None of these are anywhere near as sophisticated as most of the incredible work that goes on around these parts, but I'm mostly making this thread to keep track of everything myself. I'm trying to do too many things at once, and a lot of them are tasks I don't yet have the skills to do properly, so it's starting to get really complicated. I'll keep this top post updated as things progress.



COMPLETED (pending any future revisions):

STAR WARS: Millions of Voices
A very large and reasonably comprehensive audio archive of the what I believe to be the best available audio for the Star Wars trilogy (1977–1983), including dozens of film audio options in multiple (lossless) formats and a large number of official and unofficial commentary tracks; version 3.0 is due out as soon as some new mixes appear from those actually making them, since I'm only really compiling files for archival and doing lossless decoding/encoding rather than actually editing mixes myself

HALLOWEEN: Evil Waits
A very conservative fan edit of Halloween (1978) to add a re-edited 1981 TV version scene as a prologue and restore the original mono audio

HALLOWEEN: A Symphony of Screams
A (comparitively much smaller) audio archive of the different audio tracks for Halloween (1978), including film audio, every official commentary track, and the music & effects only track from LaserDisc

NEAR DARK: a pipefan413 preservation
A presentation of the best available video and audio elements for Near Dark (1987), precisely re-synchronised, without any lossy re-encoding

SNOWPIERCER: preservation and translation
A presentation of the best available video and audio elements for Snowpiercer (2013), precisely re-synchronised, without any lossy re-encoding; also features custom subtitles translating all of the Korean dialogue in the film to English, except for sections that are already translated in the audio, and a large collection of re-synchronised international subtitles from official releases

ANATOMY OF A DEWBACK: upscale and framing correction
This is "done" except that I'm honestly not sure what the more "correct" framing is for this, because sources are few and all of them are terrible... once I decide, I'll declare it finished with and move on with my life (please help me)



IN PROGRESS, ONGOING:

ハチ公物語 (The Story of Hachikō): translation and audio repair
A presentation of the best available video and audio elements for ハチ公物語 (1987), with a new English subtitle translation which is taking me a long time to work through both due to the difficulty of doing this with my level of Japanese and the number of other things that I keep getting distracted with; the original Japanese audio is only available on one Blu-ray release, and even that is flawed (not least because of a big horrid audio glitch a few mins in that I'll need to fix)

TERMINATOR 2: theatrical audio mix re-sync to 2015 US Blu-ray Disc
This has already been done to most likely a higher standard than I'd manage (the AC-3 by @jonno and the DTS decoded to FLAC by @Chewtobacca) but I'm still interested in syncing the audio off the OOP 2008 2-disc French BD (DTS-HD MA 5.1) and the OOP 2003 Japanese DVD (1509 kbps DTS, but without decoding if possible) to the 2015 US BD and maybe the 2017 one but I can't see me wanting to watch that again. I'm up to my neck in missing frames at the moment, with all sorts of ridiculous screw-ups on every release (except the 2015 US BD which is actually pretty OK for the most part, but lacks the theatrical audio).



PLANNED / RESEARCH STARTED:

THE EXORCIST: The Version You've Almost Seen
An extended theatrical-and-then-some version of The Exorcist, with an audio mix more closely resembling the original presentation but with some of the additional scenes incorporated from the extended "Version You've Never Seen" cut with colour corrections to make the transitions somewhat less apparent

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK: audio re-sync / repair
This may end up being done by someone else because I'm trying to do too much at once but would at its simplest involve just patching over a gap in the CLV LaserDisc audio, or at most, potentially a full new cleanup, restoration and re-sync of 35 mm optical audio

BASKET CASE: re-stabilisation reinstating Analysis Film Releasing Corporation logo to the MOMA restoration
As described in the linked thread, the UK version of this film from Second Sight suffers from very very bad stabilisation on hard cuts such that the image is knocked out of position for about 3 or 4 frames on almost every single cut, but the US Arrow release doesn't have that issue. However, it does have a different issue (minor, but annoying): it's missing the Analysis Film Releasing Corporation logo from the very start. The logo does appear on the earlier scan for the Image Entertainment / Second Sight releases, so I'm looking to reframe that to fill the same aspect ratio as the Arrow version of the video (no stretching or cropping, just adding pixels around the edges) and stick it on the start of the later restoration, after chopping off the extra text from the start of the later release.

DOG SOLDIERS: audio repair and possibly full restoration from multiple sources
At least, this will hopefully fix the messed up audio on the German UHD release; at best, it will also restore the video to the correct levels (since they appear to be wrong and the blacks are washed out to hell), fix the colours, re-grain the image so that cuts between negative elements and lower-quality sources are less distracting, and stabilisation of hard cuts if needed (same problem as Basket Case above apparently, though I've yet to see any myself)

This is less of a full-on audiovisual restoration and more of a subtitle translation, but nonetheless, I want to ensure I'm utilising the best elements available. As always.

