The Alamo: Director's Cut [Ld Sourced + Extras]

[bendermac]

The key to me is adding the extras which is easier when you have a DVD menu and tying them into the experience. That way they can burn it to a disc and bring it with them somewhere. The movie itself is about 11 GB here and the extras are the remainder. Breaking it up into several files was logical for a lot of reasons, as there's even an intermission built into the laserdisc. Also, not everyone has blu-ray players, and that's unlikely to change. Keep in mind the audience for a 3 hour 22 minute version of a John Wayne western from 1960 [Plus the included making-of is 68 minutes].  

However, I fully appreciate your condescension, and look forward to you spending $100-200 on the Dolby Digital set, and then getting a $200 laserdisc player with AC3 and s-video, outputting the AC3 to your capture card uncompressed (I haven't checked, but that's another $100 the last time I researched it), using your analog video capture card (a bargain at $15-40!), running it through your h264 converter, but leaving it non-anamorphic, so as to retain the video quality and seeing the confusion and annoyance at your windowboxed release which looks 10% better than my set. Better, sure, but not worth the effort or money.

i would only need the laserdisc to capture it, since i have a ld player and a blackmagic capture device. but i wouldn’t spend 100 dollars on the movie myself.

like i said, it’s about the tools you have at hand. if those are the best you have, that’s very good. but it can done better. i think some members here offer capture services for projects like this one. you would only need to send them the laserdisc in question and the final result would be a lot better - due proper capturing and applying of de-interlacing/inverse pulldown.

filesize for the final movie would be around 5 - 6 gb and 1gb for docu when using h264 as a codec. the movie soundtrack (score) would be added separately. well, that’s what what i would’ve done

as for the bitrates, you can pretty much lower the bitrate down to 1mbits on sd when using h264. but for a project like this -> preservation <- i would increase to around 2 - 2.5mbits on the final output.

i haven’t said anything about the aspect ratio - non anamorphic or anamorphic. but i would’ve probably going for anamorphic as well, but using different tools for better scaling results

[Doctor M]

If you aren't capturing with DVD as the final destination (which in my mind has higher compatibility for people if you are talking about SD content), then anamorphic makes sense.

If you are going to an h264 file, then anamorphic is silly since the source isn't. Just crop the black borders and you're done.
It's all just upscaling anyway.

@Elmo Oxygen - Regardless of how the laserdisc looks, more CAN be coaxed out of it when transferring it to digital. You forget that the computer you're sitting in front is more powerful than what they had available professionally back when the original disc was made.

[Elmo Oxygen]

If you aren't capturing with DVD as the final destination (which in my mind has higher compatibility for people if you are talking about SD content), then anamorphic makes sense.

If you are going to an h264 file, then anamorphic is silly since the source isn't.  Just crop the black borders and you're done.
It's all just upscaling anyway.

@Elmo Oxygen - Regardless of how the laserdisc looks, more CAN be coaxed out of it when transferring it to digital.  You forget that the computer you're sitting in front is more powerful than what they had available professionally back when the original disc was made.

Yes, my computer is better than what was considered a high end computer in 1992. But you can only improve so much on the source. There's been very little compression done (just the cropping of the black on the letterboxing, which you're differentiating from changing it to anamorphic, but I'm not). To your eyes, I would bet the original transfer that appears on the laserdisc would look terrible. That's because it does look terrible now. We just have different standards now.

There's a reason I linked in a previous post to that review of the Roadshow version of Hawaii that's on the Blu-ray. The reviewer admits that he thought the laserdisc looked great in 1994, but that it looks horrible now. My transfer of Hawaii, using the same source as the Roadshow cut on the Blu-ray, looks marginally better than what they did, and I don't have professional equipment, and my transfer was done in 2014. The Hawaii Roadshow laserdisc was, like The Alamo, released by MGM (Hawaii came out in 1990, according to my disc). The laserdisc has the same visual problems as The Alamo (color bleeding, softness, poor contrast), and the size of my files are pretty much the same (the movie files of The Alamo are a smidge larger), as are the film's running times (3 hours 10 minutes vs 3 hours 22 minutes, respectively). The same process was used to encode [laserdisc-DVDRam-TMPEG Mastering Works-Standard DVD Authoring Software that does not re-encode]. So whatever flaws that were in one transfer are in the other, and from someone who owns both laserdiscs, I can tell you that they simply don't hold up to today's scrutiny.

