[Canceled] Hard Boiled (regraded to the French DVD)

[Serums]

You wouldn't be stepping on my feet at all! Mine was something of a 'what if' to be honest.

[PDB]

You wouldn't be stepping on my feet at all! Mine was something of a 'what if' to be honest.

Good to know, thanks.

Rather then start a new thread for the regrade I just renamed this thread instead.

[PDB]

I was about half way through regrading the color on this when I decided that the compression was too awful to not try to fix

Orig/Fix-x200

[The Aluminum Falcon]

Yeah, it's pretty crazy compression. I remember seeing the HKRescue version first and thinking they really needed to improve their encoding. Found out later that it in fact was just an issue with the disc itself.

[CSchmidlapp]

There are some spelling mistakes on the opening credits of this bluray.
I have fixed them when I was working on it.
It's somewhere on my backup drives, so I will get them to you soon.

[PDB]

There are some spelling mistakes on the opening credits of this bluray.
I have fixed them when I was working on it.
It's somewhere on my backup drives, so I will get them to you soon.

That would be wonderful.

Yeah, I noticed the misspellings. Looks like someone scanned a print without any optical credits and then re-created them with computer graphics. I assume that is why the French DVD has the opening credits sourced from another print?

[zoidberg]

I always assumed the artifacts were noise from the scan as opposed to compression, it varies from scene to scene. I figured the Dragon Dynasty blu ray just hit the master with the DNR stick.
I'll be uploading the Tartan LD in the near future, it has the wonderful original subs from the UK release. I'll try to cap the JPN LD in the not too distant future

[PDB]

I always assumed the artifacts were noise from the scan as opposed to compression, it varies from scene to scene. I figured the Dragon Dynasty blu ray just hit the master with the DNR stick.
I'll be uploading the Tartan LD in the near future, it has the wonderful original subs from the UK release. I'll try to cap the JPN LD in the not too distant future

The would be wonderful also.

Is that JPN LD the one that has the similar color timing to the French DVD? Kind of overall blueish?

It’s conceivable that it is sensor noise but the scan is very grainy and I’ve seen this kind of compression artifacts in grainy, dark movies before. So not sure. Regardless of what it is I’m going to try to get rid of it if at all possible.

[CSchmidlapp]

There are some spelling mistakes on the opening credits of this bluray.
I have fixed them when I was working on it.
It's somewhere on my backup drives, so I will get them to you soon.

That would be wonderful.

Yeah, I noticed the misspellings. Looks like someone scanned a print without any optical credits and then re-created them with computer graphics. I assume that is why the French DVD has the opening credits sourced from another print?

From what I could gather with this (and other international films of that era) is the foreign markets were supplied with a clean master (probably an IP) and audio stems, and said markets made their own tops, tails and audio dubs.

Without going into super detail, I found all the variations / differences in frames etc (beyond reel changes) we're in what would be the opening and final reels. Most of the dubs sound much better quality wise than the original language mono track also, probably because of the access to the stems.
If you listen to the 'remastered' 5.1 audio (not the earlier one on the DVD's and Dragon Dynasty) it's pretty much built from the the Music and effects stems in the L,R, LS, RS with the Centre channel being the original mono track filtered / edited.
A down-mix to stereo has a horrible phaseing wooshy sound to it, so you have to listen to it in native 5.1.

I think the Japanese Bluray (and later HK variation of the same) was a HD scan from this IP.
It's way too bright! Pretty sure this was boosted after the fact, Which shows both grain that would not be visible at the correct levels and additional sensor and compression noise that would not be as noticeable. Even with this corrected, the colour is way off! Again, I can only guess why.
I did a test with a heavy film like S curve, but it still needed a lot of adjustment.

The 35mm print I saw looked like the French DVD, but a little darker maybe (much like most release prints characteristics compared to their home video counterpart).
Also, the print I saw had no opening credits burnt in, and the end credits were in English.
Pretty sure it was a U.K Tartan release print from back in the day, but I saw a print of Robocop at the same theatre and that looked like it had been built from multiple different prints!

[PDB]

Thanks for the rundown, CSchmidlapp. That seems to follow with what I was thinking.

I've always been anti HK 5.1 remixes but is it worth adding one in this case? If they used the original M&E tracks?