Hello fellow film fans,
I wanted to introduce myself as a new member and film lover who is incredibly happy to have found this website with all of these amazing (and important!) film preservation projects.
Quick Background, I first became aware of this great community when the very first Despecialized edition introduction video was released about 3 years ago.  Being a star wars fan I quickly sought out those projects and was blown away by both the finished project and really just the effort and craft that went into 'fixing' those original theatrical versions.  I soon discovered that there were more film projects and preservation's just like it and am very excited to continue to explore and support these efforts.
I was marginally active a few years ago on another website that I only recently discovered is no longer there (place that spelled 'the' like 'teh') checking out a handful of projects.

I am still a little green on where I can actually find these amazing projects that people are posting about here so any info about how that works would be much appreciated!
In particular I was a huge fan of original sporv "The Thing" release and I see that it has since been updated with a better source since i last checked it out.
That and I am very eager to check out any posting of the old Cameron movies that have been regraded/restored.  In particular 'Aliens' as I seem to think that's the worst offender when it comes to excessive tampering with the original colors.
....or in other words, I HATE TEAL!

anyway i'm rambling and could ramble about film all day but just wanted to say I am happy to have found you great people again and am very much looking forward to checking out more projects! (when i figure out where to find them : /)

best,

: j

Update - August 1, 2020: The scope of the project changed from a preservation of an "official" extended version and veered into extended fanedit territory - now titled "JAWS 2 - Extended Integral Edition" - Winner of fanedit.org's Favorite Edit of the Month for June 2020 https://www.fanedit.org/ridgeshark-wins-...020-feotm/

https://ifdb.fanedit.org/jaws-2-extended...l-edition/



Original Thread Title: JAWS 2 - Extended Edition - 1080p Presentation


I've been chiseling away, trying to bring the deleted scenes of JAWS 2 to the world of 1080p - one way or another.  Currently I have these sources:

1) Personal Recording - an LP speed VHS recorded off TBS circa 1991.  Looks decent, except for some wavy frequency noise in the image.  I can filter this out still retain a fair amount of detail.  A bit handicapped by the LP speed - didn't quite max out the potential resolution a VHS can offer, but still not bad.  Unfortunately, I just discovered that TBS sped up this broadcast and the interlace patterns are all out of wack.  A regular IVTC does not appear possible.

2) Homemade DVD-R (3.94GB) - This is the one that was shared on myspleen and demonoid.  A later recording off TBS.  The actual VHS tape itself appears superior to mine, however there are MPEG-2 Artifacts and a lot of detail has been filtered away.  This is not sped up and runs with the proper telecine interlace patterns that easily allows 24p extraction.  It would be great to get a hold of this VHS and make a new transfer, but I have no idea who created the DVD-R.

3) Brazil TV Recording - Low quality mp4 from a marketplace trader in Brazil.  Frame blended 29.97fps.  Has unique footage not in the US-TV cut.

4) Official Blu-ray and DVD - has a few deleted scenes in 2.35:1 widescreen

My plan is for the presentation to all take place inside the standard 16:9 frame at 1080p.  The 2.35:1 and 1.33:1 footage will remain as-is - no cropping of either.  Not a perfect solution, but preferable to further cropping IMHO.  Here's a proof of concept using the deleted underwater helicopter attack sequence:

How you can help -

1) I would like additional VHS recordings of the US TV Cut since my copies have significant flaws.  I would prefer a higher-quality SP recording.  If nothing turns up, I'll use what I have.

2) Same with the Brazil version - I would prefer to get high quality transfer off the first VHS release by CIC in Brazil that unknowingly featured this longer version.  It's very rare and has yet to turn up on eBay since I first started looking out for it.

3) I need a translator for the few exclusive scenes in the Brazil version.  We'll include those with English subtitles.

4) AviSynth assistance of any kind.

Thanks for looking!

Hello Fan Res.

Its me again asking for all your help with a conversion method
It does not directly connect to a fan project I'm working on, but could come handy for that in the future.

Long story short, I was doing a live event video shoot as a favor for some friends and one of the cameras was recorded in 60i (29.976)!
The rest and delivery format is 24p (23.976).

Does anybody know of the best method to convert 60i to 24p?
I was following some Avisynth scripts up when searching on google but all led to dead ends

Thanks once again for your time.

(Im a Premiere user and use Avisynth + if that helps)

Anyone ever had problems with sync drift when separately capturing analog audio and video?

