Hello everyone. My name is Christopher and its a great privilege for me to be part of this forum. Im a huge supporter of preservation so Im intrigued by online communities like this and originaltrilogy.com, the latter of which Im also a member of. I hope to see some interesting projects and hopefully contribute to some as well. Any questions feel free to ask. Thank you everyone. 

The Good, the Bad and The Ugly (International Cut v1.0)

Project Info:

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (TGTBATU) is my favorite film of all time and over the weekend I had a desire to watch the old International Cut/US Theatrical Cut. So, I popped in the 98 DVD and as I was watching, I lamented the fact it wasn't in HD.

So I decided to assemble the IC/TC so I could watch it in HD. I pulled out my old work, re-cutting the 4K to the IC/TC while re-grading to the Mondo's (the Italian Blu-ray restoration) colors. I wanted to use the 4K since it had the best detail and grain but in getting out the old files, I remember why I abandoned it. The 4K's picture is bad all around. Its not just the colors but the contrast, gamma, shadows, highlights....basically everything. So I went back to the Mondo and decided to use that as the main source. Although it has less detail then the 4K, the colors are vastly superior. The hard part, the audio, was already taken care by thehutt on the OT. He took his 4K mono soundtrack and synced it to the Mondo. That gave me an audio base to work with.

There is one problem. What cut represents the IC/TC? The 98 DVD/LD is itself a restoration of the film. Lil Brutto (Fanres' TGTBATU expert) found out in fact the 93 LD cut is in fact the truest version of the IC/TC.  Its shorter then the 98 version (itself a restoration), missing shots here and there. For example, close-ups of the bandits in the beginning, shots of Angel Eyes eating, shots from Tuco's gang sneaking up the stairs, shots from the Blondie hanging scene, shots from Tuco's bath, etc.

(I'll follow up this post with a cut list)

So the goal it to quickly throw together the 93 IC/TC using the Mondo, 4K and old Extended Edition BD and have it be a stop gap till the better TGTBATU project is released.

Video:
The Italian transfer from the Mondo BD cut down to sync with the 1993 laserdisc of the International/US Theatrical cut. Additional parts from the US 4K and older Extended Edition BD.

Audio:
The mono soundtrack from the 1993 laserdisc in PCM 2.0 format.

Pics:
MKV Pics (Final)


Thanks
Lil Brutto: for information on the various cuts and additional soundtracks
thehutt: for his original English audio sync to the Mondo.
Chewtobacco: for advice and additional video

I'm trying to think, where was that one site where you could buy Blu-ray discs separate from their bigger box-set releases? I think it was called iDisc or something, but that can't be right...

So there are now two BD releases of these films: the UK Arrow edition and the US Criterion edition.

The Arrow edition was unfortunately mastered in RGB colour space, resulting in grey black levels and a washed-out look.

Criterion have reportedly done their own scan but it looks horribly contrast-boosted with over-saturated colours.

You can observe a comparison between the two releases here.

I'm proposing that a capable party might like to take the Arrow edition and either simply tweak it for BD compliant colour levels or perhaps do a more discretionary adjustment.

If they had access to the Criterion release as well, they might prefer to use their slightly higher quality audio (assuming it matches). From the looks of things, the subtitles on both releases are identical but I do like that Criterion have them within the picture, making them compatible for people with 21:9 displays (*cough*).

I can assist in providing the source materials for either/both releases if necessary.

Seems to me like a simple job for someone with a bit of experience and a half decent PC. Unfortunately, I have neither!

Any takers?

I was away from OT since a long time, due to the fact I forgot my credentials...   Thanks to Silverwook and Jay, I was able to be back to my OT account! 

But... everything is different now!

First of all, in my android phone, visualization is a complete mess... then, I can't see my preferred threads anymore... is this somewhere and I can't simply find it?

What do you guys (and gals?) think about this? Do you like the new forum software best, or the old one? I vote for the old one ("if ain't broke, don't fix it!"   )

Just two words: CGI CHILD
WTF... you can see it even if watched in lowres, on a 5in display, from another room... was it necessary? Absolutely NOT! Why they did it? Dunno...

Finally I had few time to finish the last season....well, the final episode seemed done in a rush ("c'mon.guys, let's finish this ASAP, because...") but, apart that, I liked the whole series; I must admit it has its flaws, but which hasn't any?

All in all, a great way to spend my time, between The Walking Dead, Z Nation and... Face Off!

Does anybody know if there's been an HDTV showing of Apollo 13 with a 16:9 open matte? Like, I don't know, if it was on Syfy or whatever?

hi,

this forum got my attention from song of the south.

I am addicted to 35mm format and love to hear the sound of a projector
and see all those scratches. as with vinyl they add a level of imperfection,
that makes me feel very comfortable.

but I also cheer when I see BDs with excellent transfers, that give you
a film-experience. (ok, not that many ....)

cu

I captured a VHS in VirtualDub and for some reason I chose MAGY codec when I captured it. HOW do I get it from the AVI it’s in now to an mpeg file, keeping the pcm audio, so that I can do a DVD9 size for this release? I asked over @ OT but have gotten no answer so far.

Thanks