NSP Presents "The BetterBlu Collection" FanREMUX

[nightstalkerpoet]

I would like to start a series of releases that are all very simple- Using the untouched best HD video source, along with highest quality audio source (occasionally this will be substituted with an older track if extremely unpleasant changes have been made.) They will be sourced from Blu-ray and/or HD-DVD. If there is an HDTV stream that is very high quality, it may be considered (Raiders of the Lost Ark comes to mind).

They will all be BD-25s.

They will have matching Menus made in DVD Architect.

They will have a single video track and a single audio track (English, or original release language if no Dub is available), English subtitles in the case of Foreign Language films or foreign language portions.

I would like suggestions of films that you would like to see in this collection. Please include the preferred video and audio sources if able. You're also welcome to suggest films that simply have a very poor release, or haven't reached Bluray (but have an HD-DVD, D-VHS, or HDTV version).

In the occasion that the film/audio will not fit on a BD-25, a 3-pass placebo film x264 pass will be run on the video, which will be subsequently compared to the original and alternate sources to guarantee no quality loss.

Films I plan to include are:
The Thing (HD-DVD Sourced)
SW:The Phantom Menace (Schorman HDTV Sourced)
Multiple Pokémon Films (they're all a mess of different releases with different quality, audio options, etc.)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (Wowow Sourced, probably bluray audio)
Any HD-DVD without a Bluray release.

[PDB]

Sounds great , good luck with all the projects nightstalkerpoet.

Just one thing, I think Chew beat you to the Raiders project:

https://fanrestore.com/thread-491.html?highlight=wowow

[nightstalkerpoet]

That's awesome. Appears there's no need to release that then

I do know some of these will have been done with color corrections, fixes, etc. But I'm sure there's viewers that prefer the newer colors or just are looking for the Best Official combo. (I've met a lot of people that are sketchy on restorations, etc because they're subject to fan interpretation.)

[Koopa Luath]

I was hoping to do the first three Pokémon movies at some point (I already have the first movie explicitly in the list of things I'm planning to do for my own Gold Standard Collection). I think it was the Noriko Sakai drug scandal (she was the Japanese narrator for Pikachu and Pichu), but the international Blu-ray releases of the first three Pokémon movies ended up looking relatively piss-poor compared to the Japanese releases, especially in terms of extras. Plus, I'm hoping to finally give the original version of the first movie its day in the HD limelight, ideally using the laser videodisc as a source for the original unaltered footage without the CGI added in later releases.

[Evit]

Have you already worked on DVD Architect with files generated by x264 encode? I'm curious because, if I'm not mistaken, when I last tried that, DVD Architect asked me to re-encode once more my already-encoded h264 files.

[nightstalkerpoet]

Koopa, the main issue I've had with Pokémon the First Movie is that the Australian release offers 5.1 DTS-HD, but not for the extended intro that's in the Japanese version. The Australian video is also quite good if you're looking to limit it to the English theatrical version.

Evit: Usually I let DVD-Architect Re-Encode, then slip the actual file I want to use into the Bluray using MultiAVCHD. If the result doesn't fit on a BD-25, I then import that into BD-Rebuilder for the reencode.

[Evit]

Seems like a smart workaround which was recommended to me but I didn't test it out. Perhaps you should publish a tutorial so I don't hijack your thread with many technical questions. I sure would appreciate it

[spoRv]

Seems interesting!

About The Thing: of course I'm aware the HD-DVD is better than (old) BD - I used it as a source for my own project - but now it seems there is a general consensus the new Shout! version has a better resolution.

[nightstalkerpoet]

Good to know Andrea, I'll take a look. Ideally, all of the releases in this project would be replaced by a better official version. In most cases, chances are slim of that happening but fingers are crossed.

Project A1 will be The Phantom Menace, as schorman's release offers a uniquely easy conversion source, and the DVD version is unlikely to ever see a release in higher quality.

Project A2 will most likely be Attack of the Clones. Schorman's video will be used as a source, but I intend to try and split and rejoin the Bluray video to see if the DTS-HD track will rejoin in the correct order (the Dooku battle screwed it up with reordering). Otherwise I'll use the DVD audio source - thus keeping with my stated intentions of not altering my sources.

I won't be doing a Revenge of the Sith project since I believe that the Bluray is definitive, however I'll probably release Star Wars and Return of the Jedi. Both will use DVD audio (thus no NOOOO and the Bluray dragon call will be removed). Empire on Blu was similar to DVD and doesn't need a release IMO.

[nightstalkerpoet]

Double post...