So meanwhile, at the WB ranch:

It's time to finally release the Cinemascope (and standard widescreen) versions of SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS. Warner Brothers in 2003 felt, just as they did with iconic film "2001", that the audio could be improved on. Fidelity is now a tick better, but superior to the original mix? Ehhh ... no.

Directional dialog is now less or occasionally absent when compared to the original mix.  And with WB working from stems again, mistakes can and did happen.  

Not my Youtube production, but illustrates the issue perfectly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFceUSsi3GA


Shocking, right?  But at least WB included the original 4.0 mix, like all Fox bluray releases?  Ehhh .... no.

Just curious if anyone has any techniques for this. It's frustrating to me that Prisoner of Azkaban is alone in having NO Open Matte shots. I can't bring myself to watch the Open Matte version in my marathons (though Sporv's valiant effort is much appreciated), because I know that I'm gaining at most a couple lines top and bottom, while missing the sides. Was wondering if there was a viable option out there to creating open matte shots from up/down panning shots, then reintroduce the pans at a slower rate to show a 16:9 image (or any potentially larger frame size than OAR) whenever possible.

Here's a comparison I made quickly. Green text on red background. One is the original, the other is with color subsampled by resizing to 50%, then upscaling again.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/114893

In the worst case scenario (extreme color contrasts) this is what you lose with stuff like 4:2:0. The picture that originally looked sharp and defined and like true HD now looks more like a good DVD. Despite full luminance resolution.

Now that we have UHD Blu Rays, we can scale them down to 1080p and have full 4:4:4 colors. It doesn't make a difference in most scenes. But it can make a huge difference with some art elements or fine colorful details. 

Hence this thread shall stand as my personal advocacy for 4:4:4 encoding of projects wherever the source justifies it. Which includes, of course, 35mm scans.

Hey all,

I just want folks know that I am relegated to using my notebook at this point while I search out a new motherboard/cpu combo and video card for my PC.  I have received one or two pm requests for cinema DTS stuff that I will work to get out for projects but other than that I will still be limiting my time posting here for my own reasons.

Thanks for the patience.  I will answer pm's that I get but I want my PC back so I will be working diligently to make it so.

 

Shawn

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.

Thumbnail comparison:

Cuts removed/added/extended :

• Thundercats "Lost Intro" (restored).
  Thundercats talk on the space ship before fetching Lion-o (restored).
  Tygra's line about the Eye of Thundera being a myth (restored).
  Cheetara identifies the mutants by their ship insignias (restored).
  The mutants talk before boarding the Thunderctas space ship (restored).
  Jaga confronts some reptilian mutants (restored).
  Slithe threatens Lion-o in the sword chamber (restored).
  Panthro talks about looking for a new planet to live on (extended).
  Jaga piloting the ship to third earth (extended).
  Loin-O trying to remember the contents of the suspension capsules before confronting the mutants (restored).
  Wily Kit and Wily Kat fight the mutants before they transport back to their ship (restored).
  Scene with the mutants exploring third earth in their ship prior to meeting Mumm-Ra (removed).
  Sub-plot about the Gigantors and the Trollogs from "Berbils" (removed).
  Mid episode cliffhangers (removed).
  Unecessary start and end credits (removed).
  Some music cues are different from in the stand alone version of the episodes.
  

I'm not sure if anyone else noticed or not but the newer ROTLD BD from Shout Factory has it’s end credits edited to match the replacement song they used because they couldn’t acquire the original song for this release. The song in question is The Damned - “Dead Beat Dance” and the song they replaced it with is The Straw Dogs - “Young, Fast Iranians”. It wouldn’t be such a big deal but the thing is the new BD looks fantastic and has better framing, less damage and just more detail thanks to the new scan. The UK Second Sight BD looks great but is not as nice looking and has too much chopped off in terms of framing. However, it does include the complete original soundtrack in PCM. I have both the SF and SS UK BD and between them both it could be fixed by someone who knows what they’re doing. I would need some pointers if no one else would want to take this job on. I honestly see this as an easy job for anyone who can simply color match the UK BD to the US BD and then resize it to match the US BD framing to just edit the song credit back in. Any feedback and pointers will be appreciated. Thanx.

PS: It also would be nice to add the original Orion intro back into the front, that was simply cut out from this release. Not a deal breaker but would be a nice added fix.

Second Sight UK BD with original end credits:
[Image: 00001.0149_zpsxjwb9qfz.png]

Shout Factory BD with edited end credits:
[Image: 00002.0182_zps5ojoqa90.png]

I'm just watching the previously "lost" (at least in Italy, according to Rai Movie) debut film of Peckinpah, "The Deadly Companions".

So, the Italian dubbing is modern. I found it inappropriate, dunno why... maybe because they used "wrong" voices, and/or modern words/terms which seems out of place for an almost 60yrs old film...

Have you experienced a recent dubbing of an old film? If so, what do you think?

I just read that Nolan is red-green colourblind.

So the way we see the movies, is not at all the way he sees them.

I wonder how interesting it would be to filter the movies in such a way that they resemble what he would see if he saw them.

I finally watched this movie in UHD, now that I have a proper display; I also "resurrected" an old basic home theater setup - far from hi-end, but still nice.

Well, I am pretty sure I'm one of the few who prefer the Godzilla monster of this movie against the old, fat, slow, poor Japanese puppets - and the improved 2014 version - so, beat me for that!

Said so, this version is nice; CGI is well done, story is nice, acting is good, and audio-visually is still a pleasure to watch it twenty years after.

Can't say how much better is this UHD version in comparison to FHD BD; but I can say it's great! Even if "only" SDR H264 8bit, average bitrate is around 68mbps with peaks around 170mbps; every small detail is there, colors seems right, and it has a very filmic look.

Next step: grab a UHD-BD player, along with few movies, and finally watch a HDR UHD movie in its glory!