Few days ago it was on TV, and nothing else to watch, so I thought "let's give it a chance!"... and you know what? Actually I liked a lot! Despite the fact I don't love particularily these kind of CGI animation - indeed, maybe I'm the only one to think that Avatar's smur... Na'vis are nothing more than very well done CGI cartoons, never felt real "characters"... an upgraded version of "Roger Rabbit"!

This time I liked the cartoon design - in particular the captain, seems quite realistic to me; and the story was very funny! Apart the obvious exagerations, I think that if Spielberg had chosen this script for it's latest Indy's chapter, probably it could have been really better than the final disaster called "Crystal Skull"!

So, if you like CGI cartoons, and want to spend some time following a funny adventure, this is really reccomended!

Just to let you know that we have two new moderators, PDB and jimjimmyjones85!!!

Say "welcome" to them, and then go to them for any problems about the forum!

Guys, if you like zombie movies AND comedies, you should watch this!

After "Z Nation" TV series, now it's time for a Bollywood zombie flick... and it's quite good, too!
Better than a lot of occidental indie films... well done, good acting, funny... take your time to watch it, but be careful: audio track is a hindi-english mix, so subtitles are really necessary!

Discovered lately, it was a surprise! After "The Walking Dead", a lighter zombie series was needed!

I like it very much, and the fact that it's based on the same universe of TWD - all are infected, and in the first episode there is even a reference to a cop closed into a prison with other people - maybe will lead to a crossover episode - it will be great to see it!

As there is no HD version - and probably will never be - I thought to use the PaNup technique to upscale both PAL and NTSC DVDs to have more details than any current edition... I need the PAL DVDs, preferably both french and spanish, to add those two languages to the english audio track.

Anyone?

In 2012 Universal released the Universal Classic Monsters/The Essential Collection on Blu-ray. They really knocked the ball out of the park. Each movie looks amazing with perfect gamma and contrast. Bride of Frankenstein looks and sounds incredible as well, using a 4K wet scan of a lavender nitrate positive. There is one small glitch though, that once you see it, it can't be unseen, which is a shame. Someone at Universal tried to fix a rough jump cut and botched it.

This is a link to a few forum pages which outlines the problem and a simple fix that one of it's members did. It's only a few frames of work, I can send someone a mint copy of the Blu-ray and I'll pay for shipping and all of that. Maybe someone here with restoration experience could read the link I've added and see what you can do?

http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku...KsoEivF_TJ


I'm not sure how to spread the joy with others enjoying a fixed version if someone takes this on, but I'll help in any way I can. It's a drag that such a historic motion picture can look this good and have a great original mono soundtrack in lossless audio and be left with a handful of frames needing work.

Thanks!

What's about this? Do you like the idea? Is there any PAL 1.66:1 DVD that could be used? I thought to use the PaNup technique, but I need both NTSC and PAL for that...

Hi guys! Its great to see so many familiar faces here!

It seems like a nice place to spend the days hahahah

PaNup™ - PAL and NTSC upscaled

This technique should be used to obtain a good quality upscale, when two different standard definition video are available, better than using one source only.

The idea is simple: take two captures of the same content, one PAL, one NTSC, then merge them to “squeeze” every bit of details from it… everyone knows that a PAL capture has 576 horizontal lines, while NTSC has 480… now, when a movie was transferred to video, usually original resolution was higher than that (not all the times, but often); so, the PAL and NTSC “received” different lines of image… see the next image (obviously intentionally exagerated…):



As you can see, the red, green and blue lines have different thickness in PAL and NTSC; the aim of this technique is to combine those different lines to recreate an image closer to the original one.

To test my theory, I took some high definition images, resized each dimension to 1/3 to simulate NTSC, and to 2/5 to simulate PAL, then I wrote a script to mix and upscale the simulated PAL and NTSC images. Here you are the close-ups of the results; PAL and NTSC are the simulated images upscaled with pointresize, PALup and NTSCup are upscaled using a bicubicresize, to simulate a simple upscaler, PaNup™is my script (oh, how much I love acronyms – PaNup™=PAL and NTSC upscaled) – no noise reduction is used:





Of course, the validity of this tests are questionable, as the PAL and NTSC images are simulated; nevertheless, these give an idea of what could be achieved using “simple and poor” low definition media, like VHS or better laserdisc, and DVD too! Not HDTV, OK, but still quite a good result.

The problem is, in real life, it’s close to impossible to find a movie which has a PAL and NTSC version that match each other 100% – usually they use different masters, so cropping and color grading are different… but, in those almost-impossilbe cases where a PAL and a NTSC laserdisc (and VHS) are virtually the same, the ideal condition is to capture the PAL at 768×576 and the NTSC at 640×480 (actual letterbox images at 2.35:1 will be 768×326 and 640×272, at 1.85 will be 768×416 and 640×346); if the capture card could capture at 720×576/480, only the Y axis will benefit – this is also the case of DVD.

***

I tested PaNup using “The Abyss” PAL DVD letterbox, and NTSC R6 DVD, anamorphic; overlaid at 40% PAL and 60% R6 (as it has more resolution); applied at the end a grain plate
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/61161

Another example: Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/63368

Star Wars - A New Hope 1997 (adding Super Resolution):
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/125558
(more comparisons on post #18)

It could be an interesting technique to restore movies that are not available in HD, but only as PAL and NTSC DVDs – or letterbox and anamorphic DVDs, OR, just missing shots not present in HD, but only on PAL and NTSC DVDs... or, if someone would like to make a fan extended edition, this could be used to improve the quality of SD deleted scenes!