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"...
   

Since random.next released his cool AviSynth plugin and nobody has done this yet, here's a thread for us to discuss this before he gets to finish the stable build and releasing a guide.

So, I saw spoRv's test and felt motivated, but didn't get far. Tried matching an HDTV with a WEB-DL. They are perfectly in sync and the framing is almost identical, but there are small discrepancies that don't allow me to overlay them. In particular, each source seems differently stabilized and there are lots of micro-tremors that make a simple overlay impossible. They also have somewhat different color timing, but not remarkably so. Hence my hopes in this plugin.

Tried the following, stolen from spoRv's sample: 

Just sort of signed up on a whim, been trying to find a decent copy of 'The Keep' for a while now.

I know the Blu Ray already is 1.7something:1, but I'd love to find some fullscreen version. 

There's a VHSRip out there, but it's a TV recording with a logo on the right side. There's also a TVRip but it also has a logo on the right side.

I also found these two laserdiscs listed as 1,33:1:
http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/51242/1989...n-New-York
http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/52011/PILF...me-Alone-2

I remember SilverWook mentioning that although these are listed as Pan&Scan, these sometimes are actually Full Screen (in the Brazil OM thread I made). Anyone have these to verify? I could probably pay for one too, as it doesn't seem prohibitively expensive.

The reason why I'm curious is I saw this nice print of Home Alone 2: https://www.ebay.com/itm/1990-HOME-ALONE...2396163821

Has some nice screens and is also fullscreen. Was playing with the idea of a hybrid full screen (with that new avisynth tool) with a regrade to the 35mm based on those screens.

I suppose some DVD or UMD would do as well, but I can't find a full screen DVD.

Only HDTV I found is 16:9.

   


This sci-fi horror film based on the Phillip k Dick short story 'Second Variety' is a favourite of mine and it pains me that it's never been given the HD treatment on Blu-ray (it's sequel did in Canada though)

Not sure if there is any HD versions floating around but happy to help find it if someone wants to put this on their idea list?

I also have a DVD-R of the fullscreen open matte version as well (same as the US Laserdisc) that I can provide

To all my fanres comrades in arms,

As of today I am taking a leave of absence from fanres and I don't know exactly when I will return. It was a hard decision to make but one I felt necessary. My last activity will be to finish helping Dr. Cooper fill a request he had for a project he's doing. sporv and Doombot know how to reach me by email should there be anything that I need to pop in for. After recent events here regarding Blutopia and one of it's members that is a member here this is the one remedy I feel will benefit me and my close friends here.

Keep on keeping on and doing what we all do best here. Help and protect each other from unwanted influences that might be roaming around. It only takes one or two posts before it all changes.

Thank you for giving me a place to be myself. I look forward to returning as soon as possible.

Cheers,

Shawn

I heard from a few sources that US iTunes now has the new Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises master. Someone also said that the Batman Begins master on iTunes has slightly different colors now and as opposed to initial speculation, the new BB Blu Ray is only a reencode of the old master.

Does anyone have access to these iTunes masters? I'd be very interested in watching those. And who knows how long they will stay up.

From the little I read, the new masters (at least the 4K Blu Rays) also have VAR, with the 1,77:1 AR for the IMAX shots.

Edit: I realize I could wait for the 4K Blu Ray, but the SD version will likely have it's own adjusted color grading that will likely not be the same as a blanket conversion of the HDR to SDR.

With the advent of quad-core mid-tier processors from Intel, 2018 may very well be the Year of the Editing Laptop. That said, here are my first five picks, one for each category, for best editing laptops according to reviews I checked out on Laptop Magazine:

Budget: Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming
Power user: Gigabyte Aero 15X
Professional: MSI GT75VR Titan Pro
Supercomputer: Dell Alienware 17
God-tier: Razer Blade Pro (and this one isn't likely to give up its top spot anytime soon, let alone in the next quarter)

All of the above picks are for Q1 2018, mind.

This one has been on eBay for a while: https://www.ebay.com/itm/35mm-Feature-DE...2499999289

Quite a cool and iconic movie.

Costs $100, which is about 85 EUR. Double it for the shipping.

It's faded and probably won't be a good reference for the actual theatrical colors, but I think it can be fixed through grading a 16bit scan, to at least have a decent image. 

I could add 50 EUR to the pot for buying the print (can do bank transfer to most European bank accounts). Seller says it's only available till the end of 2017, but apparently he's gone and the offer runs for 4 more days, so I'm guessing that means we still have a chance.

Anyone interested in seeing this happen? 

Will post on OT.com as well.