[In progress] The Avengers: Series 5 (1967) - Remastered

[TheLoon]

Hi folks, a new project for you all - a remastered version of the classic British spy-fi show The Avengers, Series 5 (probably the most popular season with Diana Rigg as Emma Peel) with numerous fixes to StudioCanal's rather disastrous Blu-ray transfer from 2010. The will be an ongoing release over the next few years as I find the time to work on it - the first episode, The Fear Merchants, is available now (PM for link)!




Improvements are:

1. Resynced video to the much clearer soundtrack from the 2001 UK DVD release by Contender. The Blu-ray audio was heavily NR'd.

2. Shot-by-shot colour correction using the Contender DVD image as a reference. The Blu-ray's grading was among the poorest I've seen for a major TV series - very flat, faded, red/pink (see the comparison video above).

3. Fixed the framing on several shots which were opened up too much on the Blu-ray revealing the corners of the frame and hairs on the gate that were not visible in the original broadcast.

4. Restored film grain, which was scrubbed from the Blu-ray. Helpfully, the first and last frame of most shots on the Blu-ray showed the original grain (it's the way these automated DNR tools worked at the time) and so I was able to judge the exact level required.

5. Removed motion-blur from the opening and closing credits. Footage for the credits is supplied from the 2019 Network Blu-ray "The Cybernauts Trilogy", which had superior detail to the StudioCanal transfer, but also some temporal NR errors which I've patched out.





Tech Details:

FILE NAME:  The Avengers (1967) - S05E01 The Fear Merchants.m2ts
FILE SIZE:  9.31GB
DURATION:  00:51:28
VIDEO:  1920x1080p - 23.976FPS - MPEG-4 AVC - 1.33:1 AR
AUDIO:  2.0 Mono LPCM - English - 48KHz - 16 Bit


Sources:

Video
The Avengers: Series 5 (Blu-ray - UK - 2015 - Cat: OPTBD1751)
The Avengers: The Cybernauts Trilogy (Blu-ray - UK - 2019 - Cat: 7958198)

Audio
The Avengers: The Definitive Dossier - File One (DVD - UK - 2001 - Cat: KLT21001A)


Hope you all enjoy

[Stamper]

That's awesome. I'll be happy to provide original french audio (from the original DVDs) and subtitles (from the SC BR) if you want.
Let me know.

[riptode]

The preview is lovely. I was motivated to join this group because I saw your work. I am registered, but I am blocked from sending a PM to you to request a link. Perhaps you can send one to me, where I can see more of your excellent work?
Thanks!

[TheLoon]

The preview is lovely. I was motivated to join this group because I saw your work. I am registered, but I am blocked from sending a PM to you to request a link. Perhaps you can send one to me, where I can see more of your excellent work?
Thanks!

Hi, thanks! Now that you’ve made a post on the forum, you should be free to PM now.

[v-ger06]

Hi,
Would love to take a look a this !
Thanks !