The Upscale Project (aka Project Upscale)

[jerryshadoe]

If there are PAL and NTSC versions of the same title, you could do your upscaling (fantastic job on that front, by the way) and then overlay the upscaled PAL and NTSC copies to create an even better looking image. I have done this for certain personal projects and I know that Andrea has used this technique too. For that matter, even two NTSC or PAL, sources could be overlayed if they are from different transfers. This would help mask more of the artifacts caused by upscaling/macroblocking of source, etc.

[MrBrown]

For "Dawn of the Dead" European Cut, I suggest to wait until November... then in Italy thios one is released:
https://www.amazon.it/dp/B01LTHL0IS/

Und ich zitiere mal kurz:
"DISCO 3: FILM EUROPEAN CUT FULLSCREEN BLU-RAY: la versione europea montata da Dario Argento per la prima volta in versione a tutto schermo"

The other release (4 Disc limited) misses the UHD and the Full Screen Disc.
I hope not only the 4K gets english Audio, but also the other Versiones.

AFAIK only the European Cut got a new restoration, so I think the other 2 Versions are quite the same master as known.

Edit:
Italian languaged info on the new Editions here: http://www.midnightfactory.it/film/zombi...f-the-dead
Maybe someone from Italy, or with knowledge of the italian Language may be so kind, and check, regarding english Audio and new transfers of non European Cuts.

Edit 2:
Also I could throw in a Full Frame DVD of Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 and maybe even a Hellraiser Full Frame DVD.
At the moment I just can confirm that Hellbound is open matted. I'll try to check Hellraiser today, also.

Edit 3:
The US DVD of Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 has some open matting, but the DVD of Hellraiser (part one) seems just to be pan&scan, acvcording to a quick check.
Anyways, I just checked my US DVD of "The Boondock Saints" (unrated Version), and it has an open matted Full Screen Version on Side A. So, I may throw also this onto my List of "have".
   
   

I assume the Full Frame "Jurassic Park" US DVD and the "Nightmare on Elm Street" Movies from US and Canada are widespread, and need not to be mentioned for the List.

[PDB]

If there are PAL and NTSC versions of the same title, you could do your upscaling (fantastic job on that front, by the way) and then overlay the upscaled PAL and NTSC copies to create an even better looking image. I have done this for certain personal projects and I know that Andrea has used this technique too. For that matter, even two NTSC or PAL, sources could be overlayed if they are from different transfers. This would help mask more of the artifacts caused by upscaling/macroblocking of source, etc.

Thanks Jerry.

I actually tried that for the one or two DVDs that I have in NTSC and PAL. Trying to duplicating Andrea/spoRv's PALNUP. I had limited success. It helps with macro blocking but didn't see a lot of improvement in details otherwise.

I did see a lot of improvement using separate masters/transfers like you suggested. I have three copies of a Hong Kong movie called Once Upon A Time In China. Two are DVDs (Deltamac and Fortune Star) and the last is a BD that is a pretty bad upscale of the FS DVD. Combining the two DVDs yielded a much better picture then the BD. It also allowed me to use what I thought was the original color timing from the Delta DVD. The problem was the obvious one of aligning the two masters. I was basically impossible in Adobe Premiere since the DVDs were stretched evenly the same way. I converted section of the DVDs to an image sequence and loaded them into Photoshop. Using the auto-aligning worked right for about 90% of the time. And you could just use the B&W for the FS and the color and details from Delta.It was a nice improvement even before scaling. Problem was there was no way I could get a workflow going for that. I could right a PS script to align the pics but that was hit or miss. The best way is if I could align two pics and transfer that alignment data to AP. That way I could run shot by shot instead of frame by frame. But I came up with nothing so I put it on the backburner. Any ideas would be great.

(Actually I did have an idea how to align in Nuke but I haven't got it to work totally yet)

For "Dawn of the Dead" European Cut, I suggest to wait until November... then in Italy thios one is released:
https://www.amazon.it/dp/B01LTHL0IS/

Und ich zitiere mal kurz:
"DISCO 3: FILM EUROPEAN CUT FULLSCREEN BLU-RAY: la versione europea montata da Dario Argento per la prima volta in versione a tutto schermo"

The other release (4 Disc limited) misses the UHD and the Full Screen Disc.
I hope not only the 4K gets english Audio, but also the other Versiones.

AFAIK only the European Cut got a new restoration, so I think the other 2 Versions are quite the same master as known.

Edit:
Italian languaged info on the new Editions here: http://www.midnightfactory.it/film/zombi...f-the-dead
Maybe someone from Italy, or with knowledge of the italian Language may be so kind, and check, regarding english Audio and new transfers of non European Cuts.

Edit 2:
Also I could throw in a Full Frame DVD of Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 and maybe even a Hellraiser Full Frame DVD.
At the moment I just can confirm that Hellbound is open matted. I'll try to check Hellraiser today, also.

Edit 3:
The US DVD of Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 has some open matting, but the DVD of Hellraiser (part one) seems just to be pan&scan, acvcording to a quick check.
Anyways, I just checked my US DVD of "The Boondock Saints" (unrated Version), and it has an open matted Full Screen Version on Side A. So, I may throw also this onto my List of "have".



I assume the Full Frame "Jurassic Park" US DVD and the "Nightmare on Elm Street" Movies from US and Canada are widespread, and need not to be mentioned for the List.

Thanks for the heads up on Dawn, MrBrown. I saw that on blu-ray.com but didn't realize a open matte was included. That's pretty cool. And thanks for the updated list.

I had ideas for JP2 and 3 also.

[Bigrob]

don't get too excited about Dawn of the Dead.

Just been revealed that the open matte version has not had the extra height and width restored. They only restored the widescreen portion of the frame. Rest is untouched

   

[MrBrown]

Untouched would be better, then dnr'd like Predator UHE Waxwork...

[PDB]

That's bizarre. Why wouldn't you restore the whole thing and then crop it?

[MrBrown]

@Bigrob: Do you have a link to the revelation? I remember another shot of that frame that was meant to compare the raw scan and the resored image. Anyway, I pro-ordered that Edition. With that it will be more then 20 more or less different DVD or BD releases (in some cases only the packaging differs) of that movie in my collection...

[Bigrob]

@Bigrob: Do you have a link to the revelation? I remember another shot of that frame that was meant to compare the raw scan and the resored image. Anyway, I pro-ordered that Edition. With that it will be more then 20 more or less different DVD or BD releases (in some cases only the packaging differs) of that movie in my collection...

here we go

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=...count=1080

[MrBrown]

Ah, interesting, as long as the colors are not as different in one frame, as the shot where the difference between the two Frame compositions is shown, I am happy. The opened frame seem even more open, then the 4:3 DVD version, if I remember the DVD correctly.

[PDB]

Its interesting that they restored it from an internegative. I wonder how many other restorations have come from an IN.

So would that be a clean 16:9 image within a dirty 4:3 one? If true, that's just dumb. Give me the whole thing cleaned or uncleaned, not that strange mix. I also don't understand the framing either. If that is from the IN, it would just be copied/printed down to a release print, with no re-framing. At that point the projector gate would take care of the framing and the projector gate wouldn't produce an off center image like that. I could understand if you re-framed from the OCN but if shot open matte, that seems unlikely.

Or maybe I'm not understanding that picture at all.