...what do you want to see included?

I mean: a forum? Articles with explanations of open matte and other aspect ratios? Screenshot comparisons? [fill the blanket]?

SHOOT!

Project Info:
Ok this is in the proposal stage since I want to hear some thoughts about what to include with this project.

Long story short, Zoidberg made a cap of his UK Virgin VHS tape of T1.

Zoidberg's VHS Cap


He said it was clearly from a release print since it had reel change markers. Now that doesn't mean that it is color accurate to a release print but it could be. The tape is still very, very green but unlike the current BD, brings back a lot of those Cameron blues.

The big question for me is what should I include on the audio side. I want to askew the 5.1 remix as it is terrible with its new gun sounds. So that would mean going with the mono soundtracks. With that in mind, here is the current list of ideas I have:

Video:
Take the colors of the tape regrade the BD and combine that with the luma of the BD for certain scenes and with a little polish from the 35mm frames that have been collected

Audio:
1. PCM 2.0 Mono (from the Image WS LD)
2. PCM 2.0 Mono (from the Japanese WS LD)
3. DTS-HD MA 2.0 (from the 2001 MGM SE DVD)
4. DTS-HD MA 2.1 (from the 1998 Image DVD)
5. DTS-HD MA 5.1 (from the BD)

Sync:
US BD with ENG subs

Contributors and Thanks:
Zoidberg - for the VHS Capture
TServo - for the 35mm frames
MrBrown- for the German, French, Image and other LD captures
spoRv- for the Italian cap
Stamper- soundtrack support
BusterD- for soundtrack

I usually prefer lossless audio so I didn't notice yet, but I did a few experiments on Mission Impossible: Fallout and was surprised how jarring the difference was.

What I tried was MPC-HC and VLC. I included both the original AC-3 track and a FLAC track, which is just the AC-3 track converted with ffmpeg with the "drc_scale 0.0000000" option.

In MPC-HC they both sound pretty underwhelming, not sure why.

In VLC, the FLAC track sounds very noticeably better.

And don't take my word for it, here is proof that I'm not imagining it (just recorded the playing audio via Audacity):


In VLC, I disabled DRC in the A/52 codec settings (A/52 is a synonym for AC-3 afaik) and also normalization in general. Logically both outputs should have been identical, but they were not, as you can see. The dialogue seems about the same in volume, but the gunshots afterwards are very clearly attenuated while playing the AC-3 version. In fact, as you can tell, the second gunshot should actually be even louder, but in the AC-3 version it's quieter than the first one!

As a result the AC-3 sounds very boring while the FLAC sounds very exciting and dynamic. Really makes quite the difference.

Just to clarify, in MPC-HC I also disabled all normalization and AC-3 DRC options I know of.

So all in all, I don't currently see any good way to properly play AC-3 on a computer without transcoding it by hand. Of course this is no justification to distribute bloated FLACs instead of the raw AC-3, but it does create a real problem at least for playback purposes.

How do you guys deal with this? Do you all have Dolby Decoders and use bitstreaming or play directly via Blu Ray players? And if so, how do you know your players aren't doing the same thing?

https://retro-hd.com/media/cache/landsca...darin.jpeg

John Carpenter should actually love this lamp! I have seem it on Big Trouble in Little China and Halloween for sure, almost surely on Escape from New , and probably on The Thing...

Anyone noted it on other movies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_and_Je...Avery_Too!

With this CD, we can make isolated music tracks for the 50s Tom and Jerry cartoons, as well as the Tex Avery ones if you want! All I'd need to do is sync the music up to the cartoon, cutting extended parts as necessary. And the best part is, some of these tracks are in stereo too! Too bad there weren't any follow-ups to this album...

I heard about the fact Buffy in HD had some problems, but I had not investigated about this since lately... and the situation is a lot worst than X-Files, for example...

First, follow these links to get an idea (if you don't know anything about this):
https://horrorbuzz.com/2016/12/02/buffy-...reactions/
https://buffy.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:...%27s_HD%3F
http://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2015/03/...d-but.html

So, in few words, here are the problems:

Aspect ratio 
Joss Whedon clearly stated that Buffy was intended to be shown in 4:3 (hence, 1.33:1 is its OAR) - apart one episode, "Once more with feeling", which had to be in widescreen.

HD version often crop abruptly the image, leaving important parts outside - sometime on all four sides! - while other times zoom in, worstening the previous situation... other times has more image on sides but less on top and/or bottom; in few (or many?) occasions, crew and stage things could be seen...

Here you can have an idea of the different framing sizes - a playlist of all seasons: 
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL...0VcR8OLytw

Color grading
Not only colors are different in HD, but often brightness too; there are some scenes that used some filters that perfectly showed up in SD, while completely ruined in HD (like some day for night scenes); sometimes, brightening shots reveal stunt doubles...

