It occurred to me last night that Universal never gave Guest House Paradiso (the so-called "Bottom Movie") a Blu-ray. You think they would, given Bottom's resurgence in popularity. I'm thinking maybe someone aired it on an HDTV network, maybe FilmFour. Does anyone know if they did, and did someone record it?

I bought my Seagate 4TB HDD brand new several months ago, and I used it for the first month; because I still use Windows XP, I must "divide" it into two logical units. But I'd like to make a RAID system, so I would swap my 4TB HDD with two 2TB HDDs, preferably Seagate, but others will do.

I need them to be reliable, so the newest the better.

Any crazy user would like to make this exchange?!?

ANALOG CAPTURE

What is analog capture?

It is the process of acquiring analog signals (in our case, audio and/or video) in the digital form, to manipulate it in different manners; here, I'm going to talk mainly about VHS and LD, but could be applied also to S-VHS, Beta, Video2000, CED, VHD... actual film scanning is beyond the scope of this guide.

Why I should do this?

The analog audio/video sources are obsolete nowadays; it's more difficult to find out VHS tapes or LD discs today, a lot more than a DVD or BD; the best way to restore somehow an analog source in the analog domain is to use proper pieces of hardware, and record the result on an analog tape (like S-VHS); recordable analog video discs are almost impossible to find, cost an arm and a leg and more, and need a more difficult to find compatible recorder/player... so, it's way easier to "import" the analog signal in the digital realm, because at the end the final result could be obtained as a DVD, a BD, or a digital file.

But aren't all movies/concerts/etc. available in digital form?

Sadly not... there are many movies, concerts, series, documentaries etc. still not released on DVD, BD, or any other digital form, for many reasons; the original sources are lost, the rights are helded by some studios which do not want them to be released, some are not interesting enough (for economic or artistic reasons)... so, our mission is to "port" that movie/concert/etc. in digital form, "as is" or eventually restore it.

Well, I would like to do the best capture; what do I need?

• try to get the best version available - and different copies of the same title if possible
  
• try to get the best player you can afford - and service it if needed
  
• try to get the best capture device - think a very good used one is really cheap nowadays!
  
• try to use the best hardware and software - newest if fastest and better *USUALLY*
  

• LD: the best analog format, the last one produced at the very beginning of this century... more than 50,000 titles available, could be found used - and sometimes new - quite easily online; many times it's the only way to find a specific video version, or different audio mix, commentary, soundtrack; it's possible to capture digital audio tracks bit-pefect, in all their formats - PCM, AC3, DTS
  
• VHS: the last resource; difficult to find new, used tapes could be warn and/or have drop outs (very probable) that will ruin the capture; do not forget that in some rare cases, an analog recording of a TV airing made on VHS could be the only way to obtain a certain material!
  
• Other analog sources on physical support: S-VHS titles are very few, and they should be all available on other formats; VHD and CED are old analog disc format, and they need related players; there are some titles still not available on other formats, though; don't forget MUSE laserdisc, the only analog HD disc format (that need a proper HD capture card)
  

• Laserdisc: the best ones are the MUSE players, which could also play NTSC laserdiscs; after them, the best ones are the Pioneer, Elite in particular, but other brands could be great as well.
  
• VHS: try go get a good S-VHS player/recorder; Panasonic and JVC are the best ones; also, industrial players, even VHS, are great, but it could be hard to find out a new one, or one with low usage.
  
• Other standards: find a specialized website/forum, and investigate which could be the best ones.
  

• avoid cheap players, even if they are new... better a great high-end used player than a new entry level one
  
• avoid DVD recorders... I agree they are useful and easy to use, but they record in a lossy format, that reduce overall quality of the capture
  
• avoid USB capture cards... even if they are cheap, you could find a better PCI capture card for the same price
  
• cables are important in the analog realm... a lot more than digital cables; it could make a lot of difference
  
• set the proper brightness, contrast, color settings before capture... yes, you could always tweak them after, but it's better to start with the best material
  
• calibrate your hardware - display and player - using a proper software, and optimize your computer for the best performances
  
• capture only using lossless codec... so be sure to buy a capture card that allows that, because there are some which could capture only in MPEG2!
  