[Doctor M]

Elemo - Instead of getting defensive, why won't you listen to people here with far more experience and work to improve your work?
It's the same 'good enough' attitude from MGM that has killed the film prints.

The laserdisc CAN look better. The question is, do you want it to?

[Elmo Oxygen]

Elemo - Instead of getting defensive, why won't you listen to people here with far more experience and work to improve your work?
It's the same 'good enough' attitude from MGM that has killed the film prints.

The laserdisc CAN look better.  The question is, do you want it to?

Since I'm now "fighting" this battle on two different sites at the same time, I should probably just copy/paste, but in this case, I just want to point out that what I did was a preservation, not a restoration. I didn't do any color correction, nor would I suggest I did. As I wrote in a earlier post, go ahead and acquire the laserdisc and do one yourself. I'm not learning anything here, because I'm only being offered conjecture, based on some screenshots, which, because of certain torrent site rules, had to be taken at one size, as VLC was smushing them, and then re-sized.

Here's what a random shot looks like on my computer, not reformatted:

[Image: alamo_test_shot.png]


I personally think it looks terrible, but then I think the original laserdisc looks terrible. Improve it 10% here or there is not going to change much, but you go ahead.


Here's what I wrote on Cinematik:

"Hey, if you want to do your own restoration (and that's a key word, because I made no artistic choices on the encoding, apart from the minor amount of DNR I apply to all laserdisc transfers), that's different from my attempt at a preservation, you feel free. You're essentially trying to shame me, and I'm not going to be shamed. What exactly is the goal here, to make me take my ball and go home? Unless you're an expert on this particular film, have compared all the sources, and the releases, you don't have any idea what you're talking about. You haven't downloaded the files, and you're making uneducated guesses based on two guys on a restoration forum who also don't have the laserdiscs.

Besides, here we are, nearly 20 years after DVDs were released to the general public, and no one else has bothered with restoring or preserving the director's cut of The Alamo. The only file I've found online is a mix of the theatrical cut and what looks like a VHS rip of the director's cut from a Spanish language TV broadcast (complete with logo), with the audio taken from some other English language source and synced back. It looks, as you can imagine, absolutely awful. There are other files you can find, but in general, they use the same sources and the transitions are jarring, to say the least."

[spoRv]

Thanks Elmo for your job!

To whom it may concern: there is an AC3 Uncut LD available on LDDB for "just" US$95 (negotiable, I think): http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/shop/07667.../Alamo-The
I'm able to capture video and/or audio (both PCM and AC3 5.1 untouched); so, even if I have now NO time to eventually do a capture, if someone would like to buy it and send it to me in Italy, I promise to do it ASAP (read: maybe one or two months...)

[jerryshadoe]

You know what?? Your attitude that people are trying to "fight" with you is just childish. This is a community that focuses on restoration AND preservation efforts and people here are NOT trying to belittle your work (or you) They are just trying to give you pointers about how this project could have been done better.

