Proposal: The James Cameron Project

[PDB]

very interesting work, I will say more about the Abyss, an old Korean HDTV with a hardsub, has better quality in extended scenes, unlike the German source that used random in its hybrid, I compared it after the creation of the hybrid.

Is that the same HDTV as the Japanese one? Or has that just been Korean all along?

There was always Korean, I have it 1080p in the cloud storage, if it is useful I can send a link to it.

Thanks for the info. I use to have a copy, let me see if I still have it before you upload anything. Thanks again.

[maksnew]

Abuss and True Lies have not been shown on WOWOW channels for a long time, at least for the last 5-6 years, this is according to people who monitor the shows for records.

[alexpeden2000]

Interesting work PDB - really like the upscaling on the T2 images (that master certainly needs some upscaling!) The colours look a bit off though, looking forward to seeing how that one develops.

The Abyss looks amazing!

[LucasGodzilla]

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Theatrical Cut)

T2 TC is first out of the gate. As of right now I think the base of this project will be an "enhanced" version of the Lionsgate 2015 BD opposed to the 4K remaster. While the 4K is overall sharper, the near constant DNR removes a lot of details. If I process and upscale (to 4K) the 2015 BD I can tease out a lot more detail then the base transfer. Maybe not as much as the 4K but hopefully within spitting distance.

I like the looks of it thus far. I wonder if one were to try what Random.next did for The Abyss and stack up different masters (one being the UHD and the other being your upscale).

I've made some tests with development version of AutoOverlay plugin.
Also there is a new overlay filter that extract most complexity (i.e. high quality) parts of all sources and merge them into the one.

Not sure how difficult it'd be to sync them up, but it might create a Goldilocks solution as far as detail goes if it manages to detect the details of both masters right.

I also noticed that the highlights are rather discolored which sort of gives the screencaps a bit of an odd early-home-video kind of look to them than particularly filmic. Though I'm not sure how one would recreate this workflow outside of Da Vinci Resolve, I've found that fiddling with the tonemapping settings in the color space conversion FX (sandwiched nodes to convert it to the Da Vinci Intermediate gamma space and back with differing methods—saturation preservation in and DaVinci out) seems to do the trick.



Of course, further adjustments would likely be necessary since the colors have been altered as a result so it may be more or less accurate than what you're trying to intentionally go for. For the sake of that test I just saturation boosted the shadows between conversions to get the darker colors to match.

Just thought it'd be worth bringing up though experimentally.

The Abyss: Special Edition

I was originally going to color graded it back to the old European HDTV OM broadcast but with a CRT LUT applied but might have access to more 35mm examples to work off of.

Also have the US TC LD PCM 2.0 which might splice with the SE LD and add to the project. Not sure. Still trying to find my copy of the OAR US DVD for it's audio.

Much like T2 I'm hoping to use some of my stand alone Dolby and non-Dolby Surround matrix decoders (Shure, Involve, Fosgate, Lexicon) to decode the original LD's PCM into a discrete PCM/DTS-HD MA 5.1/4.1 and include it here.

I very much look forward to seeing this!

One thing I do wonder may be useful—always supposing you weren't aware—is the existing 35mm trailer scan of the movie.



Because although shot-for-shot color timing was still up in the air (as you can definitely see on a handful of previewed scenes—notably the NTI bits which lack that distinctly purple shine), it still showcases the movie as a whole through a photochemical workflow that can be useful for a blanket scattershot LUT theoretically in regards to overall color and contrast.

There's also this 70mm photo though given it's just a random photo, idk how much use that really is.

As a whole though, I think you're definitely on the right track by weaning off the greener tones a bit.

I'm also definitely curious to hear how the Shure decode of the Dolby Surround 2.0 track of the SE edition given I've heard that mix was extra polished in the day to be used on the few 35mm prints that exist of this cut versus the 5.1 discrete mix that exists which cuts jarringly between audio sources.

[The Aluminum Falcon]

@PDB looking at the images fresh this morning, do you think that T2 looks a bit too low-contrast? I know you're not attempting to emulate a print contrast, and the underlying T2 master is also quite low contrast. That said, the Abyss and True Lies image have more body to them.

