OK, this movie is into my HDD since many years... I thought to start a project about it several times, but any time there was the announcement "Blu-ray will be released..." and I left it behind, and regularly the BD never appeared, so... maybe it's time to do it!

This will use the WEBdl as main source; the logo is deleted using HDTV; film scan is used as color reference and, despite the fact it's letterbox, color regrade *seems* quite good - should check the whole film when it will be ready - quite close to film; this is also one of the rare full open matte versions - where the whole letterbox image is included, so there are no cropped parts, apart very few shots (I spotted only the Harrier take off, so far).

WEBdl untouched vs regraded: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/128478
Test clip

download (1m44s, no audio, 10mbps x264, 121MB): https://mega.nz/#!ZuQlnDYS!ShNfTWncBGxFE...rwz9W1LXFw

Regraded version is also often very close to trailer (even if all we know trailers can't be taken as absolute reference, color wise, they could be taken in account somehow): https://diff.pics/2_OMj9L-18bx/1 - would be great to find out the full screen DVD, maybe for an AAP-AR version

I have the Italian AC-3 track, along with the English and Russian ones. I'd like to add the Cinema DTS track, plus English DTS-ES 6.1 from DVD, and the usual other languages (Spanish, French, German) audio and sub tracks; if anybody would/could help, please chime in!

I have grasped by now that some movies are filmed anamorphically, so they will never have an Open Matte.

While I understand the concept of anamorphic filming theoretically, I am not very familiar with all the established technologies and terms used for this in the film industry, specifically 35mm-related (I do understand the somewhat separate topic of anamorphic video encoding, so no need to delve into that). 

It follows I have neither yet grasped how to derive this information from imdb's Technical Specs. Can anyone perhaps give me a quick rundown over the most basic terms and anything that might be necessary to grasp this subject in its entirety? I'd like to know enough about the process to look at imdb's Spec page and quickly find an answer to whether that movie was filmed with any option to later Open Matte or not.

Currently I end up giving up googling all the various listed film stocks and listed lenses and whatnot, as I kinda lack the basics.

I originally joined here with the intent to provide useful information and get help to finish some projects I've been working on and off for a while. However, severe personal issues just came up which means I won't have time to finish anything nor be on Fanres much, and I don't want to cause problems and come across as a leach to some people who helped me if I can't contribute anything on my end due to time constraints. I was going to have an admin ban my account, but he was against the idea and told me to write this post and just not log in, but the thing is I probably won't be coming back at all from this point on and I don't people hanging or wondering what happened to me. I'm not sure if anyone is with me on this.

It was nice being with you all but life is life and don't want to cause any problems if I cannot provide in return. 

The Knight

EDIT: posts moved from here: https://fanrestore.com/thread-1980.html

The Matrix - AXIS-ALIGNED POLYGON ASPECT RATIO™ - EXPERIMENTAL VERSION

Are you curious to watch an entire movie with more image than both the letterbox and open matte versions?
Are you ready to watch it with a "strange" aspect ratio?

Comparison between HDTV 1.78:1 and AAP-AR version:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/128176

This version is AFAIK the first full lenght movie release with an AAP-AR; thanks to random.next and his plugin, the alignment is perfect in almost all shots (I'd say 99.9%); it used HDTV and DVD as they have very similar (but not identical) color grading.

Problems:

• sometime the alignment is completely wrong (first 52 frames are my fault) for a whole shot, or just for a frame or two at the beginning of a shot
  
• colors in the "slices" are different sometimes, due to not identical color grading of the sources
  
• there is at least a glitch which was present in the HDTV source
  
• no end credits
  

The Blu-ray didn't come with it's original mono mix in english.
However it's available on the US DVD and on LaserDisc (Jap/USA). So I'm asking
if someone who has either, LaserDisc preferred, could please share the
audio. It would be also useful to have the video from the version, to help
with syncing it to the Blu-ray.

As for the 5.1 mix on the BD, it's okay for what it is. However you can hear
the mono origins, as voices and SFX bleed into the surround channel. I'd say
that the original mono mix will be a much more pleasing listening experience.

