Color matching: recolor a video source (usually an higher quality version), to match a second video source used as reference.

Regrade (aka recolor) a video source without using a reference, but only following personal tastes, indications, "feelings" is not color matching, thus projects like these can't be called preservations or restorations, but just fan edits (fanfix, in particular).

As far as I know, at the present, there is NO way to regrade a video source to color match 100% a reference source! (retaining all the image quality and parts of the higher quality one)

There are several techniques to achieve this task, and I'm trying here to explore some of them; if you are aware of any other ones, please let me know!

Merge chroma

This is the best way to achieve (almost) perfect results; just align spatially and temporally the two sources, use the luma of the first source and chroma of the second (reference) source.

Pros: colors are not simply matched, but they are the original ones!
Cons: often the two sources don't match; spatially, they could have different sizes, different framing, rotated and/or distorted image; temporally, if there are some frames missing from the reference, it will be obviously impossible to match those frames. Also, the luma of the two sources could differ greatly in contrast, brightness, gamma, and could lead to wildly different final color appareance.

Color matching tools (video)

There are many softwares around that try to match, mimic the colors of a reference source and apply that to another source; again, you need to align spatially and temporally the two sources.

Pros: usually easy to use and automated, they could match the colors quite exactly
Cons: different softwares/plugins use different methods to accomplish the task, so they have different behaviours, but none could match 100% every frame, every shot, every source; where one is perfect for a given shot, fails on another, and vice versa. Also, some of them require the two sources to have the exact framing and size.

Color matching tools (image)

There are other softwares that do the same, but only to images and not video; you could find an image from a film cell, or a screenshot, then find the corresponding frame of your source, and then match the two.

Pros: this could be the only way to match two sources, if the reference video is not available.
Cons: without best consistent reference images, it's impossible to reach a good result; even with such images, hardly the matching setting obtained from a single image could be used to regrade perfectly a whole movie, but could be useful for a given shot or scene; of course, the more the images to match, the more close the matching will be.


Compare & regrade by eye

This is by far the least precise way to color matching two sources, but sometimes the only one if the previous ones are not possible, or they give not good results.

Pros: you don't need fancy softwares and a steep learning curve, just a simple editor which can allow color settings.
Cons: even if used by editors with perfect color vision and perfectly calibrated displays, it's quite difficult to make a good color match of two sources only by eye.


I noted that sometimes a mix of the previous techniques leads to the best results. Usually, I use only video matching tools, and combine the results to obtain the best final matching. For example, working on my last project, I discovered that doing a second pass (regrade a regraded source), using a different plugin, could help to improve the color matching. Also, the latest technique is to use the merged chroma source as one of the reference, and average it with other color matching regraded versions to further refine the results.

Conclusion: even if it's (still) not possible to color match two sources perfectly, with good will, experience, knowledge, a lot of time and patience, it's possible to catch the "spirit" of the color grading of an inferior quality source, and apply that to a superior quality source, without noticeable problems; almost no one will be able to spot the colors differences only watching the regraded version, unless it is put in direct comparison with the reference source..,

I'm using EasyBD Lite 1.1 that is now available again from dvd-logic website.
When I compile the BD I get this error:

MUXER ERROR: Error in mes file "c:\users\AppData\Roaming\DVDlogic\Muxer\c1\c1e933f08b40de0899b4332efc2c12b8.mes" field with name "ChannelAssign" not exist.

and the compiling stops. Any idea what could be causing it?

When I open that file with notepad this is what it contains

Quote:mes_version=100
type=2
subtype=0x80
can_be_primary=1
can_be_secondary=0
blocks_count=1186202
unit_count=1186202
audio_presentation_type=3
sampling_frequency=1
SamplesPerSec=48000
BitsPerSample=16
Channels=2

Looks like this lovely Mad-Max exploitation just came out on Blu-Ray in Japan. Until now it was only available on DVD (and I suspect almost at VHS quality).


http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Battletruc...ay/156490/

English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
Japanese: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)

Link Is No Longer Available From Me
If someone has this and wants to share it, please by all means do so.

This is a little project that taas007 came up with. Take the black and white House of Blue Leaves battle scene and add the color back in. How was it done you ask, let taas007 explain.

"The 1080p color output is created from a mix of the uncut Japanese DVD & the retail US Blu-Ray.