The only Blu-ray Disc releases I know of are a Japanese one from 2015 and a German one from 2019. I have no reason to believe that the video encodes are different, especially since German releases (in my experience) seem to lift existing video and plonk it on a disc, maybe with different audio and/or subtitles, but without actually doing any new encoding. There is at least one problem with the Japanese audio (a glitch a few minutes into the film that sounds like a sound card going nuts or something) that I would like to patch over, but the original Japanese audio (which on the Japanese disc is 2.0 LPCM) is completely absent from the German disc, which makes it pretty useless to me. So I'm looking for alternative sources.

There are sellers on eBay trying to punt extremely dodgy looking DVDs which I assume to be pirate copies, specifically from Greece (which has an extremely poorly doctored JPEG image instead of any photos) and Thailand (which appears to show a sealed DVD in a box but it's supposedly PAL and "region 0" with "very good quality" English subtitles). Otherwise, there is a French DVD that supposedly also has the original Japanese audio as Dolby AC-3. But, again, it's PAL. The only NTSC source I know of is a Russian DVD which I frankly don't trust as far as I can throw it either, and obviously Japanese DVD(s) that I can't easily (read: affordably) get into Europe.

To be fair, I doubt it really matters much considering the only bit I've found thus far that needs patched is about 13,522 samples = ~225.4 milliseconds = ~0.2 seconds, so it probably would still be significantly better if I just used a PAL AC-3 source, slowed it down without shifting the pitch, then inserted the missing samples from it. But it would of course be better to just use a source that's already NTSC in the first place. I expect this is extremely unlikely, but if anybody has a LaserDisc with PCM on it, I'd bite your arm off for a capture of that (the only one I can see any evidence of existing is VHP49510 which the LDDB has very little data on).

There probably won't be much going on in this thread, but I figure it might make sense to track as I go nonetheless. I might post the odd update as I pass certain hurdles or notice new issues that need fixing.

Hello! I'm a lover of classic films and I've been a lurker for a few years (could've sworn I've at least registered before). Mostly interested in preservation of movies, alternate cuts/presentations, etc.

I haven't fully decided whether I'll actually do this or not, but it annoys me enough to seriously consider it. I want to check other sources before proceeding though. My copy of BASKET CASE is the one released by Second Sight in 2012, which I assume to be sourced from the same master as the Image Entertainment release the year before, mostly due to them sharing an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (Blu-ray.com claims the Image one is 1.34:1 but the back of the box says otherwise). The thing that may render this project unnecessary is that there is also a more recent Arrow release from 2018, with a different aspect ratio (apparently 1.37:1). Anyway, I'll get to the point...

The original theatrical presentation of this film seems to have been matted to 1.85:1, but on the negative it's more like 1.37:1. When the elements were re-scanned for Blu-ray, apparently the director chose to open up the frame to show more of the image since he was unhappy with the 1.85:1 presentation. There's a problem, though: possibly as a result of this opened matte, or possibly due to some other reason which currently eludes me, the framing very severely jumps on almost every single hard cut in the entire film on the Second Sight Blu-ray Disc. To show you what I mean, here are some screenshots from QuickTime Player to show both the frame numbers and the extent of the problem I'm talking about:



As you can see, after the cut, the framing starts off high, then jumps very noticeably downwards, then goes back up again to somewhere in the middle. This takes place over about 4 frames. This happens over... and over... and over again, the whole way through the entire film. It's extremely annoying.

The Arrow release was a US/CA exclusive (perhaps due to the relatively recent non-limited-edition version of the Second Sight release having just come out a couple of years prior) so I never got a copy and it's now really expensive, meaning I haven't yet seen it to compare and check whether this same problem is present there as well. It is framed differently though, so it could well be a completely different scan, and may not necessarily have this problem.

Might anybody be in a position to help compare the Arrow and Second Sight / Image releases to work out if it's worth me attempting this rather tedious but potentially worthwhile project?

DOG SOLDIERS is one of my favourite films. I grew up watching horror and this is exactly the kind of mix of horror and black comedy that I love. But here's the trouble: there is no definitive release of this film.

It's a UK film, but since the UK is a PAL region, my DVD copy is not ideal. As far as Blu-ray goes, I think there was one US release from the old DVD master, and then after that Scream Factory did a new scan of a print in association with the director, which unfortunately looks really really poor because it is after all a scan of a 35 mm blowup a few generations away from the original 16 mm negative. The best visual fidelity to date is one Koch Media released in Germany last year, which is reportedly constructed from the original 16 mm negative (interesting because this was previously declared "lost", hence Scream Factory scanning a print). But even that has significant problems.

Some issues with the German UHD / 1080p release:

1. The video levels appear to be wrong, as if it was accidentally encoded with PC RGB levels (0 to 255) instead of standard home video limited levels (16 to 235). When you play it back, it's as if the player thinks it's limited but it's actually full, because blacks look extremely washed out and grey.
   
