Following on from my Tom and Jerry isolated scores idea, I thought I should like to make a Blu-ray of all the CinemaScope Tom and Jerry cartoons, with options for stereo and isolated soundtracks where available. The reason is simple: because I never got a copy of the cartoons with the complete picture - all I had was the Complete Classic Collection DVDs in which all the CS cartoons were cropped, and all unrestored, some of them censored. Also it doesn't have "Busy Buddies". To my knowledge, few other releases apart from the Spotlight Collection have these shorts in their original format.
If the WB Kids YouTube is anything to go by, Digital HD versions of these shorts exist somewhere, but I haven't been able to find them. It may be that I have to use HDTV recordings for this, if indeed there are any. I should consider upscaling as a last resort only.
Most of these shorts have Perspecta Stereo soundtracks - does anyone know if these are preserved?
There was a brief spin-off toward the end of the MGM cartoon studio's existence, Spike and Tyke - I'd like to have these preserved if possible.
What I'd like is to have options for almost all of the CS shorts. Any help on these would be most appreciated.
a: Produced simultaneously in both the standard Academy format and in CinemaScope i: Isolated score available r: Remake of a previous cartoon; comparison video? s: Perspecta Stereo
I'm suuuuuuuper beyond ridiculously excited to say that very local to me, there will be a 35mm projected print of Die Hard just after Christmas! Saw this last year in theaters (digital projection) but this has me waiting impatiently for that date to come!
So... keep an eye out... there may be an 35mm print of this film coming to your neck of the woods!
The idea is to replace my, what, 7 year-old PC (https://www.darty.com/nav/achat/informat...0-195.html). It's basically for encoding HD videos, from Blu-ray and UHD to HD conversion, so I'm looking for faster encoding than what I have now. I also have that one, more recent (https://www.darty.com/nav/achat/informat...c-780.html), which is apparently faster than my old i5 even though it is an i3 only.
So I'm seeking for advice to chose between these two i7 above. Which one has the better processor, the better RAM, the better graphics, etc.? I'm not a project maker, but with a new PC, I'm considering to give another shot at Davinci Resolve. That's not the criteria, just something in the back of my mind. It's mostly for encoding purposes, I'm not a gamer at all. I have so many external hard drives that the more USB connexions the better. Fot that last criteria I can see which one has the upper hand for myself, but I have no knowledge in processors quality and frequency, combined with Nvidia or Intel for graphics, DDR4 RAM, etc.
Project Info:
Ok this is in the proposal stage since I want to hear some thoughts about what to include with this project.
Long story short, Zoidberg made a cap of his UK Virgin VHS tape of T1.
Zoidberg's VHS Cap
He said it was clearly from a release print since it had reel change markers. Now that doesn't mean that it is color accurate to a release print but it could be. The tape is still very, very green but unlike the current BD, brings back a lot of those Cameron blues.
The big question for me is what should I include on the audio side. I want to askew the 5.1 remix as it is terrible with its new gun sounds. So that would mean going with the mono soundtracks. With that in mind, here is the current list of ideas I have:
Video:
Take the colors of the tape regrade the BD and combine that with the luma of the BD for certain scenes and with a little polish from the 35mm frames that have been collected
Audio:
1. PCM 2.0 Mono (from the Image WS LD)
2. PCM 2.0 Mono (from the Japanese WS LD)
3. DTS-HD MA 2.0 (from the 2001 MGM SE DVD)
4. DTS-HD MA 2.1 (from the 1998 Image DVD)
5. DTS-HD MA 5.1 (from the BD)
Sync:
US BD with ENG subs
Contributors and Thanks:
Zoidberg - for the VHS Capture
TServo - for the 35mm frames
MrBrown- for the German, French, Image and other LD captures
spoRv- for the Italian cap
Stamper- soundtrack support
BusterD- for soundtrack
I usually prefer lossless audio so I didn't notice yet, but I did a few experiments on Mission Impossible: Fallout and was surprised how jarring the difference was.
What I tried was MPC-HC and VLC. I included both the original AC-3 track and a FLAC track, which is just the AC-3 track converted with ffmpeg with the "drc_scale 0.0000000" option.
In MPC-HC they both sound pretty underwhelming, not sure why.
In VLC, the FLAC track sounds very noticeably better.
