Frankenstein (1931) Audio Preservation

[IcePrick]

Mix B sounds slightly better to me.

[agentgamma]

I prefer Mix B.

[jerryshadoe]

Thanx for the opinions guys

Honestly, they were both shit.

Mix "B" was using as closely matched as I could get it, English BD audio spliced in. Because of the fact that the English BD audio sounds like it's being played through a funnel due to over-processing, there was only so much I could do. The damage they did to the track is utter blasphemy.

Mix "C" was one of my attempts at matching the CD audio and trying to splice it in. Turns out, that the reason it doesn't match, it because it was processed for the CD, albeit much lesser of an extent, but anytime I tried to add some "fullness" to the voice, the voice would just get muffled and it would amplify the noise plain too much or you got what you heard in the sample - clarity but complete lack of "warmth" or depth to the voice.

I decided to completely change my approach and try some things via different software and different set of filters. The results were about the same and unsatisfied. Then I remembered the Spanish Dub BD audio (duh!, LOL) and started working with that track. After a couple of hours, I managed to get that track to blend with the LD PCM nearly seamlessly. Honestly, the only way I could get it to match better would be to start processing the LD audio, which I do NOT want to do and I'm sure a lot of you will agree. I do plan on addressing this transition when I am making the "enhanced/clean" version, but here I just wanted to match it as close as possible. Considering the fact that the audio "splice" originally came from some crappy dupe to begin with is evident (I am talking about how the censored audio was "discovered" on an old record) For all my analog people's that remember audio/video tapes: it's like making a copy of a tape - no matter what, there will be some generational degradation and that's the case with this audio here. I can digitally tweak it only so much and this is as good as I can do...

I present to you:

Mix S:
https://mega.nz/#!FJpyERib!EZ291UVRCXfMR...0TblaiEgjg

Opinions welcome

[crissrudd4554]

MixS is a slight improvement although the first half sounds legit while the last half sounds almost like its being played through a radio. Oh well as you said there's only so much you can do do to the degradation of the track. I propose three options, either MixB, MixS, or you may just wanna pick what you feel has the best source of the line and just replace the whole line altogether rather than splicing half way through. As I've been saying its your call. And keep in mind this only strictly my opinion and I'm still liking what I'm hearing so far. Thumbs for sure! Anyways it may be a bit useless to post this at this point but here's the lddb.com page for the LD sourced if anyone needs any other info. about it.

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/42784/PILF...ankenstein

Second here's that list of changes I promised. It may not be complete but I tried to be as descriptive as I could. For the record I'm only gonna focus on the US VHS, LD, DVD, and BD releases.

1980 VHS – This edition features the censored cut where Henry's victorious line 'In the name of God, now I know what it feels like to be God!', portions of the Monster's struggle with Frankenstein, Waldman, and Fritz, closeups of Fritz torturing the Monster, Waldman injecting the Monster with a needle, and Maria's death are removed. Reverb to the Monster's growls when Henry and Waldman descend the stairs just before discovering Fritz’s fate and after Henry learns of Waldman's death are missing. The audio for the mill scene is also slightly out of sync. Also the end credit music cuts when the credits fade to black.

1986 VHS/Laserdisc- Some editions repackage the 1980 tape but later editions feature the ‘restored’ version. This edition restores most of the previously censored and/or missing bits while Henry's 'In the name of God...' line is dubbed by a crack of thunder. The audio during the mill scene is now in sync. The end credit music continues over a black screen when the credits fade to black. To differentiate the ‘restored’ tape from the repackaged 1980 tape, a red sticker reading ‘Contains Restored Footage’ is placed on the front cover. Laserdisc edition features the ‘restored’ version.

1987 VHS- Same restored version as the 1986 VHS although the artwork is adjusted so the cover clearly labels it as the ‘Restored Version’.

1991 VHS- Same restored version as the ‘86 and ’87 VHS'.

1999 VHS/DVD- Henry's 'In the name of God...' line is fully restored while the end credits are frozen so they end simultaneously with the music. Some of the ‘black outs’ between scenes are shortened. A black and white version of the 1963-1990 Universal logo was added to the beginning of the film on the VHS but is absent on the DVD.

2004 DVD- The soundtrack is missing certain bits. These include missing 'Henry! Frankenstein!''s after Henry and Fritz descend the stairs and the aforementioned reverb to the Monster's growls are again removed. Also the moment where Henry opens the door after hearing Fritz scream is retimed so the sound of the handle clanging is in sync with when he grabs it although this leaves the last few seconds of the scene about a quarter of a second out of sync.

