OK, OT should be the right place to post this kind of things, but as it's not possible for the moment to post there, and because I'm afraid to forget to do it there in the next days    I decided to post here, also because it could interest some members here...

As many of you know, SW BD quality is good, but not "outstanding" as many "outsiders" (read: out of fan restoration circles) thinks... also, many "insiders" think that HDTV versions of SW have worst quality in comparison to BD...

Well, I'm posting here three comparisons, and leave comments to you; the HDTV "mix" is, well... a mix? between two HDTV sources, one MPEG2 29.97fps 1080i, and the others from AVC 23.976fps 1080p (surely taken from 25fps 1080i); the mix+grainplate is... you know, the latter with a 35mm grain plate slapped over it...

BD Vs HDTV mix:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/129830

BD Vs HDTV mix + grainplate:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/129831

HDTV mix Vs HDTV mix + grainplate:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/129917

waiting for your thoughts!

"Feature additions and modifications" have been merged with "Suggestions" and "Announcements" have been moved to a new forum category at the top.

Let me know if you hate the change.

Fanres now has a basic mobile version.

It doesn't have our distinctive red theme and a couple of tiny things like "Thanks" button. They're on to-do list, sometime in the future

Well as many of you, who signed here up know, spoRv started his early projects using laserdiscs (LD) as a color reference. Overlaying the LD's colors on the detail of HD. A great example is his work on The Thing. I have been trying to follow his footsteps using the LD's of Alien and Blade Runner to regrade those BDs.

Thats great for a fan projects but a not film restoration, right? Professionals have access to all the materials they need, they would never stoop to using an old LD transfer to fix a film, right? Wrong. I found this interesting clip about the restoration of Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World on youtube:



Basically, they recovered lost scenes by scanning strips of 70mm film that had long since lost their color and then overlaid in Nuke the colors from the old MGM 480i 1991 laserdisc transfer. So even professionals sometimes use laserdiscs.

Discovered lately SmartDVB; it seemed a good software - indeed, I recorded few HD films with no problems; but lately, it stops about one hour after I open it... as I use it mainly to record HDTV films not on BD, I MUST find a decent alternative...

Tried also SychboPVR: wonderful graphic, but fewer options, and now it seems to not work well...

Any other one?!?

Which one do you prefer?

-----------------------------------
Popular supporters of classical film/film prints: Tarantino/Nolan/..

Supporters of digital cinema: George Lucas/Peter Jackson/..

Just name your favorite movies of that period and let's see if there is a broad agreement or also some pleasant surprises.

Hello, I'm an Italian PhD student in film studies. I'm particularly interested in film sound and film preservation.
This seems to be an amazing forum! Thanks everybody

Hey, jercaly's here. Never knew how to properly introduce myself, never done this before, so... anyway. I'm kind of a movie freak, lucky to have a job in film distribution business (So what do you do for living? - Um, watching movies mostly ). Never done any restoration/preservation myself - I'm not that technically advanced, so I'm more of a lurker and an admirer of all the guys doing such a tremendous job of preserving films the way we remember them from our childhood. So the passion was born in 2005, when I first came across OT forum and was there to enjoy all the good preservation stuff for a while. Then life happened - wife, kid, ya know how it goes And then HD happened and all those great opportunities to enjoy all the goodies like Team Negative ESB Grindhouse and Harmy's Despecialized again in HD, and it kinda pulled me back in. So, basically, that's why I'm here - to enjoy and admire. Okay, too much text, over and out.  :cool:

You have a beautiful mixed stereo track encoded in Dolby Surround, ready to be captured and sync'ed with the latest BD which, of course, has the *wrong* audio track...

Now, there are few options to treat this track...

1. capture the track in stereo, leave it "as is", untouched (apart eventual 44.1->48KHz conversion) and leave the task of decoding to the BD player/amplifier/PC software
   
2. capture the track in stereo, decode it with a software decoder, then save the decoded output as uncompressed PCM/lossless compressed DTS-HD MA/lossy compressed DTS or AC3
   
3. decode the stereo track with an hardware decoder, then capture the multichannel decoded output and save the result as uncompressed PCM/lossless compressed DTS-HD MA/lossy compressed DTS or AC3