The Upscale Project (aka Project Upscale)

[PDB]

Like I said it might be waste of time but I'm having fun watching the upscales.

Thanks for the info MrBrown. Wasn't sure on Dark City but I heard it was. Although I'm open to upscaling anything I'm trying to hit the open matte's first since they most likely will never se the light of day as HD. I might have to borrow copies of those DVDs  (Pred and DC)

Actually Total Recall would be cool too.

T2 is a PAL release of the TC. I kind of dropped my regrade of the BD since there is a regrade #D theatrical release coming soon and I put all the work into this open matte.

I'll send you a copy of Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness to test once I get the LD tracks synced.

That's the poiunt: Having fun. And I think a (slowly) processed and revised Upscale can look better then some "on the fly" upscale. Even if the hardware doing it is great.

Too bad the companies ignore the open matted Versions. I am loving the Evil Dead BD with the 1.33:1 Version.

If I am correct I also have the Open Matted Total Recall DVD. Maybe I can help you with that, too.

Yes, the T2 is PAL. A russian Release. It was hard to find as original DVD, but I got lucky.

I would be happy to see and check the results for AoD and ED2. I'll try to be kind as possible, but I am German, so I might... look for glitches, just to be possible to point them out.. : (Just joking, regard the special searching for glitches.. ^^)

Part of the goal at the start was so I could watch the entire Evil Dead trilogy in 1.33 like Evil Dead.

Hmm, not sure my work can stand up against German efficiency. Hopefully, the part of my ancestry that is German will help  

That is the other goal, a picture that is scaled better then on the fly but also more film like. Unfortunately, the processing is very, very slow. For example, I finished the video for Batman on Sunday. Scaling and converting it runs at about .88 to 1.5 fps, so it takes about 4 to 5 non-continuous days to process. Re-graining takes about 8 hours. Then reassembling the pieces, formatting and color correcting in AP took 36 hours. Then converting from AVI (lag) to H.264 took another 8 hours.

And you think wow that should look great but its not that great for approximately 85 hours of computer rendering. But that's for an almost 20 year old DVD that might have a video master that's 25 years old. So there is a lot of fighting garbage in, garbage out. And speaking of garbage in....the Evil Dead 2...

Love the results of how this looks, particularly Evil Dead II (which has a shitton of compression/macroblocking IIRC) and Back to the Future. Colors look great as well, very cinematic.

...had to have the worst video I've seen. Like Falcon says macroblocking galore. Which makes sense, since the video minus the audio isn't even 3GB. But not only the macro, there was a lot of junk noise (not grain) and crap at the edges of the frame that they must of figured overscanning on CRTs would take care of.

Doombot was nice enough to look at about 15 different tests. So I think I was able to get the macro-blocking down to a minimum and grain help hide it even more. Still there but hopefully a lot less distracting. The only thing I couldn't get rid of was banding. I tried many different ways but they all ended up eating into the picture. Luckily, it had little EE/halos unlike BTTF, AOD and Batman which were covered in them.

I'm currently collecting Open Matte DVD's so i'll chime in with what I have so far when I have sorted them out. Happy to rip and upload for this project

One open matte of interest is The Fifth Element. Well the VFX plates are P&S since they were shot on 65mm (I think) but everything else is Open Matte

I'd love to do Fifth Element since I'm a fan. I could do it like BTTF, get the widescreen DVD and switch to 2.35 for the SFX shots. Bigrob, do you have any comparison pics?

I have this ...

Predator DTS DVD
Spiderman Superbit DVD
Spiderman 2 Superbit DVD
I believe I have Dark City ... I'll have to check.
I also have both regular U.S. DVD's of Spiderman and Spiderman 2.

I don't know if these would be of use to you?

Thanks Jetrell. Are any of these the Fullscreen/Open matte versions? At bare minimum I could use some of the soundtracks.

I also have the Full Screen Japanese "Dawn of the Dead"  (Argento Cut) DVD.
And the Full Screen "Day of the Dead" DVD.

Also I could provide an uncensored English Audio track from the Austrian "Day of the Dead" BD.

Hey now. I forgot those were a thing. I'd be very interested in any Dawn of the Dead (and Day but I'm a bigger fan of Dawn). Thanks MrBrown.

