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!

Project Info:

As reported here:

https://fanrestore.com/thread-1654-page-...t=predator

the iTunes 4K master of Predator has some grain intact unlike the Ultimate Hunter BD. And although it has less grain then the 2008 BD, the master seems to be a better scan (maybe the UH master before the grain was removed?). So this project will downscale the 4K stream (the iTunes master has no HDR) to 1080p and then run a deblock filter to offset this master's streaming origins.

This master also has a different color timing compared to the original 2008 BD (probably the UH color timing) and one that I like better. So for this project, no color correction is done.

For the audio I will add Jonno's sync of the LD's soundtrack and mux in the soundtracks from the 2008 BD.

Note: Project is in sync with the 2008 BD.

See post 30 for final MKV

Video:
iTunes 4K master of Predator streamed and downscaled to 1080p with a deblock filter added

Audio:
1. PCM 2.0 Dolby Surround mix from the widescreen LD
2. DD 4.0 mix from the 2008 BD
3. DTS 5.1 mix from the 2008 BD

Pics:
MKV Pics (Final)


Itunes


2008 BD/iTunes



Thanks:
Jonno - for his PCM LD sync
Doombot- for a test run

Hi guys you might enjoy this podcast, it's an interview with one of the legends of photochemical colour timing, Dale Grahn. Dale timed Predator, Die Hard and a whole bunch of Spielberg films. He also timed a lot of Disney stuff that no other timer would touch, even working with the various art departments to determine which colour paints would register best on film.

http://coloristpodcast.com/episode-008-dale-grahn

I’ve been working on a restoration of sorts for the film Koyaanisqatsi; in my view, the “remastered” soundtrack they used is in many regards not up to par at all.

Through a few sources, such as the laserdisc PCM* and the original album release, that I consider to be the best quality, I’ve been able to put together a “restored” version that I think sounds much improved.

Official soundtrack mix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNNJrHR53ZA

Remastered soundtrack mix: https://youtu.be/q86RvSxAy04

This will be released in 5 channel and stereo mixes.

*The laser disc PCM will also be released as a preservation. I performed a complete restoration on it, removing clicks, pops, dropouts, line hum, and reduced hiss and noise.

Only seen comparisons on caps-a holic vs 2D BD; obvious increase in resolution, but grain is almost gone, and I personally prefer BD color grading (don't know if it's due to a wrong HDR-to-SDR conversion, tough).

Opinions?