Initially, I wanted to say thank you for your time, effort, and all the work that went into assembling this project, but your attitude has changed that because you refuse to acknowledge simple facts:

- you introduced degradation to the video AND audio when you captured the laserdisc with your stand-alone Panasonic, as there IS actual LOSSY encoding at this stage

- you introduced more degradation to the video when re-encoding a lossy video stream into another lossy video stream when authoring your final release

- you introduced the MOST amount of degradation when you decided to make the video anamorphic and basic math can prove this. your original letterboxed footage was 704x480 (at 1.33 AR) and in order to get this to 16x9 anamorphic you had to crop some of the original footage (704/1.78= 395.505...) which means that you took a video of 704x395 and RE-SIZED it back to 704x480 to make it anamorphic and this stage probably introduced more degradation that the lossy encode and lossy re-encode combined

- you introduced more degradation when, in your own words, you applied DNR to the footage

- you should have properly deinterlaced the footage and IVTC'ed it to 23.976fps which is what film plays at and NOT the 29.970fps which is what video plays at

- your black levels ARE grey, which I can prove very easily. There are LASERDISC sourced images posted here: http://movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=3869

your screenshot:

[Image: alamo14.jpg]

screenshot from link above:

[Image: cap005.jpg]

your screenshot:

[Image: alamo2.jpg]

screenshot from link above:

[Image: cap026.jpg]

your screenshot:

[Image: alamo6.jpg]

screenshot from link above:

[Image: cap077.jpg]

your screenshot:

[Image: alamo7.jpg]

screenshot from link above:

[Image: cap083.jpg]

your screenshot:

[Image: alamo8.jpg]

screenshot from link above:

[Image: cap095.jpg]

your screenshot:

[Image: alamo18.jpg]

screenshot from link above:

[Image: cap187.jpg]



Yes, there is a HUGE difference in size of the shots, but it's clear that your black levels are off.



So, is it awesome that you attempted this project and put time, effort, and work into making it available? YES!

Could it have been done better? YES.

Is this a diss of you or your work? NO!!!

NOBODY here is trying to tell you how to do your project, but they ARE trying to give you SUGGESTIONS how it COULD have been done BETTER.

To give you an idea of how you are incorrect in assuming that 10% doesn't matter and how you believe that you did this properly, let's explore this hypothetical:

What you did is basically the same as, if I had a SLP-speed VHS master, that I copied to a SP-speed VHS and then copied it to another SP-speed VHS tape again claiming that the second copy is nearly identical to the master so what does that 10% matter and the master's quality was crap anyway.

If the source is already of poor quality, then 10% can be A LOT and why would you NOT want to preserve it at the highest quality possible?


Many people here have the necessary equipment to do a proper capture and if you ask nicely, I'm sure someone would be willing to help you out.

This laserdisc should have been captured losslessly, along with the PCM audio captured losslessly as well. THEN, any work should have been done on a lossless intermediary track, including the re-sizing of the video, (suggest using lanzcos3 here) de-interlacing and IVTC'ing the footage, any color/brightness/contrast/RGB-levels/etc adjustments, and AFTER all of this, it should have been encoded to a lossy format for final release.

I have NO problem with the size of your release and this is one part that I whole-hardheartedly agree with you and DISAGREE with the comments made by other posters about the low bitrates suggested. (although, this also depends on whether they were talking about bitrates for a release versus bitrates for a preservation)

Either way, thanx for your effort but will be skipping this one until it's properly captured as even the crappy quality youtube video has better colors and black levels as can be seen here:

[Elmo Oxygen]

You know what?? Your attitude that people are trying to "fight" with you is just childish. This is a community that focuses on restoration AND preservation efforts and people here are NOT trying to belittle your work (or you) They are just trying to give you pointers about how this project could have been done better.

I think you're misreading tone, and there's a reason I used the word "fighting" in quotes. If I thought what I did was perfect, I would state as much. There are always better ways of doing things, which is why I stated the way I did them. If I was ashamed of the result, I would have never mentioned the lengthy process, the same I've been using for years. I use this process because I feel comfortable with it. If I had to learn new software for every new project, it would be exhausting and not exactly enticing to spend money on the laserdiscs, let alone put in the work with encoding and experimenting with authoring.

Now, the levels of condescension aimed at me were quite evident ("can cause eye cancer," "Beware, this is a poorly transferred custom jobber. Great movie, but your eyes may bleed,") but I never took them that seriously. The assumption that I've never done it before is fine, but you see, there has to be someone willing to preserve things that no one else will. There are projects I've spent weeks on, only for, maybe 20 downloaders over 4 different torrent sites.