Here are some pics from the recolouring I've done for Superman III. Still need to create a bluray, before it's ready to release.

Checking out some of my DVDs, just to see, what I have, I found some oddities in releases...
...not that these are things that should be something preserved. And not regarding faulty discs, but seem to be choices done willingly for the release.

I don't talk on oddities, like flipper discs with the movie split up to two sides. i.e.: Limited DVD Lord of the Rings trilogy, with the cinematic and the extended Version on one Disc, splitted onto two sides. Even If flipper Movies were not that common, expecially with normal length movies. Some where done in the pre "DVD9 mastering is standard" era. (Starship Troopers first DVD release, at least in Germany, was a DVD-10, with turning around in the movie).

And I am not talking easter eggs.

I thought of/found oddities like:

Terminator 2 - japanese PIBF-1001 DVD release
So, what is odd here? It is a DVD9 (okay), but the Movie itself is split into two separate movie titles on the Disc itself.
Title 1: Running Time 1:19:44 (Chapters 1-42) Ending with Sarah driving away to assasinate Dyson...
Title 2: Running Time 0:56:42 (Chapters 1-28) ...starting with John and Temrinator figuring her plan.

As if the split it manually to avoid the Layer Change inside the movie.


Jackie Brown - first german DVD release
This one is kinda funny. The Movie is open matte 4:3 on the Disc. But.. you can watch it matted to widescreen... with the help of a subtitle stream, just containing black on Top and Bottom to make a softcoded letterbox matting to 1.85:1...
I am sure this way of matting is exactly the part of the frame the director wanted to matte for cinema.. yeah... for sure!

I’m going to need outside help if I’m going to acquire a 35mm film for scanning. Is there anyone around here I can send the film over to scan?

Anyone who has followed my massive project of exclusive to LD or OOP DVD audio commentaries on MySpleen (which correspond with the thousands more audio commentaries up on TehParadox) may realize that there is but one audio commentary exclusive to laserdisc left to preserve. Yes. One. It's the commentary from The Aftermath, released by Roan. Now, you can get the director's cut of the movie on Cinemageddon, also sourced from the Roan laserdisc, but the uploader can't find the commentary or the discs with the extras. I have searched on every torrent site I can think of, I have been outbid on ebay for the disc (it generally gets ignored when it is $65-100, but this time it ended at $37, still way too much), I have negotiated with people on forums who claim to have the track, all for nothing. This has gone on for a few years now, and there have to be other people who have the disc or know someone who does can help out and the 4 years of this preservation project can finally be over.

Currently up on MySpleen, Karagarga, Cinemageddon and will go up on Cinematik when their uploads open up soon. If there are other places you think this might be appreciated, either let me know, or upload it yourself.

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While it makes sense that there would be little to no US fanfare for The Lighthorsemen (1987), an Australian film about historical Australian war heroes, what's difficult to understand is why this film, which has been released in Australia, Germany, and a number of other countries, on both DVD and Blu-ray, has never been available in both widescreen and in its director's cut. You could get the director's cut in a shoddy transfer that was cropped to 1.78. You could get the theatrical cut Blu-ray in 2.35, with a recently recorded director's commentary. But never at the same time. And even when the German disc claimed deleted scenes, it didn't have all of them. The only option was the Lumivision laserdisc from 1996, which included a different commentary by director Simon Wincer (Free Willy, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, Quigley Down Under), the trailer, and a clip from the 1940s film "40,000 Horsemen," also about the same situation covered in "The Lighthorsemen."

Well, I've transferred my laserdisc, and added Mario Millo's wonderful score as an option. You can listen to it as a single image slideshow as individual tracks or as a whole. This could have been done very easily with DVD Lab Pro, but, like the problems I had with my Sid & Nancy torrent, the words were blurry and hard to read, but this time I just found a workaround with DVDStyler. And then had to correct the workaround with, of all things, DVD Shrink.

