So I'm thinking about putting together a collection of Alien related material / bonus features that aren't available on the official discs, a bit like what was done with the Dawn of the Dead Ultimate Edition. This is what I can think of so far - I wondered if anyone else can add to it? Any TV Specials or Interviews?

Alien with the laserdisc Sensurround audio
Alien Makers Discs 1-5
2 x H R Giger Documentaries
Aliens Electronic Press Kit
Aliens Ride Footage
Alien 3 Workprint
Alien Vs Predator Fox TV Special
6 x Alien 40th Anniversary Shorts

There are already something like that - on OriginalTrilogy you can find more info, they are called Alien Makers series; dunno if they include everything, though!

I got all 7 of the Alien Appendix DVD's I can supply and other Alien stuff. Pretty sure Jonno will chime in shortly

(2020-04-30, 08:30 PM)spoRv Wrote: There are already something like that - on OriginalTrilogy you can find more info, they are called Alien Makers series; dunno if they include everything, though!

All of the stuff on there was re-encoded. I'm trying to put together an "original" version with the original files...as much as I can. It was a mess of re-encodes by the person who created them. All were pushed to PAL.

Yeah, we had this conversation about a year ago on OT.

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/ALIEN-...-/id/67137

Video standards are a bit of an issue here. Edited highlights of what I said then:


US DVD/Blu-ray players and displays are known to have issues with 25 or 50 field/frame content (SD or HD) - they’re generally not made with anything other than NTSC/film specs in mind (whereas European players have been NTSC ready since the DVD era).

The sources of the fan-collected Alien materials are a combination of (true) NTSC and PAL frame rates, e.g.

Shock and Awe (UK broadcast documentary - 50i)
James Cameron: A Director and His Work (US tape source - 59.94i)
Giger’s Alien (shot on 16mm film - 23.976fps)

There’s no one disc medium that will support all of these formats and play anywhere in the world - there has to be a compromise somewhere along the line.

I guess the only solution that would suit all users is the ‘bag of files’ option, which isn’t much fun from a user perspective but at least has the benefit of source purity. I think splitting up PAL and NTSC content would be unhelpful - it’s far more user-friendly to organise by film, not format, as a repository of files in their original form.

This would be well-suited to format-agnostic viewing, such as desktop playback, at any rate (and presumably media servers such as Plex and Kodi too, given that they can transcode on-the-fly for TV viewing).


alleycat, I'll send you a PM.

Thanks to everyone who has responded so far. Jonno has kindly sent me a load of material in addition to the stuff I have that I listed at the top of the thread. Rob is you don't mind sending me over the Alien Appendix discs that would be a great help. Also digitalfreakNYC if you don't mind sending over anything you have that would be a great help as well.

Looks like this will be a multi blu ray disc set, looking forward to designing the menus etc - just got to finish up a few projects first.

In terms of the PAL/NTSC compatibility issues I wonder how often USA players have issues with PAL? The reason being is for the Dawn of the Dead set I did I included everything native, so a mixture of PAL and NTSC footage, and it's been shared with a lot of people based on the USA but no one has reported an issue in playing anything.

Edit - just found this in my authoring program manual:



So SD 25fps footage doesn't seem to be an issue, it appears that only 720p and 1080p 25fps footage that causes a problem.

(2020-05-01, 12:22 PM)alleycat Wrote: Thanks to everyone who has responded so far. Jonno has kindly sent me a load of material in addition to the stuff I have that I listed at the top of the thread. Rob is you don't mind sending me over the Alien Appendix discs that would be a great help. Also digitalfreakNYC if you don't mind sending over anything you have that would be a great help as well.

Looks like this will be a multi blu ray disc set, looking forward to designing the menus etc - just got to finish up a few projects first.

In terms of the PAL/NTSC compatibility issues I wonder how often USA players have issues with PAL? The reason being is for the Dawn of the Dead set I did I included everything native, so a mixture of PAL and NTSC footage, and it's been shared with a lot of people based on the USA but no one has reported an issue in playing anything.

I'm putting together my own set, thanks. But, tbh, most of the stuff I have you already have.  I talked to Jonno forever ago because, like I said, I'm trying to put together a better version of the Appendix discs.  They were a bit of a mess. There's even HD stuff on there that's been downscaled.

I'm basically using the original files and just throwing them together.  I don't care about menus.  All of my discs are just files now.  It makes life FAR easier.

(2020-05-01, 12:22 PM)alleycat Wrote: ...In terms of the PAL/NTSC compatibility issues I wonder how often USA players have issues with PAL? The reason being is for the Dawn of the Dead set I did I included everything native, so a mixture of PAL and NTSC footage, and it's been shared with a lot of people based on the USA but no one has reported an issue in playing anything.

SD PAL content in 576/i/P dates back to the old DVD specifications, so any DVD specifications are carried over to BD specs. Blu-Ray spec was envisioned for 23.976/24fps content from the start, though some early HDTV displays didn't support 24hz modes or were still 1080i 60hz, 23.976fps can be easily converted to 29.97 or 60i through pulldown. Even though some consumer 50hz equipment at the time of it's development didn't support 25hz modes until later on, BD specs still didn't alot for 25p content as they wanted to shift all content to the 23fps/NTSC standard and PAL/50hz material would be less common than with DVD. They chose 1080i 50hz(50fps) as a compromise in BD specs for 50i and 25hz film content, as those rates can easily be converted to and back from 50hz.

(2020-05-01, 12:22 PM)alleycat Wrote: In terms of the PAL/NTSC compatibility issues I wonder how often USA players have issues with PAL?

Most often. And the sets, and the inputs that they will accept, are part of the problem too, not just the players. That's why Oppo players are so highly regarded: they make the conversion on the fly, fixing the problem at both ends.

The fact that SD "PAL" is in spec for BD doesn't matter. It's not part of the spec that had the North American market in mind, and commercial BDs with SD PAL extras can cause problems. (This relates to the compliance-compatibility distinction that I've given up trying to explain to people.)

According to the manual the spec is what is laid down by the Blu Ray Disc Association (BDA) and that all set top players must adhere to it? I personally am in PAL land and I have heard about people not being able to play some extras on UK discs with certain players in North America, but never knew for sure if it was SD extras or HD extras they were struggling to play. However, judging solely on the Dawn of the Dead disc, it went out to a lot of people in North America and the majority seemed to be ok.

I'm still collating together the material but the majority of it is PAL. I guess with a lot of it, if it was once NTSC and then was converted to PAL, then converting it again is going to degrade it even more.