The Thing [spoRv] v2.0

[spoRv]

Well, good news... probably Arrow would use this... or not? Well, I'm finished now, so I will release this anyway.

Found just very few artefacts, and a simple way to wipe them out: use the luma of the version before the latest - which has not perfect colors, but good contrast - and the chroma of the latest version. Result is perfect in all scenes, but two: one has just one or two frames barely affected, just at the end of a shot, and not noticeable; the other has some more frames with artefacts, but, as this affect just a small part of the image, is not that noticeable, and the scene lasts for more than twenty seconds, I preferred to have an almost perfect color match instead.

Going to encode it in x264 right now; waiting to receive the German DVD track, so to have a complete release; to make some room for that, I would compress the French PCM track.

[alexp2000]

Well, good news... probably Arrow would use this... or not?

At first I thought they were using an advance copy of Sporv 2.0

[spoRv]

At first I thought they were using an advance copy of Sporv 2.0  

Who knows... thanks for your kind words!

Well, x264 encoding finished; remuxed it using the old settings in a BD folder; drag&drop into MPC-BE works flawlessly, chapters are there, all audio and sub tracks seems to work; the two instances of minor artefacts are so barely noticeable that even I had to spot them, not easily, checking three or three times... I guess nobody will notice them, but, in the case, it only means that this version is imperfectly perfect!

I'm really happy of how good this version came out  it was not properly an easy task, to tell the truth... but it worth the time spent on it (and the knowledge gained)! Unless Arrow or someone else would release a proper regraded version - along with a good scan, maybe a 4K will be needed, this would be the ultimate version one would ever need - not said by the project maker, but just by a fan tired to watch blue snow, blue faces and other things. Even if Eiffel 65 sung "I'm blue", if I can avoid this in a movie (along with green, teal, and other similar issues) doing such a work, well... I'll try to accomplish the mission for other movies as well!

In the case someone would like to watch it before the final release - and consequentely help me to eventually find some errors (not likely, but s**t happens...), just drop me a PM; can't be sure to find out someone who actually may upload for me the files in hours instead days, though, so don't count on this for sure, ok?

[spoRv]

Son of a... nice pink unicorn, it decided to go over the 25GB limit... luckily, I had decided to shrink the French PCM LD track from 1.17GB (PCM) to 298MB (384kbps 2.0 AC3), more than adequate to retain all the quality, and on par with the non-Signature English LD track. Adding a 2.0 AC3 German track, 150MB, will lower the size of the final folders up to 720MB, lot more than what I need... phew!

Note: don't know why video bitrate, even if max is set at 40000kbps, gone so high... another problem is that actually the total audio bitrate is way over 10mbps, so the disc is not BD compliant... I think I will be forced to drop the DTS-HD MA and retain just the DTS core - along with the previous mentioned replacement - so at the end I would stay under 8mbps, and I could give video some more bits...

[MrBrown]

Or you can make an non BD conform MKV Version with everything included.

I would be interested to get the DTS-HD MA track to re-mkv the Thing for home use with that.

[spoRv]

You could always use the tracks from version 1.0, though... sparing 2GB going from DTS-HD MA to DTS Core would give almost 4mbps more to video, from 18.5mbps to 22.5mbps... I think it could be a nice tradeoff, considering that the "elected" track, from the Signature Collection, would remain untouched...

[MrBrown]

I don't have that version 1.0.
But also it does not need to be that hasty, I could wait for the Tracks until the LD rips for T2, Das Boot and so are done

[spoRv]

Hasty? Sorry if I gave you that impression, it wasn't my intention... I just stated a fact - I want to release a BD-25, I want to retain all those tracks, the only way to do that is to "discard" something... and I chose the lesser of the evil, IMHO!

Back on topic: the following are the MovieBarCodes for the HD-DVD, Shout, laserdisc and this version...

[spoRv]

A comparison of color grading for the whole movie at a glance: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/201928

[PDB]

Very nice!