The high-definition B&W Blu-Ray footage is supplemented with luma information from the DVD to recover blown highlights. Then the color from the DVD is upscaled using SuperResolution, added and luma levels adjusted shot-by-shot as the retail Blu-Ray has considerable filtering ontop of the B&W pass.

In essence, it means the highlights are upscaled as they were completely blown in the retail Blu-Ray.

The shot at [1:26:41] has an eight frame color data gap as the DVD cuts to a wide shot (and thus does not provide any usable color data) where the retail Blu-Ray stays with the closeup. The first half of the shot has been slowed down to 93.7% and picks up at 100% from where the Blu-Ray continues. No visible difference.

The result is the US Blu-Ray version with the "House of the Blue Leaves fight" fully in color."


All i did was take taas's reinked video, insert it into the movie and encode it to share with everyone.   

Video

• uncut Japanese DVD & the retail US Blu-Ray
  

• 5.1 PCM from the US Blu-Ray and encoded to DTS-HD Master
  

• English (Forced only)
  

Once upon a time, every film released in home media formats (we are talking end of 70s here) was full screen; to achieve that, many were pan&scan - took just a part of the screen, eventually slide it left or right, and the sides were lost.

After a while, the laserdisc format (followed by all the others) started a new trend, letterboxed movies, where the whole image was displayed, adding black borders on top and bottom; at the time, many were against this, because TV sets were 4:3, and so black bars huge, and image smaller than non-letterboxed version.

Then came the 16:9 TV sets, DVD, HDTV, Blu-ray, and letterbox is the standard "de facto" for released movies.

So, what's about open matte? Well, many movies filmed in 35mm were "soft matted" when projected in the theaters; that mean the whole 1.33/1.37:1 image is used - apart, usually, for FX shots, as the cost of them is directly proportional to image area; then, when projected, a matte mask is put in front of the projector, to get rid of top and bottom parts, and get the desired aspect ratio. There are also some "hard matted" movies, where the black bars are on the print, and so no chance to get back the image parts that were behind them.

Many argue that a movie, at home, should be watched as the director (and/or studios) wanted it projected in theaters, in its OAR (original aspect ratio); I agree, this is the best way to watch it. But an open matte version is a great, alternative way, sometimes, to discover interesting things. Of course, not every one is a good version.

The best chance to find a good open matte version is to find out the OAR and the OM (open matte) AR; 1.85:1 (and smaller) AR and 1.33:1 OM, and in general 1.78:1 OM have often (but not always) a good chance to be good, and lose small to few image on the sides, often gaining more image on top and bottom.

At the contrary, 2.35:1 movies in 1.33 OM are usually heavily cropped, and a bad way to see the movie; also, many movies with a 2.35 (and higher) aspect ratio were shot using anamorphic lenses, so no way to get an OM version of them, but only P&S (Pan and Scan)

Old VHS tapes, laserdiscs and also DVDs offer a vast opportuinity to get 1.33:1 OM versions; I read somewhere that about 80% of the so-called fullscreen DVDs (in opposition to letterboxed DVDs, anamorphic or not) are indeed OM. On BD and HD-DVD, chances to get an OM version are quite rare, while often it's possible to see them on HDTV broadcast, or web download.

While open matte means to get a movie without mattes, not all of them are of the same kind. We could distinguish them in the following main kinds:

• full open matte - the image includes all (or almost all) the letterboxed image, hence a lot more image on top and bottom, while none (or a little bit) of image lost on the sides; this usually happens for movies where OAR difference is not that high from the OM AR - example, 1.66:1 OAR and 1.33:1 OM, 2.00:1 OAR and 1.78:1 OM, but sometimes happens also in other cases - as far as I know, vast majority of 1.85:1 OAR -> 1.78:1 OM is full open matte; 1.50:1 OAR (and lower) -> 1.33:1 could (should?) be the same
  
• normal open matte - the image includes more details on top and bottom in comparison to letterbox, but quite some image lost on both sides; this is the normal situation of higher difference from OAR to OM AR - example, 1.85:1 OAR and 1.33:1 OM, and 2.35 OAR and 1.78:1 OM
  
• open matte cropped - the image gain something on top and/or bottom, but a lot of details are lost on both sides; the difference with pan&scan is that usually no pans occour during the movie, but the OM image remains centered, or offset on given shots
  