DNR
It seems it is set too high, and the usual "wax skin" problems arise often.

SFX
Some special effects are remade from scratch; even if some are great, others seems out of place, like when vampires are killed - in SD, they became dust, in HD they seem to evaporate!

What could be the solutions?

Aspect ratio
The ideal solution would be to use the OAR - or, better, IAR of 1.33:1. Even if I agree, I'd prefer to get best of both world - as you can see in the previous videos, it could be wise to use UAR to get more image, or overlay HD version on top of SD when HD frame is contained inside SD, to get more resolution.

About crew and stage things - and unwanted character: whenever possible, I'd digitally mask them whenever possible, or crop the affected side(s).

Color grading
I'd use SD as color and contrast reference; only in case HD had a better color (it seems some episodes in the later seasons have it), I'd leave it as is.

DNR
A nice grain plate from film always help!

SFX
I'd leave the old "dust" ones, and eventually use the new ones - of course, taking in account UAR or hybrid version.

Video sources for SD would be NTSC DVD 1.33:1 (seasons 1 to 7), PAL DVD 1.33:1 (seasons 1 to 3), PAL DVD 1.78:1 (seasons 4 to 7); for HD, there are various ones; I guess the best ones should be WEB versions like Amazon, Netflix, iTunes, but there are various HDTV versions like Pivot, French 6TER, and SyFy; eventually, they could be combined to get better quality.
Audio source could be DVD - at least, it has several foreign versions; also, it could be used to get related subs.

Just written this article to discuss about a possible restoration - it doesn't mean I'd do this, though!

The Whole Nine Yards 35mmized 2000 1080p Cinema DTS +Dolby Headphone i444 10bitx264

+ 35mm Trailer Scan
+ Extras
+ Press Photo Scans
+ French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, Czech, Hindi audio (Hindi has poor sync & quality tho)
+ Commentary Track

The two best sources (HDTV & AMZN WEB-DL) combined with a grainplate and a 35mm-like color grading and the Cinema DTS audio.



More details (put in spoiler tag):

Includes the theatrical 70mm 6-track mix (in DD 5.1)!!

I decided to start a new thread for this rather than the VHS thread. Anyways everyone knows the story. I've been doing endless trial and error with VHS captures blah blah blah and the one program that just about everyone has agreed I should use, even on other sites, is VDub. I had mentioned before I had tried VDub and there was two aspects of it I didnt like it which I'll detail below. But this time I decided to be a fair man and give VDub another shot but figured I'd seek tips and assistance.

Anyways the two main reasons I passed on VDub was the framing looks slightly off and it has that dreaded interlaced effect that I hate.



For comparison here's the same shot again from the same tape and capture device only this time captured through Roxio Creator NXT 6.



Note there's somewhat more image on the right and the combing effect is absent?? But again I wanna be fair considering how many times VDub has been recommended. Someone on another site said I'm supposed to remove that effect afterwards and not to have it done off the cuff. I find this a little redundant when there are capture programs that will capture without that effect but again I wanna be fair. So that's why I seek help again. What are the suggested methods for getting that right?? My editing program of choice these days is Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 5.0. Also what about the framing?? Is the framing more accurate on VDub??

I had a private question about this, so here's a quick guide on how to stabilise your film scans.

First go and grab Davinci Resolve and Blackmagic Fusion. Two terrific free products. You can load your clip in Fusion or use the Fusion tab in Resolve it's up to you, but I'll be using Fusion stand-alone.


Here is a video guide:



You can do it that way, but it is preferable to use the film perfs if available. For one thing the perfs always appear the same (except when damaged), whereas the image border might change or disappear throughout the film.

Here is an example with a generic 16mm source at 2K (2048x1556). Starting with the first frame we place two trackers at a curving point on the film perfs:



If this was 8mm we would simply place both trackers on the same perf one at the top and one at the bottom. As you see we have another curving point at the bottom of the top film perf where we could place a 3rd tracker, and in fact it wouldn't be a bad idea to do this. More trackers equals better result. Notice that the trackers are quite small - there's a reason for this. The image on the film appears very close to the edge, and I don't want the film image being considered as a part of the trackers so it is narrow enough that it won't happen. Also because this scan is already pretty steady the search area only needs to be quite small - but if you have a less steady scan you may need a wider search area.

As per the Youtube video we set up the Operation settings:



And then go back to the Trackers tab and click the "track forward from current frame" button:



And that's it. If your tracking points are good and the perfs aren't damaged etc your output should now be steady. If things go awry you may need to split the footage up into chunks and process different bits separately.