[Released] Harry Potter saga - open matte

[spoRv]

Update:

worked on the two TV captures; they are from Spain, one from Nexo, the other from LaSexta.

Nexo has lower quality, and less image on both sides; no missing frames apart final credits absent.
LaSexta has more details, bigger frame; sadly, few dozen frames are missing near the three commercial breaks, and no credits as well.

They have different color grading; I tried to mix them but result is worse than the better one, so I discarded the idea.
I thought to use LaSexta as main source, and replace the shots with missing frames using Nexo; this to get a source to use to remove the logo.

I made a further comparison, and the conclusion is the same: apart the "three brothers" and a limited number of shots (not entire scenes), the rest is pan & scan, even worse, image misses few lines top and bottom.

So, the plan is this:

• use the Nova TV 720p as main source only for the open matte shots
  
• use LaSexta as second source to remove logo from Nova TV
  
• reconstruct the rest cropping the BD, following the Nexo as guideline, because it has all the frames
  

I worked specifically on the "three brother" animation, and I'm very proud of the result!
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/210205
Encoding the scene will take "only" 10 hours, more or less!

Few words about HP 8: it's so huge because babouin captured them (two different broadcasts) with a capture card, and I asked him to send it lossless, so I could work on it without quality loss. He did a delogo and, according to the only short part I have downloaded until now, it seems he made a great job!

[nightstalkerpoet]

That looks great!

For the films that are only partially Open Matte, could you release lossless copies of only those scenes once you have them finished? I'd like to mix them with the standard BD for a switching aspect ratio release (my intention is to slip it into an official bluray using MultiAVCHD.)

[spoRv]

I strongly hope to find HP 7 in real HD; if not, no problem for the few shots of it.

HP 8 lossless parts would be around 60GB, though!

[spoRv]

Small update: two parts (for around 24GB and 20 minutes) of HP 8 have been downloaded; I repeat that baboin did a great job removing the logo; there are only few shots with it - pretty sure due to the fact the second source had not those frames or got a logo/superimposed "fancy advertisement" over that part of image... also, I noted two digital glitches, one frame each.

I can say that these little things could be resolved easily, thanks to a further source which, luckily, has the logo into another corner.

I must add that I'm aware this version is a mix of open matte/cropped (not p&s), and, apart few shots clearly open, it's very difficult to say which shots are cropped... director surely shot 16:9 safe; and it almost seems a new movie, with those moments of "breath"... don't get me wrong, I love OAR and I would always like to watch movies in their OAR, but versions like these are really great alternatives, not to watch exclusively as the solely version, still precious to have them available.

Then there are those badly cropped/almost non opened versions, but this is another story for another thread!

[spoRv]

"Three brothers" test clip #2: https://mega.nz/#!56IC0QwL!hgRwt3ynv9Y7v...ejzIhUlz4c

Still not perfect, but much better than test #1... if only a better source could be located... or someone that can cap it in HD!

Help wanted: if someone would like to spend some time to find out which shots should be taken from BD, and which part of the image - it would be a simple selection between few choices, not the research of pixel-perfect cut - please post here.

[spoRv]

OK, so far we are at around half way with HP 8; confirm that logo appears for few frames at the beginning and at the end of each part, and that it should be not too difficult to wipe out it - still have to test this, though... the fact the two HDTV sources have different color grading worries me a bit.

Another little problem is the fade in/out for each part; apart final credits, there are 10 parts so, excluding the very first frames that are always black, and the last scene that fades to black anyway, and if there are no missing frames between the parts, there are 18 fades (9 fades in, 9 fades out) that lasts around 16 frames; I would be able to recover part of them, but not every single frame - the two/three near-black ones would be impossible to recover correctly... I thought about a trick to return the frame numbers right; as those fades are applied on quite static shots, I could interpolate few frames (the number of them would be equal to the ones lost due to fades) in the first/last scenes; it should work flawlessly; add to these that the film is quite dark, so it would help to let this process to pass unnoticed - I hope so... example below, left untouched, right defaded:

[nightstalkerpoet]

Looking good. I'll work on those other sources today if I get a chance

[spoRv]

Great! Waiting for the updates here!

HP 8 downloading continues... it should be finished in ten hours, more or less.

[spoRv]

Comparison between HP 8 1080i and 720p sources reveals that the former is way better than the latter, even with its inhrent flaws due to MPEG-2 broadcast - blockiness, noise, softness, interlacing etc.

Still, it's possible to squeeze an excellent picture out of it!

Here the passages to get it:

1. color matrix conversion - reduces green-ness
   
2. residual interlacing problems fixed
   
3. deblock
   
4. MagiClean enhance
   
5. MagicUp uscale
   
6. 35mm grain plate
   

Comparison: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/210355

Opinions?

The downside is it would take around three or four days (even with parallel encoding) to actually encode lossless ONE film!

[spoRv]

HP 8 download finished!

I can say we are at 95%; to reach perfection, I would like to find a 1080i/p or at least another 720p of HP 6 and 7...

Meanwhile, I think the "real" work could start...

Still waiting to know your opinion onto enhanced test#1 - link in the previous post.