Here it is: https://www.ebay.de/itm/Dolby-Surround-D...2968402357

A little background: I've been trying to find a good way to transform the stereo surround track on the Brazil Criterion Collection back into its original 4 channels, as is intended. Turns out it's a little more tricky than expected. 

For one, the "Dolby Stereo" matrix is always the same. In other words, the encoding is always the same. BUT, there is a vast variety of different decoders. 

The most "faithful" ones seem to be actual Cinema Processors, like the Dolby CN65. Way too expensive for me sadly. There is the CN45, but it has a bad reputation and supposedly doesn't come with the surround decoder by standard.

This unit here apparently is/was used for monitoring Dolby Stereo matrix mixes in actual studios. So, chances are, this unit is something like audio engineers use to monitor their Dolby Stereo/Surround mix. It has symmetrical (XLR) inputs and outputs, perfect for a studio environment where you want to minimize electrical noise and stuff like that. This is perfect for me because I have a nice RME Fireface audio interface that I connect this to and create a high quality decoded 4-track from any stereo mix.

It actually outputs 4 channels. L, C, R and S (Surround). Many decoders I found somehow split the surround channel up further, which is of course not really faithful to the original. The Pro Logic II decoder is an example of this. Also, original Dolby Stereo mixes only had a 7kHz limited surround channel, so it's kind of pointless to get any kind of high frequency content in the surround channel, as its guaranteed to be just bleeding from the L,R channels. This one should get me as close as possible to how it was originally "meant". 

Now, it's apparently still built on a Pro Logic integrated circuit, so it's still basically the consumer variant and basically a later "fancy" thing that introduced steering (detecting which channels are dominant and pronouncing them, vaguely said). That's not totally faithful I think, because steering wasn't used at the time when Brazil was produced afaik. So ... meh. It won't be perfectly faithful.

On the positive side, from what I read on Wikipedia, the standard consumer Dolby Pro Logic decoders lack the surround delay that is typical for cinema processors. Basically, this is used to improve the localization. Since bleeding of the Front channels into Surround cannot be completely avoided, a delay is introduced to make sure that the sound always appears first in the front, improving the localization of the sound source in the front. This decoder here does have that delay adjustment (which apparently can be changed between 10ms and 150ms, depending on the size of the room, not quite sure how this all works together yet).

So, to summarize:

- Has 4-channel Pro Logic decoding plus surround delay, like cinema processors. So, no unfaithful splitting of the rear channel through weird frequency modulating stuff. Also likely has the 7kHz cap on the surround channel, making it more faithful again.

- Sadly, it's Pro Logic based, so a certain form of artificial channel separation is introduced.

- Should be on par with very good early home theater surround decoders. So while it won't allow me to hear what you would have heard in cinema (that would require a much more expensive cinema processor), I will hear what good early surround consumer hardware would have produced. Plus the delay. Plus the symmetrical outputs for perfectly recording the output and creating surround tracks out of it.

- No fancy Dolby Pro Logic II type stuff with all the advanced steering etc. that was never really intended back then.

- Afaik it's analogue.

I just hope this thing works. If so, I'll be trying it with other movies too. Should work with any movie that was done in "Dolby Stereo". In theory it should work very fine on the optical Dolby Stereo tracks, for example in the captured Ghostbusters 35mm. It's not technically meant for decoding the optical tracks, but I think it's as close as possible without an actual Cinema Processor unit. Might work on some Laserdisc PCM tracks maybe? Don't really know anything about them, but I imagine they will have put the matrix-encoded audio in there too?

Either way, if it works, you're all welcome to send me some audio to run through it. I'll capture it at 48kHz, 24bit. I could theoretically capture up to 192 kHz 24 bit, but most tracks out there are only 48kHz anyway, so there seems to be little use for that.

Also, for my own releases, I might use the converted output further to create a 5.1 set; The L C R I can keep. The rear surround I can split up into two identical Ls and Rs channels, attenuated by -3 dB to create the "phantom center" in the back. LFE I can simply use a lowpass around 125 Hz on all the channels. Should be fair enough I think.