The video transfer was wildly complicated, because the laserdisc was not perfectly authored when it was released, and the first 20 minutes or so were seemingly smushed. Add to that, the scenes cut from the director's cut were not well preserved, and so the color correction seems a bit off during some of those scenes (and there was a bit too much contrast). However, I'm fixed the aspect ratio issue, and there is a moderate adjustment after said 20 minute mark (give or take a few minutes) where the letterboxing slightly changes, but the image looks correct throughout. Otherwise, it's a laserdisc transfer made anamorphic, and all the analog haziness/softness inherent to laserdiscs is as it should be.



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093416/reference


Audio............: Dolby Digital 2.0/2.0
Subtitles........: English
Video Format.....: NTSC
Aspect Ratio.....: 2.35:1
DVD Format.......: Anamorphic
DVD Source.......: Laserdisc
DVD Distributor..: Custom
Program..........: DVD Styler/TMPEG Authoring Works 5
Average Bit Rate.: 7.6 Mb/sec

General
Complete name : Y:\THE_LIGHTHORSEMEN\Final Disc\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_1.VOB
Format : MPEG-PS
File size : 1 024 MiB
Duration : 18mn 30s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 7 736 Kbps
Writing library : encoded by TMPGEnc Video Mastering Works 5 Version. 5.0.5.32

Video
ID : 224 (0xE0)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, Matrix : Custom
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=18
Duration : 18mn 30s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 7 166 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 8 000 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.692
Time code of first frame : 00:00:00:00
Time code source : Group of pictures header
GOP, Open/Closed : Open
GOP, Open/Closed of first f : Closed
Stream size : 949 MiB (93%)
Writing library : TMPGEnc Video Mastering Works 5 Version. 5.0.5.32
Color primaries : BT.601 NTSC
Transfer characteristics : BT.601
Matrix coefficients : BT.601

Audio #1
ID : 189 (0xBD)-128 (0x80)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Muxing mode : DVD-Video
Duration : 18mn 30s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 224 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 29.6 MiB (3%)

Audio #2
ID : 189 (0xBD)-129 (0x81)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Muxing mode : DVD-Video
Duration : 18mn 30s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 25.4 MiB (2%)

Currently up on MySpleen and Karagarga. Will put it up on Cinematik when uploads are open again. I would have put it on Pass the Popcorn last night, but I would have had to do all of the screenshots over again (they want PNG only) and then use one of their approved image hosts. It would have taken at least 90 more minutes since I find myself having to edit the images to get to 853x480, even though that's already their native resolution. If anyone feels like uploading any of my projects to PTP, that's fine (What Happened Was... is already there) and if you have other ideas of where they be uploaded, let me know, or do it yourself.



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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053580/reference


Here is the Roadshow director's cut of John Wayne's The Alamo (1960), the first of two films that Wayne was ever officially credited with directing. Now this Roadshow cut runs more than 40 minutes longer than the theatrical cut that you can find on DVD. It was released on laserdisc several times, my source was the 1992 version (the 1997 version had Dolby Digital 5.1, which I cannot output), and MGM has apparently let the restoration deteriorate to the point where it cannot be transferred to a new format, so this may be the best that it will look. Also on the DVD was a making-of of the film, but for some reason, they cut more than 25 minutes out of that too, and so the version included here runs the full, intended length.

The movie is split in two, with 2 hours 14 minutes of the movie on disc 1, and the final 68 minutes on disc 2, with the 68 minute making of also on disc 2. There's also the theatrical trailer on disc 1.

I've also included the many iterations of Dimitri Tiomkin's score, from the official release (along with a few extra tracks), to the 3 CD release of the full score released in 2010, as performed by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. You can find them on the second stream of both the film and the making-of. There's more info on the layout in the notes section of the DVD menus, but I will copy and paste that information below. Not mentioned is that I've also included a slideshow from the many liner notes on the 3 CD version of the score, if you want extensive information on the tracks. The slideshow is on disc 1 and runs 11 minutes, and also has scans of the various discs of the score that have been released. Not explained, but hinted at it in the notes*, is that disc 2 will allow you to skip right to the tracks from The Essential Tiomkin that can be found on the second half of the making-of documentary. That link can be found on the score notes section of disc 2.