2006 DVD- Soundtrack is still missing bits. The moment Henry opens the door after hearing Fritz scream is again adjusted although this time only the door handle ‘sound’ is moved up. In the scene where Henry passes out, the sound of the handle clang heard after Elizabeth cries ‘Henry’ is missing. Restored end credits where music continues over black screen and ‘blacks out’ are restored to their original length.

2012 BluRay- Soundtrack is still missing bits. The scene where Henry opens the door after hearing Fritz scream now reverts back to the original timing where the handle clang sounds off about a split second before Henry grabs it. The aforementioned handle clang sound missing from the scene where Henry faints is restored.

2014 DVD- Same as BluRay.

[jerryshadoe]

I thought about replacing the entire line and tried it... regardless of where I splice it in, there is an audio quality change.. the only way it would work is if I did it for the entire scene, which could be done with either the horrible BD audio track, because the CD audio doesn't contain the entire scene - so, again, there would be an obvious quality change. This is only the case because I'm trying to do this with as little processing an possible, to keep an much of the "raw" audio there.

Some people won't mind a slight change in quality (and let's be honest, the quality is inconsistent in this film either way on it's own) and the "raw" track will be much appreciated. For the most part, I fall into this category too UNLESS the processing is done correctly and I rarely see that.

Now, when it comes to the reconstruction version of the track, there is going to have to be a little bit of processing of everything due to the fact that I will be using four sources for it and seamless mixing will involve some tricks.

[crissrudd4554]

Well I prefer you didnt use the BD mix for ALL of that scene even if there is ways to match it slightly. So it comes down to either MixB or MixS. Sadly unless youre using the cruddy BD audio there really is no seamless way to insert that line which I think all of us, if not you and me, know by now. Id rather we didnt sacrifice the audio quality of a whole scene just for one line which I think given what we got we can put it there decently enough. And which four sources or is that a secret for later???? Haha

[jerryshadoe]

I've already kinda "spilled the beans" on which sources I'll be using in some of my last posts, so no secret

The four sources (possibly five) that I am using are going to be:

- LD PCM as the base track (although slightly processed, but NO noise reduction yet - there will be a separate version for that)

- Spanish Dub DTS BD track as primary for the parts that need reconstructing (slightly filtered to match the LD, which increases the noise plain a little bit - that will also be addressed in the separate version)

- Italian Dub AC3 R2 DVD track for filling in parts on the Spanish dub that need the dialog removed for the reconstruction parts (slightly filtered to match the Spanish dub BD track that matched to the LD, also increasing it's noise plain - also will be addresses in the separate version)

- The "score" CD tracks for a couple of very minor parts where the LD is messed up and the CD is the best match from all the sources (slightly filtered to match LD, which also increases the noise plain a little bit - also will be addressed in separate version)

- The VHS audio for the side 1 to side 2 change on LD ONLY (slightly filtered like the LD, with no noise reduction yet - will be addressed in separate version) NOTE: This may be replaced with the Spanish Dub track, but I haven't gotten that far yet which is why this fifth source is a maybe



When matching all the sources to each other, I noticed that the first thing that happens is the noise plain levels increase a little bit, but it "uncovers" a lot of the background ambiance... This is a good thing because I can splice everything together a lot more seamlessly and then apply a little noise reduction (again, in a separate version) to the entire track, once I have it assembled. It's one of the very, very, very few times where I believe that noise reduction will be beneficial (although I will have to be rather careful about how I do it and that's another "bag of worms," LOL) because the noise levels are a little high. Fortunately, I have already done a few sample tests with some very promising results.

The reconstruction process has already started by me matching all of the tracks to each other for seamless transitions between all of them (finished that stage last night) and have started going through it all. I am only at 2m50sec so far and already have had to make three minor corrections that fix problems with the LD track (some missing frames of audio that had to be filled via duping and crossfading the audio on the LD can now be replaced with the actual original audio) and there is still a lot of work ahead of me before this is finished... but I can say that it's started and I'm confident that I can do this

FYI - Just signed the paperwork on a month-to-month lease of an apartment located down the street which will make moving this weekend easier. We live in a house now and don't want to be in the apartment, but it's a roof over our head and since it's a month-to-month, the moment we do find the house we want to live in, it will be easy to make a transition without breaking a year-long lease. Reason I mention this is because there is a good chance that I won't be on here nearly at all until late Monday night or Tuesday... now, I'm off

[crissrudd4554]

Just curious Jerry and you don't have to tell me which sample had which. We're any of these three NOT in the samples you shared?? Spanish Dub, English BD audio, CD source.

Also when comparing to the actual BD are you only using the BD track I sent you as a reference or you using the actual BD as well???

[crissrudd4554]

Crap jerry I missed your last sentence about you being out on this for a few days. My bad. Im glad you and your family found a place to settle down in though. Trying times we are in im afraid.

[crissrudd4554]

Any updates Jerry??