spoRv

Done!

It seems there is some consensus about this color regrading; I should finish The Arrival first but, as Waterworld project is in a quite advanced status, it will be the next; meanwhile, further opinions are welcome!

update

As I'm working on The Arrival, I tested here the same kind of color regrading, to eliminate the pink blanket, but a colder setting is better IMHO for Waterworld - even if it's not the coldest, I think it's the best compromise:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/84793

Opinions?

Grab them as fast as you can; maybe some will be worthwhile!

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/zip/4580634259.html

...save them from death, please...

Apart the fact that two BD-25 cost less than a single BD-50, I like to have as many discs as possible... (^^,)

It's cool to have the movie, and besides that another disc with only the extras - or, better, a single BD box with two discs inside! And don't forget you have to design the inside and outside cover, and the disc label too! (-^,)

Thanks for all your thoughts!

@jerryshadoe: you want to drive me crazy, eh? (-^,) I may agree with you but I'd like to apply just one kind of setting for the whole movie because, at the contrary of "some" movies (you know which ones), this, apart the obvious pink blanket, has not a so wrong color grading... it is watchable - after the obliged contrast fix - "as is", and albeit too warm IMHO, doesn't look wrong... well, here you are the OLD/NEW compared:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/84785

to tell the truth, I still like a bit more the OLD settings... examples:

#1 - OLD has the snow almost white, even if a bit blueish, but it's OK, as in reality polar ice tend to seems blue, while in the NEW it's a bit too pinkish

#2 - the skirt in NEW seems also violet, while in OLD is almost blue, and I'm pretty sure Charlie will punch anyone in the face if he will ask to wear a pseudo-violet skirt... (^^u)

#3 - take a look at the street color "homogeneity", in particular behind the dog and under the man; those parts have not a consistant color in comparison to the rest of the street in NEW, at the contrary of the OLD - or, maybe, this is due to the fact the old man is doing a random cleaning, and those parts are still full of dirt... (^^,)

About grain: this was my first attempt to regrain a movie, and I'm happy with the result - like you are with LOTM, aren't you? Of course, original grain would have been better but added REAL grain is better than added FAKE grain, and surely better than almost no grain at all...

...now you know how hard is it to make a complete project like yours! (^^,)

Few things:

may you include the French audio track as well? Just for completion's sake...

the commentary is a very welcome addition!

I'd leave the main feature "alone" in a BD-25, and release another BD-25 with just extras - even some time after the movie release

That's all; again, well job, I can't wait to see a good restoration with the Italian track that I was not forced to do by myself... (-^,)

I must admit I was a bit biased, because the comparison I did was between the untoched BD and the new settings... after some new comparison between contrast fixed BD and the same settings, I found that yes, these were a bit too cold - even if, in a sci-fi movie, is not that bad IMHO...

So, I test and retest, and made another screenshot comparison:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/84760

(post #2 updated; this last comparison is called NEW)

is it better now?

Update!

I had to capture the french PAL laserdisc but the "brand old" Sweetspot (a.k.a. PDI Deluxe) capture card wasn't agree to do that... it worked well with NTSC (albeit the quality was not on par with my old one with a Philips chipset), but with PAL, quality worsen a lot, and it decided to randomly move the picture vertically, to allow the sync codes to be visible, and so cut in half the image (loosing some on top or bottom)... like this:

... I tried the LD output with TV, it was OK; I tried another player, cable, connection, everything the same... I tried another PAL disc, the same... another capture software, reboot the PC, always the same... I tried to deinstall and reinstall softwares, capture card drivers, always the same... I was really discouraged, as I thought to have tried everything... then, flash of genius! As the Sweetspot is based onto bt8x8 chipset, I found another driver for that and BINGO! Now it works, and better than before!!!

So, at the end, I finally captured the french PAL laserdisc; it is 1.33:1, but quite stretched, so it takes, in comparison to NTSC 1.66:1, let's say 85% of the horizontal image and 97% of the vertical one... if one is crazy enough, he could thing to use the PAL image stretched and overlaid to the NTSC one, to increase the source resolution! But don't count on me, though! (^^,)

Now I should only put in sync the french PCM track with the [spoRv] video, and I will release it as a bonus track - that could be remuxed in the final .m2ts, discarding another track, for example the english PCM laserdisc one; but, as my connection is very slow, I'll upload it after the main project seeding will be completed.