Thanks in advance

Something I wanted to do since I first saw this movie. The desaturated look is absolutely not my thing. Luckily the color is still there and just needs to be seduced to show itself.

Played around for a while to get the ideal compromise with a blanket 3D LUT and am now at a point where I am kinda satisfied.

Here's a screenshot comparison: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/128273

Since the saturation is so low in the original, there's lots of obvious chroma blocking when raising the saturation, which is why I apply a grainplate for each RGB channel separately. This results in some extreme grain/noise in some areas where there is strong chroma contrast, but I actually kinda like that. Looks better than the blocking, anyway.

Here's a sample (across entire movie, spoiler warning, done with SelectRangeEvery): https://mega.nz/#!lzpUSRRJ!TTzofwfOK4WaK...NM8R8UGBM8

I only encoded that one with Adobe Media Encoder, so don't expect great quality. Should give you a fair idea what to expect color-wise though. And in the beginning scenes you can see some of that chroma grain acting up which I mentioned above.

Final encode will be done by applying the 3D LUT through ffmpeg in 16-bit, then piping into and encoding with 10-bit x264. If someone wants a blu-ray compatible encode, I'll include the .avs-file, grainplate, 3D LUT and a .bat script using ffmpeg for the LUT application and piping into x264 (that took some tinkering to get it to work), so you can just make your own version with your own encoding settings. I personally don't have a Blu Ray player, so I don't care about compatibility much.

Audio will be the lossless audio from the Blu Ray transcoded to FLAC.

This is pretty much finished, just need to find good encode settings and encode. I'll probably aim at a bitrate between 15 and 20 Mbps, to preserve the beautiful grain acting up.

If anyone has suggestions for further audio tracks or anything, let me know.

P.S. Should I classify this as fanedit as I am not technically preserving anything (other than the color)?

For those who have scanned 35mm film, have you done it yourself or do you have an outside service do it professionally?

For those who've done it themselves: what is your process?

For those who've had a professional service do it: any specific service you would recommend?

Hello, 
Just want let you all know that Amazon Prime Video has Fight Club, atleast here in Sweden, and by the look of it seems to be an early transfer in HD. (2K telecine?)
I can tell it doesn't have the Bluray transfer color correction and the overall tone is more warm in the highlights. And it has pure filmgrain. No DNR. Oh yes!

Does anyone have more information on this?


Regards
Sebastian

Theory: Axis-Aligned Polygon Aspect Ratio™ by spoRv

Practice: AutoOverlay Avisynth plugin by random.next

Long story short: AAP-AR combines two (or more) sources, usually letterbox and open matte or fullscreen, to get more image, using an unconventional aspect ratio, like the following (red letterbox source, green open matte source):



So far, random.next released some titles which overlay letterbox sources to an open matte sources, to get improved details; still, the AR is always 1.78:1.

He also made an experimental version of Terminator 2, which uses an AAP-AR, but fills the corner with something he defines "ambilight" (a technique that takes part of the surrounding image to fill the corners somehow, but it's not impainting); so, this version technically does not use AAP-AR at the end.

Now, using his wonderful plugin, it would be possible to release a complete film using AAP-AR with (almost no) manual intervention, a thing that prevented this in the past - it would be unthinkable for a fan to spend months of hard work to find out crop and resize settings for thousand shots and 150000+ frames!

Testing this plugin right now, and results are really promising; thinking to release an AAP-AR project really soon, as I thought about this since a very long time - as you can read in my restoration tip, which was originally posted almost four years ago.

So, I have three questions:

1. is there any interest in an AAP-AR project?
   
2. what is the best name for this kind of AR? (AAP-AR is not the easiest one, frankly)
   
3. would this worth a new moniker for a separate collection, or would fit in the existing one?
   

1. yes! Watching an AAP-AR movie is a great experience; it gives you much more image, having the "best of both worlds"; and the strange AR would pass soon unnoticed (or, at least, not that noticed) - much better than, say, wear 3D glasses for two hours!
   
2. AAP-AR, even if technically correct, is not "cool"; I thought about unconventional, unorthodox, unusual aspect ratio, that would all lead to UAR.
   
3. dunno! Would be the occasion also to release projects with a color grading "inspired by film, but not so close"...