This is a a strange one for me. I was running an avisynth script (scaling, etc) through Vdub 32-bit into a Lag-AVI. Done this many, many times without error. Now all the suddenly I'm getting this:



basically the video goes a few frames and returns with FFMpeg.dll error reading frame=ERROR UNKNOWN, which as you can see is terriblely insightful. I thought maybe it was something I did in the script so I striped everything except open the video file and then convert to LAG-AVI in Vdub: same results. I also checked the full script in AVSPMod and it was fine.

I upgraded Vdub to the latest: same results.
Downgraded it to the latest version (1.3): same results.
Loaded a new version of FFdshow: same results.
Load AVIsynth again: same results.

I had no major updates that I'm aware of outside of the latest copy of Premiere. A google search shows nothing useful. So I'm at a loss. Any ideas?

I can't really find much on this. It appeared on the internet, but I can't find a review of this Blu Ray and the screenshots don't look terribly impressive so far; one seems to have terrible "color correction" where a whole darker area on the ground blurs into a grey ... something: https://cdn.imagecurl.com/images/7854833...015239.png (although this screen is from an encode, not from the source).

The box doesn't really go into much detail either: http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Murder-on-...ay/187302/

Also, framerate seems to be 24.000 fps instead of the usual 23.976.

"Classics Remastered" seems to be kind of a brand from Australia. The layout looks decent enough.

Some forum discussion on blu-ray.com: http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?p=14287472 (somebody says they are new transfers, but have some color issues? But not much to back it up)

Is this an actual remaster or is it just a scam?

Edit: I think I found a screenshot comparison with some Italian version (might be the old transfer?): http://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?a=1&x=618&...0&i=5&go=1

The new one seems to look sharper, but definitely has some weird color issues, and especially the dark areas look weird and seem to lack detail. Possibly won't even allow color matching, else this might have been an interesting project.

So here’s the story. I recently snagged a Pioneer HLD-X0 for 200,000 yen. That’s $1,761.24 USD as of this writing.

Here’s the link to the exact auction for info: http://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/k278262761

Problem is, like you’d be able to guess, I don’t have 200,000 yen! I just want it so bad to capture the Laserdiscs I’ve collected thus far.

For those of you who don’t know, the HLD-X0 is the pinnacle of Laserdisc playback, video-wise, and more importantly audio-wise. Everything comes in clear as a bell on this baby.

Now for the time being, I will try to fund the purchase as best I can, but to make a successful transaction more likely, I will probably need the assistance of my fellow video/audiophiles.

Anywhere around the $1,000-mark is extremely cheap for an HLD-X0. Heck, it’s good for any high-end Laserdisc player.

If you’d like financially assist me, PM me and I’ll give you my PayPal information.

Now this venture will not just be for Laserdiscs I’d like to preserve. If you have any Laserdiscs you’d like to have digitized in the best quality, over and under, send it/them to me if you
have them or tell me where to buy them and I’ll try my best to finance them when I can.

Thank you for your time and I hope we’re able to make this happen together. ^_^

-Arian

Hello.
I wanted to ask, does anyone have any unused film reels that he would throw anyway, that he would be able to send them to me to use as decor?
Of course I'd pay for the shipping expenses.

I have in mind something like this (hanging them on the wall)
[Image: 2013-symphony-show-house-003.jpg]

The QUOTE box is a quirky piece of programming. Generally speaking, from things I've tried to make it do, it ultimately breaks it's internal programming -- after which I must go to source to sort out the mess.

But one obvious and quick fix would be to change the appended word "Wrote:' to start with a lower-case letter, to be "wrote:".

If you're up to it, how about working-in titles that have links in it. Quoting without a built-in reference method makes for sloppy-looking external-to-the-quote links. Thanks!

I just wanted to rewatch Armageddon and sadly found it absolutely unenjoyable due to the sound. The audio is dynamically compressed a lot, which means that an asteroid crushing into the street isn't really much louder than room-loudness dialogue before.

The audio curve pretty much confirms this, especially the center channel goes in the direction of being brickwalled (I am exaggerating, but considering it's not a music CD, it's a fair comparison I think).

