As some of you maybe know, I’m working on a reconstruction of The Phantom Menace in full HD for more than one year. The goal of this project is to provide a 100% theatrical version of the movie, in 100% HD (not a single frame in upscaled SD, everything in real 1080p), as it was never released, except maybe a German HD broadcast that was never succesfully recorded.

Why do I talk about it now
Two reasons :

• I didn’t want to create a thread about it until my project was advanced enough. Well, I feel that it is now advanced enough ! I think it’s time to talk about it and share on this forum some sources, some personal techniques to recover missing scenes in HD, the results that I can get, and to discuss about it.
  
• Other similar projects are on the way (certainly Poita’s 35 mm scan and ChewieLewis HD reconstruction, and maybe other ongoing projects), so it seems to be a good time to talk about mine. While other projects are pursuing the same goal (providing a theatrical version of The Phantom Menace), they take different paths. I hope that when each project will be released, it will be possible to merge the various skills of everyone to achieve an ultimate version.
  

• The original theatrical colors are not available in HD: the HDTV version has too much red everywhere and contains some scene differently regraded than others ; the Blu-Ray was re-regraded on a scene by scene basis and has no more original color at all.
  
• Some scenes seem to be definitely lost in HD and only available in (poor) SD : arrival on Coruscant – with a view on Palpatine’s office (replaced by a taxi sequence), Palace of Naboo by night without an added CGI-bridge, and Senate scene with a cameo of Trish Biggar and Iain McCaig as Senators. Other scenes were reassembled differently in HD, or were available only on some bonuses, but they are not definitely lost. The scene of Qui-Gon on Tatooine by night was directly taken from Digital Video for HDTV and BR versions, contrary to the original 35mm version, so the colors are pretty different.
  

1. The original colors can be deduced from some versions, since LaserDisc, ORF1 broadcast, Euro Canal Plus broadcast and some bonuses on Blu-Ray or Digital Collection show the same range of colors (once they are well calibrated), that perfectly fit old photos taken from 35mm in early 2000. For the rest, the amazing DrDre’s Color Matching tool, and a lot of time, allowed me to do a scene by scene color regrading.
   
2. Missing scenes were painstakingly recreated in several steps :
   

• Widely enhancing video quality by using spoRv's PaNup technique (as described here) and merging together ORF1 broadcast, Euro Canal Plus broadcast, LaserDisc and VCD.
  
• Then, a very complicated technique of my own (whom I’m very proud of) that gives full HD frames.
  

• Everything was edited in 24p (not 23,976p), as it was shown in theaters almost 20 years ago.
  
• Every shot was upscaled in 4K using Super Resolution fo better HD-reconstruction, then downscaled to 1080p.
  
• Theatrical DTS sound was fully restored from theatrical DTS CD-ROM, without any other audio treatment than applying the APT-X100 post production recommendations (as found here).
  
• Theatrical Dolby EX 6.1 was fully restored from Laserdisc.
  

• Reassembling HDTV sources to theatrical cut : 100 %
  
• Rebuilding missing scenes (PaNup) : 100 %
  
• Rebuilding missing scenes (1080p) : 50 %
  
• Regrading colors : 70 %
  
• Syncing Audio (DTS, Dolby EX, PCM 2.0) : 00 %
  
• Misc (bonuses) : 00%
  

• Bootleg NYC (VHS, NTSC)
  
• Bootleg Z (VCD, NSTC)
  
• Official VHS release (NTSC)
  
• Official VCD release NTSC)
  
• Laserdisc (NTSC)
  
• Euro Canal Plus broadcast capture (PAL)
  
• ORF Ein broadcast (PAL)
  
• HDTV German Premiere broadcast (PAL 1080p) 
  
• Digital Collection
  
• HDTV UK broadcast
  
• screenshots, press and stage pictures…
  

• Harmy for the inspiration
  
• Nightstalkerpoet for his German HDTV source that he shared almost a year ago
  
• DrDre for his amazing Color Matching tool
  
• Althor1138 for his precious Laserdisc preservation that made me want to discover the amazing world of Laserdiscs a year ago
  
• spoRv for his PaNup technique and all the FanRes community
  
• Schorman for his HDTV 1080p preservation
  

All copies I've seen of this trailer have been pretty lousy quality.  I'd love to see a 35mm version of it.  I think it's one of the best trailers ever made (the 3-minute version).  Anyone able to hook me up with this?