@RU.08: there are a lot of problems that I had to solve, to improve the quality of video, and even so, result isn't 100% perfect, but just a very good compromise; so, it will take a lot of time to find out which filters and settings to use to better the quality, and they will be impaired using a compressed version as source... nevertheless, is someone is still interesting in a compressed version of the raw capture...

Doctor M said:

On another note... the raw rip is _only_ 35gb?  Wait, that's standard definition isn't it.

Yep, using lossless Lagarith codec.

The difference between the source and the final result is subtle, still it's noticeable; contrast is finally right (before the black bars were... well, grey!) and the grain gives back the texture and perceived details lost in the high compression, while masking the little compression artifacts; this is a good thing for a fan preservation, where you take a good source and make it better without change it too much; good job!

Now we are awaiting for the DTS-HD MA track, that will be perfect for sure, thanks to your experience!

The only missing part now is the BD menu (and eventual intro)...

two other words... Google DNS

I agree that HDTV version seems better - I like its color grading better; but IMHO it's more due to the fact that BD is softer, and seems out of focus... just a proper sharpening (that is not harmful as when used with film), a ColourMatching touch (to get the HDTV color grading) and you should admit it's better than before...

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/84474

even if it still lacks a bit of detail in comparison to HDTV, almost surely a byproduct of excessive grain removal; but BD has more image on top and bottom...

What do you think?

The fact is not that I do not love grain, at the contrary, I DO, and a lot!

But, to me, film should have it, while animation, even if, as you wrote, "lived" on film, should not, for the simple fact that grain in film was part of it - and film without grain, fine or coarse, could not exist (at least, "at the time" of film), and the director of photography used it to give the film the final look that could be seen in the theater, while grain in animation film was a "consequence" of the process...

For example, what if Disney in person had the chance to choose to release his animated features with or without grain?

Today, in our digital world, there are few, great directors that could still choose to actually "film" their movies, while some others are forced by studios to use digital cameras for mere economic reasons; and many others apply grain to digital sources to make them more "filmic" - this is why grain plates are gaining success today.

Not the same (IMHO) for animation: there is no need to give life to a lifeless source (beware, in this context intended as not live action!) - but, again, this is just my personal POV.

Last thing: even a century ago, it was possible to project animation on film without grain, just drawing it on blank film:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drawn-on-film_animation
of course, as it was a really time consuming process, it was not widely used, but still possible to obtain grain free animation before CGI!

The fact is, the raw capture is 31GB, and it will take another ten days to upload... don't know how many will need this, though, even if now I'm pretty sure what you have in mind... "grained BATB, perhaps?!?" (-^,)

Doctor M said:

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

An important, philosophical question: do the grain should be preserved in animation?

I mean, grain was part of live action films since the beginning (even if today's digital camera do not have it, but this should be discussed in another thread), and movie as medium cannot exist without grain... animation, on the other hand, was not "born" with grain, but grain was a "forced" consequence of animation transferred on film... so, to me, grain should not be part of animation; do you agree?

A very good question.

(Okay, I was just going to leave it there.)

My only opinion on the matter is we have no sources without grain to work with.  As such, any grain removal will damage detail or cause artifacts.  That I don't like.

Agree, but for example, during my work on BATB, I found that on laserdisc, grain was almost absent, while a lot of noise was present due the intrinsic nature of the media; after I "polished" the image, it lost a little bit of detail, but earned many other qualities, and so the final result was really better than the source IMHO.

Then, with a quite good "polished" image, at first I thought to add a grain plate to it, but then I decided to not apply it, because it was not part of the animation "soul"... did I take the right decision?

titanic said:

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

There is a custom BD-50 of it in circulation.

Not sure about the need of a such big size... a [spoRv] version, with 5 languages and subtitles, with a good average bitrate (25-30mbps) to retain all the grain, will fit in a BD-25...

 It's 29GB in size.
6 languages, 6 subtitles and 25mbps bitrate.

So I think I do not need to work on it... even if 29GB for a BD-50 it's still a waste of space...

*************************************************************

An important, philosophical question: do the grain should be preserved in animation?

