This is a project ive been working on and off for a couple off years.
Original Thread was not one of mine but I contributed to it and made my project anouncement Original Thread
Although I did a pre-release, a MKV 720p version. Ive since put the project on hold to research new Upscaling, Filtering methods and Delivery options.

Orignal Proposal


The Killer.

For the Final Version of this I intend to do a Multi-Disc Version with Custom Menus and Everything.

The Movie

What I have is

German DVD Version. PAL 720x576 16.9 Cantonese 5.1, Mono
U.K Hong Kong Legends Disc PAL 720x576 16.9 Cantonese and English 5.1 (Best English Subs)
Criterion DVD NTSC 720x480 4:3 Letterbox Mono & Commentary.
Fortune Star Blu Ray 1920x1080p DTS 5.1 Remix (Direct translation Subs)

THE PICTURE

Ive taken the PAL Versions and Done a 25fps to 23.976 Conversion to them and the Subs.
And done a reverse telecine from 29fps to 23.976 On the Criterion.

All Of them sync up well in the edit suite with a little tweaking here and there.

The german DVD is hands down the best Ive got. It has English opening and Closing Credits so will have to replace the opening and end with another addition and try to match it in Colour ect the best way I can. Probably the Hong Kong Legends Version. The problem is The german DVD is Hard Interlaced and will take a really good De-interlace Method to bring it back to a suitable progressive format. I am looking into this at the mo.

The Bluray is quite poor when you look at them side by side. It does have a higher resolution and is True Progressive but the Brightness has been higher-ed to such a degree that it has blown out. Some backgrounds that were present in the German Print are now just White. It also has a lot of noise. Ive synced all the audio to this for my Version 1 as I was making HD mkv’s.

AUDIO


The Best Audio is the Mono original. Guns and Soundfx have more power and its a more pleasing EQ. Again next to the Dub it sounds a little empty I think down to the same reasons I out lined in the Hard Boiled Audio section.

The Hong Kong Legends audio lacks power I tried a custom mix of this but I'm still not happy with it I just EQed it and added gun sound fx to the Left and Right Channels to try and give it a little more bang. May have to do a custom version at some point like the Hard Boiled one I'm attempting but will be a lot harder as there is no CD Soundtrack available with a decent quality. It uses some Music from Red Heat tho and I have that. Maybe using the English Dub and the Remaster DTS from Fortune Star I can get something but Ill look at that later.

The Bluray Remastered Soundtrack is one of those terrible remixes with over the top added effects that stick out a mile. I don't mind adding effects if they blend well and don't replace original elements of the mix but this is like the Better Tomorrow mixes from Japan that are dire.

Again maybe the Criterion Mono from the Laser-disc will be a good Original Audio Track for the Final.

SUBTITLES

The Consensus is that the HK Legends DVD contains the Best Subtitles. I have these synced and also a Direct Translation Version from the Blu Ray.

EXTRAS

What I have.

Commentary by director John Woo and producer Terence Chang From The Criterion DVD
Deleted scenes 5 of them from the HK Legends DVD
Theatrical Trailers from the HK Legends DVD
Interviews with Kenneth Tsang Sally Yeh and Peter Pau from the HK Legends DVD
Interview with Director John Woo From the Dragon Dynasty DVD
American Cinematheque Q+A on The Killer From The Dragon Dynasty DVD
The Killer Locations From The Dragon Dynasty DVD
Taiwanese cut from The French DVD, Better Quality than the Hard Boiled one and in 16.9 Ratio with Burnt in Subs and is Disc 2 in the set.
Documentary From The French DVD in English about 30 mins.

Here is the First Major Update I did



Hi all, here is an update on The Killer ive been working on.


VIDEO

Ive used the German E.M.S DVD and the U.K Hong Kong Legends DVD for Open and end credits, done an upconvert to 1080p and converted the frame rate from 25fps to 23.976.
This gave me a 1920x1080p AVI @ 23.976fps compressed using the UT 422 codec at a whopping 238GB
I corrected a few errors with the print in Adobe Premiere and added a layer of film grain over the image to try and help blend in some of the artifects caused by the DVD compression, it also helps cover some of the DNR.

SCREENSHOTS
Looks much better in motion and the grain looks very organic, I understand if this seems a little stupid to some but to me it helps.
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TRAILER

I through this together when I was remastering the American Trailer for the bonus feature disc, may also use it for the menu.
You Tube compression aside it gives more of a sense of how it looks in motion.
http://youtu.be/btuYDpbB6NM
AUDIO

Im working on a custom 5.1 audio mix using the DTS track from the Japanese Blu, it is more in line with the original mono mix and ive removed most of the added sound fx that really annoyed me. Some are still there but they do not bother me.
Other options ive synced are the Criterion Laserdisc Audio, English Dub in 5.1, and 3 Commentary tracks from the Criterion, Fox Lober and HK legends discs.