Since the highlights are on the dimmer side, sometimes the blue grade looks like a "veil" over the entire image (check out the lights in the image of Arnold walking down the hallway in the mall or the lights in the background of the bar scene with Arnold). Maybe some desaturation of the highlights would help give the image balance and depth (prints naturally desaturate in the very whites and the very shadows).

It's your project, just an observation, by the way! I look forward to what you come up with.

[dvdmike]

Yeah the minigun in the bunker looks odd for contrast and way to green

[NeonBible]

The Abyss: Special Edition

For the Abyss I think I'm going with the SE  opposed to the TC. The goal for this is to take Random.next's OM project and re-framed every shot back to 2.39 to roughly match the old SE DVD. I'm about 2/3 of the way done on that. I was originally going to color graded it back to the old European HDTV OM broadcast but with a CRT LUT applied but might have access to more 35mm examples to work off of. The SE parts need a lot of work both in upscaling and some dirt removal.

Worth noting if I recall correctly on Random.next's OM project, the scene near the end with the line

"It says Virgil Brigman back on the air"

is switched out with Theatrical Cut.

Also have the US TC LD PCM 2.0 which might splice with the SE LD and add to the project. Not sure. Still trying to find my copy of the OAR US DVD for it's audio.

I have the OAR US DVD if you need it.

[Bigrob]

The Abyss: Special Edition

For the Abyss I think I'm going with the SE  opposed to the TC. The goal for this is to take Random.next's OM project and re-framed every shot back to 2.39 to roughly match the old SE DVD. I'm about 2/3 of the way done on that. I was originally going to color graded it back to the old European HDTV OM broadcast but with a CRT LUT applied but might have access to more 35mm examples to work off of. The SE parts need a lot of work both in upscaling and some dirt removal.

Worth noting if I recall correctly on Random.next's OM project, the scene near the end with the line

"It says Virgil Brigman back on the air"

is switched out with Theatrical Cut.

That was the Croweyes restoration. he used the line from the theatrical cut as he preferred it over the take they used for the special edition

[NeonBible]

That was the Croweyes restoration. he used the line from the theatrical cut as he preferred it over the take they used for the special edition

Yeah I've heard about that release too. My file is labelled as a random release. I assumed they may have used Croweyes one as a source. But its possible my file was renamed by whoever I got it from.

[PDB]

Sorry had a family emergency and wasn't able to respond right away. I wanted to get deeper into this conversation but you will all have to excuse the brevity, got some things to work on.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I will say those pics are from a rough first pass of auto color matching. I still have some global settings to add and then go through it shot by shot.

Interesting work PDB - really like the upscaling on the T2 images (that master certainly needs some upscaling!) The colours look a bit off though, looking forward to seeing how that one develops.

Thanks. In what way do you think the colors look off? Like just don't like or look wrong? I ask because if I can fix something I will.

I like the looks of it thus far. I wonder if one were to try what Random.next did for The Abyss and stack up different masters (one being the UHD and the other being your upscale).

I've made some tests with development version of AutoOverlay plugin.
Also there is a new overlay filter that extract most complexity (i.e. high quality) parts of all sources and merge them into the one.

Not sure how difficult it'd be to sync them up, but it might create a Goldilocks solution as far as detail goes if it manages to detect the details of both masters right.

I tried for months to get autooverlay to work on a few projects but it never seemed to come together for me. I got close for some things but never close enough to release anything it produces. That's not on the app but on me. Clearly it works but I can't get it to work.

I also noticed that the highlights are rather discolored which sort of gives the screencaps a bit of an odd early-home-video kind of look to them than particularly filmic. Though I'm not sure how one would recreate this workflow outside of Da Vinci Resolve, I've found that fiddling with the tonemapping settings in the color space conversion FX (sandwiched nodes to convert it to the Da Vinci Intermediate gamma space and back with differing methods—saturation preservation in and DaVinci out) seems to do the trick.

Trying to understand this better LG.

Is what you are seeing color in the highlights or the highlights pulled to much? I compared your examples versus my originals and I can see the differences. It looks like, for a quick example, the glass in bar over Arnold's right shoulder goes from bluer to redder and over Hamilton's right shoulder the glass goes from bluish to whiter/yellow. Also looks like less saturation and flatter (ie less contrast)?

