I need german and french soundtracks - PCM from laserdisc will be perfect, but from DVD or BD will do as well; I have the english, italian and spanish ones. Also, subtitles in all the five main languages will be very appreciated!
First tests will begin next week, maybe just tomorrow.
Doctor M, sorry if I derail a bit from the thread, but not too much...
I need opinions about my latest test clips of "Beauty and the Beast [ruLes]" project - a laserdisc preservation, source captured with the Pioneer HLD-X9, then cleaned and upscaled; will be released as BD-25.
Just go to visit this post, download them, and vote which is the best in your opinion; the script will be used to render the whole movie.
Thanks in advance to everybody that would like to spend some minutes to download, watch and vote.
As studios are lazier than me, I'm pretty sure the cropping are the same... if it's true, the HDTV will not be used. But, if rockin is right, maybe the HDTV quality is better than the Blu-ray - and it will be not the last time, I'm afraid...
THIRD FINAL CLIP(S) AVAILABLE - update
Belle and the Beast dancing; 89MB, mkv, 24mbps, PCM audio:
(note: the first two are the same of post #51, so if you have downloaded them, just download only the third one)
sharpened - http://www.sendspace.com/file/o0805t = HaloClean + LimitedSharpenFaster
NOT sharpened - http://www.sendspace.com/file/g4d23i = HaloClean
as test4 - http://www.sendspace.com/file/cg2sal = AnaloClean
All of them have been upscaled with MagicUp
The not sharpened one, with HaloClean only, has not the ghosting effect, but loose details; the sharpened one is sharper but has more problems than the previous; the last one, has ghosting but more details...
Vote your preferred clip!
@Spaced Ranger: thumbnails here works - look at this picture. What about your avatar? "This 3 hour .GIF movie has been moved or deleted" is intended to be as it is? (^^,)
Yes, you are right, and I know CMV4 failed on the cloud in the first screenshot... don't know why, frankly... as I wrote before, this color grading thing is like magic, maybe I forgot some "abracadabra"... ColourLikeFBF and RGBMatch exibit the same behaviour (but with less color matching IMHO)... at last, "A trouble shared is a trouble halved"!
@Chewtobacca: are the HDTV rips still around after all these years?
Well, there is an even better solution (IMHO); as the theatrical and extended edition Blu-rays should have the same cropping, the chroma of the theatrical could be simply applied over the luma of the extended edition; it should work flawlessy, isn't true? If not, the HDTV is still a good choice. Obviously, the extended scenes should be color corrected.
Chewtobacca sent me some tips; I'll have to change my habits! But I'd like to use something easy as x264 GUI, like Simple x264 Laucher - any other hints are welcome!
Actually, the sharpened version is the previous HaloClean + LimitedSharpenFaster... at the end, what version do you prefer, sharpened or not?
Here you are some screenshot comparisons; I used .png images taken from caps-a-holic.com; top BD, middle ColourMatch'ed BD, bottom DVD (click for larger images):
...now you know why they call it BLU-ray... the snow scene reminds me someTHING... (^^,)
Are results perfect? No, of course. But a really good compromise, and a decisive improvement over the BD colors, do you agree?
OK, time to sleep now, 1 a.m. here. Good night!
Actually, is on my future project list...
If someone could provide me small clips of the same scene (1 minute) both from BD and DVD, I could use them to make a preliminary test...
@kk650: before starting my "The Matrix [spoRv]" project, I downloaded your Matrix regraded; and it was one of the best attempt I've found it at that moment, even if not so close to DVD colors, it's really better than greener-than-green BD.
Keep on going, color regrading is not a science, it's more like magic... (^^,) and we are a little bit sorcerers, aren't we? Well, I'm more like the mad scientist you could find into my signature, though...
I forgot you are 25, I remembered you was around 20... well, when I was 11 it was 1982, and VHS was not in any home in Italy... at that time, I was "only" programming Basic with my old Spectrum... but this is another story... (^^,)
Keep going to mess with those VHS tapes, it was really funny when I used to mess with them myself... then I discovered the laserdisc, and the poor tapes went in a remote closet...
Ah, those old Rete4 logo reminds me "I bellissimi di ReteQuattro"... how many beautiful movies I discovered thanks to that program... but wait, if the tape is from 1999, who recorded it? You?!? A baby VHS genius! (^^,)
It seems there is no widescreen edition of Balto on DVD, and the BD is still TBA... waiting for confirmation!