Initially, I wanted to say thank you for your time, effort, and all the work that went into assembling this project, but your attitude has changed that because you refuse to acknowledge simple facts:

- you introduced degradation to the video AND audio when you captured the laserdisc with your stand-alone Panasonic, as there IS actual LOSSY encoding at this stage

When I used to capture stuff with an external capture card (back when I had Windows XP, the capture card doesn't work with Windows 7 or above), there were always problems with hiccups or the audio cutting out. The DVD Recorder, while providing a slightly inferior image, was much less hassle. Plus, as I said the DVD Recorder is only a middle man, and a way to get to the DVD-Ram disc. I'm sure there's encoding done by the machine, but considering that it is 1:1 (and I record it at XP quality), it would be on the fly, and hardly the most damaging.

- you introduced more degradation to the video when re-encoding a lossy video stream into another lossy video stream when authoring your final release

- you introduced the MOST amount of degradation when you decided to make the video anamorphic and basic math can prove this. your original letterboxed footage was 704x480 (at 1.33 AR) and in order to get this to 16x9 anamorphic you had to crop some of the original footage (704/1.78= 395.505...) which means that you took a video of 704x395 and RE-SIZED it back to 704x480 to make it anamorphic and this stage probably introduced more degradation that the lossy encode and lossy re-encode combined

Of course it increases degradation, as does de-interlacing and anything to do with encoding the footage. But I have to make the assumption that it would be better for the encoder to "zoom in" on the footage pixel by pixel than a TV or monitor to do it on the fly, where the viewer has to guess which of the various modes are the best approximation of how it is supposed to look. There are raw standard def files I get from boxing torrent sites, recorded straight to the computer from cable (yes, lots of compression, but unavoidable), and the amount of maneuvering I have to do to get it to play back remotely properly on VLC is absurd. First, there's sorting out the aspect ratio flag, turning a 640x480 file to fill my 1.78 screen, even though VLC is reading a 1.33 file as 2.35, and then I have to zoom in on the pixels, so eventually it, obviously, looks like crap. Of course, if there were other sources for the fights, I would take them, but there often aren't.  Why put the person who downloaded through that bother, just for the purity of giving them an untouched file?

- you introduced more degradation when, in your own words, you applied DNR to the footage

Yes, but it's a very tiny amount (I think the scale goes up to 250, and I set it at somewhere between 6 and, and it helps with the haziness. I've experimented with it either way, and only when transferring laserdiscs, and it seems to do look better and there's a bit more visual clarity than when not using it.

- you should have properly deinterlaced the footage and IVTC'ed it to 23.976fps which is what film plays at and NOT the 29.970fps which is what video plays at

Here's what I've found when trying to go to 23.976 when making files intended to on a DVD: The results have jittery/jumpy video playback. I agree that it looks better, but I am not finding that the playback is smooth. And if I set the frame rate at 23.97, when making the DVD, the authoring software has to do another level of encoding to bring it back to 29.97 progressive, and they tend not to be great at that, since that's not really what they're for. I've skipped that part, so it just copies the video file as I originally encoded it. There's going to be at least two major types of encoding no matter how you do it.

I had one person make a suggestion on an older laserdisc-sourced project, that I shouldn't de-interlace the video at all, and then let machine do it on playback, and I have to disagree with that too, because while there is more clarity, the interlacing gets so distracting (grill marks galore and other obvious problems), no matter the quality of the player.

- your black levels ARE grey, which I can prove very easily. There are LASERDISC sourced images posted here: http://movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=3869

your screenshot:

Yeah, the musical intro and intermission are in a slightly different aspect ratio, and I didn't separate them and make adjustments, since on the laserdisc during the intro and intermission, it's just music playing over a still image

[Image: alamo14.jpg]

screenshot from link above:

[Image: cap005.jpg]

your screenshot:

[Image: alamo2.jpg]

screenshot from link above:

[Image: cap026.jpg]


your screenshot:

[Image: alamo18.jpg]

screenshot from link above:

[Image: cap187.jpg]

Yes, there is a HUGE difference in size of the shots, but it's clear that your black levels are off.

