Proposal: The James Cameron Project

[Bigrob]

The previous 4K scan is the one already available on streaming i believe

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=4512&d2=4513&c=1850

I also believe this was the basis for the Crowseyes HD version.

[zoidberg]

Bilbofett, where are you getting this 2008 year from

[Stamper]

There are so modifications in the Abyss new scan, mostly any shot where someone talks on a tube TV has a grid applied to the image, giving it a weird digital vibe.
Cameron had done this on all his films, Terminator has some of these tweaks, also T2 (Sarah confession before she attacks Silberman).

[Doctor M]

There was a good YouTube live stream with Bill Hunt from The Digital Bits on Midnight's Edge YouTube channel where they talked about the Caeron 4k releases for a good deal of it.
Lots of interesting details, some already in this thread, some they seem sure of that we don't.
Looks like the video is gone now though.

[Bilbofett]

Bilbofett, where are you getting this 2008 year from

from Vudu

[PDB]

Off to go see the Abyss DCP. I'll report back what I see.

[Bilbofett]

Off to go see the Abyss DCP. I'll report back what I see.

I'm leaving in about an hour, I'll come back here for some discussion

[PDB]

I saw the DCP in a Dolby Cinema Theater. I didn’t know it would be in that theater but happy none the less, since their projectors are pretty damn good.



Here are some rambling, random thoughts right out of the showing.

-there was grain
-I took some pics and the framing of the DCP and it is the same as framing as the HDTV/Web so most likely it comes from the same master
-this seems to have the appearance of sharpen/AI upscaling. I could be wrong but many lines in the film have that look of line thickening that AI does. Or maybe heavy sharpening? Kind of like how T2 looks but with grain. That could just be the DCP…
-that makes me wonder if this was degrained and then processed and then regrained? Just wondering out loud. I don’t know for sure.
-the colors were different then the HDTV. I skimmed through the HDTV before I left and when I got home. The HDTV has a more green-yellow push on top of the blues, much like Aliens. This DCP was more blue than the HDTV. It had greens but they were a less present. The blues ranged from light powder blue to dark almost purple.
-I’d say the DCP was a little desaturated and had less contrast than the HDTV. It kind of had the appearance of an old, bright, home video transfer.
-keeping with the colors; the NTIs still had purple but were a lot more blue now especially their station/ship/base. The yellow of the ending was greatly muted.
-the highlights looked white balanced. If you look at the cores of some of the blue lights on the HDTV they look blue. On the DCP the cores were white. Edge lights on faces were often white not the blue or green of the HDTV.
-in keeping with that point there was blow out in some highlights. This didn’t look like an HDR presentation.
-skin tones where very pale throughout. Mary Elizabeth looked like a corpse.
-the SE parts looked about the same as the rest of the film. In other words they didn’t stand out which is a good thing.
-the sound was ok. Although it was loud the sub track was very muted. This theater uses buttkickers/tactile transducers to supplement the subs. Normally, it’s awesome but barely used here as the sub track rarely had the power to engage them. Not a deal breaker just an observation.
-I only noticed the overhead atmos once. Again not a deal breaker. Don’t care about atmos on a 35 year old film.
-I noticed one sound effect missing. When Coffee uses the fire extinguisher in flatbed, the sound is missing. The DVD has that sound effect.
-the sound of the crane falling into the abyss sounded odd but not sure anything was wrong after checking the HDTV
-I didn’t notice any changes but wasn’t keeping an eagle eye out for them.
-I will say the tidal wave looked better than ever.

This review sounds negative but I really enjoyed the hell out of seeing this movie in the theater again.

[zoidberg]

Thanks for the thorough write-up PDB, it will be interesting to see if this grade transfers to the upcoming home release.
I think you're spot on with the degrain/process/regrain pipeline, I think that's the default approach for most restorations now.

[Doctor M]

I saw a youtube stream with Bill Hunt from TheDigitalBits. He was talking about how (lazy restoration) is starting to use AI grain management (can't remember the name of the software).
Since different scenes tend to be filmed, zoomed or edited differently, the grain can change size and density. Since 4k makes this pronounced, the AI grain software can alter the grain so it becomes uniform throughout the movie, not just scrubbed and then artificially added.
I'm wondering if this is what they used.