Edit: answer found here - so, there is NO US widescreen DVD, while we in Europe are lucky enough to have it, plus it's PAL with more resolution... it should be anamorphic, can't remember, with english, italian, spanish and portoguese soundtracks, plus a trailer and a documentary, all things not present in the US DVD... any interest in a preservation?
notes taken: unsharped 2, sharpened 0...
any other votes? c'mon, don't be shy... (^^,)
During the "hunt for the BATB laserdisc", I discovered some hidden gems in my collection... I managed to put them all in a single shelf, hope they are all, but maybe I'll find some others in a future search... so I decided to resume this old thread adding the titles I have found that was not mentioned in the first post:
(all added to the first post too)
Particular interesting could be Bambi, Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland; but I need further comments about them - and the others.
let the discussion (re)begin!
The latest clips uses the same noise reduction of the previous ones; if msycamore or g-force would like to comment about these clips, they are welcome!
The fact that I released test clips as avi instead of mkv was due to the fact that virtualdub save the file as avi, and not mkv... for this, I should use another software, but as I'm lazy sometimes, I left the avi "as is"... for the laserdisc soundtrack, of course the final format will be PCM (only converted from 44.1kHz to 48kHz to be BD compliant).
THIRD FINAL CLIP(S) AVAILABLE!
Here you are the third final clip(s); Belle and the Beast dancing; 89MB, mkv, 24mbps, PCM audio:
sharpened - http://www.sendspace.com/file/o0805t
NOT sharpened - http://www.sendspace.com/file/g4d23i
choose your preferred version, as I'd like to render the final video ASAP. THANKS to everybody!
Yesterday a friend brought to my home an old Samsung DVD-R131 DVD recorder... "it doesn't read any disc, try if you could fix it; it's yours now, anyway!"
Another DVD recorder, broken too... what I have to do with it? Thinking to throw it away without even try to clean/fix/test it, suddenly the idea bulb lighted up... "what if..."
So, I googled a bit, found it has a Techwell' TW9906 comb filte; from the paper:
The built-in three high quality 10-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) convert inputs into digital signals for processing.
The TW9906 uses proprietary adaptive 4H comb filter for chroma and luma separation to achieve high video quality. The image enhancement includes horizontal and vertical peaking, CTI and BCS control.
The advanced synchronization processing can produce stable pictures for non-standard signal such as those produced by VCR trick mode.
The high quality scaler uses multi-tap poly-phase decimation filter to accurately scale down the image with minimum phase error. It can be programmed to scale-down the output picture to an arbitrary ratio with cropping.
The TW9906 supports flexible pixel interface. It outputs YCbCr (4:2:2) data stream over 10-bit or 20-bit data path. It also supports both free-running clock and line- locked clock output.
So what you guys think about it? Is the "adaptive 4H comb filter" = 4-lines comb filter?
Now I'm too involved in too many projects, but I'll manage to test it, sooner or later - maybe it could solve some laserdisc capture chroma problems!
...I'm trying to define it... a super trailer? a mega teaser? a featurette?
...but...it's... GORGEOUS!!! I like it very much, and it will be included in a commercial release!
Just add the 7th season, and it will be perfect!
Well done, congratulations.
As someone of you has certainly noted, I like John Carpenter movies - actually, I’ve watched all of them, and I own almost all of pre-2000 movies on laserdisc (forgive me John, I’m looking for the missing ones to complete the collection…).
Well, this is a list of the movies directed by John Carpenter:
Films - year, title, blu-ray.com video/audio rating, notes
Television - year, title
I’d like to know which ones eventually need a restoration (with further info), and which ones has a proper commercial release at the present day. This is because IIRC I read somewhere that there are at least a couple of other movies which will benefit from a restoration/preservation; am I right?
The original BD video is around 22GB; even with eventual five+two soundtracks, the space left for video on this project will be around 20GB, more than enough for a 1.5 hours movie - compression will be around 30mbps, if I have calculated it right.
Actually, I'm waiting to know if the laserdisc color grading is different from the DVD; in that case, a color regrading using it as color reference is more feasible than using a mere 30-lines color resolution VHS...
Disclaimer: this project is, as announced, about color regrading the BD using the 1999 THX DVD as color reference. And this is what I'm doing - actually, it's almost done, waiting only for extra soundtrack.
If there is some interest into the BD ColourMatch'ed using the Criterion Laserdisc, I could always start a new project...
And I love Criterion as company; they did always excellent jobs - I'm taliking about their laserdiscs only; if there are some release less than perfect, it's understandable and forgivable - think about all the other companies, and I think you will agree with me.