Yes, and here's the same size version of two of those shots from my screenshots. At that size, it's very difficult to tell.

[Image: alamo2_smaller.jpg]
[Image: alamo18_smaller.jpg]

Why do mine look more washed out? Is it because of the conversion to anamorphic widescreen? Did my laserdisc begin to fade/i.e. rot? I have no idea. I haven't made any color adjustments on my own.

So, is it awesome that you attempted this project and put time, effort, and work into making it available? YES!

Could it have been done better? YES.

Is this a diss of you or your work? NO!!!

NOBODY here is trying to tell you how to do your project, but they ARE trying to give you SUGGESTIONS how it COULD have been done BETTER.

To give you an idea of how you are incorrect in assuming that 10% doesn't matter and how you believe that you did this properly, let's explore this hypothetical:

What you did is basically the same as, if I had a SLP-speed VHS master, that I copied to a SP-speed VHS and then copied it to another SP-speed VHS tape again claiming that the second copy is nearly identical to the master so what does that 10% matter and the master's quality was crap anyway.

If the source is already of poor quality, then 10% can be A LOT and why would you NOT want to preserve it at the highest quality possible?

And as I said many times, if people want do their own version they should go ahead. I'm not going to be pissy about it (even if you read my demeanor as pissy). I'm not going to do a version 2 because I experimented with this thing for months, and the video quality never changed noticeably. The original project begun back in March 2014, with a DVD Recorder sitting in my lap, as I played the NYU library's* laserdisc into the DVD Recorder's hard drive, entirely hidden from view from staff, who had warned me about the legality when they suspected something. [Yes, the world's most boring espionage.] This happened twice until I realized NYU's box set had a rotting problem on one of the sides and on the documentary, and there was no way to just integrate just the roadshow footage into the DVD, because it wasn't seamless. And so I had to buy the set myself from eBay. As you can see, I had to make concessions, but when you make a DVD you're always making concessions, strange ones that have no logical explanations. Like, the software flares up, or makes the text illegible, or you have to find new software because you can't get it to process the whole disc, or the music is too long on a menu page, or the buttons are supposedly overlapping even though they're not, etc.

If I wanted ways to do it better, I would have asked for help, which I've done on other projects on this forum a few times, and received no suggestions, so I that's why I posted this in the released section. If this project was as important to people as it seems to be after I released it, there have plenty of opportunities for other to do it themselves. And yet I'm the one who did the only preservations of the laserdisc-only extended versions/director's cuts of Wyatt Earp, She's Gotta Have It, Dead Poets Society, Hawaii, Texasville, The Lawnmower Man, The Lighthorsemen, Boxing Helena and a few laserdisc only movie versions/exclusive extras like What Happened Was..., The Run of the Country, The New Age, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Slaughter of the Innocents, The Magnificent Ambersons, etc. I'm not bragging, but there's clearly no one else itching to do them. Plenty of those movie I don't even like, but that doesn't mean they should be allowed to fade into oblivion. [What Happened Was... is a masterpiece though]


* I am neither an NYU student nor a current resident of the state of NY, so this was no easy task to get access to their copy.

[Doctor M]

I'd like to comment about the eye-cancer thing. That's a scientific fact.

Okay, not really, but failing to inverse telecine and then rescaling video at best completely destroys the smoothness of the film and can literally cause headaches from the jerkiness and at worst affects sharpness by adding blurry double exposed looking frames.

If you wanted to keep 29.97, you needed to preserve the interlacing and an anamorphic format was not an option.
Of course at 23.976, the bitrate requirement would have been much lower and a piece of cake to put on a single DVD9 considering the softness.

[JessicaFaith84]

Looks like a great package. How would I go about accessing MySpleen and Karagarga?