The Sword in the Stone (1963) - 1080p Open-Matte BD

[jerryshadoe]

@ titanic - Well, I'm a stubborn person and I like editing images, so I took the "upscaled" original image that you posted and the grey, foreign language high-res picture and "went to work." First, I had to correct for lens distortion and do a perspective correction with adjusting the vertical/horizontal sheer, as well. The image had to be re-processed three times, as with each "step" I got closer but tweaking it further resulted in more damage than correction until I saved the image and then restarted the process. The final image is very close but not exact (especially the bottom-left corner, I had huge problems with, because not only was the image taken at an angle [plus the lens distortion] but the poster was not flat when the picture was taken, making a "perfect" reconstruction nearly impossible)

Next, I used DrDre's color correction tool, which yielded me something that was closer, but still wasn't "right." There is a little bit of blue "bleed" in some of the dark areas that are supposed to be black and the image had too much brightness and not enough contrast. I adjusted this in another stage of editing, to match a lot closer than the "automated" color correction (which without the help of I wouldn't have been able to do this, so it was a necessary step) This was as close to the original as I could get it. Don't know if this will be of any use to you, but I tried

So, here's the original image you posted and then the "gray" one matched to it:

[Image: ZLhaJpN.png]

[Image: FFQ9v3N.png]

[titanic]

Wow, thank you very much for all your work!
I really appreciate it that you spent your time doing this!!

[jerryshadoe]

@ titanic - I'm happy you like it. I wasn't completely satisfied with it due to the minor distortion (that I corrected as best as possible) and the fact that the color are not a perfect match, but it's as close as I could get it and I think it complement the "gray" one very nicely. If you want, I can also post the "gray" one that was corrected for most of the distortion

OK, now back to TOPIC:

So, I'm in the process of syncing the audio tracks right now. Of course, I am working on the original mono mix first for both, the LD and DVD and should have it ready in a couple of hours (and the rest of the audio tracks by later tonight or tomorrow afternoon) which means that the mkv release for this should be available, hopefully, before the weekend is over (in the US timezones) The BD version will take a couple of extra weeks due to menus, cover/disc art, and the extra's for that particular "collection." Sh*t... I'm side-tracking.... back to mono audio, LOL....

There are a couple of interesting things that I noticed. The original mono sourced from the R2 DVD (1999 first edition) is very similar to the BD audio (once that is downmixed to a mono track) in terms of the way that a lot (but NOT all) of the waveform looks in Audacity but it sounds different, as in "more centered" (like a true mono track) where the panning in the upmixed BD audio, even when it's downmixed back to mono, is very obvious. The way the music/instrumentals is "layered" with the dialog is different and sounds more "natural" on the original mono track. The BD audio sounds artificially assembled, which it basically is. I hear some of you wondering, "What about the LD mono track?"

Well, the LD mono track (even though it's not bit-perfect) is freakin awesome!

The waveform for it looks VERY different and it is a MUCH richer, warmer, and fuller sounding mix overall. When I started comparing the three side-by-side in Audacity (which is how I'm working on the syncing work for this one because I wanted to instantly see[and hear] the differences between the three) it surprised me just how much of a difference there is. At first, I had to do a "double take" as it almost looked like it was normalized, but upon close inspection I realized that it just has a completely different (much wider) dynamic range and I'm surprised that the BD upmix was not based off this mix and that it, instead, resembles the DVD mono mix a lot more. The timing on this particular mix is also a tad bit different than on the DVD or BD, in terms of musical/dialog cues, where the dialog cue in some places are +/- 15-20ms different and the music cue, at times, are +/- 15-60ms different. It's weird, because everything still matches up and, for example, during the scene where Merlin packs his entire home into a briefcase, there is music playing and everything and during this music some of the instruments have slightly different cues but everything still syncs. It's really pretty cool to see the changes and I'm very excited that this will be included with the beautiful video for this project. In terms of sync changes around scene changes, the mono tracks are similar to each other (albeit not always) in comparison to the BD audio.

Now, someone earlier mentioned the fact that there is only one Spanish dub (and that it's a Latino dub) and I went back to my sources to double check what's going on with that. It turns out that the one that was marked as "Castellano" is actually an original mono mix for Spanish, which I verified by comparing it to the original English mono from the DVD and by comparing it to a downmixed Spanish and English audio from the BD, where the dialog might be different but the music is still the same and that's how I was able to verify it. So, pretty cool, because we get the original mono mixes for English and Spanish for this film (I was mistaken in my first post about this AND listed the 2.0 and 5.1 backwards for these track - can't correct it now due to exceeding max amount of images for post and was originally only able to do it because two of my posts got merged... so for Spanish, the tracks that I have is the 5.1 AC3 from BD and the 2.0 AC3 [mono mix spread across two channels, but they are identical] from the DVD)

[Feallan]

I bumped up the image limit - they're not hosted locally, so there's no reason to limit them that much.

Was 25, now it's 50 - keep in mind that it includes smilies.

[titanic]

Jerryshadoe,
will you include English subtitles on this?

[jerryshadoe]

@ Feallan - thanx for upping the limit Now I will be able to update that first post, but I need to wait until I finish syncing the audio track to make sure the info is accurate.

@ titanic - Yes, there will be subtitles for ALL languages that have an audio track, including English of course.

@ ALL - Ok, so I have a ton of audio tracks to sync for this project and about a third-way through I took a break to help with the commentary track on the DVHS Aliens DC project for Jetrell Fo. Now I'm back to working on this. Turns out I have a lot more original mono tracks than I thought. So far, it looks like the Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Hungarian, Polish, Spanish and possibly Swedish (although this one appears to be sourced from VHS) are ALL the original mono mixes, plus the old R2 DVD and LD English tracks.