I mean, grain was part of live action films since the beginning (even if today's digital camera do not have it, but this should be discussed in another thread), and movie as medium cannot exist without grain... animation, on the other hand, was not "born" with grain, but grain was a "forced" consequence of animation transferred on film... so, to me, grain should not be part of animation; do you agree?

As I wrote before in this thread, I did some regrading tests using the latest version of my ColourMatch script and even if it works very well in a lot of shots, sometimes it fails, due to the fact that 4K BD grading is so different from Mondo BD that for the "poor" script (^^,) is impossible to make a perfect work...

So, apart the hand made correction shot-by-shot, that will take so much time I'm not ready to spend in any project, another viable way could be to use the ColourMatch script, and eventually correct the not perfect shots by hand... and even in that case, it will take a very long time...

IMHO, the best thing to do right now is to get kk650 version - the best version actually available, and probably for a long time -  then wait for the eventual BD re-release, to see how good/bad it will be...

titanic said:

Hello Andrea.

I'd like to ask a favor if that's possible.

Could you grab the same screenshot with this below (which is from your Bluray) from the original unfiltered file you captured from the Laserdisc?

I' like to compare the two, to see something..

Here you are:

(full res: http://s13.postimg.org/iouguofth/BATB_009071.jpg)

titanic said:

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

Don't know if Aristocats HDTV version is better than BD, probably not...

 The aristocats HDTV is miles better than the Bluray!

It retains the grain!

Thanks for the useful info!

There is a custom BD-50 of it in circulation.

Not sure about the need of a such big size... a [spoRv] version, with 5 languages and subtitles, with a good average bitrate (25-30mbps) to retain all the grain, will fit in a BD-25...

AFAIK 20K Leagues and Black Cauldron are not available on BD, and the itunes versions have pretty low bitrates

Aladdin HDTV *should* be the old versionDon't know if Aristocats HDTV version is better than BD, probably not...

Chewtobacca said:

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

myinternalorganwhichyoucanlivewithoutbutyoustillprefertohaveitnevertheless.org

Haha!

Thanks, Andrea.  I've been looking forward to this more than any other project.

You're welcome; hope you'll like it, as every other users!

jolennon said:

I've been wanting to tell you something but I always forget. The "plant a tree" thing is a bit wrong. The tree has always been there, but Disney/Lowry/whoever did the restoration put it a few frames earlier than it should be.

I noticed it after I posted the screenshots, but I always forgot to mention it, too! Why the did it is unexplicable, though... still, few of the "rays" from the hand of the ex-beast at the end, during the transformation, are missing in the BD... again, why?!? Mysteries of the animation restorations... at least, done by major studios and not by us, mere mortals who spend our lives doing fan restorations to restore their errors... (^^,)

There are two editions, the old one was just PCM 2.0 (surround IIRC), and the new one was AC3 5.1 - the latter should retain the same PCM 2.0 tracks of the former, but *maybe* they did a new remix, even if I'm pretty sure this is not the case, like in the last decade...

thegroovologist said:

Hmmmm...the snow shot is always tricky so I'm just gonna focus on screenshot comparison #2 & #3 for now.

It looks like the colors are too cold now.

Before you decided to start from scratch again, how did the colors of your "final" version look like? Can you post a comparison (same frames, Original Blu-ray vs old "final" version) ?

Agree that those colors seems a bit too cold now - in particular the "famous" snow scene - in comparison to the untouched BD and DVD, in particular the latter; I did a LOT of testing yesterday - many hours, and many dozen settings - and this is the one I like best, and I thought to use these settings for the final version; this is still not the final decision, though; but as I could watch the whole movie with these settings, I can say it is overall really better than the untouched BD, and, again, even if it seems too cold in some shots, it is perfect in others IMHO.

Just name some other shots (min:sec) that could be useful to make further comparisons, and I'll do them ASAP - this is still not "set in the stone"! (^^,)

After A LOT of time (too much, indeed) I'm back to work on The Arrival; as I was not happy with the previous color regrading attempts, I decided to start from scratch; now, apart obvious contrast fixing, I've tried only to remove the pink blanket of the BD, and it seems I reached a good compromise; of course, grain plate is present like in the past, as it seems to increase perceived details very well.

You can see a link with screenshot comparisons in the post #2; feedbacks are welcome!