or very good (analog tracks) audio, packaged in a laserdisc sized cover that reminds the original ones.
Of course, this could be applied only to movies up to year 2000, and only some would be eligible to get a “laserdisc Reinessance treatment”, but this will be rewarding, I think!
Great!
Thanks, Tom.
idk if you saw the previous posts - they exist and we have them. just need someone to do what adywan did with the TFA IMAX sequence to improve the quality.
AFAIK, the Hybrid IMAX version - as posted here before - did this!
More info about hybrid versions: https://forum.fanres.com/thread-2059.html
blu-ray with laserdisc/vinyl sized covers - https://forum.fanres.com/thread-2110.html
I always dreamt of doing something like this; I even tried to make a similar custom jacket, maybe ten years ago… but now, I would like to find a way to do custom covers for my projects!
No idea where to start, frankly; make some searches on the web, found few interesting links:
Craft Corner : Making Laserdisc Covers - http://www.aheroneverdies.com/2014/04/craft-corner-making-laserdisc-covers.html
the author just applied printed sheets over blank generic LP sleeve; result seems not bad, even if artwork is not great IMHO…
DIY Record Album Covers! - https://johnpurlia.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/diy-record-album-covers
this is way better! Author made the cover out of photographic paper, with an insert sheet with transparent mounting hubs, and CD labels that perfectly recall the sheet graphic. A very nice project indeed!
How to make your own LPs for $$$ and not $$$$ - https://www.bamsoftware.com/music/lp-howto.html
just jump to the gatefold cover making ideas; it could help to get something like the big sleeve/vinyl editions.
So, there are basically two design:
For the first design, I think the second link is perfect; for the second one, I thought about a similar approach, with of course a different blueprint - twice the size, if you want double layer jacket, or an L shape if you like to get single layer on the front, and double layer on the back, to get space for the disc “pockets”.
I guess it will always be possible to have a single layer gatefold cover, where the discs are mounted on hubs attached onto the right part of the inner side, but, using photographic paper of this size - that is usually 225gsm or 255gsm at best - I guess it would not be sturdy enough.
Another approach could be to print on smaller sheets (A3+) and glue them over a generic gatefold sleeve; don’t know how nice could be the final result, though!
I can say that the cheapest option I found online to print a 64x64cm sheet (which is for gatefold sleeve, dual layer) is around 32€ for one piece, the same for two pieces (with the same content, of course); from 5 pieces on, individual price would be around 13€ - simple 1440dpi 4color print, no plastification. Don’t know how much would cost printing them at home - using a cheap printer, which is around 200€, compatible ink, a3+ photographic paper, maybe would cost less, if enough prints are made, who knows?
Disney covers have mainly white, and few black, borders on all sides… so, I guess, it would be possible to get white or black vinyl jackets, and print on A3 photographic paper (adhesive or not); this would be 29.7 x 42 cm (29.7 x 29.7 cm when cut square), that will leave less than 1cm for each side, more or less as the Disney covers; of course, following this method, the central part of all sides woud be a bit more thick, so I don’t know how good could look.
P.S. on amazon.es, some titles, including three or four blu-rays, are around 8/9€!
Nope… too many other projects in progress before this, and just one computer to encode’em all… if always I could afford to buy another, used desktop PC! 😉
I found the 1.66:1 version a while back but there was no interest on here…
I guess if there are also 1.33/1.37:1 release prints around - as there are full screen versions of it (TV, laserdisc).
I don’t use Premiere, but AFAIK it should load lossless sources; so, it will be better to convert the UHD HEVC into lossless, instead h.264 (unless you want to use its lossless version, of course!)
That’s a gigantic project; hope you will success; curious to follow your work in progress, because I think we all, sooner or later, will be “forced” to make our project in UHD (and I can’t think about 8K! 😄 )