[No Longer Available] Alien Regrade (Fox THX Laserdisc)

[Evit]

I see that the intruder within has a connection with Alien but I recommend you to post it in a dedicated thread elsewhere or it would be hard for users to find such information in a thread dedicated to something else.
If you could rip a Laserdisc of course we would be interested! I've never seen that movie and it would be curious to see if there is anything new in the Lawnmower man that we haven't seen or just a better audio, who knows (just months ago I passed on the possibility to purchase it on 35mm and now I'm regretting it)

[alexp120]

As most of you know, the isolated audio stream containing the in-complete production audio (with some alternate music cues) from the film’s 1999 20th Anniversary DVD edition has not been carried-over to the current Blu Ray.  I'd thought I'd share with you on how to apply this stream (or any of the streams from the DVD) with perfect sync to this release.  

I've posted this on Chewtobacca's eac3to The Audio Delay Thread, however, I'll reprint it here.  I've not used eac3to, but I've used other softwares that are free.

1. Rip the DVD: I used DVDShrink It’s free.
   
2. Before demuxing the audio from the DVD, convert the DVD video’s fps from 29.97 to 23.97 to fit the MKV fps format. I used TSMuxer for this.  It’s also free.
   
3. Take the converted DVD, mux its audio (not demux the audio from its DVD and then mux it's AC3 audio file) to the MKV with a delay of +1000ms.  I used MKVToolNix, also free. (I previously demuxed the AC3 audio stream from the converted DVD and muxed that file to the MKV applying the +1000ms delay, but the audio and video were still out of sync—it was in-sync in the beginning but by the end of the film, the audio came before the video).  
   
   Why a delay at +1000ms:  I compared some frames between the converted DVD and the Blu Ray, some at the beginning of the film and others at the end of the film, and I found that the converted DVD has between 24 to 25 frames less than the Blu Ray (actually, the processed DVD’s beginning was 24 frames less than the Blu, but by its end is was 25.  I suspect the converting software left behind anomalies of the original DVD’s 3:2 pulldown scheme).  So, if I applied the audio to the MKV, as is, the sound will appear one second before the video.  Also, MKV video frames are displayed at 23.97 frames per second and you have 1 second being made up of 1000ms.
   

I hope this helps.  Perhaps, Chewtobacca will figure out a way to do this on eac3to and share with us.

[PDB]

Thanks alex. I wanted to sync that track but ran out of time. Thanks for doing that. Of note it might be fun to sync the 99's 5.1 which itself is an oddball track.

[spoRv]

Excellent work, as usual. Now you have just to add the Italian audio and subtitles tracks...

[PDB]

If I had a copy of both....

[jonno]

BigRob and I will be at the 70mm screening in London on Saturday night. I'm told the colour on the print is far from perfect (it was already a little warm when I saw it in 1998), but it will be interesting to see how some of the key shots are handled - Muthur, Ash's head, equipment room and so on.

Oh yes, should also be able to put those questions about the 70mm mix variations (or otherwise) to rest!

[PDB]

Cool, can't wait to hear your thoughts Jonno

[zoidberg]

Sweet
I would love to have a cinema like the prince charles near me or even a reasonable distance from me.

[jonno]

Ok, sorry it's taken me a week to get back to you - here's a quick rundown of the London 70mm print. It clearly originated in the UK, having a 1979 BBFC 'X' certificate at the front (I was too slow with the camera, but at least it looked the same as my reconstructions ). It would be interesting to hear about the condition of any surviving prints in the US, if they exist. Anyway...

Picture: Sadly, the fade towards pink/brown made it pretty much impossible to say with any certainty what the print's original grading was like. That said, the overall tone of the MUTHUR room indicated the relative darkness and warmth of the photonovel and 1995 laserdisc. Unfortunately, I couldn't judge if Ash's head was a match to those sources since there was very little blue remaining in the picture.

Sound: The print's magnetic 6-track had obviously suffered some damage over the years: there was an intermittent rhythmic thump on the bass channel(s), and a persistent clicking on the right for much of the running time. Despite these bits of 'character', the sound was really rather wonderful - big and detailed, with impressive separation and terrific rendition of the music score. And hopefully we can now put to rest the uncertainties surrounding the theatrical mixes - in terms of content, this track was a fairly precise match for the BD's 4.1, NOT the 1995 laserdisc mix. It was polished and carefully mixed, unlike the more choppy and raw '95 (aka 'Sensurround') version. I guess Disclord was right on the money when he called that.

The BD's 4.1 isn't perfect - it's rather 'polite' compared to the actual 70mm, lacking the energy and loudness (and of course the bass presence) of the magnetic track, so I suspect some cleaning and processing has been done to tame its ferocity for home theater use. The acid scene - where some of Goldsmith's original score bleeds into the Freud track used to replace it (as clearly heard on the LD PCM) - has certainly been tidied up somewhat in comparison to the mag, though not to the same extent as the newer DTS mix, where it's been completely cleaned.

Those are the main things I took away, but hit me up with any specific queries and we'll see if Rob or I can remember! All in all it was a great show - hopefully the print will survive long enough for another chance one day.

[PDB]

Thanks for the excellent write up Jonno.

Sounds like a great time regardless of the print's age.