   
2. There appear to have been missing or damaged frames in the OCN elements somehow, because several frames seem to have been inserted from what looks like the Scream Factory (35 mm blowup) release, which makes the quality inconsistent.
   
   
3. Another inconsistency with the quality is that every time there's an optical effect, the generational difference between the actual negative elements directly from the camera and the several-generations-removed frames containing optical effects is extremely jarring, because there is so much additional grain and so on. This is normal enough for optical effects, but it's severe here because of the 16 mm to 35 mm blowup making the grain significantly more apparent.
   
   
4. Frequently when there is a hard cut, the new 2 or 3 frames are misaligned before the framing is then realigned and remains in place for the remainder of the shot. I found that the Second Sight open matte restoration of BASKET CASE had this same problem, which is also something I have a vague plan to fix (I'll probably crop it back to its original theatrical presentation which will mean I can stabilise each cut, but it'll take forever to do that). I may also consider doing the same with DOG SOLDIERS, but this would be extremely time consuming and tedious and I've got far too many things on my plate as it is.
   
   
5. The English audio has been screwed up pretty severely, with at least two moments I know of thus far where the music or some other part of the audio is completely out of sync, causing it to obscure or even completely replace dialogue. Around 00:03:25 or so, the music builds to a crescendo then stops abruptly in every other audio track (e.g. DVD, Scream Factory BD, and German 5.1 track off this release) but in the English 5.1 Koch has the music fall behind so that it's still blaring when a character speaks instead of being almost silent. There's a similar issue a few minutes later as well (as described here) where a helicopter sound is duplicated in place of an actual line of dialogue, which is subtitled but not actually present in the audio (Koch on left, Scream Factory on right):
   
   
   
   
6. The *German* audio seems to be sourced from a sped up PAL master, because it's all pitch-shifted upwards by ~4%. This makes it somewhat less useful for patching the English audio with, though not necessarily entirely useless.
   

Hey everyone, a while ago I thought to myself, 'Why is there no project for this?' So, I have decided to start this project. Williarob's friend has this in his collection, and we have been able to fund the other two so funding this will surely be no problem.

Williarob's friend also has a trailer to this, so that could be a nice little extra. 

Does anyone have the Japanese R2 Pony Canyon DVD? Supposedly has the best transfer of the original theatrical cut.

I can't find much info about it anywhere and would like to see some screencaps to see how it compares to the HK Mei Ah (bad port of laserdisc with burnt in subs).

There is supposed to be a custom DVD out there of the Japanese DVD with english subtitles which weren't included on the official release.

Wow. I was looking up Blu-Ray reviews for Kiss of the Dragon and I did not expect the image quality to be this poor. The picture quality is supposedly horrendous and lacking in detail which is a shame because I love Kiss of the Dragon. I know the movie is almost like a video game complete with "boss fights" but I've always loved it as a straight-forward, no-nonsense action movie. Kiss of the Dragon definitely deserves a better Blu-Ray release because it's an underrated gem I don't hear too many people talk about imo

Hello everyone,

I'll start by saying that I recall the thread Colek posted in regards to working on a similar project. I've not seen his release, just the screencaps that were posted here. But as I understand it, he doesn't have as much time to work on customs these days. I don't wish to step on anyone's toes, but I recall some comments made in my Supercop thread some time ago stating that the ABT remaster would look good with some scene by scene correction/tweaking. Would it be worthwhile for me to take a shot at it?

I should say that I don't have much in the way of resources for ABT's video (I think I've only got the blu-ray and the HK DVD (from the two pack with 'The Killer'), so if anyone knows of a release that has good/preferred colours, I'd be happy to hear any information, comments, and/or thoughts on it.

I've heard the story that John Woo approved the colouration that Ritrovata did for this remaster, but I've always wondered if what he saw on their monitors is the same as what we wound up getting.

Thanks!

Two different versions of PURPLE RAIN. Neither are synced and might need a touch of editing between sides but if you'd like to sync it to the latest BD release, please let me know.

PM me for links.

The VHS might sound just a little better but has a few moments of tape sounds here and there. Nothing some splicing can't handle. Regardless, they are probably closer to the original Dolby Stereo theatrical mix.

Movie: Purple Rain (1984)
Format: LD 11398
https://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/55659/11398/Purple-Rain
Output Soundtrack: 24-bit, 96khz, Stereo
Lineage: Pioneer LD 660 > e-mu 0404 > Audacity
Two recordings of this disc were made. One with CX engaged and one without CX engaged.
2.06 GB FLAC. I know 24/96 is probably overkill but with analog I'd rather be safe than sorry.


Movie: Purple Rain (1984)
Format: VHS (1995 release - 0085391139836)
Quality: VG
Output Soundtrack: 24-bit, 96khz, Stereo
Lineage: JVC SR-S365U > e-mu 0404 > Audacity

2.16 GB FLAC

Please PM me for links