SUBTITLES

Synced the HK Legends subs to it with a section of the Criterion subs to cover a song that has been changed in the newer mixes, Ive also made some time ajustments and added some additional lines.


FINAL

At the momment the specs for the final are looking like this.

DISC 1 - BD25

Main Movie

1920x1080p @ 23.976fps 21000kb/s
Was going to be 1280x720p but might just go ahead and encode it at 1080p.

DTS-HD High Resolution Audio 5.1 Custom Mix.
DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 Original Mono Mix (Criterion LD)
Dolby Digital 5.1 English Dub

Extra Features

Dolby Digital 1.0 Commentary by John Woo & Terence Chang (Criterion)
Dolby Digital 1.0 Commentary by John Woo (Fox Lober)
Dolby Digital 1.0 Commentary by Bey Logan (HK Legends)


DISC 2 - DVD9

Taiwanese Cut

MPEG2 720x480 23.976 pulldown in 29.976 fps

Dolby Digital 2.0 Mandarin

Extra Features

Additional deleted scene available stand alone or reinserted into the movie via branching.

DISC 3 - DVD9

Extra Features

Theatrical Trailers - some re-mastered.
4 part documentary (from the french DVD) - Remastered into 16.9 and translated titles.
Interview with Chow Yun fat from the God Of Gamblers U.K DVD.
Interviews with Kenneth Tsang Sally Yeh and Peter Pau from the HK Legends DVD
Interview with Director John Woo From the Dragon Dynasty DVD
American Cinematheque Q+A on The Killer From The Dragon Dynasty DVD
The Killer Locations From The Dragon Dynasty DVD

Thanks to Mr Brown, singhcr and captainsolo for there help with making this, im not finished yet but im not far off.

Another great project!!! Happy to have it here at FanRes!

Sweet. Love The Killer. Such a great film

Beautiful. Your old 720p version was easily by far and large the best the film has ever been outside of a theater and the first to really approach the level of quality it deserved.

(2015-01-22, 01:27 AM)captainsolo Wrote: Beautiful. Your old 720p version was easily by far and large the best the film has ever been outside of a theater and the first to really approach the level of quality it deserved.

Wow, cheers captainsolo, good to see you on here.
Ive been experimenting with all kinds of up-scaling and filtering techniques which is why the project seemed to die.
I need to clear my head and get distance from it for a while, so I'm focusing on another project.
This really is my pet project and I will return to it soon.

Thanks for all your help with it over at OT.

This look Killer! Is the Taiwan cut source the french HK Bonus DVD?

If you will use both PAL and NTSC DVDs, may I suggest you to use the PaNup technique? It will increase the quality of a single upscale.

(2015-02-05, 03:42 PM)Stamper Wrote: This look Killer! Is the Taiwan cut source the french HK Bonus DVD?

Yes, there has already been a PAL to FILM speed conversion done on this by msp1518. so may just use that one.

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(2015-02-05, 04:12 PM)spoRv Wrote: If you will use both PAL and NTSC DVDs, may I suggest you to use the PaNup technique? It will increase the quality of a single upscale.

The Killer has only had bad releases in NTSC, normally letterboxed and lack detail (Some converted from the same PAL souce). Do you think the method would still add anything?

Iceprick has very kindly given me a new source, the same as the German EMS but a better encode with less compression artifects.
Audio sounds dam good also, better than the laserdisc PCM even thou its DD2.0.

(2015-02-07, 04:34 PM)CSchmidlapp Wrote: The Killer has only had bad releases in NTSC, normally letterboxed and lack detail (Some converted from the same PAL souce). Do you think the method would still add anything?

It may works too with bad sources... of course best results are from both good quality sources, but I'd make some tests nevertheless...

(2015-02-07, 04:54 PM)spoRv Wrote:

(2015-02-07, 04:34 PM)CSchmidlapp Wrote: The Killer has only had bad releases in NTSC, normally letterboxed and lack detail (Some converted from the same PAL souce). Do you think the method would still add anything?

It may works too with bad sources... of course best results are from both good quality sources, but I'd make some tests nevertheless...

Sounds like a good idea. Ill see you in the PaNup thread when I begin work on this again