Proposal: The James Cameron Project

[PDB]

I feel functionally accurate video is done a little less contrasty, which tends to depict an overall "brighter" picture, that doesn't pop as much. 
Do you use a visual scope checking levels when working on these?
Do you feel your previous version had some crushed blacks?

Yep, I always use scopes when looking at every shot. Agonizingly so.

Do you mean a flat look versus a more contrasty looks? With projects like this I try to have an image somewhere between the flat look of the BD and contrasty look of the 35mm. In most cases, I try for around 60/40 mix for the luma. In other words 60% the darker contrasty of the print, 40% the brightness of the original BD and 100% the color of the 35mm (or in this case a hybrid of prints and other media). I'm looking for something that has the artistry of the 35mm print but can hopefully be at home on a modern display. The older pics are more 80-90% 35mm print (black level adjusted) and by its nature have missing details when compared to the BD. So when I said

I've change the project a little overall, reducing the contrast a little and making it a little "brighter".

That's me trying to tweak the image so be closer to that 60/40 mix. It does recover some details I crushed with color matching but that's not my direct purpose as I believe modern transfers are too bright and show details that were suppose to be lost in the contrast. Its all a balancing act.

Particular to the old T2 BD, the entire movie is lifted up on the scopes making it painfully bright. The result is that its blacks often not on zero and highs often blown-out. The blow-out highlights are one of my major problems with this master and most of the detail can't be recovered in those highs.

Does that makes sense? It was helpfully to me to try and spell out what I'm doing, All-in-all its ongoing and I post pics for feedback to make the overall project better. I'm definitely going need some people to preview the end result to see if it looks ok.

[marin888]

Spiritual_Chaos:
Original theatrical print of The Terminator. Very nice looking print without any scratches or damage to talk about. Cyan and cool push, with muted colours (faded with age or original look?).
https://i.imgur.com/kv2zPju.jpeg
https://i.ibb.co/SDHtS0hz/T1.jpg

Original theatrical print of Terminator 2. Been shown only once since 1991 (in 2017). Pristine print. Very saturated colours. Strong blues and very orange skin tones (almost Michael Bay Transformers-eque). A sickly green tint at the mental hospital when Sarah Escapes. The melting plant has never felt as hot.
https://i.ibb.co/8nxzsjM9/T2.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/VbwZD84.jpeg

JohnCarpenterFan:
Pictures of projected prints aren't usually accurate (the shot of Sarah Connor in the police station looks more green/cyan on all the prints I've seen), but those ones don't look too off. The cyan on the original is not due to fading, it looks like that on completely unfaded LPP prints. That's how it's always looked on film.

I'm not as familiar with prints for T2, but it's definitely less cyan than the original with more blues, although certain scenes do look "sickly green" as you described. The top two pictures on the right look a bit too warm, but the others give a decent idea of what the prints I've seen looked liked IIRC.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php...4&page=338

[PDB]

These pics are the same colors as before with the luma a little more "balanced" between a film look and a home video look. The rescue of Sarah looks about the same but interior of the car, Miles' house and Cyberdyne should hopefully look less contrasty and dark but I'm still tweaking it.

https://imgur.com/HK9dGmo
https://imgur.com/F1INL5f

[CSchmidlapp]

If these were secreenshots of an official release, fellow geeks over the world would be firing liquid metal out of there P-(insert model number here)!
Great work as always PDB.

[PDB]

And some super, super early work on Aliens with a general 1st pass colormatch

Just seeing how the colors turned out. Still long way to go.

I've decided to pick up the Aliens part of the JC project since I was working on audio for the DVD regrade of the TC of Aliens. As a base, I used my inverseCRT from here:

https://fanrestore.com/thread-3228-post-...l#pid80705

but adjusting the skin tones and some other aspects on the color while trying to keep the original luma. The goal of this is to not create a "theatrical" regrade of Aliens to the 35mm floating around (maybe later). The goal of this is to create the version of Aliens' colors that should of been released on BD/UHD in the first place.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aliens.1986.TC.Color.Corrected.2160p.SDR.HEVC.LD.FLAC.2.0.v1.0 (The James Cameron Project #1a)

Video:
The BD regraded with various "fixes" upscaled to 2160p resolution.

Audio:
PCM 2.0 Dolby Surround (from the P&S LD 2.0 Capped by WR)
PCM 2.0 Dolby Surround (from the P&S LD 2.0 Capped by PDB)
PCM 2.0 Dolby Surround (from the THX LD 2.0)
Dolby Digital 5.1 (from the THX LD)
Dolby Digital 5.1 (from the Quad DVD)
Dolby Digital 4.1 (from the BD)
DTS-HD MA 5.1 (from the BD)
Dolby Digital 2.0 (Commentary  by James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd, Stan Winston, Robert Skotak, Dennis Skotak, Pat McClung Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, Jenette Goldstein, Carrie Henn and Christopher Henn - from the BD)
Dolby Digital 5.1 (Final Theatrical Isolated score - from the BD)
Dolby Digital 5.1 (Alternative Score - from the BD)

Here is a comparison between the BD (top) and the regrade (bottom). So a lot of yellow removed and replaced with blue but keeping most of the green.






(Yellow teeth in the BD become white again)

A different view of the project


And for reference, a comparison to the original BD and my DVD regrade

Original BD

DVD Regrade

(more here for that: https://fanrestore.com/thread-6678-post-...l#pid96610)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and then there is the CBS TV cut. My favorite version of Aliens. This uses the cut that Chew helped me create and the hybrid PCM (now FLAC) synced to the project. I now added a 5.1 remix of that sync.

Aliens.1986.TV.Color.Corrected.2160p.SDR.HEVC.LD.FLAC.2.0.v1.0 (The James Cameron Project #1b)

Video:
The BD cut the the TV cut regraded with various "fixes" upscaled to 2160p resolution.

Audio:
FLAC 2.0 Dolby Surround (from the THX LD mixed with the SE LD)
FLAC 5.1 (upmix of the THX LD -SE LD Hybrid PCM 2.0)



The SE will come later but I first have to finished some audio syncs.

[Beber]

I like that steel blue look.

[PDB]

These pics are the same colors as before with the luma a little more "balanced" between a film look and a home video look. The rescue of Sarah looks about the same but interior of the car, Miles' house and Cyberdyne should hopefully look less contrasty and dark but I'm still tweaking it.

These pics were from a hybrid version of T2 I was doing. Basically taking the the 7-8 print examples I have and using the colors from the shots that match the closest. I still want to finish that but I was also thinking of doing a straight regrade to the three US prints I have (which was the original idea from the first page)and the Euro print which often looks totally different compared to the US print.

Some test examples here of the old BD with EE removal and upscaled regraded to US print which still need a mid boost and a high lowering

Original BD (Top)/Regrade (Bottom) 1080p








but I probably won't work on this too much in the near future since Beber is doing his version and I don't want to interfere with that.