DETAILED WORK DESCRIPTION

The best two available sources (HDTV & AMZN WEB-DL) were combined using AviSynth and the AutoOverlay plugin, since they are not stabilized against each other. This went well for most of the movie with the chosen settings, but still required about 50 or so manual fixes. In a few places logos were replaced using a Median of alternate sources. The combination was done in such a way to preserve all information in both images, which in one rare case (and possibly others) results in noticeably more image content than in either of the source versions. Additionally, the combined sources were mildly treated with deconvolution to sharpen the image.

The color grading is based on the released press photos. I liked their look and wanted to apply it to the movie. They are not real shots for the movie, but they correspond with real shots, which is how I used them to create a 3D LUT using DrDre's ColorMatch tool. Since the photographs have rather extreme contrast and not ideal colors, the 3D LUT was tweaked in Photoshop and 3D LUT Creator afterwards. The end result doesn't exactly look like the photos, but it certainly has a 35mm-feel to it.

Final encode was done with the 3D LUT and a grain plate applied. The 3D LUT went through multiple versions and encodes until I was satisfied with the result.


AUDIO OPTIONS

Since no lossless audio source is otherwise available, I acquired the Cinema DTS audio and synced it to this release, with the end result being a lossless 16bit 48kHz FLAC. Additionally, I have included the following English audio options:
- Dolby Headphone: This is a Dolby Headphone track created from the Cinema DTS track with mode DH1 and 80% amplification, also provided as FLAC.
- Commentary Track: Commentary by director Jonathan Lynn. It's the raw synced AC-3 from the DVD.
- AMZN E-AC3 5.1 audio: This is the audio track that comes with the WEB-DL, for comparison purposes.
- NTSC DVD 5.1 AC-3 audio: This is the audio track from the NTSC DVD, also for comparison purposes.
- HDTV 5.1 AC-3 audio: This is the audio track from the HDTV, again for comparison purposes.

All these English audio options are the raw original format, no transcoding was done, they were merely synced with Delaycut.

In addition, the following languages are available:
- Losslessly synced with Delaycut: Japanese 5.1, French 5.1
- Retimed (using iZotope 64-bit SRC) and encoded in OPUS (using the original bitrate): Italian 2.0, German 5.1, Spanish 5.1, Russian 5.1, Czech 5.1, Hindi 2.0

Aside from the Hindi track, these all seem to be the original DVD tracks which I have carefully assembled over some time; their sync should be perfect for the most part (within 10-20ms). The Hindi track is sadly pretty poor, in both quality and sync; unfortunately I couldn't find a better one and didn't have the time to spare for a perfect sync.


EXTRAS

Since no Blu Ray relase or otherwise comprehensive release of this movie exists, I collected all the DVDs I could find and assembled all the unique extras from each and added them to this release. There may be some overlap between the individual files in terms of content and some of them are not available in English, but at least it's a more or less complete collection.


35MM TRAILER SCAN

Some time after the main encode of this project was already finished, I managed to acquire a 35mm trailer of this movie and have it scanned. Thanks a lot to all the people who have helped me getting this done (I am not naming them in this file because I am not sure if they prefer to remain anonymous).

This trailer scan is included here as an encode of the Open Matte scan in 1920x1634. If you wish to view it in 4:3 or 16:9 instead of a complete Open Matte, simply use the cropping function of your player and you will see it closer to the way it was meant to be seen.

The trailer includes the optical 35mm audio as FLAC 2.0, and an SDU4-decoded FLAC 4.0 track and a FLAC 5.1 track created from the 4.0 as well as a Dolby Headphone track which in turn was created from the FLAC 5.1 track.

In addition, you get the trailer audio in two English versions, the one included on the Czech DVD and the one included on the Japan DVD. Each has slightly different EQ, hence I included both. These exist if you want a "cleaner" audio compared to the 35mm audio which is slightly glitchy at times.

Also, the Spanish trailer audio is included synced to this scan. There's also a German audio track, though this one is a reconstruction from the German DVD; the German trailer is a shortened version of the normal trailer, hence I simply filled in the missing places with the Japan DVD audio, so some parts of that track are in English.


SYNC

This release is in sync with The Whole Nine Yards 2000 1080p AMZN WEB-DL DD+ 5.1 H.264-monkee.