And don't take my word for it, here is proof that I'm not imagining it (just recorded the playing audio via Audacity):
In VLC, I disabled DRC in the A/52 codec settings (A/52 is a synonym for AC-3 afaik) and also normalization in general. Logically both outputs should have been identical, but they were not, as you can see. The dialogue seems about the same in volume, but the gunshots afterwards are very clearly attenuated while playing the AC-3 version. In fact, as you can tell, the second gunshot should actually be even louder, but in the AC-3 version it's quieter than the first one!
As a result the AC-3 sounds very boring while the FLAC sounds very exciting and dynamic. Really makes quite the difference.
Just to clarify, in MPC-HC I also disabled all normalization and AC-3 DRC options I know of.
So all in all, I don't currently see any good way to properly play AC-3 on a computer without transcoding it by hand. Of course this is no justification to distribute bloated FLACs instead of the raw AC-3, but it does create a real problem at least for playback purposes.
How do you guys deal with this? Do you all have Dolby Decoders and use bitstreaming or play directly via Blu Ray players? And if so, how do you know your players aren't doing the same thing?
John Carpenter should actually love this lamp! I have seem it on Big Trouble in Little China and Halloween for sure, almost surely on Escape from New , and probably on The Thing...
With this CD, we can make isolated music tracks for the 50s Tom and Jerry cartoons, as well as the Tex Avery ones if you want! All I'd need to do is sync the music up to the cartoon, cutting extended parts as necessary. And the best part is, some of these tracks are in stereo too! Too bad there weren't any follow-ups to this album...
I heard about the fact Buffy in HD had some problems, but I had not investigated about this since lately... and the situation is a lot worst than X-Files, for example...
Aspect ratio
Joss Whedon clearly stated that Buffy was intended to be shown in 4:3 (hence, 1.33:1 is its OAR) - apart one episode, "Once more with feeling", which had to be in widescreen.
HD version often crop abruptly the image, leaving important parts outside - sometime on all four sides! - while other times zoom in, worstening the previous situation... other times has more image on sides but less on top and/or bottom; in few (or many?) occasions, crew and stage things could be seen...
Color grading
Not only colors are different in HD, but often brightness too; there are some scenes that used some filters that perfectly showed up in SD, while completely ruined in HD (like some day for night scenes); sometimes, brightening shots reveal stunt doubles...
DNR
It seems it is set too high, and the usual "wax skin" problems arise often.
SFX
Some special effects are remade from scratch; even if some are great, others seems out of place, like when vampires are killed - in SD, they became dust, in HD they seem to evaporate!
What could be the solutions?
Aspect ratio
The ideal solution would be to use the OAR - or, better, IAR of 1.33:1. Even if I agree, I'd prefer to get best of both world - as you can see in the previous videos, it could be wise to use UAR to get more image, or overlay HD version on top of SD when HD frame is contained inside SD, to get more resolution.
About crew and stage things - and unwanted character: whenever possible, I'd digitally mask them whenever possible, or crop the affected side(s).
Color grading
I'd use SD as color and contrast reference; only in case HD had a better color (it seems some episodes in the later seasons have it), I'd leave it as is.
DNR
A nice grain plate from film always help!
SFX
I'd leave the old "dust" ones, and eventually use the new ones - of course, taking in account UAR or hybrid version.
Video sources for SD would be NTSC DVD 1.33:1 (seasons 1 to 7), PAL DVD 1.33:1 (seasons 1 to 3), PAL DVD 1.78:1 (seasons 4 to 7); for HD, there are various ones; I guess the best ones should be WEB versions like Amazon, Netflix, iTunes, but there are various HDTV versions like Pivot, French 6TER, and SyFy; eventually, they could be combined to get better quality.
Audio source could be DVD - at least, it has several foreign versions; also, it could be used to get related subs.
Just written this article to discuss about a possible restoration - it doesn't mean I'd do this, though!
The two best sources (HDTV & AMZN WEB-DL) combined with a grainplate and a 35mm-like color grading and the Cinema DTS audio.
More details (put in spoiler tag):
DETAILED WORK DESCRIPTION
The best two available sources (HDTV & AMZN WEB-DL) were combined using AviSynth and the AutoOverlay plugin, since they are not stabilized against each other. This went well for most of the movie with the chosen settings, but still required about 50 or so manual fixes. In a few places logos were replaced using a Median of alternate sources. The combination was done in such a way to preserve all information in both images, which in one rare case (and possibly others) results in noticeably more image content than in either of the source versions. Additionally, the combined sources were mildly treated with deconvolution to sharpen the image.
