First off, Hi everyone. 

Not sure if there's any interest in something like this, but thought I'd bring it up.

The first and second season, and from what I gather, very few episodes of the third are missing the original music in the US DVD releases.

Years ago, I snagged copies of the Japanese release from a fan in another forum after finding my US copies to be off. Pacing changes completely. 

Anyway, does anyone have recommendations for preserving these? Really don't trust DVD after a certain amount of time. I've ripped compressed mkv via dvdFab (I know but wanted to find the best way before taking up so much space) just to make sure I have copies saved in case of disc failure.

I also doubt this will ever be released in the USA....so don't want to lose this. 

Also, sorry if in the wrong section.

From the homepage:

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OK, here we focus on movie project primarily - restorations, preservations, fan edits - and corollary things like bonus material, trailers, movie tracks.

But there are certain areas that we have not explored (yet); I would talk about some of them, probably there are others, so feel free to integrate these with your known ones.

Fan dub
a world on its own; primarily about anime, fan dubbing could be a useful resource for us, when for example a deleted scene has no audio, or not available in a language you would like to use. I've approached some gals and guys on a forum to ask for help about Harry Potter extended scenes not available in Italian; I'm curious to see if there are good dubbers between them, and how good the final result could be.

Fan commentary
another intersting branch; I've discovered there are many commentary tracks made by fan; not sure how many of them are good enough to even be taken in consideration for our projects, but it could be an alternative if one wants to add a commentary track, but no official one exists.

Fan sub
I must admit, I'm a fan sub maker myself! for one of my projects, where there was not an Italian subtitle track, I wrote it from scratch - it wasn't easy, but surely rewarding!

Any other fan-something branch to add here?

theres a lot of these tracks on HDTV releases a lot of them sound just as good as laserdisc audio
ffistful of dollars and  magnificent seven have the original mono and they  sound 10x better than the 5.1 and a lot better than 192kps ac3

Project Info
Yeah I know, not the best film but I enjoy it for what it is. Let me explain.

So I've been fixing my NAS for months (lost two HDDs) and was going through the list of movies and saw my rip of Phantoms. I bought the budget BD long ago since it was $5 and I have fond memories of watching the movie late, late at night with my brother almost 20 years ago   That and I enjoy a simple but well done B sci-fi movie especially one a bit derivative of The Thing.

I wanted to watch the movie but found it lacking in the video department. So, like any good fanres member I had to fix it first before I watched it.

I converted the 1080i video (clearly a broadcast master) back to 1080p/23.976. The BD was also framed at 1.77 and I slightly letterboxed it back to a theatrical 1.85. The video has that nasty pink/magenta blanket applied to it. I checked the old DVD (which is from a LD master) and the trailers and noticed they didn't have that look and that both appeared more green and yellow. I matched that look but didn't go as far yellow as to keep the titles and credits more pure white.

I don't expect a lot of interest given its a junky movie but this is one of a few small, one-off projects that I'm going to put out in the next few months in between the "real" projects. Probably only will be shared here and not on a share site.

Video:
The US BD IVTC'd back to 23.976, letterboxed to 1.85 and regraded to better match the DVD and trailer.

Audio:
1. DTS-HD MA 5.1 from the BD

Pics:

MKV Pics (Final)

Suddenly, my 1TB external hard disk started to "tick tick" and disappeared from resources... never touched, dropped, shacked, nothing... but it's dead... obviously is not the cable - but I tested it nevertheless... it can't be the interface, but I'm ready to open it and connect it directly to the PC...

Last resources? Freezing trick? Something else? I'm desperate... the first dead disk, in what? twenty years? and it's not the most used - at the contrary, the less used of all...

I've discovered lately that MPC-BE introduces strange artefacts sometime - nasty big blocks of a single color; at first, I thought it was due to my direct-lit LED TV, but I tried another player (SMPlayer) and those blocks aren't there... it occurs usually in fast movements, fast changing frames, it's repeatable, and it happens also using different renders...

So, which is the purest free software video player, the one which doesn't introduce artefacts, which has the colors as they should be; the one that outputs perfectly what's on disc or file... and, which render to use?

Another less-than-masterpiece-but-a-guilty-pleasure-for-someone scifi flick which suffer of the dreaded teal&orange syndrome on BD: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&...17&i=8&l=0

Not that BD colors are that bad - indeed, they are more vibrant and alive, but the question is, are these colors more theatrical accurate than the DVD ones? Don't know, but to have an alternative is better than not have it IMHO... still, a poll is set, say your opinion!

A note: the Italian DVD I got is the one with more image, so it should be the best version to use as color reference.

Options:
Cinema DTS track
LD DTS, AC3, PCM tracks

Not only the BD has a different color grading - pinker on BD, and more "theatrical" IMHO on DVD, as the following:

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=4227&d2=4228&c=1740

but I've made a creepy discovery: it has "enanched CGI", 'a la' Star Wars - Han Solo defreezing from carbonite, in particular!!! (top DVD, bottom BD)



Still don't know if any other shot is affected, but to me, this is enough (along with different color grading) to proceed!

Options:
Cinema DTS track
LD DTS track
LD AC-3 track
open matte version

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/212658 (deleted by the website)

https://diff.pics/6ElVQnasv6Z2/1 (new comparison)

Opinions?