There is another one to add to the potential list: the Princess Bride.

Got to get soundtrack syncing.

[IcePrick]

What is you process/method for upscaling? I'm trying to upscale some material myself, particularly reducing MPEG2 compression artifacts.

Of the top off my head, I have Cujo and Blood Simple open matte DVDs, if you want to have a crack at them.

[MrBrown]

I just checked the French "Day of the Dead" Full Screen.
Have to Check the JP DVD of Dawn of the Dead next time I am home, I just have the RIPped Disc of the Dutch Full Screen, I hope the japanese DVD is betther then the Dutch one.
I think the Dutch Dawn of the Dead Open Matte release one would certainly win against the Evil Dead 2 DVD in a comparison wich is worse. But The first German DVD release of that movie will certainly trump them both in uglyness...

At least I can confirm: The French DVD for Day... is open matted, with a bit lesser image on the sides, the dutch Dawn of the Dead - Argento Cut is also open matted, with slightly lesser on the sides, compared to the widescreen release.

I am more than happy, that the Argento Cut got a 4K treatment and will be released as 4K remastered BD and maybe even 4K UHD. (Even if it is "just" the Widescreen matting... )

What software do you use? Any open source or free to get software? I certainly would like to upconvert some of my PAL DVD to at least 1080/25fps, so that I do not have to convert and refit the audio...

btw: Do you need the full bitrate DTS Track from the japanese T2 DVD release? I think it was discussed on ot...

So at the moment I have to check:
- Total Recall - open matted?
- Day of the Dead - do I have the japanese DVD, and is it full frame?

And to find in my collection:
- Dawn of the Dead - JP DVD - Argento Cut
- Dark City - US Open Matte
- Predator - US Open Matte


@Bigrob:
I also started to "collect"/get some of the old open matte DVDs. Do you have the Friday the 13th DVDs? I need to get them, but I am not sure how to spot the correct releases on eBay.
I got some US Full Screen Releases after following the open matte threat at ot.
- Nightmare on Elm Street 1 - 7 (and Freddy vs. Jason)
- Predator
- Total Recall (think it is open matted)
- Back to the Future trilogy
- Jurassic Park trilogy
- Reservoir Dogs (the french one has slightly more image, but not as well colors)
- Dark City
- Terminator 3

Also got some from other countries:
- Terminator 2 - Theatrical Cut - russian DVD
- Dawn of the Dead european Cut - NL and JP DVDs
- Day of the Dead - French DVD (and mybe japanese DVD...)
- Jackie Brown - German First release DVD

I was bummed with following full screen pan/scan DVDs, hoped for open matte:
- Rambo trilogy
- Red Dawn
- Escape from New York

[Jetrell Fo]

The Spiderman Superbits are Anamorphic Widescreen transfers of the films original 1.85:1 theatrical presentations. No edge enhancements.

I forgot to mention that I do have the Cinema DTS for these 2 movies and the 3rd one from the Sony Trilogy (for lack of a better term).

[FrankT]

I have a small list of possible entries:

Ed Wood
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Hardcore
Scanners
Titanic
The Harry Potter films
A Night to Remember

[Bigrob]

I don't have the F13th DVD's in fullscreen sadly. Only got the deluxe editions which are widescreen only

If you give me a list off what you're after, more than happy to have a look round and send you links

Another one I have that springs to mind is Independence Day which is again Open Matte (some VFX shots P&S though)

Ones I got recently are

Air Force One
Masters of the Universe (not sure if Open Matte)
Leon - The Professional (P&S)
Ghostbusters 2 (P&S)
Apollo 13 (both open matte and IMAX versions)
Live Free or Die Hard (PG-13 cut)
The Abyss - Special Edition (disc won't play so looking for a replacement)
Screamers (Phillip K Dick)
Predator
Transformers The Movie (fullscreen, widescreen and reconstructed editions)
Dune (P&S only)
Blade Runner - Directors Cut (P&S)
Liar Liar (DTS)
Eyes Wide Shut (uncut)
Sunshine Cleaning (open matte but have a reframed shot for censorship)
Total Recall (open matte)
Dawn of the Dead - Extended Cut (not sure if open matte)

I need to have a good look in my collection though

[FrankT]

I'd help of course, but there's that small problem of PAL speedup... unless I get the NTSC versions. I do have the software to read that.

