EDIT: Original thread title was "[Proposal] Pick a Halloween resync!" but after THE EXORCIST was selected, the thread has basically turned into me analysing the various LaserDisc audio tracks for that film and detailing the process of creating new resyncs for them. I could potentially branch it off into a new thread entirely, but I figured I'd already put so much of that kind of stuff here that it would be weird unless those posts were also moved. Admins/Mods: by all means let me know if you'd rather move the more Exorcist-specific posts in this thread into a separate one, and I'll edit accordingly to contextualise that.

Many of my previously started / researched projects are either sort of on hold indefinitely while I focus on capturing various LaserDiscs and in most cases resyncing audio to something else. But it's October, we're rapidly approaching Halloween, and I'd like to get at least one or two resyncs done in time for the 31st. But I can't decide which one(s) to prioritise because there are so many that I'm excited about.

So I think it might be worth putting this to a vote!

Here is a selection of some of my more horror-y LDs that I've either already captured or plan to capture this month. I'm still relatively new to doing full resyncs from scratch so I'm not working very quickly (or maybe I am? I don't really know!) but in any case I won't get all these done before the 31st. Pick one, and if you have a second choice, let me know your two picks in the thread! All the digital ones will be bit perfect digital rips (largely thanks to @bronan's test kit and helpful posts on that subject).



THE EXORCIST (1973) original mono, analogue [10JL-1007 *and* NJEL-01007]



@The Aluminum Falcon did a resync of the first pressing audio for his excellent theatrical cut restoration but due in part to the lack of availability of the LD video, prioritised the surround track made for the later 70 mm re-release. I'd like to see the original mono given some love so I've bought *both* pressings of the Japanese LD with the original mono track, and have captured them both multiple times (with the video) to ensure good coverage and so on.


ERASERHEAD (1977) original mono, analogue [NDH-101]



Yes, the actual mono track. No, not the Dolby Stereo remix overseen by Lynch, which might be subjectively "better" for all I know but certainly is not what was heard in 1977. This is a new one afaik. One of my players has an issue playing side 2 for some reason but the other has no such problem and the disc is spotless so I dunno what's going on there.


HALLOWEEN (1978) original mono, digital [AML-0040]



The Criterion mono was already captured and resynced by @spoRv as 1.0, but I'd still like to capture and resync this later Japanese version, keeping it as 2.0 for the sake of archival, partly to see if it's meaningfully different to the Criterion one. The existing resync is the only way I'll watch this film at the moment, because the only post-LD release of the mono is on an OOP US Blu-ray and even that has been assaulted by noise reduction that takes all the power out of it.


THE EVIL DEAD (1981) original mono, digital [STLI-3001]



The existing BD-targeted resync is from the analogue track, whereas the digital track has only been resynced to the UHD as far as I know. I don't have the UHD mostly because I don't have a UHD display nor the desire to have anything in 4K for viewing purposes, so I don't really want to be watching everything resampled to 8-bit and SDR in real time in case that causes issues. I'd potentially be resyncing the digital mono to the fullscreen German Blu-ray, most likely, which is identical to the fullscreen US Blu-ray as far as I'm aware. However, it might be good to resync to DVD video which hasn't had Rob Tapert removed from the side of the bridge and the moon optical shots fixed, because it really irritates me that those things were changed; I have the PAL 1.85:1 DVD from Anchor Bay and the NTSC 1.33:1 DVD from Elite, most likely the 1.33:1 will be my preference but I've not watched them to compare yet.


NEAR DARK (1987) original Ultra Stereo, digital [ID6585HB]



I previously restored NTSC DVD audio to the French/German Blu-ray video, but this is the holy grail: the original Ultra Stereo in lossless PCM, rather than 192 kbps Dolby AC-3. As far as I'm aware, this LD is the only lossless release of this track ever to see the light of day.



There's also another one that I'm quite excited about, but I don't yet have a video to go along with it, so I think it'll have to wait:

BRAINDEAD (1992) original Dolby Stereo, digital [PILF-1822]



I don't know if this has ever had an uncut HD release, but supposedly the UK version remained uncut so maybe the 97-minute runtime on Blu-ray.com is either incorrect or accounting for PAL speedup. In any case, this LD is uncut at 104 minutes. The 97-minute Blu-ray releases in the US and AU are long OOP I think, and I don't have either, just that DVD.

Recently found this website after spending the last year or so surfing Original Trilogy. I find the work you guys do here fascinating, and is definitely up my street. I do want to get involved and not just be someone that takes from here, but I don't know how much help I could be currently (what with a poor computer and probably even poorer software skills). But over time I do want to change that and be a real team player. 

You've all been lovely so far, and I am glad I've found this forum. Hope you're all doing okay with all that is going on! 

The Thin Red Line (1998) DVD R1 2.0 synced to Criterion BD

Most natural. Better sound? More details?

I'm thinking of a taking a crack at making an open matte project based on a few sources but I'm confused on how people achieve such seamless blending. I consider myself pretty well versed when it comes to video and post production but fail to see how people combine different sources found online to create more picture.

In the example below you can see three sources. I have no idea how it's possible even with manual eye matching to blend these 3 sources perfectly. Also, are people doing this kind of work with every shot manually? Maybe this is more work then I signed up for!

I've read a few threads in here but fail to see how any software can algorithmicly combine sources perfectly without a human touch.

Any insights welcome!

The channel 'FX' aired movies on network television.  They would show deleted scenes in between commercial breaks and air different cuts of the movie.
Sometimes this stuff is seen nowhere else, which seems to be the case for Iron Man 1.

I remember a lot more time in the cave before the escape starts.  At one point, the fat guy that later says "shoot this dog" gets shot in the head and still re-appears later.
Longer holds and extra shots throughout the movie on the more technical stuff.

Has a TV rip of this ever appeared? 
Have any additional scenes not released on retail discs popped up in other cuts or rips?

Hi guys.

I recently finished a regrade of the true 1080p japanese bluray. The goal was to get rid of the yellow tint on some scenes and fix the brightness.

I used the Dragon Dynasty BD as a general source for color. And also the Criterion DVD as reference for the scenes that should have a yellow tint and the ones that shouldn't (the Criterion has cigarette burns, which means it's sourced from a print, although it looks like shit).


I managed to get the Laserdisc mono audio track, much better than all the awful multichannel remixes, and also the english subtitles from the the old ADC remux (true subtitles, not dubtitles).


Audio:

1.- Cantonese LD Mono. 2.0 Wav

2.- Cantonese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

3.- Spanish DD 2.0

4.- Cantonese AC3 5.1


Subtitles.

1.- Spanish

2.- English


Pics: Gallery (61 pics)  Gallery

The Elephant Man DVD R2 2.0 audio synced to UHD 4k Studio Canal.

More noise. More details.

Does this audio file appear to be Mono? I'm not sure. But it is the best audio I have found. Perhaps Laserdisc is better.

Criterion's Blu-ray audio is similar to UHD. It looks very muffled, a lot of filtered noise.

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.