2022-07-01, 07:43 PM
Proof of Life has not been released on Blu Ray. There are a few digital HD options, a couple of WebDL’s which are open matte and a HDTV recording which is in the original 2:35:1. The base of my project is the HDTV recording. I did look at overlaying the open matte onto the HDTV and cropping to 2:35:1 but it didn’t make a massive difference to my eyes and the open matte has burned in subtitles during non English dialogue which look out of place in a 2:35:1 frame as they are too far down the picture.
The HDTV was cropped, upscaled slightly, de-haloed and cleaned in Avisynth. That was then taken into Topaz for some further cleaning/deblocking. Then it was dust cleaned on an automatic pass as the print suffers with quite a few white specks. It was then adjusted slightly so it matched the DVD frame count and finally the red levels were toned down in Premiere using a CRT LUT.
There was an instance of pixelization/video breakup at one point on the HDTV recording. I tried AutoOverlay, overlaying the open matte onto the HDTV and then overlaying the open matte onto the DVD but neither got ideal results. In the end I upscaled the shot from the DVD, cleaned it a little and color corrected it.
The next problem was the lack of burned in subtitles on the HDTV recording, as all the subtitles I could find online did not contains these. In the end they were transcribed line at a time. Just a note for anyone ripping this to mkv, you must include the first English subtitle track if you want to see the non English dialogue translation.
Another problem, the burned in DVD subtitles also include the names of locations and at various points the number of days in captivity. Originally I included these in the subtitle files but the problem was that in several places normal dialogue was being spoken at the same time, which interfered with them. Therefore using Premiere I have burned in just the locations names and number of days, matching the font, color, size and shadow of the DVD. All non English dialogue is still via selectable subs. Not ideal but no choice really and on every version apart from the HDTV recording they are already burned in.
Then in terms of sound the Cinema DTS was synced. This was decoded in foobar2000. Speed change, surround/LFE changes (-3 on surround, +6 on the LFE) and dithering in Izotope using auto blanking. It was then encoded as a DTS-HD file with the -21ms offset baked in. That opening scene in Chechnya was loud!
Also included are the DVD English 5.1 track and the Audio Commentary. In terms of the extras everything is ported from the DVD, plus some interviews I found on YouTube and a 75 minute behind the scenes/location scouting segment!
- BD25 with a menu, background video, pop up menu and resume function
- 1080P taken from the HDTV with cleanup/color grading
- English 5.1 Cinema DTS
- English 5.1 AC3 and Audio Commentary taken from the DVD
- English Foreign Dialogue only, English SDH, French, German, Italian and Spanish subtitles
- Making Of
- Behind The Scenes
- Cast Interviews
- Ebert At The Movies (does suffer from baked in interlacing artifacts)
- Trailer
PM me for the links, contributing/long term members only please. Contributing means active members of the forum who post and/or make their own projects.
High Resolution cover and disc art available from @Pineapples101 Here.
Before/After:
Menu:
Just to clarify this is a project that I have made for myself which I am choosing to share. If you don't like the project, if you think it should have been done differently then feel free to keep that to yourself and consider doing your own project.