Anybody know of a better audio? I'd like to sync something better to the Blu Ray, because this sounds just flat, boring and sad and doesn't live up to the movie imo.

I've read about the Laserdisc audio of Armageddon supposedly being very good, one mention was on this forum in reference to a Japanese laserdisc (link).

Does anyone have a capture of that? I'd kill for it if it's any better.

Although I guess DVD would be fine too if it doesn't have these issues. 

Still, if the LD is the reference sound, I think it should be synced to the Blu Ray just for preservation purposes.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (35 Project #2 v1.3)

This is part of my 35 Project:

https://fanrestore.com/thread-1741.html

See post 22 for final MKV

Project Info:

This is an attempt to make Temple of Doom look more 35mm trailer scans, 35mm/70mm frames and 35mm print sections. The result is a lot less red with added greens and blues while preserving the golden/yellow/orange and brown skin tones. Also added a small luma curve and contrast to better duplicate the 35mm's look.

Video:
The BD image color corrected using a LUT(S) to match the 35mm trailer scans, 35mm/70mm frames and 35mm print sections.

Audio:
1. PCM 2.0 from the US Widescreen laserdisc

2. DTS-HD MA 5.1 from the US BD

Pics:

MKV Pics (Final)


BD/Regrade (Out of date)


Collaborators (in order of help):
TomArrow: For his upmix of the LD PCM 2.0 into a 4.0 and 5.1 track

I am not sure how to reproduce this but sometimes when writing a post and possibly while editing or using Backspace-button, the browser will use the "back" function. It's happened a few times to me now and it's infuriating, because I often end up losing some progress (I can get some of it back by simply using "Forward" again). 

It's possible I'm just doing something weird with my keyboard without noticing, but I haven't had this issue anywhere else. 

Am I alone with this?

Criterion's Brazil Blu Ray apparently has a matrix-encoded Dolby Pro Logic stereo track.

In other words, it's a 2.0 stream, BUT this stream has "matrix-encoded" 2 additional channels into it which can be extracted to have 4 separate channels. I tried this with foobar2000 and free_dsp_surround (which aims to do precisely that) and it seems to work. I actually get a center channel with much of the dialogue and SFX as opposed to the front channels. I only tried the plugin with the 5.1 channel layout which isn't really true to Dolby Pro Logic (which has 4 channels = front, left, center and a back center), but it still seems to do a decent job, as far as I can judge.

Here's why I believe it does have such a channel; an article written by someone who owns it and it apparently says "DTS-HD MA 2.0 surround".
http://audiophilereview.com/audiophile-m...preme.html

The Criterion website is a little ambiguous, says "with DTS-HD Master Audio surround soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition", but obviously it only has 2 channels, as seen on blu-ray.com.

So anyway, that was kinda tough to figure out. Even the blu-ray.com review doesn't mention it, so I'm guessing this knowledge has become kind of obscure. I wonder if there's any list of movies that have such a track? Downmixed back to headphones (with Dolby Headphone plugin) it definitely sounds like a step up from the original 2.0 track. Much more "roomy" and alive. (I don't have a real surround system, so this is the best I can try)

This could improve the experience of a lot of movies and more importantly give an option to create actual surround tracks for movies that don't seem to have one.

I wonder how many movies are out there with such a track without anybody (even the studios) knowing about it?

And by the way, this is just the original Dolby Pro Logic. The later version Dolby Pro Logic II (which some claim to be compatible) apparently can even mix full 5.1 channels into a stereo track. This is rather impressive, considering that it is (to my knowledge) a fully analogue technique. The original one is, anyway.

UPDATE: imdb has a "Matrix Surround" list but I am not yet sure how complete it is and whether it includes Dolby Pro Logic. Brazil for example is not on that list, nor is it mentioned in its technical specs.

UPDATE 2: Found another very interesting article on the subject in general: Matrix audio. It boldly claims that pretty much every movie since 1977 has such a soundtrack. Makes you wonder ...

UPDATE 3: Just realized I'm not the first one to bring this up. Nevermind. Still, anyone know of a list of movies that have this?