Something Evil (1972)

[jerryshadoe]

Hmmm...

I absolutely HATE blurring anything and try to avoid it at all costs, although this may be a solution in this case. Just to give you an idea of how nasty the combing and blending is, here's a screenshot:

[Image: yxqKOfz.png]

[spoRv]

Wow, that's pretty bad! Don't know if it could be recovered...

Another way is to use a delogo script, and the last resource is to blend the delogo + blurred patch together... have not other ideas (for now, at least!)

[PDB]

Wow this has turned into a monster of a project, Jerry.

Probably the thing that most trips me up is IVTC/combing/de-interlacing/all that. So I feel for you, since I have never seen it this bad.

[jerryshadoe]

Well, it's not a monster but it's close LOL

Yeah, this is one of the worst pieces of footage (aside from one other project I've been working on for over a year)

Fortunately, this is only the case for the last 15 minutes of the film and ONLY for the logo patch. The "horror" capture is actually relatively decent but I did have to reverse the field order when de-interlacing the footage otherwise it would have looked EXACTLY like the screenshot I posted. So basically, the first ~56 minutes is de-interlaced using "top-field-first" and the rest I had to use "bottom-field-first." There are some slight combing artifacts still present here and there (in those last 15 minutes) but I should be able to get rid of most of it. Here, overlaying footage from two sources helps but will be difficult due to the damage present in those last 15 minutes on the Finnish tv capture.

Either way, I plan on finishing this project (especially with all the time already invested in it) The thing that sucks is that there are no 35mm copies to be found anywhere (and I have been looking for a long time) and any 16mm copies that exist, have the "pink-salmon" problem, where fixing the color there would be next to impossible. Spielberg really did a good job burying this film in "the sands of time."

[jerryshadoe]

Status update:

For those that are following this project... I'm afraid that PDB is right about this turning into "a monster of a project," LOL

Although the "Horror" and Finnish TV captures are both sourced from the same transfer, there are still some color/gamma differences between the two, due to different codecs used to capture them (one is an MPEG2 video, while the other is AVC) The "horror" capture has the "horror" logo, as well as a couple on-screen "notices" (after commercials) about "you are watching... next..." and the Finnish tv capture has a "4" logo in the top right corner throughout most of film, plus the Finnish subtitles.

Basically, what I'm having to do is patch the Finnish TV transfer with the "Horror" footage and patch the "Horror" footage with the Finnish TV capture. This isn't necessarily hard, but is rather time-consuming because of the fact that I have to color/gamma match one to the other, at times, as often as every frame and at the least at every camera/scene change.

Once I have both sources "patched," then I will have to overlay them with each other. Here, again, is an extra step, as there are times where the Finnish TV capture looks better and times where the "Horror" capture looks better. This isn't a case of doing a "50-50" overlay for the entire film, but, rather, there are times where I have to do a "70-30" overlay and which one gets the "70" changes from scene/shot to scene/shot.

I realize that posting some of this info might seem useless to some people, but (as Andrea suggested to me a long time ago, since I like writing) this is to give an idea of how much work is involved in putting stuff like this together to those that have never done it. This is part of the reason that some of these projects take so long to assemble: it's not that "we" are lazy, incompetent, or busy with other things, but that there are times where a LOT of steps are required to "produce" a "proper" "final product." To those that know this, I just want to say "Thank you" for your patience. I realize that I haven't made a "name" for myself like Andrea, Harmy, or some of the other "guru's"/"masters" on this forum, but I can genuinely say that I am trying and the stuff that I have released in the past has been the best quality that I could accomplish with the sources I had to work with. Could someone else do better? Maybe, but I am trying

Now, back to testing a couple of "shortcuts" I discovered recently to see if I can speed up the process a little bit

[spoRv]

Keep writing, Jerry, keep writing... for newcomers, in particular, could be very important to understand how hard sometimes a project can be...

[jerryshadoe]

This project is being put ON HOLD!

I have ran into a few technical difficulties that I can't get around at the moment. The footage is too damaged during some of those last 15 minutes for me to use for a "proper" release.

I am NOT giving up on this project

But it's being put on hold until I am able to download another source that I was just given access to on an FTP site from a friend of mine. Apparently, it's a "private" capture from a Hungarian broadcast. The DVD that it's on is in .iso format, so I can't see it before I'm done downloading. The connection comes and goes and is rather slow (roughly about 20-25kb/s)

When I have this "new" source and verify that it's actually usable, I will resume this project. If it turns out, that for whatever reason, this source is useless, I will do my best with the footage that I have available. I just want people to be "prepared" for the fact that the "final product" might not be perfect. Either way, it will still be better than the crappy VHSrip that's available

[spoRv]

...welcome to the world of slow connection...

[jerryshadoe]

I had a faster connection when I was in high school in the late 90s...

This is truly ridiculous in today's day and age, where cell phones, even on 3G, can download faster...

But, there's nothing I can do about it

[PDB]

Sorry to hear the project is on hold but happy to see there might be a better version.