Hello!

You all might have seen my thread requesting LD audio for this one (if anyone has it), so I thought I'd post about the project as a whole.

This one is a collaboration with a few friends of mine. A relatively simple* project being done to fix the colours of the available uncut HD print (corresponding to the HK version) and add some good audio and English subtitles to it.

Here are the tentative specs.

Video - German blu-ray print. It features a heavier level of saturation than the Japanese blu-ray, but otherwise they use the same print. The German blu-ray is higher bitrate so the choice was made to use that one.

Audio - We're currently looking for sources of Cantonese mono sources for the Hong Kong print to consider. It will also feature the Cantonese track from the Japanese print (some music cues are different/differently ordered), the classic English dub, and a hybrid of the Miramax and classic dubs. The German BD does feature a 2.0 track but consensus is that it might be a downmix so we're hoping to compare it with others. 

Subtitles: based on those found on the Joy Sales DVD, which mightn't need much changing as that release actually featured a new translation (as opposed to others in that series that reused subtitles from other releases or just Google translated them).

WIP screenshots coming soon.

*'relative' because while we've spotted the saturation and will be able to fix it, the level differs from scene to scene. Some scenes look like this:



while some look like this:


Other than that, colours do seem mostly okay.

Howards End (1992) DVD R2 2.0 surround audio synced to German UHD 4k.

R2 United Kingdom - Odyssey Video
English Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround converted to PCM (FLAC)

Better bass.
Better sound.

PM to link.

Pather Panchali (1955) DVD-R2 Artificial Eye AC3 2.0 audio synced to Criterion BD
DD 2.0 to WAV to FLAC

More noise. More details.

This extended composite version of the movie Copkiller uses the blu ray and additional footage from two different TV broadcasts.

This version combines the official blu ray put out by Code Red with the extra footage from the Italian TV Version and one scene from the Hungarian TV Version. Initially I identified everything that was extra, then slowed it down to 23.976 fps, upscaled it to 1080p and ran it through some filters to reduce noise and remove some dirt and dust that was present.
These extra scenes (14 minutes in total) were then inserted into the Code Red blu ray, and the volume was adjusted so it isn’t too distracting when it switches between the different sources. Please bear in mind however, the additional footage is 4:3. Two people then helped me out by subtitling the extra scenes into English.

At the point it become apparent just how bad the transfer on the Code Red blu ray is. The colours look way off when compared to every other version, everything has this magenta filter over the top of it and black is never black. So I picked up a UK DVD of the movie and decided to regrade all the footage. All in all I used about a 100 different LUTs and this part of the process took a couple of weeks. It’s far from perfect, the Code Red scan itself has a lot of problems and the UK DVD wasn’t a great transfer, but I feel it’s a hell of a lot better than it was.

The Code Red blu ray also suffers with very bad sibilance, that’s the distortion you here sometimes when someone pronounces an S. This is actually the worse I have ever heard it so I ran the audio through a de-esser to try and remove some of it. Again it’s not perfect, if you take too much out it cuts part of the audio you don’t want to touch so it’s better to not take too much.

In terms of setup there are three options:

• English audio with subtitles during the Italian and Hungarian scenes
  
• Hungarian audio with no subtitles
  
• Italian Audio with subtitles during the Hungarian scene
  

Since Big Trouble In Little China is nearly finished (waiting on a couple last things before I can release a proper MKV), I thought I'd start talking about the next preservation on my roadmap. A movie that got me started into fan restoration work in the first place.

JohnCarpenterFan;15869547 Wrote:It is very interesting that you brought up Hellraiser.

I recently managed to get my hands on a well-preserved archival print, watched it, took some scans, made sure they were representative of how it looked correctly projected and compared it with the Arrow Blu-ray.

Be aware that I really liked the Arrow Blu-ray despite the peculiar grain, and didn't have any problems with the color timing... When I watched this print, I couldn't believe my eyes. This film when viewed on film looks absolutely incredible, very stylish, quite a lot of blue lighting. I had no idea this film looked that good, home video has just done it a complete disservice.

One thing I will say is that this print was not grainy at all, even in low-light conditions there was nothing out of the ordinary, I wasn't even aware of it most of the time.

When I flicked through the Arrow disc not long after, it looked flat and orange compared to what I had seen, it looked ugly and noisy. In the scene where the cenobites appear at the hospital, the room in the print appeared more blue with Pinhead's skin also being bathed in blue which helped draw attention away from the make-up, on the Arrow the room is more neutral and the make-up job on Pinhead really stands out. Also in a scene near the end (see last picture below), in the print, there's clearly blue lighting in the background and the characters directly in front of the camera are covered in a warm glow from a fireplace (IIRC), yet on the Arrow, everything is again flat and orange.







It was like watching the film for the first time. I'd love it if every studio/label took the Warner approach and used answer prints (or at the very least view multiple theatrical prints) to assist with color timing. This "Hold back on the colors/contrast, keep the shadows intact, make everything look natural" way of thinking has got to go. It's not purist in the slightest, in fact it goes directly against what film naturally looks like.