But Halloween Criterion Laserdisc, color wise, has some potential; the contrast boosting is not the only feature; infact there are many interesting scenes with vivid colors and correct contrast and/or brightness, quite different from the BD and/or the DVD; if they have the *right* colors will bring to another discussion that I'd like to not conduct here, to not derail the thread... (^^,) so I invite to continue the eventual futher comments about the Halloween Criterion laserdisc into the appropriate thread about wrong color grading.
LATEST TEST CLIP AVAILABLE!
"Belle discovers the rose" - 85MB, MKV, 24mbps, with PCM sound:
ATTENTION: The following is an explanation of the "slice technique" I intended to use for this project; however, after a lot of tests, I decided to NOT use it, because it's really difficult and time consuming to do it - albeit not impossible...
I add some quoted test here to let latest visitors to understand something more:
From the first post (deleted now):
Then, I realized that there are slight differences in cropping between the HDTV and the Blu-ray; one has more details on one side, while less on the other side, and vice versa. So I thought to join them together, to obtain the widest image possible. Indeed, it's only a mere 3% wider than any version, but I much prefer a 100% wide image Vs a "mere" 97%... (^^,)
The HDTV will be used as main source; the BD will be color regraded to match the HDTV version, then a "slice" will be joined to the HDTV video.
...but, as I was not sure, I included also this (deleted as well, as there is no reason to leave it there):
ATTENTION! This is my first attemp to this kind of things, so I'm not sure of the final result! If it will not work well, only the "plain" HDTV video will be used as source.
Screenshot of the first test clip could be found into this post - test clip could be downloaded here.
From post #41:
I regret to inform you that I decided to NOT use the "slice technique"; despite the fact the technique itself is working - and I showed it in this very thread - it's really hard and time-consuming to reach a perfect color and position matching; I discovered that in many shots, the first one or two frames in the HDTV wobbling, with variable spacial width and direction, and small color variations, making almost impossible to find out proper spacial and color settings to do a perfect match... I'm really sorry, because first tests were quite good!
EXAMPLE:
_,,,^..^,,,_ presents Escape from New York [spoRv] - special preserved or Restored version
| Released projects | Projects in progress | Future projects | Mission & Setup |
Mission: to restore John Carpenter's Escape from New York widest image, plus original soundtrack and commentary.
Video sources: HDTV broadcast.
Audio sources: uncompressed PCM original soundtrack, captured directly from Collector's Edition laserdisc, along with commentary; other soundtracks from BD and DVD.
Subtitles sources: to reflect soundtracks.
Project info:
Personally, "Escape from New York" is one of my favourite movies; after I discovered that the EU Blu-ray is really bad, and the US Blu-ray is very dark, I began to search a better alternative; I found that the HDTV version broadcasted by HDNet is maybe the best compromise. The HDTV will be used as video source.
Plus, the Collector's Edition laserdisc will be used to add the original soundtrack and the commentary.
Source Material
Video:
Audio:
Subtitles:
Final format: BD-25
Video:
Audio:
Subtitles:
Notes:
"Partner in crime":
Additional credits:
What I intended to say is that the LD has less information on the sides, in respect to the BD; so, the ColourMatch tries to match colors for the BD that has, let's say, 100% of the image, using the LD as color reference that has about 92% of the image; then, it has to guess what color the missing 8% should have... got the point? Add to this the fact that the jpg images are compressed more than the BD, they have the "blu-ray.com" overlaid on them and color palette is completely different... those things contribute to NOT match perfectly the colors... maybe using ColourLike (or ColourLikeFBF, or RGBMatch) the BD colors could be better, but color matching the BD is NOT the mission of this project; it was just a waste-some-time joke to fill the empty moments - and they are rare this week - between a project work and the other...
Please apologize if I seemed a bit rude, it was not my intention; I just wanted to explain my point of view. Are we still friends? (^^,)
*** *** ***
I'm processing the scene when Belle discovers the rose; it should be online in less than an hour.
Ehi! Don't be so rude! This is a serious thread! Infact, it should be called Halloween [spoRv] Bright Boobs Edition! (^^,) (^^,) (^^,)
IMPORTANT UPDATE
The laserdisc mono soundtrack, commentary and isolated score are ready!
Now that all the main soundtracks and the video are ready, the project could be finished in just a day or two... BUT... I want to add the foreign languages, so I'm putting it on hold until the needed soundtracks will be found! Don't hate me, please, this is only the mission of the project, as you could read in the first post.
Stamper has provided the french mono track, and probably will send me the central channel of a 5.1 soundtrack to overlay it to the isolated score.
So, do you want this project be finished ASAP? Then do your part, and help me to find out the remaning soundtracks - german, italian, spanish; subtitles are needed, too, but are not mandatory.