The Hong Kong Bluray upscales

[Colek]

So, propably any fan of Hong Kong cinema knows - Bluray releases suck, mostly. They're upscales with 7.1 remixed audio and horrible subtitles.

Lately I've been interested in fixing some of these releases, syncing Laserdisc or other source of original mono tracks into these, and kinda fixing the video.

So I got LD audio from Police Story 2 synced up to the German Bluray, but I still wasn't happy with video quality. So, I decided to do quick script just to check out how would it look and came up with this - http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/210165/. Check out images 2 and 3 for best results.

It's not perfect, but I don't think it's possible to squeeze out of that video, what's your opinion?

[Stamper]

There's a tracker with many of those remuxes & repacks, you should check it out, starts with an A

[Colek]

If you're talking about ADC, I am an member there and I dislike their policy against re-encoded videos or custom Blurays.

[IcePrick]

There is some indication that the first three Police Story movies are getting 4k restorations (about damn time!) http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?p=13608476

As for the upscales, your script does make it look slightly better (although, I think I would lower the grain intensity), but I don't think they can be improved much, to be honest. Many of them seem to have weird colors, like a botched color space conversion or imbalanced hue or something. You might want to look into fixing that (or you could do a full regrade, but I'm not sure if you'd want to spend that effort on an upscale).

[Colek]

4K restorations that were released lately were great if we're talking about detail and being actual HD. They still suffer from terrible subtitles, remixed audio and completely screwed up colors.

I've been working few months ago when A Better Tomorrow 4k Bluray was released on color correction, but dumped the project for now since it does take a lot of time.





Full regrade of classics would be pretty hard too, as there's no good reference material. I'd need trust my own eye on what looks good. That's what I did with ABT on screens above.

[Jetrell Fo]

If you're talking about ADC, I am an member there and I dislike their policy against re-encoded videos or custom Blurays.

It attempts to keep quality on the tracker, which for me anyways, is a positive. There are other places to share these things if needed.

[CSchmidlapp]

4K restorations that were released lately were great if we're talking about detail and being actual HD. They still suffer from terrible subtitles, remixed audio and completely screwed up colors.

I've been working few months ago when A Better Tomorrow 4k Bluray was released on color correction, but dumped the project for now since it does take a lot of time.





Full regrade of classics would be pretty hard too, as there's no good reference material. I'd need trust my own eye on what looks good. That's what I did with ABT on screens above.

Your Colour Correction looks great.
I think somebody screwed the colour space conversion on the downscale from the 4K master.
Fortune Star are pretty lame in there BD releases, they rarely get it right.

[Colek]

So I decided to just go with my gut on ABT remaster, here are the results.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/114556
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/114557

I'll propably make full custom Bluray out of this regrade, this still needs to be slightly filtered, since some compression artifacts popped out during regrade, but it is still superior to muddy colors on original Bluray in my taste, let me know your opinions.

Pretty good looking, Colek

[spoRv]

Light and good regrade; I prefer blue sky instead of teal...