Today I've been on the nearby mall center, and I've paid a visit to local game store; asked for Blu-ray, as they were not displayed; "Have you any used one?" - "Wait a moment, I'm going to take them all, but I don't think so..."

Two minutes later, the guy have been back with thirty titles, more or less: "Well, they are mixed, brand new and used"; watched the price tags: "Hey, 9.99€ for an used title?!?" - "Let me check... nope, their price are greatly reduced!"

So, after checking them all, I discarded the ones I had, the unwatchable ones, the ones I can live very well without, and give a go to the ones I'm happy to get; they are:

Iron Man 3 (new)
Django Unchained (new)
Hotel Transilvania 2 (BD+3DBD)
A Bug's Life
The Incredibles
Batman Begins
The Dark Knight (2 BD)
The Dark Knight Rises (2 BD)
Man Of Steel
X-Men quadrilogy (4 BD)
The Exorcist (Steelbook BD + DVD)
Shining(Steelbook BD + DVD)

Tag price for all: >120€, discounted price: 29€! A good price, I think, as just the last two cost more than that, brand new..

Now it's your turn!

• be sure your display is correctly calibrated as better as possible before test; also, take in account that not every display performs the same, so it's possible that if you haven't passed one or more test, it's due to display... in this case, try to perform test using another display
  
• be sure that the audio of your display is capable of reproducing highest frequencies - how? Ask a young person to perform the audio test, if he/she can't hear up to 20KHz (or even higher) probably the problem lies in your display... in this case, try to use a better audio system - soundbar, stereo or surround loudspeakers,
  
• don't perform these tests when you are tired
  
• don't forget to have fun!
  

Lucio fulci movie but not sure which one https://media.giphy.com/media/2FFFPMQSb9...3aec750ac7     btw pic is gory

Even if my brand old HDTV is not HDR, it's still capable of 400nits, and, because even with low backlight settings I've starting to be blind, I asked Feallan to upload a dark time, "a la" OT, somehow.

He was fast and since few days I'm using this theme; very nice to use with a big, bright screen and/or during the night.

If you want to try it, please don't forget to post here your opinions; maybe it can contain something that can improve it, but, as it is, I like it very much!

AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004) Fundamental Collection [#012]



When a private satellite encounters an unidentified source of heat in Antarctica and it is found to be a pyramid buried deep underground, a search team comprising of top- of-the-line archaeologists and engineers is sent to Antarctica to find out more. Once there, the team comes across signs which indicate that the place is inhabited by an unknown alien species. It is not long before the aliens begin to hunt the team members. At the same time, a trio of coming-of-age Predators have arrived to collect the skulls of the aliens as trophies, and the humans are caught between a deadly battle between the two warring species.

  [Fundamental Collection™ #012] features:

•  Theatrical Edition
•  Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
•  Regraded with ColourMatch™ using a master from interpositive print as reference
•  Film audio tracks DTS 5.1: English, French, German, Italian
•  Film audio tracks DD  5.1: Spanish
•  Commentaries tracks DD  2.0: English
•  Film subtitles: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
•  Commentaries subtitles: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish

Screenshot comparison: top Blu-ray, bottom Fundamental Collection






Release date: 2017-05-17

Comparison:  http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/209152

So, propably any fan of Hong Kong cinema knows - Bluray releases suck, mostly. They're upscales with 7.1 remixed audio and horrible subtitles.

Lately I've been interested in fixing some of these releases, syncing Laserdisc or other source of original mono tracks into these, and kinda fixing the video.

So I got LD audio from Police Story 2 synced up to the German Bluray, but I still wasn't happy with video quality. So, I decided to do quick script just to check out how would it look and came up with this - http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/210165/. Check out images 2 and 3 for best results.

It's not perfect, but I don't think it's possible to squeeze out of that video, what's your opinion?

Once upon a time, there were analog formats... VHS, Laserdisc, VHD, CED - all "stuck" to their beloved video system, PAL and NTSC; not "fixed" resolution, apart 525 (485 visible) horizontal lines for NTSC, and 625 (575 visible) horizontal lines for PAL, or vertical resolution... horizontal resolution was "supposed" by the signal in MHz - 1MHz = 80 vertical lines, or horizontal resolution.