Regarding Zombie, finally got to sit down and watch the 4K restoration in full. This is an incredible disc, the colors are absolutely gorgeous, don't see why anybody would have a problem with them unless they've subscribed to that silly notion described above.

Blue Underground pulled off an incredible accomplishment releasing this and Maniac back-to-back. Almost seems like they're saying to the other labels "Just you try and beat this, I dare you." Very excited to see their future 4K remasters which I hear will include The New York Ripper and Dead and Buried.

Edit:

Should also note that the extra information on the top and bottom of those scans isn't part of the intended composition and was matted during projection. There is some information on the left or right (depends on which image) that was on the print that I didn't manage to capture due to equipment used and lack of time.

Hi all,

Is anyone aware of any software that can edit subtitles at the same time as the video? What I want is to take a movie with subtitles, "bind" the srt file to the movie somehow and then if I cut out bits, reorder scenes etc, every change is replicated in the subtitle track(s). So after the edit is finished, I still have correct subtitles. 

Does such a program exist? 

Thanks

Hello!

I have been lurking for a while, some time back i found about the Kerr edits of the LOTR movies to follow the books, that spiraled down into me finding a few places dedicated to fan edits.

I always enjoyed learning new skills and thought i would create some edits of my own, mostly as a learning experience, I am a FOSS developer and figured i should also approach this in an open way with live feedback from a community

I am a huge fan of the predator and alien franchises (excluding the latest movies), you can see my first topic about some edits i am working on here

https://fanrestore.com/thread-3483.html

Any feedback is very welcome, looking forward to becoming an active member!

Hello everyone, first post here

I recently started working on a fandit project, I am taking all predator franchise movies and editing them into 45 min max episodes.

My idea is to make a series in the style of masters of horror, each episode should follow a predator in a hunt. There will be humans obviously, but the predator should be the main character

I named this topic Predator Antology Series, but i have not decided in a name yet, i might also create a new generic intro to be used in all episodes, if anyone has ideas or wants to help reply here or send a PM. Right now i am focused in creating the episodes itself and this is low priority

First Episode - Jungle Hunter

I am nearly done with the first episode, Jungle Hunter, based on the first predator

i included some deleted footage and it runs at about 41 mins with credits included

Major change list:
- removed the guerrila/dillon subplot
- remove elpidia carrilo and shane black completely
- poncho dies off camera
- added butterfly deleted scene
- added a color corrected (for night time) cloaking scene from unused footage of cloaking tests
- added the predator teasing with dutch deleted scene
- added deleted footage of the dutch preparation for the final battle

this is early work, i haven't really touched audio yet but i have a rough cut of the first episode uploaded on mega


Second Episode - AVP Ritual  (name subject to change)

I am also working in the AVP movie at same time i work in the first episode, right now I am learning rotoscoping in order to remove Lex teaming up with the predator completely. I have a few shots done and a couple of scenes for this one already, will update when i have more stuff done



Please note this is my first ever experiment with video/audio editing, as a programmer and FOSS advocate i refuse to use non free software (including operating systems, i have been windows free for about 10 years), all work is being done in Kdenlive for now, if anyone has a better suggestion let me know. Any reading material also very welcome

Criterion's lovely Blue Velvet release presents the original surround audio for the first time in years, sadly with the wind knocked out of it. I recently acquired MGM's first R1 DVD which is the last NA release to have the original surround. It supposedly sounded a lot better despite being lossy. After ripping both I can confirm it's quite the case!

Criterion's isn't completely horrible by a stretch but where it's not as good it's pretty bad. Throughout actors sound like they have bowls covering their heads with the resulting muffled voices clipping. Ambience in points is almost buried. MGM's lossy track is huge and dynamic. Pay particular attention to the scene at roughly 1 hour 27 minutes with a sprinkler and forest ambience. Criterion's track is a whisper, while MGM's lossy is big and full yet still subtle as the scene should be.

Syncing was a breeze. It simply needed to be lined-up and exported, as Criterion's had their logo at the beginning. Absolutely no drift to speak of.

DM if you wanna check it out!

In a 1080p timeline, do studios use any templates? For instance, 1.85:1… some Blu-rays are 1920x1036 and others are 1920x1040. Why that difference? 

I have analyzed lots of Blu-rays with different AR and noted their dimensions. I wonder if anyone knows what the right dimensions are for the following aspect ratios:

1.33:1 - 1436x1080 or 1440x1080?
1.37:1 - 1480x1080 or 1484x1080?
1.66:1 - 1788x1080 or 1792x1080 or 1796x1080 or 1800x1080?
1.85:1 - 1920x1036 or 1920x1040?
2.35:1 - 1920x816?
2.55:1 - 1920x752?
2.39:1 - 1920x800?