• mixed open matte - some scenes could be full or normal open matte, while others could be cropped (usually during widest shots, or shots with special effects) or pan&scan
  
• variable aspect ratio - lately we find some movies, usually shot on IMAX, that retain some shots open matte (full or cropped), while the rest of the movie is letterboxed
  

LIST OF FAN EDITS, PRESERVATION, RESTORATION PROJECTS

Updated 2017-01-23 – 1735 entries - http://blog.sporv.com/fan-edits-master-list

I got the following DTS Cinema audio for trailers (with duration):

Fight Club (48s)
Minority Report (116s)
Speed 2 (97s)
Titan A.E. (38s)
Volcano (a) (60s)
Volcano (b) (146s)

If someone may find the right video to couple with them, please let me know, and I'll upload the needed ones.

I will be updating this first post sporadically as I finish these projects.

USA





Japan




France




Germany



Spain

I'm awful tempted to get me another laserdisc player for audio rips but in the UK it seems getting one with PCM spdif (for a reasonable price) is a tall order. Should I be patient and wait for something to show up or just settle for analogue (ie L/R stereo rca) outputs? I know you used to be able to add a digital out via a mod but that might be above my pay grade.
(Edited for clarification)

I finished my Escape from New York project but I find myself stuck near the finish line. I'm new to all this and I need a collective hand (and a hug at this point, why not) because I can't seem to be able to make some steps work.

The story so far:
I worked on Adobe Premiere CS6/After Effects and found out that 1) Encore really sucks at authoring Blu-Rays so it's not an option, 2) exporting/encoding directly from Premiere in H.264 wasn't the wisest choice in the first place (because of its subpar h264 encoder)

So I've been suggested to follow this workflow that I'm sure you're all familiar with: export a lossless intermediate file and then use the native x264.exe to convert this large file into a Blu-Ray compatible H.264 which will then be used with an authoring software (spoRv recommended me EasyBD but I ain't got that far yet!) to create a Blu-Ray.

Since the commonly recommended lagarith is now obsolete and did not seem to integrate at all with my Premiere, I installed UtVideo and with its codecs I could finally export the film from Premiere as a large uncompressed AVI (YUV 4.2.0 BT.709), so obtaining the intermediate avi file.

Where is the problem
From the intermediate file the next step should be to convert it into a Blu-Ray-compatible file thanks to an executable, x264.exe, that can handle the h264 encoding properly. As you all already know (but I'm new to all this) x264 doesn't have a GUI but relies on the use of command prompt to tell it what to do. So, well aware of my ignorance on this type of procedure, I followed given instructions relying but ended nowhere. Where it seems easy for others, I found a wall of errors/can't dos and now I'm totally stuck. Getting help individually from very helpful members residing in different time zones turns this a long-term assistance so I decided to stop being a burden for single individuals and I'm gonna start bothering the whole board with my encoding problems.

Let's start with the script I've been using for pass 1
(my intermediate avi is called EFNY_INTERMEDIATE.avi by the way)

I'm tryin to run this CMD line:

x264.exe --pass 1 --bitrate 27000 --bluray-compat --level 4.1 --preset faster  --tune film --keyint 24 --sar 1:1 --slices 4 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --vbv-maxrate 40000 --b-pyramid none --weightp 0 --colorprim bt709 --transfer bt709 --colormatrix bt709 --merange 24 --stats ".stats" --output NUL "EFNY_INTERMEDIATE.avi

What I get is the following message:
ffms [error]: could not create index
lavf [error]: could not open input file
avs [error]: failed to load avisynth
raw [error]: raw input requires a resolution
x264 [error]: could not open input file 'EFNY_INTERMEDIATE.avi' via any method!


What? How? Why? When?

Additional info: yes, the x264 executable is in the same folder of my intermediate avi. I work on Windows 8.1 64-bit if that matters; I installed  avisynth, ffms and who knows what else, I don't even remember now but I can check it out... so many I installed in the last few days. Don't know what else to add at the moment.
Talk to me like to a little kid, don't worry about it. If anybody has ideas on what can be causing all these difficulties feel free to give me a hand and don't give anything for granted, I might have missed some basic steps. Well, cancel "might".

[FOR ANYONE WHO MIGHT HAVE SIMILAR PROBLEMS IN THE FUTURE: the problem was in the latest version of x264.exe and was solved by using a previous version]