[Released] Days of Being Wild / 阿飛正傳 (1990) Criterion BD Mono Synced to Megastar BD

[axeyou]

The 4K restorations of various Wong Kar Wai titles a few years ago are a mixed bag when it comes to PQ, most notably in their extreme color grading and DNR.

Here's what cowboydan on CriterionForum has to say about Days of Being Wild:

Days of Being Wild: The Megastar BD is quite good looking in true HD. Downsides are the poorly translated subtitles and the audio tracks are 5.1 and 7.1 remixes. The new restoration is good since it has the original mono track. But the color grading looks way too green and digitally filtered.

And a few caps comparing the two releases: https://www.criterionforum.org/forum/vie...73#p719673

So here's the original mono track from the Criterion BD synced to the 2008 Megastar HK BD (appears to be OOP but available from a certain Russian site).

Input: PCM, 1.0 mono, 1152 kbps, 48 kHz, 24 bits
Output: FLAC, 1.0 mono, 628 kbps, 48 kHz, 24 bits

Notes on the sync:

• Criterion BD is 23.976 fps; Megastar is 24 fps. Speed adjusted with SoX.
  
• There are 9 frames on the Criterion that's missing from the Megastar BD. They are sprinkled around. Trimmed some silence or background noise to sync.
  

PM me for a link. Enjoy!

On a side note: The 2013 French release purportedly features a 2.0 track. Would be interesting to compare that against the Criterion mono and also the PQ against the Megastar BD.

=> synced to =>

[M A]

Might it be worth comparing the Criterion BD's audio to the German 4K in case Criterion added any additional "restoration" to their audio track? Given that Criterion was involved in the restoration itself, I don't think it's that likely, but it couldn't hurt to check

[axeyou]

Yeah I thought about that, but since Criterion was involved in the resto and they didn't mention "additional restoration" on their booklet, I also didn't think there would be a difference. My seedbox is full atm though : ) , so I can't easily check the 4Ks.

Anyways, here's Criterion's spectrogram. Certainly looks respectable if not great. When syncing I did find the Megastar BD to have a bit more noise occasionally, but the Criterion doesn't strike me as "bad"-sounding.

[axeyou]

Surprisingly the German Koch 4K's mono is a bit different in high-frequency filtering. But I don't think either has much audible info there anyway, so I'm not going to bother syncing the GER version.

Koch UHD spectrogram:



Criterion BD spectrum:



Koch UHD spectrum: