Armour of God HD-SD Hybrid

[IcePrick]

So now it's time to tell you about the project I've been working on for a while. A fan restoration of the original HK version of Armour of God using the best available material.

Video

For the bulk of the movie, I used the HD transfer from the US blu-ray. I filled in the missing scenes using the upscaled Fortune Star transfer color- and brightness corrected to match the HD transfer. I did the encode a while ago, and there are a few minor issues with it, but since I don't have the raw files anymore, there isn't much I can do about it. Also, while I tried to make sure that the encode is BD compatible, I don't have a Blu-ray burner so I can't know for sure. It would be great if some people are willing to test it for me.

Audio

Original Cantonese mono mix in LPCM format captured from a VHS. The sound quality is surprisingly good. It certainly blows all the DVDs out of the water. I think many wouldn't even guess it was sourced from VHS. I'm also planning on including some other tracks, including the old English dub. I'm also thinking about having a track that replaces the closing theme song with 'Flight of the Dragon' that was used in the export cut. It makes sense since the score is largely based on that theme. Not sure what the story behind it is. Maybe they changed it at the last minute?

Subtitles

I'm still working on the English subtitles. I used the Joy Sales subtitles as a source, but I've been doing tons of editing. I'm hoping to get someone who speaks Cantonese to do a read-through to spot any errors.

Extras

I haven't decided whether or not to include extras yet. I'd like to hear people's opinion on that.

It's fairly close to completion. All I need to do now is to learn how to author BDs Let me know what you think.

[spoRv]

It seems an interesting project! When it will be ready, you will be promoted "project maker"

About BD authoring: I use MultiAVCHD, a bit awkward at the beginning, but still the only free software that let you make BD menus...

Extras: it depends from how big will be the movie... as video is from BD, I strongly encourage to use the highest bitrate possible to "fill" a BD-25; if the extras are limited to, let's say, a couple of trailer, you still could put it in the main disc losing just a bit of quality; at the contrary, if you have many, it's advisable to make a bonus disc, DVD if they are all SD, BD if there are some HD material - you could still release a BD-5 or BD-9 that could be burned onto cheap DVD-5 or DVD-9

[IcePrick]

Just for fun, I'll show you a couple of things I noticed in the open matte VHS of the movie.

Jackie lands on a mattress.
[Image: vlcsnap-2015-02-04-03h58m23s77.png]

The tree in the corner reveals that this shot was shot on the ground.
[Image: vlcsnap-2015-02-04-03h59m48s140.png]

Also, another thing I noticed in the opening sequence, there are a number of shots where Jackie is doubled by someone else. This is most likely due to his head injury, so we can probably forgive him.

[PDB]

Ha those VHS pics are awesome. I love this project Iceprick. AOG definitely needs a little love. How much was removed from the US cut? I've only seen the HK one over the years. I did see the US version of AOG 2 and that was butchered to hell.

[IcePrick]

To the best of my knowledge, they just re-used the old export cut. It's not nearly as extensively re-edited as AOG 2 or First Strike. There's about 9 minutes worth of cuts. Restoring the footage is relatively straight-forward since the cuts tend to include upwards of several minutes at a time.

[IcePrick]

Does anybody here have the DVD 'Jackie Chan: Fast, Funny and Furious'? I'd like to include a clip from it since it has an alternate angle of Jackie's fall from the tree.

[jedeitor]

Hey, IcePrick. I don't have that DVD, but I have the Hong Kong Legends edition of the movie. Would it be of any help?

"Digitally remastered and restored asian version containing footage not available in international print", so it must be the HK version.

[IcePrick]

Hi, jedeitor. I already have that disc, but thanks for the offer.

[jedeitor]

You're welcome.

[IcePrick]

OK, so now I have everything ready; the video, audio tracks and extras. I just need to author the disc. MultiAVCHD is completely baffling to me. I wonder if someone could help me? How do I do proper menus? It doesn't have to be incredibly fancy, just have the feature and extras separate like commercial BDs, and not the weird playlist thing MultiAVCHD likes to do. Also, MultiAVCHD doesn't seem to like LPCM audio at all. It just spits out an error when I try to include it. Is there any way around this?

By the way, if somebody has the Cantonese mono track sourced from Laserdisc, please let me know. It would no doubt be an improvement over my VHS capture.

Edit: I've found a workaround for LPCM audio so I don't need help with that.