2017-03-16, 03:37 AM
With the new PC I discovered that I can speed up a lot of tests, so I tried to put my hands again on The Matrix to see if I can solve the problems of the first version.
To whom it may not know it, long story short: the movie in BD has a modified color grading, while the DVD has the same (or, at least, closer) of the theatrical print. In my first attempt, despite the fact I was able to get many shots very close, if not identical, regraded, in many I get artefacts - sometimes just a frame for one shot, but it rendered the whole project a pain in the... neck, and I was forced to use upscaled DVD parts to replace them... not bad solution if it would be for a couple of shots, but it happened in a lot - too much - of them.
Now, I discovered that the main problem doesn't lie in the software, but in the BD, which has a lot of white clipping; in these parts, the color matching software simply says "Hey, what I'm supposed to regrade here? It's just a white (green/blue/red, choose your color) spot, so I'm going crazy!" and replace these with various random artefacts...
So, the solution is to use the BD contrast somehow, to limit the artefacts to the minimum; it works pretty well, even if sometimes the colors are not so close to the DVD as in the previous version, BUT... I also discovered that the DVD has very flat palette, so for example faces have a lot less tones in the DVD than the BD; so now, even if faces are not of the same exact colors of the DVD, they have more details, thanks to more skin color shades.
I picked up an "anthology" of some shots previously ridden with artefacts - they were all located in the bright parts of the image, like lights, fires, explosions etc. - now they are almost all gone, apart few... want to take a look at the new version? LINK - test clip 5min, 5mbps, 229MB size, English and Italian audio (would expire around mid May 2017) - remember: it's a "patchwork" of short shots, you are warned!
At the end: do we need a revised edition?
To whom it may not know it, long story short: the movie in BD has a modified color grading, while the DVD has the same (or, at least, closer) of the theatrical print. In my first attempt, despite the fact I was able to get many shots very close, if not identical, regraded, in many I get artefacts - sometimes just a frame for one shot, but it rendered the whole project a pain in the... neck, and I was forced to use upscaled DVD parts to replace them... not bad solution if it would be for a couple of shots, but it happened in a lot - too much - of them.
Now, I discovered that the main problem doesn't lie in the software, but in the BD, which has a lot of white clipping; in these parts, the color matching software simply says "Hey, what I'm supposed to regrade here? It's just a white (green/blue/red, choose your color) spot, so I'm going crazy!" and replace these with various random artefacts...
So, the solution is to use the BD contrast somehow, to limit the artefacts to the minimum; it works pretty well, even if sometimes the colors are not so close to the DVD as in the previous version, BUT... I also discovered that the DVD has very flat palette, so for example faces have a lot less tones in the DVD than the BD; so now, even if faces are not of the same exact colors of the DVD, they have more details, thanks to more skin color shades.
I picked up an "anthology" of some shots previously ridden with artefacts - they were all located in the bright parts of the image, like lights, fires, explosions etc. - now they are almost all gone, apart few... want to take a look at the new version? LINK - test clip 5min, 5mbps, 229MB size, English and Italian audio (would expire around mid May 2017) - remember: it's a "patchwork" of short shots, you are warned!
At the end: do we need a revised edition?
