Overview:
This is an HD copy of the 1929 version of the silent 'Phantom of the Opera' running at 24fps, synced to a number of scores which are either not available synced to an HD picture, or which have some deficiencies in their official release. The first four scores are performed by accomplished organists, the fifth is by a progressive rock band, 'the Laze.'
Changelog:
1.0: Initial Release
1.1: fixed the sync on track 2 - made some edits on track 6 cleaner

Overview:
Roy Budd was a British jazz pianist and composer best known for his film scores, including Get Carter and The Wild Geese. In 1993, Roy Budd composed a symphonic score for the 1929 version of the 1925 silent film The Phantom of the Opera, realizing a long-held dream. Unfortunately, his abrupt death prevented the score from being heard, until it was recently released on CD and DVD in conjunction with a premiere of the score at the London Coliseum.
The DVD uses a version of the score recorded in the mid-nineties, and the picture is a low quality telecine prepared for that release. This version syncs the score to an HD picture. This updated version of my first effort improves the picture quality further (utilizing the latest HD image I've prepared for Phantom) while adding tinting inspired by the tints used on the Roy Budd DVD.
The film largely plays at 22 frames second within a more standard 60fps file and is synced to the score as it appears on the DVD.

[Image: FxUqL4i.jpg]

Video: 1080p 60fps 16gb MKV - Tinted black and white with technicolor sequence – 01:25:55
Aspect ratio: 1.2:1
Audio: Untouched Dolby Digital from the DVD (there are brief dropouts, but those are on the DVD)

Extras:
Producer Euan Lloyd in discussion about Roy Budd's score to the Phantom of the Opera (I've edited together two interviews available on Roy Budd's website)
BBC 1 story
Trailers
From the DVD:
Interview with Get Carter director Mike Hodges
Roy Budd playing piano with the Roy Budd Trio at the 1983 Bob Hope Gala

Screencaps:
http://imgur.com/a/jIAipzh

Video technical notes:
This release largely uses the image from my previous rare scores collection (with some small fixes) while added tinting inspired by the tints used on the Roy Budd DVD. I've added some additional tints to scenes to keep things varied.

As the various home media releases of Phantom have differing levels of quality, this edit uses the Kino, Image, and BFI blu-rays for greatest picture quality.

- The Image and Kino blurays use the same underlying master. The Kino master is a much better encode with a better grain structure, but inadvertently crushes the black levels of some scenes while trying improve the look of the tinting. It also has various small editing and sync errors, mostly introduced while trying to fix splice marks. I created a composite by syncing the two together and overlaying the mid-tones and highlights from the Kino disk over the shadow detail from the Image disk. This helped me preserve shadow detail while correcting sync errors. The resulting picture is somewhat softer than the Kino disk, while still looking much better than the Image disk. This affords a good look to the film with less problems than the Kino or Image presentations on their own and in my mind is the best option outside of evaluating the picture on a shot-to-shot basis.

- The opening of the film through Carlotta speaking to the owners is taken from the BFI bluray, as it digitally removes the troublesome hair that wiggles all around the gate. Because the BFI bluray runs at 24fps and uses frame duplication to sync to it's soundtrack, I had to use a decimate filter and then carefully match the footage frame by frame to the Image/Kino source to ensure there were no frames missing.

- Some shots in the cellars were taken from the newly discovered sound reel of Phantom on the BFI disc. It lacked the damage in the other 35mm copy.

- Bal masque sequence: The BFI bluray has poor coloration. The Kino Bluray and 24fps Image bluray has frame blending from an incorrect frame rate conversion. I took the interlaced 20fps Image bluray and deinterlaced it, eliminating as many blended field frames as possible.

- Rooftop scene: The shots of Christine and Raoul come from the BFI bluray (better detail), with color correction to fix the rather poor tinting. The shots of the Phantom come from the Kino disc (better detail than the BFI, which uses a copy taken from an earlier Channel 4 restoration).

- Finale: The Kino Bluray and 24fps Image bluray again have frame blending from an incorrect frame rate conversion. The BFI bluray is tinted so strongly here as to be indiscernible. Even color correction shows that there is no detail to regain.  I took the interlaced 20fps Image blu-ray and deinterlaced it, eliminating as many blended field frames as possible. This results in a rather soft look with lots of dirt (the interlaced master had no computer restoration done on it), but it's the best the sequence has ever looked on home media.

PM me for a link or available on myspleen.