Then digital video appeared in the market; first primitive CD-I (then evolved quickly to VCD) with its "astounding" resolution of 320x240 (NTSC) and 320x288 (PAL) pixels, for a "whopping" sub 0.1Mpixel image!
VCD evolved into what we all know, DVD, with its max resolution set at 720x480 (NTSC) and 720x576 (PAL).

Then DivX (not "that" DIVX!) surface, and every strange resolution combination came up...

HDTV set a standard to 1280x720 and 1920x1080 as the most used resolutions; sometimes we see that horizontal resolution in video files is the same, but the vertical change, accordingly to the aspect ratio. And I can understand it, somehow. Let's say, we were in the "video Far West" with all those resolutions, and now I thought to have reached a "compromise" somehow: horizontal basic resolutions of 720 (SD), 1280 (HD), 1920 (FHD), 3840 (UHD), and eventual vertical adaptation following aspect ratio.

But no, it was too simple... I can undestand (somehow, but don't like it) that a non-studio made video file could use different resolutions, but I'm asking myself why properly released files on the net - streaming and download - adopt such strange, out of standard resolutions? I mean, I can even allow a, let's say, 960x540 resolution, as it's 1/4th of FHD (as 640x360 1/4th of HD), but, would we talk about the following ones (taken just for example)?

iTunes - The X-Files "Pilot" s01e01
1452x818 (stated as 1080p, and it is NOT) - AR 1.78:1 (more or less)

iTunes - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
1848x800 (stated as 1080p, and it's OK) - AR 2.30:1 (when OAR is 2.40:1)

iTunes - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
1918x800 (1080p, OK) - AR 2.40:1 (WHY "shave" 2 pixels horizontally?!?)

RaiPlay (Italian, streams films and other video originally broadcasted on various Rai channels)
928 x 522 (?!?) - AR 1.78:1 (more or less)

add insult to injury, resizing these odd resolutions would result in a worst quality than let's say, 1280x720 or 960x540.

Any idea?

Dragonslayer (Video Fix and Color Correction v4.0)

Project Info:
I'm fan of Dragonslayer from my youth. I wouldn't say its the best movie in the world but I certainly enjoy it.

Sadly, Dragonslayer has yet to appear on BD but has made an appearance on HDTV, Itunes and other Web-DLs to limited success. Every HD copy of DS has strong vertical lines running down the picture, similar to compression noise. It appears to be something done on the master level.

Orig/Cleaned up and CRT corrected


Orig/Cleaned up and CRT corrected x400


Beyond that this seems to have strong color tones of being corrected on older CRT monitor.  This project attempts to fix many of those old masters by making them look how the color technician would see them on a CRT master monitor. Not necessarily more theatrically accurate but hopefully closer to what the colorist wanted and hopefully more pleasing to the eye. So this project is to fix those errors and then color corrects the movie how it looks on my Sony BVM monitor (and closer to what the LD looks like). See more here:

https://fanrestore.com/thread-3645.html

Audio-wise I think I still have a copy of the LD's PCM 2.0. I also have the Web-DL's 2.0 and the DVD's 2.0 and 5.1

Video:
Amazon web-dl  de-blocked with vertical lines mitigated and color corrected closer on a CRT mastering monitor..

Audio:
1. PCM 2.0 Dolby Surround (from the WS LD)
2. EAC-3 2.0 (from the Web-DL)
3. Dolby Digital 2.0 (from the US DVD)
4. Dolby Digital 5.1 (from the US DVD)

Pics:
Final MKV


CRT Corrected/Original


Thanks:
Zoidberg for the PAL DVD

Is anyone working or worked on a Dragonslayer HD project? I've seen that there is an HD and iTunes copy floating around and their looks to be some color variations according to notonbluray.

http://notonbluray.com/blog/dragonslayer...hd-review/

And there is the PCM track from the LD

Now, in 2017, 4K (or, better UHD) is available via UHD-BD and web download - and few satellite broadcasting; Blu-ray is the king of HD, with very good alternatives as web download.

So, why one could be worried about recording a program from an HD channel, and subsequentely store it on hard disk for years?

Well, there are many reasons, and I'm going to list the most important:

Do you know if there is a HD version of JFK Theatrical Cut?

I think it's excellent, better than the Extended, for something wins best film editing Oscar in 1991.

Unfortunately Warner has only commercialized in BD the Extended Cut, the only way to see the Theatrical Cut is through the non-anamorphic DVD edited more than 15 years ago