Escape from New York [Evit/PAVIS]: US & Italian theatrical [physical copies RELEASED]

[Evit]

International Blu Ray cover (updated)

preview case

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK - THE ORIGINAL EXPERIENCE

Mission: to restore Escape from New York as close as possible to its original theatrical look (and sound) by cleaning up and fixing all issues with Shout Factory Blu Ray (list of fixes below).
Video source: Shout Factory Blu-Ray
Audio source: US Laserdisc, Italian Blu-Ray, German Laserdisc (all original stereo mixes)

Final format:
Blu-Ray Disc 25GB including chapters but no menu or extras.
Video: 1080p, AVC video bitrate 25Mbps average, 40 max. (2-pass encode: medium pass 1 + slow pass 2), 23.976fps.
Audio: original stereo mix in English, German and Italian. All in 2.0 uncompressed PCM.
Subtitles: English, German, Italian.

FEATURING A GRAND TOTAL OF OVER 2 MINUTES OF FIXES to the Shout Factory Blu Ray and 221 INDIVIDUALLY-CORRECTED FRAMES

--->COMPARISON IMAGES HERE

[PAVIS is my film preservation "brand", mostly aimed at preserving films how they first appeared in Italy, plus fixing US releases while I'm at it]

Special thanks to DoomBot and MrBrown who provided so much material!

Available as physical copy only, for the time being at least.
List of members requesting a physical copy:
- DoomBot
- Mr.Brown
- Colson
- PDB
- Colek
- Rickstaman05

___________ORIGINAL POST________
I have literally littered half a dozen other threads related to Escape from New York for my own preservation project and it's time to open my own.
I'm working on a version which will benefit from seamless branching for an Italian-American version of the film, probably of little interest for most since there's already an all-inclusive SpoRv release but our admin always encourages people to publish their own projects so this is my first little thing I'm working on. I thought I could do without having to re-encode anything but it seems like one encode will be needed after all so while I'm at it I thought I should probably try to fix some of the known issues of the Shout Factory release (which my project is based upon).

Video sources: Shout Factory BR release, Italian bootleg telecine from 1981 (from which I reconstructed the Italian intro which will be featured in seamless branching hopefully)
Audio sources: uncompressed PCM original soundtrack from Laserdisc for the English track, DTS 2.0 original mix from Bluray for the Italian track, AC3 German from Laserdisc.

I like barebone releases and SpoRV's release is already comprehensive of all extra material for the fans (commentaries, trailers etc), so I'm sticking to a simple menu, the film and not much else. Other languages could be added if they turn up in decent quality with the original mix but I'm not interested in including low-quality sound, or new mixes.
German intro from LD unfortunately turned out to be not from 35mm, I'm still hoping to hear if the French LD comes from a 35mm scan but unfortunately that trail went cold. If anyone wants to buy for his own collection and let me know, it's pretty cheap on eBay.

There will be two releases of this, an "international one", which will include English, Italian and German audio tracks and English BR cover, and an Italian one which won't interest most of you but will feature the Italian credits and a cover based on the Italian poster.

Down to the fixes now, I got this shopping list from X5gb and I added others that I found along the way:

1, Brightness / contrast needs to be fixed as its too bright (Mgm release was too dark with black crush and zoomed aspect ratio)
2, Blue lines (print emulsion damage) need to be erased and fixed as much as possible in numerous scenes.
3, Blown Out David 14 computer graphic needs to be fixed
4, Moire effect behind Snake in Hauk's office makes the picture look like it is alive.
5, All tracks from original spoRv version need to be synced.

1. Brightness -fixed
Some say that the whole film is a bit too bright in the Shout release, I don't really see an issue with it, it's not that brighter and in any case it won't let me gain information from any blown-out whites (which are not that many anyway). In any case I've altered only the scene that most people complain about, the President and his blown-out map.


2. Blue lines  All fixed
- Blue splotches during the intro and in random parts of the film - fixed
Shout / My fixed version

- Blue line during the Van Cleef's arrival -fixed enough!
(visible here http://cdn.highdefdigest.com/uploads/201...shot_2.jpg)
- Blue horizontal line inside the scene inside Chock Full O' Nuts should not be fixed, it's a lens flare and is also seen on 35mm
- Blu line in the reverse shots in the diner when Snake says "shit" (before the line "you're a cop / I'm an asshole") fixed
- Blu line in the reverse shots when the Duke faces Snake at the train station and says "who are you?" fixed
- Blu line in the reverse shots of Snake when Cabbie talks to him for the first time fixed


3. Blown Out David 14 computer graphic needs to be fixed -fixed
This is one of the most lamented issues with the Shout Factory release. As we already know, the "Shout!" release is slightly more blown out compared to the MGM one but I hear of people saying it's so blown out they can't even read what appears on the monitor... is it my TV too dim or are they exaggerating much? I've fixed it anyway
This scene in the most recent German BR release (from nov 2016) is almost identical to the Shout BR, they only enhanced the outline of the letters but it still appears too bright

Shout / MGM

(Compare them in full screen)

This is my version


4. Moire effect behind Snake in Hauk's office makes the picture look like it is alive. -fixed
Painfully hard trying to remove it, we will see if it's really possible.
These are the early results


edit: I abandoned my early attempts and used a portion of the 2016 German BR where they "kinda" fixed the problem.

5. tracks from original spoRv version need to be synced. - done
Both English and Italian PCM tracks are now properly synched. German AC3 from Laserdisc has been added.

6. Dirt appearing in many frames when the helicopters are flying over Central Park. - Fixed

If there are more obvious fixes needed for the Shout Factory release please let me know.

30 Nov 2016
All the visual problems that had to be fixed have been fixed.
I still need to work on subtitles (any help is welcome). Audio will be PCM for all tracks

30 Jan 2017
Stuck at authoring

10 Feb 2017
More blue lines found and to be fixed.

24 Feb 2017
More blu lines found and to be fixed

05 March 2017
Finished fixing everything, will encode soon.

10 March 2017
Italian version relased on Blu-Ray disc

April 2017
US version released and available as physical copy on Blu-Ray disc

[Evit]

What do you think of my fixed "David 14" screen? More readable than the "Shout!" version I'm working on?

[Leonardo]

Still needs a bit of work IMHO. If I hadn't seen the MGM screencap I would not be able to read half of that. (Having never seen the movie). Do you think you could make a hybrid by superimposing the MGM screen onto the Shout?

[Evit]

Still needs a bit of work IMHO. If I hadn't seen the MGM screencap I would not be able to read half of that. (Having never seen the movie). Do you think you could make a hybrid by superimposing the MGM screen onto the Shout?

Is it really that difficult to read? Do I have super sight?

[Leonardo]

Could be my monitor, it IS pretty shit. Let me check on another screen.

[Leonardo]

Just checked. Can confirm: My monitor IS out of whack. Although I guess dialing that glowy thing down juuuuuuust a tad wouldn't hurt, would it?

[Evit]

Any better now?

[Leonardo]

[Evit]

Another sequence (the only other sequence) where the brightness could be fixed is the map room scene on board of the Air Force One. I used SpoRV HDTV version as comparison to previous releases
This is my attempt. How do you like them apples?

Hey Evit, been out of the loop for a few days with troubles...regardless this looks like a great project. To me Escape has always had an Italian exploitation thing going, probably since it inspired so many films in Italy. Anyway I'm glad you are using Shout as a base. Although it has a LOT of problems, I still think overall its the best transfer.

Maybe someone else can chime in but there maybe a avisynth filter for dealing with the moire.