I know the Theatrical Cut was released on BD in some European countries (Poland, Greece, Portugal...), but it seems it doesn't have the same level of detail compared to the usual Director's Cut BD (though it looks very good, still needs to be remastered for modern video quality standards). So it could be fantastic if someone is able to overlay or regrade (don't know which is the right term) the theatrical cut with the highest possible quality, since this is a really underrated film.

Any of you guys have an LD capture of The Abyss theatrical version? There's an HBO version floating around which looks quite good, so I'd like to sync the original stereo to it as well. Many thanks in advance!

So I like the idea of making extended composite versions of certain movies, using additional footage from TV versions, workprints, etc. The problem is this footage is nearly always 4:3 and I find a shift in aspect ratio and jump from low quality to HD to be too distracting. I've almost finished an edit of Mad Max 2 reincorporating the TV Version footage and it worked really well with a 4:3 DVD. 

So does anyone happen to have 4:3 SD releases of the following? 

Child's Play 2 - doesn't appear to have been released on DVD but maybe there was a foreign release or a VHS rip?
Death Wish 2 - was released on a MGM DVD
Die Hard 2 - doesn't appear to have been released on DVD but maybe there was a foreign release or a VHS rip?
Evil Dead 2 - was released on a UK DVD
Friday the 13th 4/5 - doesn't appear to have been released on DVD but maybe there was a foreign release or a VHS rip?
Jason Goes to Hell - Japanese, UK and Australian DVDs were 4:3
Freddy's Dead - was released in Thailand
Warriors - doesn't appear to have been released on DVD but maybe there was a foreign release or a VHS rip?

Thanks

Beetlejuice is getting a 4k release this September, unfortunately only with an Atmos remix. It's unknown how different it'll be if at all, but if the Batman and Shining discs are any indicator it might not be pretty! With that in mind, I'd like to sync the original LD audio to the new 4k once it releases. I cannot capture LD audio myself, and I'd be very grateful if anybody can help me out. My sync will be available to all interested once the disc is released and I can get to work.

Hi All,

I am trying to fix an old PAL TV recording and I have managed to obtain. I am a basic Avisynth user, I've used it several times to IVTC but if there is an expert out there maybe they could point me in the right direction? 

Mediainfo reports the file as 25 fps progressive and during movement horizontal lines appear. It looks to me as if the field order is reversed? When I have come across this before I've fixed it using TFM() but that as for NTSC footage and it doesn't seem to make any difference with this footage. 

Unfortunately this is the only way I am able to get this recording, I've was searching for it for years and was lucky to find this. 

Much appreciated

Format                                  : MPEG Video
Format version                          : Version 2
File size                                : 3.11 GiB
Duration                                : 3 h 4 min
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                        : 2 407 kb/s

Video
Format                                  : MPEG Video
Format version                          : Version 2
Format profile                          : Main@Main
Format settings                          : BVOP
Format settings, BVOP                    : Yes
Format settings, Matrix                  : Default
Format settings, GOP                    : M=3, N=13
Duration                                : 3 h 4 min
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                : 2 407 kb/s
Maximum bit rate                        : 9 352 kb/s
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                  : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio                    : 16:9
Frame rate                              : 25.000 FPS
Standard                                : PAL
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                      : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Compression mode                        : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                      : 0.232
Time code of first frame                : 00:00:00:00
GOP, Open/Closed                        : Closed
Stream size                              : 3.11 GiB (100%)

Some of you might be interested in this:

https://github.com/domyd/mlp

Quote:A Dolby TrueHD demuxer and utility tool, with a focus on accurate and correct TrueHD demuxing.

A while ago, before I was active on fanres, I paid for a company to digitise a couple of VHS tapes. I only got around to looking at one of them recently and the audio is pretty much unusable. Whenever it gets loud, especially during speech, it distorts. This is how it looks in audacity: 



I just wanted to check, before I go back to them and complain, could there be an issue with the actual VHS that caused this? To me it's as if they didn't plug one of the audio cables in fully when capturing? The audio sounds fine when watching the VHS. 

Thanks

Hello.

Just an idea I've had that may be way above my skill level, but nevertheless.

For anyone familiar with Lau Kar-Leung/Jackie Chan's Drunken Master II, the Region 3 DVD release contained something of a 'new' Cantonese soundtrack where the music was replaced with the versions of the respective tracks that appeared on the soundtrack CD. So they'd effectively mixed the CD quality music (albeit downmixed to mono) with the film's original dubbing and effects.

However, Warner's attempt to do this had at least two faults:

• Whoever created the track inadvertently looped the music at times.
  
• The soundtrack stops for that brief moment in the final fight (admittedly audio tracks from other releases also have this fault/possible stylistic decision)