So the Criterion release of It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World has an almost complete version of the film, but there are scenes in which the picture element is missing. Which got me thinking - would it be possible to animate those missing scenes, like was done for some Doctor Who serials? It's an idea. And at the same time we could reinsert the other missing scenes exclusive to the LaserDisc versions, and possibly clean up the colours in other scenes if we can. Then there's the missing audio... we'll have to find a way to fix that. It's all something to think about, isn't it?

Hi !

I've just discovered your forum while searching for a movie and I'm glad I found this place. I never new such a forum existed. My first encounter with a fan restauration was Harmy's Despecialized Trilogy which you all know I guess. I hate those awful additions they made to the remastered SW movies, and now I'm discovering such great releases for a lot of movies I like (given the small tour I had on the website before posting this message).

By the way I'm French, please excuse my English !

Hello,
im a huge fan of this movie. Some Months ago, i wrote the the Carpenter Fanbase to ask them, if there is any chance they will release a 35mm Edit or something similar of their movie. Sadly they couldn't help me.

Are there any future plans of doing a 35mm edit of this Movie here on FANRES by someone? Im pretty sure, many ppl want to enjoy this Movie in a near cinema atmosphere.

Thank you

Jon

Hello everyone! :)

To those who don't know me from the bluray.com forum. I just want to let everyone here know I'm currently working with the UK company Eureka on their Hong Kong bluray releases. And I need your help! :)

I'm looking for someone who has a large HK laserdisc collection with the ability to rip audio.

I'm currently looking for the HK laserdisc of City Hunter put out by Star.

I want Eureka to use the impressive stereo audio from that LD as another option to go with the mono track. I was hoping that some of you on this forum might be able to supply a audio rip of this and for future releases.

If anyone can help please contact me ASAP
Thank you :)

A good friend introduced me to this phenomenal place, and I'm beyond impressed. All the work that is done here to restore films is truly amazing. I, myself, enjoy collecting and archiving old VHS tapes and LaserDiscs. I look forward to learning more about restoration and being a part of the community. Thanks.

This is more or less a copy of the thread in the In Progress-forum, except for the paragraph before the thumbnail comparison.

I remembered this movie somewhat fondly from my younger years. In particular I remember I found it rather creepy. 

When I watched the Blu Ray, I had none of that feeling anymore. Was almost like I was watching a different movie. It all felt very slapsticky and almost like a comedy.

Now, while that *is* partly how the movie actually is, a large part of that is the grading. It's much too bright and low-contrast on the Blu Ray. Looks almost cartoonish and rather unfilmic imo.

Found 6 35mm screens (of the actual reels) on eBay. Decided to use DrDre's tool to make a LUT out of those and the corresponding Blu Ray screenshots. Did that. Modified LUT a little in Photoshop: Reduced the input contrast to fix excessive contrast from a bad 35mm photograph and clipping etc., then compensated with curves after the LUT. Always works, heh. Also compressed and lowered the shadows to give a more dark/gloomy feel that resembles the 35mm. 

Overall from looking at it, I would say the differences in general are:
- Darker shadows (thus higher contrast and more facial definition and "atmosphere")
- Desaturated blues/cyans
- More saturation in reds/oranges and in general less color variety in tungsten-looking scenes

Source I used is the IT Blu Ray, the highest Bitrate source I could find. They all use the same master from what I can tell on caps-a-holic, so it was a simple matter of choosing the highest bitrate source.

Am quite satisfied with the result, currently uploading, will be putting up on Blutopia.

Also used a grain plate to make it a still a little more filmic and hide the compression artifacts on the original Blu Ray source. Audio is FLAC 5.1 (from the original DTS-HD MA, lossless transcode) and also a Dolby Headphone track I prepared from the original track with foobar2000 and the Dolby Headphone plugin; as always, took care to avoid clipping by setting the correct amplification in the plugin settings.

Thumbnail comparison:


Available on Blutopia now.

[Image: Lq9xA2B.jpg]

Capture of the PCM Surround soundtrack from Coming to America LaserDisc (LV 32157 I believe) and synced to the Paramount Blu Ray.

I did not capture it myself. Someone on another site known as "theswillman" created a LaserDisc preservation project. However the end product was only a DVD5, so the sound was compressed to AC3.

I requested separately to get hold of the PCM capture and he/she was happy to give it to me. The only information I have is "this is the raw PCM from the player TOSlink out, with nothing else done to it." and it was given to me in FLAC 24bit format. So I cannot guarantee it is bit-perfect.

I mostly just removed the side change silence and fixed a couple of instances of drift.

Also I don't have BD ripping capabilities so had to source the movie rip from elsewhere. I synced this PCM to the AAC 5.1 track from the rip. I hope it is accurate enough. When testing I notice the sync is not completely perfect with the video. Sometimes looks good, other times slightly out of sync. I thought it was my work but I notice it on the AAC too. I wonder if this is just normal as I don't normally pay so close attention when watching a movie.

An interesting article:

https://cinergie.unibo.it/article/view/7878

Ok, here is the idea: make a complete BD makeover for the amazing fundamental collection with menus, multiple tracks, scene selection and bonus extras.
This will be a standardized disc structure project so it wil be usable for other project unrelated to the Fundamental Collection.

Now I'm working on a complete mockup of the project in photoshop and illustrator to share with you guys and get feedback.
In parallel I'm working on some intro splash screens for the forum logo and for the Fundamental Collection one, if you have any ideas, please share them!

Some specs:

- Multilanguage menu: available in Deutsch, English, Español, Français, Italiano
- Scene Selection
- Language and Subtitle selection
- Video angle option to see the movie with official/fundamental color timing*
- Bonus and EasterEgg

*still lot of WIP to make this work but I think i can make it happen, maybe on a 50gb/100gb disc edition to preserve quality, or with a highly compressed official coloring track just to see the differences.