As for the video transfer, I went from my laserdisc to a Panasonic DVD recorder (which outputs in 704x480, so I left it at that resolution when encoding), to Tmpeg Mastering Works 5, converting the image to anamorphic widescreen. The inherent softness and haziness of laserdisc is apparent, as using excessive DNR (there was a very small amount applied) would have washed it out. The DVD itself was made with DVD Styler.


* Dimitri Tiomkin's Oscar nominated score for The Alamo (1960) has been released in quite a few different forms over the years. To this date, you could get the officially released score, which runs 44 minutes, the extended score with some never-before-heard tracks, which runs 66 minutes, and the complete film score, performed by the Prague Philharmonic in 2010, which runs 164 minutes over 3 CDs. There are even some stray tracks on The Essential Dimitri Tiomkin (disc 3, if you're a completist). Because I've broken up the film in two parts on two discs (disc 1 has 134 minutes of the movie, disc 2 has 68 minutes of the movie and the extended making-of, also 68 minutes), the score also had to be judiciously broken up. So, on disc 1 is the 66 minute extended score followed by CD of the complete score and 3 tracks from CD 2.

Disc 2 of this set has the remaining tracks from CD 2 of the full score, and 4 tracks of CD 3 of the score on the feature, while the remainder of CD3 is on the making-of documentary (as well as some tracks from Essential Tiomkin). This Laserdisc-sourced extended cut of the film is 40 minutes longer than the theatrical, and the making of is 25 minutes longer than the DVD version. The extra length provided the opportunity to showcase the whole score and the official score, without having to break it up into more audio streams which would have made this explanation that much longer.



General
Complete name : Y:\alamo\The Alamo Director's Cut\The Alamo Director's Cut Disc 1\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_1.VOB
Format : MPEG-PS
File size : 1 024 MiB
Duration : 19mn 7s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 7 488 Kbps
Writing library : encoded by TMPGEnc Video Mastering Works 5 Version. 5.0.5.32

Video
ID : 224 (0xE0)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, Matrix : Custom
Format settings, GOP : Variable
Duration : 19mn 7s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 6 923 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 8 000 Kbps
Width : 704 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.684
Time code of first frame : 00:00:00:00
Time code source : Group of pictures header
Stream size : 947 MiB (92%)
Writing library : TMPGEnc Video Mastering Works 5 Version. 5.0.5.32
Color primaries : BT.601 NTSC
Transfer characteristics : BT.601
Matrix coefficients : BT.601

Audio #1
ID : 189 (0xBD)-128 (0x80)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Muxing mode : DVD-Video
Duration : 19mn 6s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 224 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 30.6 MiB (3%)

Audio #2
ID : 189 (0xBD)-129 (0x81)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Muxing mode : DVD-Video
Duration : 19mn 6s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 26.3 MiB (3%)

Audio............: Dolby Digital 2.0/2.0
Subtitles........: English
Video Format.....: NTSC
Aspect Ratio.....: 2.20
DVD Format.......: Anamorphic
DVD Source.......: Laserdisc
DVD Distributor..: Custom
Program..........: DVD Styler/TMPEG Authoring Works 5
Average Bit Rate.: 7.5 Mb/sec

As a long time X-Files fan, I was waiting for the BD version of the whole series (the DVD sets are on my shelf since the first release); sadly, it seems it will be not released in Italy, nor the Italian language will be included in some foreign release...

So, I thought to take the BD boxset ("only" 55 discs!  ), and mux the Italian track from the DVD to them, but... I discovered that something else should be fixed... too lazy to wrong what, so follow the link:
http://www.xfilesvault.com/features/What...n-Blu-ray/

Something that could be (quite?) easily fit:

• credits: most parts are simply 4:3 squeezed to fit 16:9, so maybe an upscaled DVD 16:9 version *should* be better, at least it's not squeezed
  
• color grading: often the DVD is better - IMHO - and could be used as color reference
  
• some shots/scenes (and a whole episode) are upscaled; *probably* it's possible to do a better job using the PaNup technique, because the BD used upscaled NTSC footage
  
• season 8 has black crush, but should be fit by Fox now AFAIK
  
• some minor problems