We Are The Walking Dead (Mini-Series) FANedit

[jerryshadoe]

So, I have kind of ran "into a wall."

The Russian voice-over track (due to the source being 5.1) is easy to assemble for the custom 5.1 track. The Polish voice-over, for the most part, has been easy to assemble as well. I have about 40& of each of those done. BUT, the French track, at times, sounds really off once in the 5.1 because some of the parts with dialog and music playing in background on center channel, make the "splices" a little more obvious but not very noticeable. I have about 30% of it assembled. The worst offenders are the Italian and (especially) the Spanish dubs. Turns out, the Italian has a pitch issue just like the Spanish dub. This makes it very tricky (nearly impossible) to assemble properly. The reason for that is because if I try to fix the pitch (which I have done successfully) the music in the background sounds right BUT the dialog does NOT. So I have ran "into a wall." I don't know whether to even bother finishing assembling those two languages because the music doesn't sync up properly but the dialog sounds right, or the music nearly syncs right but the dialog sounds like shit... Technically, I could include those languages in MONO, cleaning up the "rough" tracks that already exist or someone would have to supply me with 5.1 tracks for all the episodes in both languages and then I could use those to make the 5.1 tracks (although they would definitely be lossy)

At this point, I don't care if the dubs are lossy or lossless, the problem is that for most of them I only have 2.0 audio tracks to begin with, which is problematic because I need to be able to edit the audio on a 5.1 timeline due to the fact that the cuts have to be made at different times depending on transition (on a 2.0, some of the cuts would be obvious or wouldn't work at all but with 5.1 there are "tricks" you can play to make it sound right)

Hmmmm.... what to do, what to do?

If I had been assembling ONLY the English audio and subtitle tracks, even with the extra time I took to make the trailer, this film would have been already released... I am very frustrated now and don't know what to do. I really want to start working on the second film and all of these "roadblocks" keep on popping up before I can even finish the first one... Grrrrr!!!

EDIT: If the problem persists and I can't find an easy solution, the Polish and Russian tracks (because they sync perfectly) will still be included in lossless 5.1, but the French, Italian, and Spanish dubs will only be included in lossy MONO where those tracks will have issues at certain transitions and therefore, will not sound right. At that point, I'm wondering whether to include them at all... The Italian & French dubs I might be able to "salvage" but the Spanish dub looks like might have to be dropped all together (except for subtitles, of course)

EDIT2: Whether I include the Italian dub is dependent on Andrea (since it was his suggestion) I will still try to piece it together and, depending on result, will include it in the final release.
Whether the Spanish dub is included is dependent on jedeitor and if he:
a) cares that the final audio would be mono (and wouldn't be much better than the "rough" cut that I already sent him)
b) cares if it gets included at all

[jedeitor]

It's always those damn spaniards!

This is what I meant about doing this gigantic job. Too many things can go wrong and delay the result.

Let me try to find the spanish 5.1 tracks.

---

I don't really care much about the spanish dub, but it could give the project more downloads, so I'll search for the 5.1s and if there's no luck you could include the mono track.

[jerryshadoe]

@ jedeitor - I found and am downloading 5.1 Espanol Castellano audio tracks for Temporada 1
EDIT: not only did I find them, but they are perfectly synced to the 23.976fps blu-ray so the audio will be easy to use. Possibly even to the point where, like the Russian and Polish tracks, I will be able to make the custom 5.1 lossless audio track
And yes, it is the Espanol Castellano and NOT Espanol Latino audio track. I listened to it and it's the same as what I already had

@ ALL - this means that if I want to include the Italian, I need to track down 5.1 audio for it as well or include only a mono track.

[jedeitor]

Great news!

[spoRv]

Upload the italian 5.1 track and I'll test it - if in sync with the workprint, I need only the audio track.

[jerryshadoe]

@ Andrea - I do not have an Italian 5.1 and if I did, then I would be able to assemble the track. Unfortunately, season 01 of the Italian audio that I found was 2.0, unlike season 02 where I won't have this problem. Hopefully I can find a place to get the 5.1 Italian audio somewhere. If not, then I might still be able to assemble the custom track, but I can't guarantee that it will sound right. I am working on the Russian audio right now and can do the Italian next to let you know if there will be problems with it.

@ jedeitor - Yes, it is good news This will make syncing it to my project as easy as the Russian track

[spoRv]

I mean the reconstructed Italian 5.1 track - if it's available

[jerryshadoe]

@ Andrea - I will start working on the Italian audio after I wake up.
@ ALL - STATUS UPDATE:
- The Russian audio is 100% done.
- The Polish audio is about 75% done.
- The French audio is about 60% done.
- The Spanish audio has been downloaded, demuxed, converted to WAV, made sure it syncs with English "master" and it is now ready to be assembled.
- The Italian audio is still sourced from a 2.0 mix as I have not been able to find a 5.1 mix that is still available for download. I will start working on assembling the custom 5.1 mix in the morning, after I finish the Polish and French audio tracks.
- Polish subtitles are about 30% translated.
- Still waiting on Italian and Spanish subtitles, but I know that they are being work on
- Cover (back side, as front is already done by jedeitor) is nearly finished.
- Menu art still needs to be completed.
- Still looking for French and Russian speakers to help verify audio and translate subtitles (although I'm starting to give up hope of finding anyone to help with this)
That is all for now... and now, well... you know what time it is... LOL