So are you pointing towards highlights being "whiter" or white balanced?

@PDB looking at the images fresh this morning, do you think that T2 looks a bit too low-contrast? I know you're not attempting to emulate a print contrast, and the underlying T2 master is also quite low contrast. That said, the Abyss and True Lies image have more body to them.

Since the highlights are on the dimmer side, sometimes the blue grade looks like a "veil" over the entire image (check out the lights in the image of Arnold walking down the hallway in the mall or the lights in the background of the bar scene with Arnold). Maybe some desaturation of the highlights would help give the image balance and depth (prints naturally desaturate in the very whites and the very shadows).

It's your project, just an observation, by the way! I look forward to what you come up with.

Of course, further adjustments would likely be necessary since the colors have been altered as a result so it may be more or less accurate than what you're trying to intentionally go for. For the sake of that test I just saturation boosted the shadows between conversions to get the darker colors to match.

Fair points. See this is sort of the problem I am having and probably will have with this whole project. Do I skew close to print examples in the regrade or do match the color as best as possible but tweak to be more like a modern home video transfer? So do I push for colorful, contrast, etc or flatten the picture? I'm hoping to get sort of a "half-way point", whatever that might be. I did a tiny bit of tweaking but nothing major, I'll post some more hopefully this weekend.

The Abyss: Special Edition

I was originally going to color graded it back to the old European HDTV OM broadcast but with a CRT LUT applied but might have access to more 35mm examples to work off of.

Also have the US TC LD PCM 2.0 which might splice with the SE LD and add to the project. Not sure. Still trying to find my copy of the OAR US DVD for it's audio.

Much like T2 I'm hoping to use some of my stand alone Dolby and non-Dolby Surround matrix decoders (Shure, Involve, Fosgate, Lexicon) to decode the original LD's PCM into a discrete PCM/DTS-HD MA 5.1/4.1 and include it here.

I very much look forward to seeing this!

One thing I do wonder may be useful—always supposing you weren't aware—is the existing 35mm trailer scan of the movie.

Because although shot-for-shot color timing was still up in the air (as you can definitely see on a handful of previewed scenes—notably the NTI bits which lack that distinctly purple shine), it still showcases the movie as a whole through a photochemical workflow that can be useful for a blanket scattershot LUT theoretically in regards to overall color and contrast.

There's also this 70mm photo though given it's just a random photo, idk how much use that really is.


As a whole though, I think you're definitely on the right track by weaning off the greener tones a bit.

I'm also definitely curious to hear how the Shure decode of the Dolby Surround 2.0 track of the SE edition given I've heard that mix was extra polished in the day to be used on the few 35mm prints that exist of this cut versus the 5.1 discrete mix that exists which cuts jarringly between audio sources.

The Abyss I'm hoping to have more 35mm examples in the future so I can up the accuracy and it not me just regrading without guide. I actually did a few tests on Abyss via the Euro transfer and my Inverse CRT directly on the HDTV. Both restore the blues but at different levels. I'll have to do a comparison for people and post it here.

Yeah I wanted to recreate Disclord's Abyss Shure decoder test just not sure (no pun) it will pan out. I've wanted for a long time to release matrix decoded tracks as part of projects. Its just finding the time to experiment.

The Abyss: Special Edition

For the Abyss I think I'm going with the SE  opposed to the TC. The goal for this is to take Random.next's OM project and re-framed every shot back to 2.39 to roughly match the old SE DVD. I'm about 2/3 of the way done on that. I was originally going to color graded it back to the old European HDTV OM broadcast but with a CRT LUT applied but might have access to more 35mm examples to work off of. The SE parts need a lot of work both in upscaling and some dirt removal.

Worth noting if I recall correctly on Random.next's OM project, the scene near the end with the line

"It says Virgil Brigman back on the air"

is switched out with Theatrical Cut.

That was the Croweyes restoration. he used the line from the theatrical cut as he preferred it over the take they used for the special edition

I plan to have the original SE lines.

I have the OAR US DVD if you need it.

Yes please that would be great.