So I've gone through every open matte version of Abyss I can find. Even a new one from maksnew (thanks!). It seems that regardless of origins, logo or no logo, 1080i or 1080p; that they all come from the same master that has those vertical lines on edges and aliasing. So the question becomes, drop the project or fix it.

I did as a test in which I ran a slight horizontal blur, an anti-aliasing filter, macro de-blocking, slight sharpening, re-grained as the HDTV doesn't have a lot and a preliminary color correction. All of that got upscaled to 4K and then back down to 1080p to get this:

OM HDTV/Processed


which doesn't look like much given the soft, low detailed original OM HDTV broadcast. Zooming in 400x and you can see some signs of improvement

OM HDTV x400/Processed x400


It's not as detailed as the OAR HDTV but at least cleaner then the original OM HDTV broadcast. What do people think?

Looks okay to me.

It looks bloody awesome! That's what I say.

No more pixelisation, purple shift gone. Would be a nice preserv!

Agreed, it looks so much better.

I hate teal HDTV version (bottom on first comparison)

(2020-04-03, 02:37 PM)Nfsfan83 Wrote: I hate teal HDTV version (bottom on first comparison)

Yeah but it’s theatrically accurate or at least a lot more accurate then the old pink master.

so I found a copy online this morning from a group called UTR that have release a 2160p version. downloading it now to see what source they used

Guys, there is a version of The Abyss on HBO subscription on Amazon Prime - Could it be a new transfer?

The quality looks great for OM version. Are you done with your project?

I've made some tests with development version of AutoOverlay plugin. It supports a new color matching algorithm and warp transformations.
Also there is a new overlay filter that extract most complexity (i.e. high quality) parts of all sources and merge them into the one.
There are two OAR and two open matte sources overlaid in that way.