I have also found a guy on youtube who has the original Finnish dub (between the clips he posted on there, I have nearly 50 minutes of it) from a VHS tape and I have sent him a message asking if he would consider sharing the audio for the entire film. On that note, is there anyone here that has the Nordic DVD release of this (don't care which edition) so that I could include Finnish dub (in case that guy on youtube doesn't answer, plus the dub on DVD is the "new" one that was done in 1993, whereas the original Finnish dub was done in 1965) and the Icelandic Dub.

If possible, I am also wondering if anyone has any of the following mono mixes (on their DVDs) : French, German, Italian, Greek, and Hebrew. I have the 5.1 upmixes for these languages but would love to include the original mono mixes, if possible

[jerryshadoe]

It's been a crazy busy week and I haven't had as much time as I wanted to devote to this project.

Never heard from that guy on youtube concerning the Finnish dub

Wasn't able to find any other dubs (or version of dubs) except for the fact that I located and downloaded the Hebrew original mono dub, which is pretty cool.

Another thing worth mentioning, the other night when I was working on syncing another audio track, I was so tired that I didn't notice that I am trying to sync one of the audio tracks from the BD (where I synced the video of my project to the English audio track on the BD) and, for the most part, it was in sync BUT, there were a few places here and there where the audio was actually out-of-sync +/-165ms (which is 4[!] frames and should be noticeable) and I'm talking about the music and sfx and not the dialog. I opened up a couple more audio tracks and noticed something similar, where apparently the audio sync slips at some of the scene/shot changes. Mostly it's in sync, but there are a few spots where this happens which I think is weird. Not the fact that the audio is from different masters (obviously, since it's different languages) but the fact that they did such a poor job on an official release. Wait a minute! What am I saying? LOL... This only shows how they botched not only the video on the BD, but the audio sync for foreign languages as well.

I guess this is turning into a rather large restoration/preservation project, as this will not only have the best video possible, but also as many of the original mixes I could find and, various language options.

[DoomBot]

This stuff takes time so don't rush it Jerry. Look how long Adywan's been working on his project!

[jerryshadoe]

Well, based on past experience, I know that some of this stuff can take months, even years to complete.

I realize that I might be going a little over-board with the amount of audio tracks I'm trying to include, but I want as many people as possible to be able to enjoy this film properly. Some of the audio tracks a little bit of a challenge to sync which just helps me gain more experience and will make for an interesting little paragraph about some of the differences between the different dubs. Will list all of those once I have completed syncing the tracks.

If I was just trying to "slap together" a release, I could have made this available with English only audio almost two weeks ago but I'm taking my time with it to make sure that everything is properly done

[jerryshadoe]

Ok, so it's been a few days and I thought that I would post a little status update for those that are interested (and as a way of me to keep track of my progress as the mind can be faulty sometimes, LOL):

I now have nearly all of the 2.0 (both dual mono and stereo) audio tracks synced, except for the Chinese that I'm re-doing right now due to the acquisition of a far superior source and the addition of the PCM French original mono mix from the French LD (thanx to a friend, who wishes to remain anonymous for legal reasons)

On note of the Chinese dub: this one is particularly interesting because it contains a different score in many parts of the film (as well as extra music when there is non in the original) and it contains very different sfx in many parts of the film. It is a b*tch to sync and I'm having to do it with the video track as reference but it is a very different way to experience the film. The alternate score is much, much "darker" and creates a better mood in some of the scenes. I am only about 1/3 done with it and have already had to make over 80 cuts to keep things in sync... I am not sure of the history of this dub, as I can't find anything about it online, but I must say that it is very well done. The lip-sync, especially for Archimedes, is truly amazing and the alternate sfx are timed better, in some instances, than the original mix and actually work better for the scene than the original mix. I am wondering if this is not a fan-dub, as nearly the first three minutes are missing (the Chinese audio starts right after the song "The Legend of the sword in the stone" is over) but it is so well done that I'm not sure of this either. Maybe this is just the way they dubbed stuff in China back then. Any clarification on this, if anyone can offer it, would be appreciated

I am still debating whether to include the original Finnish dub, as I only have ~47 minutes of the original audio (thanx to what was posted on youtube) and am not sure which parts are missing yet because I haven't looked. There is a lot there, but either way it missing 32 minutes. On the one hand, the preservationist in me says, "include it even if it's incomplete," and on the other hand, including incomplete material kinda sucks and I would hate to do that...

Ok, so I also managed to find, and now have, the 5.1 Danish and 5.1 Norwegian audio tracks PLUS another 5.1 mix of the Portuguese dub, but this one is interesting. There are two dubs for Portuguese, Brazilian and European and the one on the BD release is Brazilian but only in 2.0 stereo. On the initial post I stated incorrectly that I have a 2.0 and 5.1 for European Portuguese because that's what I thought was on the BD, but after verifying the NTSC DVD that has a 5.1 Brazilian Portuguese audio track and comparing it to BD, I can say that the BD is Brazilian Portuguese. However, all is not lost, as I do have the 5.1 European Portuguese audio track from a PAL DVD and it is a completely different dub as the voices are very different.

I also managed to find the original Spanish mono mix for the project and have verified that, yes, there is only one dub here and it's Espanol Latino.

I have also tracked down someone that owns the Original Soundtrack Vinyl LP, who was generous enough to provide me with a FLAC rip. What makes this really awesome is the fact that there is some alternate dialog present on it and a couple of songs have slightly different versions. I plan on taking the LD mono track and making a hybrid with it, where I incorporate the Vinyl LP audio into it as a cool extra audio track. Very excited about this addition