stwd4nder2

With no hope for a blu-ray release, I’ve taken it upon myself to re-assemble the first few seasons of WKUK using the best quality footage available.

It was shot and edited (mostly) in HD, but the only complete and uncensored version is the original DVD (the new DVD is censored) which is long out of print and very expensive on the second-hand market. But thankfully a lot of sketches got HD releases online.

I have not done anything to clean up the issues with the HD masters, simply edited everything together to match the complete DVDs. Most of them seem compression related. But even with that, these are still much nicer in quality compered to what we had.

The original commentary tracks are included, as well as custom chapters labeling each sketch. If anyone has the DVDs and can rip the subtitles please PM me.

Season 1

Complete

Sources:
Official YouTube uploads of censored episodes (the best quality, used as much as possible)
Censored HD web-dls (slightly less censored then the YT uploads)
YouTube uploads of “banned” sketches (not sure if these are official or not, but they are native HD and not upscales)
DVD rips (Used for audio*, upscaled video used for transitions and for 1 sketch that I couldn’t find in HD)

Season 2

In Progress

*the audio is in mp3. I couldn’t find the raw ac3 online, but it should sync to the video if I ever get a hold of it.

phadron said:

What means?

Don’t worry, if you don’t already know then there’s no way you’ll ever get an account there. Registration has been closed for years.

jimbotron235 said:

The thread on Blu-ray.com is indicating the audio mix on the new 4K is the original mix unwound into 5.0 in a 5.1 container, no dedicated LFE channel and (mostly) mono surrounds. That’s great news, but I’ll still create syncs of the various LD and DVD mixes for completionist’s sake.

I also acquired copies of the old Laserdisc bonus features. It’s amusing hearing Forman and Shaffer explain why it was a good idea to remove the scenes that eventually became part of the “Director’s Cut”. Shaffer says that if Salieri was as virtuous as he claimed to be, then he would have not have done those humiliating things to innocent Constanze. Yeah, exactly.

But of course, fast forward to 2000, it was the DVD director’s cut craze, and both of them conveniently changed their tune and WB edited out critical mentions of the extended cut scenes.

Props to Paul Saentz, nephew of Saul, for spearheading the restoration effort of the original theatrical cut. Without him, I doubt this occurs.

Interesting! I didn’t know there was any direct comments from them about the extra scenes, let alone explicitly negative ones. It’s nice to know their thoughts about them pretty much line up with mine (and most other fans). Did they mention anything about pacing?
I’ve never seen the bonus features on the LD. I’d love to check them out if you’ve uploaded them anywhere.

Has anyone ripped it or know how to download DRM protected stuff on Youtube?

arcadehappy said:

I have topaz video AI I used to rescale my personal VHS collection. I tried it on my bluray copy of 28days later and here is a sample. Not as extenisve as OP, but I dont have the time or knowledge to go as deep as them. Still rendering with 11hrs left.

Have you seen the UHD for Terminator 2? I think you’d like it.

I’d assume it’s mono. The original 4 track mix is allegedly lost, so it being anything other than mono would be very interesting.

Donated a couple of years ago and haven’t heard from OP since.

Worse case you can play it in VLC while using OBS to record it.

If you’re using makemkv with the default settings, I think the minimum length is set to 90 seconds. You probably have to lower that, I’d set it to 1 just to make sure you get everything.

Looks promising!

This thread feels like an elaborate troll…

Great work so far, I really like this film. Looking forward to a release.

Breaking off already niche communities into a bunch of gay group chats on Discord is death-nail of any forum.
I’d recommend joining a forum with a more technical focus then this one, there’s a lot of good resources and people willing to help.

There’s a web-dl of the Extended Cut in HD, I found it on PTP but I’m sure it’s available elsewhere.

Haven’t seen this one since I was a kid.
Good luck.

gotosat582 said:

Can anyone point me to english subtitle files that work well with the trilogy?

This release is in time with the bluray. The subs from that or any synced to that will work.

Really annoying how people will do that. Hopefully they get back to you

dgrimes said:

is it too late to donate and get access to the films?

I donated years ago and still don’t have them

clashradio said:

There is a 16mm print listed on eBay which shows the film and optical track. There are two channels. Is this dual mono?

Mono prints having dual tracks is common. I read somewhere that it was for fail-over due to early audio systems being somewhat unreliable, but don’t quote me on that.

springfeel said:
the mono on the tc 4k still isn’t as good as the LD.

I didn’t compare it closely myself, but I thought the general consensus was the Criterion BD (same track on the UHD) has the best mono.

Skimming through it, it looks pretty good. Do you have a higher quality version available for download?

Is anyone seeding this on resilio? I currently have 0 peers

I haven’t messed around with any of the AI voice tools myself, but it would be interesting to see if you could train a model on his voice and combine that with what little footage we have and attempt to re-create it.

Shocked there’s still no UHD announcement.
Looking forward to your restoration!

jimbotron235 said:
That’s wonderful news. I’d like nothing more than my edit to be obsoleted.

I have a feeling the audio tracks might still be handy to have