Highlander 2 - 35mm Scan

[deleted user]

Oh yeah I don't mean to be ungrateful, I'm just a bit OCD about Youtube & co quality haha.

In case you're interested, there's an automated tool that can create a bunch of MEGA accounts for you and save them in a text file. Very useful for just quickly uploading stuff without having to worry about running out of space. It's called "megacreate".

[dvdmike]

That looks promising

[HippieDalek]

I've now rendered three of the five reels and I hope to get the last two done by tomorrow morning. It takes my poor computer around 6 hours to render each reel so if I time it right I can set one going when I finish work and it'll be done just in time for me to set off the next one to run over night.





I think I maybe need to do a bit more balancing of the colours on reel 3, looking at all the previews together it looks a bit more red than the others, and the scene of Ramirez at the tailor looks blown out, but this is what's on the actual print. 

Once I've got all five reels rendered I'll start the painstaking work of syncing the English audio. Reel 1 will be a pain to sync, but I expect  the others to go a bit quicker. After that we'll have an "grindhouse" release!

In the meantime if anyone want's a copy of these renders (individual reels, in Russian!) then let me know and I can organise hosting them somewhere.

[maksnew]

In the meantime if anyone want's a copy of these renders (individual reels, in Russian!) then let me know and I can organise hosting them somewhere.

I am from Russia and this original duplicate translation would be very interesting for me, it is available on the network only in poor quality and not completely. I would like to receive it together with the original video.

Thank!

[HippieDalek]

I am from Russia and this original duplicate translation would be very interesting for me, it is available on the network only in poor quality and not completely. I would like to receive it together with the original video.

Thank!

Ok, once all the reels are rendered I'll make some space online and send you the links.

Regarding the Russian audio I was surprised to find that it's a proper dub rather than a "Gavrilov" voice over translation which I believe were still common in Russia at the time. It is however only in mono.

For the "grindhouse" release I plan to make the Russian 35mm audio the second audio track, with the first track being the unpatched Hong Kong laserdisc audio cut down to match the splices of the Russian print.

Out of the three reels I've rendered and watched the first reel is the worst (as expected) with many obvious splices, reel 2 has a few minor splices and one large one, and reel three has a few minor ones.

As far as I can tell the unique footage from this print that isn't available in HD elsewhere has so far escaped anything more than a couple of frames worth of damage which should be easily fixable when I try to do a full restoration. Parts of the opening titles however will have to be patched with SD footage as the Blu Ray uses a different take.

[maksnew]

I am from Russia and this original duplicate translation would be very interesting for me, it is available on the network only in poor quality and not completely. I would like to receive it together with the original video.

Thank!

Ok, once all the reels are rendered I'll make some space online and send you the links.

Regarding the Russian audio I was surprised to find that it's a proper dub rather than a "Gavrilov" voice over translation which I believe were still common in Russia at the time. It is however only in mono.

Thank! I'll be waiting for you!

[deleted user]

I'd love to see those renders if you can put them up somewhere.

By the way I don't think it's too red personally, at least judging by the thumbnails. Don't mind the blown look either in that Ramirez scene. The nice thing about film is that it doesn't clip the highlights immediately, it flattens them, so detail is retained still.

[HippieDalek]

I'd love to see those renders if you can put them up somewhere.

I'll look into making these renders (and the previous sample clips) available sometime tomorrow, once I've got the last two reels rendered. I've just received an offer to help with hosting too

[HippieDalek]

I've just uploaded the two short English sample clips so drop me a PM if you're curious to see them without streaming compression.

[HippieDalek]

The last two reels have now been rendered: 




I didn't notice any splicing while watching back these two reels, but they both have a problem with a pulsing red colour on the right hand side of the frame, with reel 4 being affected through out, but it's less of a problem with reel 5. Reel 4 also features a lot of small, fine, horizontal (sometimes curved) scratch like marks throughout that I've been told might be "cinch" marks.

This frame shows both issues to some degree. The red on the right, horizontal lines on the left, and curved lines on the right.


Apart from these issues the colours and detail remain strong in these last two reels. As I get time today I'll try and get the individual reels uploaded so anyone who is interested can take a look.