[jerryshadoe]

ok, STATUS UPDATE:
- Russian audio 100% done
- Polish audio 100% done
- French audio 100% done
- Italian audio 65% done (never found a 5.1 mix that is available, but I did find a MUCH better copy that is NOT from HDTV like the copies I had before, but instead is synced perfectly to the 23.976fps blu-ray and has NO pitch issues)
- Spanish audio will be started tomorrow - the "5.1" mixes that I thought I found, are actually 2.0 mixes in a 5.1 track where channels 3, 4, 5, and 6 are EMPTY!! Is this a problem? NO! Unlike the copies I had before (which were from HDTV) these are synced perfectly to the 23.976fps blu-ray and have NO pitch issues.
This means that I will actually have the audio finished within the next 3-4 days
After that, I have to "collect" the foreign subtitles from those helping with that, finish the Polish subtitles myself, author the BD and it's time for release. I think that I will release this first film right after the finale of season 5 of the show next sunday

[jerryshadoe]

OK, so I have some really good news and some really bad news...

Let's get the "negative," bad news out of the way first:

In ALL languages (except English) the dialog portions sound ok or really good, but ANY time there is music playing it sounds like shit. When listening to the audio on a true 5.1 system, its not as obvious (depending on which part, of course; although the music being louder during dialog on the center channel is a little awkward) but the moment you listen to it in a 2.0 enviornment (like headphones and most TVs) it becomes extremely audible. With how popular SD encodes are (which usually only have 2.0 audio) this says to me that most people still listen to stuff in a 2.0 environment or simply don't care if they have a 5.1 audio track.

This means that the release (if I were to use what I have now) would appear "cheap" and very amateur which would discourage people from wanting to see the next films in the series. The ONLY way I would be able to make the foreign audio tracks sound right is if I had 5.1 audio sources and I will not spend a bunch of money just to make that happened; and I would have to build the audio for each language from scratch without using the lossless English master at all. There have been suggestions to just use the 2.0 foreign tracks "as-is" but this is a HUGE problem as I would basically have to edit the film together again FIVE times (this is due to how Sony Vegas loads the audio/edits in the timeline where I can't easily "substitute" one 5.1 audio track for another 2.0 audio track without re-editing the ENTIRE project) However, I do still want non-english speakers to enjoy this project and think the subtitles will be sufficient.

Could I do the foreign audio tracks? Yes, but it would take a lot of money (especially once you factor in all of the seasons and each language) and at least another month or so of work. I apologize to jedeitor and Andrea for, basically, wasting their time verifying audio that I can't use and hope this doesn't discourage them from still helping me with the subtitles and this project.

Now, for the "positive," good news:

While I was gone from home the last few days, as I had some family stuff to attend to, (my uncle got shot by some punk that was trying to steal his Harley-Davidson and he's in the hospital in critical condition but is expected to survive) I let my computer encode what I have dubbed "The Vintage Edition" of this first film. I really like the old-school sepia film look of silent films and wanted to re-create that for this mini-series (especially now that I have the space to include it on the release, since I won't be including the foreign audio tracks) Not only am I talking about the sepia color-grading, but the vintage contrast/brightness that comes with those old silent films. PLUS, the heavier use of grain and film scratches. Once I figured out all of the filter setting to achieve the effect I was looking for, I applied a "dirty" 35mm film grain plate on top of the footage to really get that "vintage film" look to it. It took 68(!) hours to encode. I also wanted this "vintage edition" to have a MONO audio track to keep things consistent with the "vintage film" look of the video. I just got home a few hours ago and immediately started working on the audio to achieve this. I did NOT just simply downmix the 5.1 audio to mono but, instead, custom-built the entire audio track in Audacity in order to have complete control over the way it will sound once done. I really wanted the dialog to be clear, the sfx to be a little excessive, and the music to be very much a background occurrence (except when it needed to be emphasized) I also wanted to make the audio sound a little "dirty" such as in those vintage films so I looked around the internet to find a proper vinyl scratches, crackles and pops sound. I found it relatively quickly (only took me about 20 minutes) and then I mixed this "warm" vinyl sound with the custom mono track that I created. It sounds amazing! I finally muxed the "vintage edition" video with the mono track I created and they compliment each other very well. I realize that some people will HATE it, some will love it and some won't care at all but I wanted to include it.

I'm sure some of you would like to see the effect that I'm talking about, so here's a 3-minute sample from the final 1080p encode:

https://mega.co.nz/#!QBwASYzS!lrFpkN2CNl...N0GWeMt0YA

To all subtitle translators: I am now waiting for you guys to provide me the translations so that I can author the BD. I am nearly finished with the Polish subtitles, the English H.I. subtitles have been corrected to include character names and I am nearly done with the cover/menu art. Once these couple of last things are done, the first film will finally be ready for release and I can start editing the second one