Lately I've been backing up some VHS tapes using my Sony Blu-ray recorder. It records in h264 instead of MPEG-2, which is great for someone like me who has little experience with video encoding. But it only records audio in 256kbps AC3, so I've been using my M-audio 2496 sound card to record the audio to PCM at the same time. Only thing is, when I try to sync up the video from the recorder with the audio from the PC, even after I sync the start times, the PC recorded audio drifts forward out of sync at about a rate of 40 milliseconds every 10 minutes, which becomes pretty noticable after a while. Now that I think about it, Jonno had similar problems with a capture of an analog-only LD that I made for him a couple years ago using the same equipment.

Not sure why the sync drift occurs, or how I could prevent it... I also investigated an LD I recently recorded with digital audio, and there's also a slight sync drift, but it's only about 30ms for every hour of video.

Guess I'll just have to cut bits of silence here and there whenever I want to make a backup with lossless audio. I probably won't notice the difference, so I guess I'll only bother with titles I really care about.

I'm restoring episodes of Thundercats and in the last Annointment trial the last few shots have some vertical lines down the image. They wobble very slightly but are pretty static. Based on the attached pic, can anyone recommend a filter or process to automatically remove them from the picture to some extent?

Attached Files

Thumbnail(s)
   

NetFlix are streaming a remastered X2 which may or may not be the basis for the UHD release later this year. It looks to be cleaner/more detailed, with that recent '4K' look that many of the recent Fox catalogue titles have been receiving. The colour grade is different to the existing blu-ray also, so it will be interesting to see if this translates to the UHD also.

I capped the 23.976 stream and gave it an RGB regrain to help with the compression artifacts. The final encode is blu-ray compliant and syncs perfectly to the blu-ray (no dropped or extra frames). It will fit onto a BD-25 (just!)

Thanks to Jetrell Fo I am pleased to include the original DTS Cinema Theatrical Mix! The files were converted to usable 44.1kHz wavs in foobar, all other conversions were done with eac3to. The audio was synced in Audacity and a full-bitrate Coherent Acoustics file was encoded with ffdcaenc.

No other tracks/subs are included but remember the project is 100% synced to the blu so other tracks can be easily muxed in.

Container:  MKV 1080p (21.9GB), Chapter stops as per official Blu Ray
Video: x264, Blu Ray Compliant, Average Bitrate 22Mb/s
Audio: DTS 5.1, Full Bitrate 1.5kb/s

Thanks again to Jetrell Fo for supplying the DTS iso files.

Some screenshots:

I have a Nakamichi DE-1 RF Demodulator, and a Audiophile 2946. I was able to easily capture the digital 2.0 LPCM over coax digital-out with Audacity. But whenever I try to get 5.1 it just never works right for me.

I've seen a few people on this forum say they've used this particular soundcard so maybe they can help.

My M-Audio Control panel for my soundcard will display that SPDIF meters always at max volume (don't know if this is good or bad?) and has the sync source set to locked and correctly picks up the audio Hz at 48000

I've tried recording it in multiple different softwares and none seem to work, at most I can get it 2 record 2 channels with white noise (but not 5.1 channels).

If anyone could help with this with steps, programs, etc used it would help greatly. My worst fear is that the AC-3 Demodulator might not be working correctly 

Hi everyone!! I stumbled across this amazing forum randomly while researching material for my own little projects. I'm beyond amazed, I never thought I could find such a place.

I'm italian and I have quite a digital collection that I keep expanding daily, but most of the time I have to make adjustments to the material I find (audio and video cropping, sync problems, bad video versions and so on...).

I also often find myself having to work on the italian audio sync of my material since the italian releases usually have bad video sources (I keep every movie with double audio and subtitles - ITA,ENG - even though I only watch with the original audio, but I'm not the only one enjoying the content  ).

Lately I have been fooling around with the Open Matte copies of various movies that I discovered online, and I guess that's how I actually found this place.

If I may, I could actually use a little help via PM regarding the magical places where to find all of your amazing projects, since I read in various topics the words "released!" or "in the vault", not understanding the actual meaning

Thanks! I can't wait to roam around the forums to discover your amazing work and interacting with you all!

P.S. I read that the forum admin is italian, so, I guess that's a plus?

Hello.
It has been mentioned that Eureka were erroneously given an audio track that was claimed to be original mono, but was actually a remix. Does anyone know what the best sounding source for the original mono would be?

The mono from the Japanese laserdisc is very good, but the audio itself has some differences to the HK release's audio (also taking into account the fact that the Japanese cut is an extended version).

Many thanks!

The Police Story 1 and 2 blu-ray set will be out on Monday. But I found out when I read the reviews at Blu-ray.com the color grading is wrong. It's from the same restoration team who did the A Better Tomorrow trilogy. Could anybody do a regrade of these films using the best color wise copies available?