First good things - there are some... CGI is quite good, overall production is quite good - you see actual chops and not cheap CGI ones, for examples.

Bad things? Almost everything else... bad acting, monsters are just an excuse and not the main theme (as the previous little gem, "Monsters"), weak story, slow and boring...

If you love monsters, creatures & co. and don't want to spend 2 hours to see maybe 3 minutes of them, avoid it at all cost... don't waste 2 hours of your life as I did (unless someone would pay you to do that!) - so, if you would do it anyway, I can say "you have been warned"!

If you are here, probably you like sci-fi, horror, fantasy movies; if so, you probably like monsters, aliens, and other creatures as well, right?

Well, Face Off is the show for you - a reality show where contestants fight to obtain the final prize, doing spectacular makeups on human models, like vampires, aliens, werewolves, deformed creatures and so on...

There are 11 seasons, for a grand total of more than 100 episodes; a lot to watch, I must admit, but fun overall... I don't watch many TV programs - apart movies and few series, and no reality shows, but this is the exception to the rule I'm happy to break.

I had not the occasion to watch it until today - maybe because I thought it was just a stupid movie...

Well, IT IS a stupid movie, but one of the few smart ones, don't know if you understand what I mean; OK, too much gratuitous bad words and jokes, but actually it is a nice superhero movie, with the usual chiches, like the bad guy, the beutiful chick, the good friend, a lot of action, killings, and some really nice touches - don't want to spoil on them, for the ones who hasn't watched it, yet.

I liked it A LOT more than Suicide Squad; so, if you like superheroes movies AND comedies, and you are not afraid to hear some (well, a lot of) bad words, go for it; you will get almost two hours full of action and laughter - and some are unexpected, told by one who watched maybe 10,000 movies in his life, so this thing is not happening so often, of course...

• VA panel and LED backlight are from Samsung A950/A956 series, but Toshiba uses its own electronics
  
• LED zones: 64 for 46', 96 for 55' - some others say 176 zones for the 55'; probably 96 is the right figure (with around 1000 individual LEDs), as I had the Samsung LE55A956 for five years, and I did every possible imaginable tests!
  
• LED backlight never turns off, only greatly reduced - I should add that it's true in all modes, apart Dynamic, where the LEDs seems to be actually turned off, as the Samsung
  

• Active Vision M200, which adds the backlight scanning to the 100Hz frame interpolation; image is more stable, with no visible artefacts
  
• more image tweaks - RGBYUV with three settings each, for example
  
• light sensor (with histogram)
  
• Dolby Volume
  
• an headphone jack, with separate volume level
  
• audio output
  
• a subwoofer output
  
• SD card input
  
• higher RMS audio power - but lacks subwoofers
  
• the glossy "glass" (that should be plexyglass, but I don't want to break it to discover it) over the screen, that helps to get a better contrast AND protect the panel
  

• in the not-pitch-black LED backlit modes, even if black level is really low (and eventual blooming may be less), it lacks the "true-black-wow" factor - that is achieved using the Dynamic mode, though
  
• Samsung had few useless features like cooking receipts, simple games, and digital frame with some preinstalled images; Toshiba has just one image that can be used as frame, but you could load your own!
  
• it misses the "jingle" when you switch it off - it helped me some time, when I finished to watch a movie and the screen was black (I mean: the same as when switched off) to remind me the TV was on or off...
  
• PIP - even if it was limited to analog inputs
  

Again? Yep! 

I think there is a general consensus that, using a negative as master, then regrade it digitally, is not possible to achieve the same color fidelity than, for example, using an interpositive (or a release print).

Of course, using the negative would retain the best resolution possible (6K or maybe also 8K).

The best choice, IMHO, would be to use the negative for the luma, and an interpositive (or several release prints, median'ed and/or averaged) for chroma.

Am I wrong? If not, why don't they do that? Colors would be closest to the theatrical prints, and I'm pretty sure it will be easier than color grading digitally the negative - don't know how much would it cost to scan both negative and interpositive, but I don't think would cost much than the negative scan + all that time spent to regrade it (with imperfect results, too)...

Opinions?

What is the best way to use FFMPEG to upconvert a 480p file (either native or converted from 480i using the Yadif filter) to 1080p with the NNEDI filter? Because I was thinking of using it for my projects, along with Valeyard's Motion-Adaptive script, both as necessary.

Time to announce the mysterious first four titles of the Fundamental Collection... they are, of course:

• Alien
  
• Aliens
  
• Alien³
  
• Alien: Resurrection
  

Ok, so I've been gone for a while because I've been CRAZY BUSY for the last few months... Not only has life been all over the place, but I've all been consumed with trying to move all of my various project forward...


FINALLY, after nearly a year of adjusting setting and re-filtering, re-overlaying, and... so much other stuff I don't wanna even mention, LOL... well, I've finally come up with something that I can present, as I'm getting ready to release a project I've wanted to complete for a very long time...



So, those that know me can confirm that this will be my "usual" length post  

A couple of years ago, I was sitting with a buddy of mine, watching the decent 1080i HDTV cap of "Pink Floyd - The Wall" and, because we were stoned, we got to talking about how "Hey You" is missing during the film. We both have a fondness for the track and then we remembered that the "missing 7th reel" (containing "Hey You") is included as an extra on the DVD release for the film. At the time, I wasn't really proficient at any real remastering when it came to video so the thought ended there...

However, as time has gone by and I've learned a lot, plus have been introduced to certain fantastic software, where this is now a relatively easy project...

To those wondering, YES - there will be a very nice, full HD release that I have nearly complete of "Pink Floyd - The Wall" in 1080p with numerous audio options and NO LOGO, coming towards the end of the month and this "side-project" is a part of that release...

Anyway, I started working on the footage, after upscaling it to 1080p, to restore as many of the frames as possible from "Reel 7" of the workprint (which contained "Hey You," but was cut for time) using not just corrected frames from that footage, but also incorporating all of the footage that was re-inserted from that reel into other parts of the actual film that are in color unlike the workprint which is black and white only - and very rough too, I might add. It's funny, because all claims report that 80 to 90 percent of the footage was "recycled" back into the film, but the truth is actually closer to 35 percent. I identified ALL frames and reinserted them back in, hence how I can destroy this myth...

Anyway, I am not ready to release everything just yet, as I'm still working on the audio (not for this video, but the overall project that this video will be a part of) but I just wanted to show this off to people and get a sense of what others might think about this...


Also, this shows that I have been working on stuff even though you guys haven't seen as much of me lately LOL

anyway, here is the A/B comparison with the original "Hey You" video (a.k.a "Reel 7" that is featured on the DVD as an extra) on the left and my "remaster" on the right...



I am looking for ANY and ALL comments on this.... NOTHING will be ignored and I'm open to suggestions, as I've already gone through over a hundred revisions to this before I even got to the point where I felt comfortable enough to release this "workprint sample..."  


EDIT: Just noticed that youtube changes the color space and portions of the video that I enhanced don't look right on the youtube video (some differences are noticeable and some look like I only changed the damn color) --- anyway, I'm uploading the video to MEGA right now and will update this post with a link in about 20 minutes...