[Help] Army of Darkness - TV Version Reconstruction in 1080p

[RidgeShark]

The TV version of AoD has languished for a long time in standard def purgatory.  I made a miniDV recording off the SciFi Channel in 2005 and made it available online (as well as incorporating it into my Primitive Screwhead Edition fanedit) - and for a time that was the best way to watch it.  It finally got an official DVD release by Koch, but was a very bad NTSC to PAL conversion with some vertical softening of a good looking NTSC SD broadcast master.  Then Shout Factory released it, and they took that very bad NTSC to PAL conversion, and made it even worse with a bad conversion back to NTSC.  Despite these problems, the Koch PAL DVD still looks better overall than my 2005 recording.

It's my favorite cut of the movie (a theoretical uncensored version would be perfect), and with the new Shout Factory 4K release I had hoped Shout would right the wrong, but they have not (at least from what I've read - haven't bought it yet).

So I've put in the work to try and convert the Koch DVD back to NTSC, but that PAL conversion is terrible and I've had no luck with typical methods (QTGMC+Srestore or SelectEvery).  I have gone to the trouble of creating QTGMC 50fps versions and then manually picking out the best/correct frames compared to an inverse telecine of my 2005 recording.  I've managed to get the first unique TV version scene back to 23.976fps through this painful method, but the 2nd TV Version-only scene has much longer shots with slow movement and it's basically driving me insane trying to manually pick the correct frames out of the first 2 slow shots that last over 1000 frames each after processed with QTGMC.

Out of desperation, I've turned to the forums of VideoHelp and Doom9, but so far no one has responded.

Maybe you guys can help - here's some footage:

Bad NTSC to PAL Conversion DVD Source:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aZt1fV5...share_link

Lower Quality Recording of Original NTSC (interlaced) for reference:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ueDuU7q...share_link

I'm hoping beyond hope that maybe someone out there has a high quality copy of the broadcast master, but in lieu of that, this is the best material I know of for the scene.  Hypothetically, there is a strange pattern in the NTSC to PAL conversion that could be cracked and we could use QTGMC combined with Avisynth's SelectEvery function to get easily get the footage back to 23.976fps, but so far I have been unable to crack that.

If anyone could help me, that would be amazing.  Also, does anyone know of a decent open-matte source for the Director's Cut without burnt-in subtitles?  I have a transfer of the Taiwan laserdisc but, alas, it has burnt-in subtitles.

[PDB]

Man I wish I could help you since this is an amazing project that I want to see it come to fruition. We badly need a watchable version of the TV cut.

Problem is I have never been able to solve the whole blending/PAL to NTSC problem myself. I assumed that the few posts on the subject we have aren't any help:

https://fanrestore.com/thread-1293.html
https://fanrestore.com/thread-455.html
https://fanrestore.com/thread-1222.html
https://fanrestore.com/thread-2152.html
https://fanrestore.com/thread-4839.html

Since it sounds like you tried some of those solutions.

[RidgeShark]

Thank you PDB.  I'm checking those threads to see if anything is useful in this case.

[Red41804]

Maybe use the new 4K remasters of the Theatrical Cut and the International Cut for most of the edit, and switch to a improved version of the TV exclusive scenes, and for the audio track, it should be in 5.1 or stereo for the original mix, and there should be a uncensored and censored audio track, and the unique TV version audio should be cleaned up.

[SpaceBlackKnight]

There is supposedly an HD version of the TV cut (with unique footage upscaled or culled from a very old HDV master) that makes the rounds on US channels like SyFy.

AMC are airing it this month (Oct 7th 8:15 AM E.T) and is probably this version. To be sure, I checked the VOD version on AMC+ and that's the Universal HD master of the US cut opened up to 1.78.

[PDB]

If true that would be a great find, can anyone record it?

[Doctor M]

If true that would be a great find, can anyone record it?

Which source?