I want to find a picture with good quality.

I already found a bad copy with hard subtitles:

[Image: 4982b131aecc5738c5ee8b3a325ed5e5.png]

IMDB

I will be very grateful for help.

I've been working on a regrade of this classic war film (probably the best war film ever).

I'm using, of course, ColorMatch to create the LUTs (more than a hundred!) and the DVD as reference (but not as a matching reference). Then, DaVinci Resolve for the final grading.

Very difficult to grade this film, as the BluRay has literally dozens of different gradings... or differently faded footage I should say, as it appears to be unrestored. There's one more thing that makes the grading even more difficult: dynamically graded (faded) footage (meaning that the grade/fade graduallly changes within a scene).

I'm still polishing some scenes... I'll post a message when it's finished.

A comparison gallery (BD/DVD/Regrade) can be found here: Comparison Gallery

Some pics of the results so far:

Hi,

I would like to request the extended version of Love, Simon if there's someone who is interested in making it. I'd be grateful. Thank you in advance!

Hello.

I have a project I was thinking of doing. Something simple. I've got a HD webrip (as far as I know, the film isn't available in HD beyond iTunes/streaming), along with a DVD of the version released in Japan (which has an exclusive scene). I'd like to upscale the Japan-exclusive scene and add it into the HD print. Then I'd colour correct the scene, and sync the audio from the longer DVD version.

The HD version is an .mkv. Which video editor would be optimal for editing the additional scene in, without reducing the quality of the mkv (if possible)?

Thanks.

I am trying to recreate the opening logo fonts for Thle Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, unfortunately, the logos as well as their international versions were created by Alan Lee and are handwritten, so no complete digital reference.
But here is the catch, because Lee created all the international variants it's possible to reconstruct a font from them (most probably from the Lord of The Rings, I don't have much hope for Tthe Hobbit, too few letters).

I hope some of you may provide me with international localized sequences in order to accomplish this job

The oldest torrent still active, now shines of new life in 4K
Original project from: http://takeovertheworld.org/matrix/
More about on TorrentFreak: https://torrentfreak.com/the-matrix-asci...ld-131220/

When i discovered this piece of internet history I couldn't resist
The first idea was to upscale the original with some good upscaling algoritm, but because the high compression of the source material it was quite impossible (hey, ascii art when animated behaves like random noise! who could imagine such thing?).
Original:

Filtered and Upscaled


So I changed my mind and decided to rebuild it from the ground up.

After testing various virtualdub and avisynth filters I think I found a good setup.

Here is a teaser, tell me what you think and what you want changed: I'm open to suggestions!



Password: THEM4TR1X

Next themed projects: The Complete Matrix trilogy in ASCII, The Matrix in ASCII Open Matte (why not?), The Matrix ASCII with theatrical 35mm colors
Which one you prefer to see first?

I don't know how to make a subtitle stream in PGS format that has black bars as subtitles.
If someone can please create them for the movie Transformers: The Last Knight, I'd appreciate it.

The constant shifting in aspect ratio is just very annoying. I'd rather view it in a constant ratio.

Would the subs need to be mastered for 4K or is that irrelevant?

#update#

largest aspect ratio looks like 2.29:1 - taking screenshots from the blu-ray and then cropping the black bars
gave a res of 1920x840px

so for uhd the black bars should be for a aspect ratio of 3840x1680px

A bit too dramatic?
Maybe, but it's true: I don't know how I only discovered this forum a week ago!
Now some presentations: I am a film student from Italy and I love re-editing and restoring films that had passed some bad times with the italian distribution.
(actually my nickname is a joke: in italian asciugamano is the word for towel, so AsciugaMan is something like TowelMan, the superhero with the power of wipin' off the film distribution errors and bring back the original glory of cinema...)
Recently I started a restoration project for something a bit odd: for the most of you this probably means nothing, but "Lo Svarione egli Anelli" may be a fun memory for the italian users out here.

Well, I've said what I have to say so I'll go back to my projects that I hope to share here soon.

Cheers to all!