[Jetrell Fo]

@PDB .... I can share the DVD DTS of both Spiderman films with you.

[PDB]

What is you process/method for upscaling? I'm trying to upscale some material myself, particularly reducing MPEG2 compression artifacts.

Of the top off my head, I have Cujo and Blood Simple open matte DVDs, if you want to have a crack at them.

What software do you use? Any open source or free to get software? I certainly would like to upconvert some of my PAL DVD to at least 1080/25fps, so that I do not have to convert and refit the audio...

...Removed for future update...

btw: Do you need the full bitrate DTS Track from the japanese T2 DVD release? I think it was discussed on ot...

So at the moment I have to check:
- Total Recall - open matted?
- Day of the Dead - do I have the japanese DVD, and is it full frame?

And to find in my collection:
- Dawn of the Dead - JP DVD - Argento Cut
- Dark City - US Open Matte
- Predator - US Open Matte


@Bigrob:
I also started to "collect"/get some of the old open matte DVDs. Do you have the Friday the 13th DVDs? I need to get them, but I am not sure how to spot the correct releases on eBay.
I got some US Full Screen Releases after following the open matte threat at ot.
- Nightmare on Elm Street 1 - 7 (and Freddy vs. Jason)
- Predator
- Total Recall (think it is open matted)
- Back to the Future trilogy
- Jurassic Park trilogy
- Reservoir Dogs (the french one has slightly more image, but not as well colors)
- Dark City
- Terminator 3

Also got some from other countries:
- Terminator 2 - Theatrical Cut - russian DVD
- Dawn of the Dead european Cut - NL and JP DVDs
- Day of the Dead - French DVD (and mybe japanese DVD...)
- Jackie Brown - German First release DVD

I was bummed with following full screen pan/scan DVDs, hoped for open matte:
- Rambo trilogy
- Red Dawn
- Escape from New York

I have a small list of possible entries:

Ed Wood
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Hardcore
Scanners
Titanic
The Harry Potter films
A Night to Remember

I don't have the F13th DVD's in fullscreen sadly. Only got the deluxe editions which are widescreen only

If you give me a list off what you're after, more than happy to have a look round and send you links

Another one I have that springs to mind is Independence Day which is again Open Matte (some VFX shots P&S though)

Ones I got recently are

Air Force One
Masters of the Universe (not sure if Open Matte)
Leon - The Professional (P&S)
Ghostbusters 2 (P&S)
Apollo 13 (both open matte and IMAX versions)
Live Free or Die Hard (PG-13 cut)
The Abyss - Special Edition (disc won't play so looking for a replacement)
Screamers (Phillip K Dick)
Predator
Transformers The Movie (fullscreen, widescreen and reconstructed editions)
Dune (P&S only)
Blade Runner - Directors Cut (P&S)
Liar Liar (DTS)
Eyes Wide Shut (uncut)
Sunshine Cleaning (open matte but have a reframed shot for censorship)
Total Recall (open matte)
Dawn of the Dead - Extended Cut (not sure if open matte)

I need to have a good look in my collection though

All of these sound great. Let me finish up the audio for the existing projects and send them to people to look at. I want people to see if what I am doing is even worth it before I go any further. I don't want to set expectations too high since, like I said there is no way to magically make something HD with HD details. That's why my goal has been more film like, if you get the difference.

The Spiderman Superbits are Anamorphic Widescreen transfers of the films original 1.85:1 theatrical presentations.  No edge enhancements.

I forgot to mention that I do have the Cinema DTS for these 2 movies and the 3rd one from the Sony Trilogy (for lack of a better term).

I would LOVE the DTS for both. Thanks Jetrell! Might have to hit you up for Dark City also if that works out

I'd help of course, but there's that small problem of PAL speedup... unless I get the NTSC versions. I do have the software to read that.

I've been adjust the PAL back down to film speed (23.976) in avisynth. Seems to work fine.

[PDB]

And I got to get back to work but here is a quick comparison using Evil Dead 2.

Here is the opening logo:

DVD (upscaled)/DVD (my upscale with grain and cc)


And here is a comparison to the BD
DVD (my upscale with grain and cc)/Old BD/New BD


which I don't think compares too bad