The color grading is based on the released press photos. I liked their look and wanted to apply it to the movie. They are not real shots for the movie, but they correspond with real shots, which is how I used them to create a 3D LUT using DrDre's ColorMatch tool. Since the photographs have rather extreme contrast and not ideal colors, the 3D LUT was tweaked in Photoshop and 3D LUT Creator afterwards. The end result doesn't exactly look like the photos, but it certainly has a 35mm-feel to it.
Final encode was done with the 3D LUT and a grain plate applied. The 3D LUT went through multiple versions and encodes until I was satisfied with the result.
AUDIO OPTIONS
Since no lossless audio source is otherwise available, I acquired the Cinema DTS audio and synced it to this release, with the end result being a lossless 16bit 48kHz FLAC. Additionally, I have included the following English audio options:
- Dolby Headphone: This is a Dolby Headphone track created from the Cinema DTS track with mode DH1 and 80% amplification, also provided as FLAC.
- Commentary Track: Commentary by director Jonathan Lynn. It's the raw synced AC-3 from the DVD.
- AMZN E-AC3 5.1 audio: This is the audio track that comes with the WEB-DL, for comparison purposes.
- NTSC DVD 5.1 AC-3 audio: This is the audio track from the NTSC DVD, also for comparison purposes.
- HDTV 5.1 AC-3 audio: This is the audio track from the HDTV, again for comparison purposes.
All these English audio options are the raw original format, no transcoding was done, they were merely synced with Delaycut.
In addition, the following languages are available:
- Losslessly synced with Delaycut: Japanese 5.1, French 5.1
- Retimed (using iZotope 64-bit SRC) and encoded in OPUS (using the original bitrate): Italian 2.0, German 5.1, Spanish 5.1, Russian 5.1, Czech 5.1, Hindi 2.0
Aside from the Hindi track, these all seem to be the original DVD tracks which I have carefully assembled over some time; their sync should be perfect for the most part (within 10-20ms). The Hindi track is sadly pretty poor, in both quality and sync; unfortunately I couldn't find a better one and didn't have the time to spare for a perfect sync.
EXTRAS
Since no Blu Ray relase or otherwise comprehensive release of this movie exists, I collected all the DVDs I could find and assembled all the unique extras from each and added them to this release. There may be some overlap between the individual files in terms of content and some of them are not available in English, but at least it's a more or less complete collection.
35MM TRAILER SCAN
Some time after the main encode of this project was already finished, I managed to acquire a 35mm trailer of this movie and have it scanned. Thanks a lot to all the people who have helped me getting this done (I am not naming them in this file because I am not sure if they prefer to remain anonymous).
This trailer scan is included here as an encode of the Open Matte scan in 1920x1634. If you wish to view it in 4:3 or 16:9 instead of a complete Open Matte, simply use the cropping function of your player and you will see it closer to the way it was meant to be seen.
The trailer includes the optical 35mm audio as FLAC 2.0, and an SDU4-decoded FLAC 4.0 track and a FLAC 5.1 track created from the 4.0 as well as a Dolby Headphone track which in turn was created from the FLAC 5.1 track.
In addition, you get the trailer audio in two English versions, the one included on the Czech DVD and the one included on the Japan DVD. Each has slightly different EQ, hence I included both. These exist if you want a "cleaner" audio compared to the 35mm audio which is slightly glitchy at times.
Also, the Spanish trailer audio is included synced to this scan. There's also a German audio track, though this one is a reconstruction from the German DVD; the German trailer is a shortened version of the normal trailer, hence I simply filled in the missing places with the Japan DVD audio, so some parts of that track are in English.
SYNC
This release is in sync with The Whole Nine Yards 2000 1080p AMZN WEB-DL DD+ 5.1 H.264-monkee.
SCREENSHOTS
And here's the 35mm trailer scan in Youtube quality:
This project has been uploaded to Blutopia.
Thanks to (list subject to expansion, awaiting permission!):
- BusterD, who helped with obtaining the Japanese DVD release
- Dr. Cooper, who helped a lot with getting the 35mm trailer scanned
To my knowledge, few other releases apart from the Spotlight Collection have these shorts in their original format.
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