Just give me a week and I'll PM you a HDTV of the old master with the correct colors.
Thanks guys for posting. Lotto I would definitely replace that shot back to its original form. Let's see if Stamper's HDTV copy has the original shot. If not upscale time.
Great idea guys, I too have long wondered about working with MM--especially the original Aussie audio.
Where does the more colorful source stem from, a foreign DVD?
I think that the MGM transfer represents the best possible for the film in its current state. The negative may or may not have been lost (there seems to be some confusion that arose over the making of the awful AIP US English dub) but currently the MGM held offering has an AIP logo and closely resembles the US print I saw a short while ago. It also reveals more frame information than others and unless a fresh harvest is done in higher res; likely the best we will get. It must be remembered that this was low budget, cut by hand on a homemade editing machine and it shows in all the right ways.
But I do agree that the MGM seems to lack in color timing, akin to the RW situation but nowhere near as drastic. They seemed to have found a high gen dupe and used it practically straight. The release print has a bit more earthy tone to it, more like your idea of 70's exploitation drive in fare, just as MM was marketed by AIP in the US.
In short, the US AIP print looks a bit more like the comparison shot but the MGM Blu better resolves some of the contrasty look of it's otherwise identical DVD counterpart. A bit of tweaking in the color might help some.
Audio proves to be difficult. I had hopes the new Shout disc would finally have lossless Aussie mono, but that is just a fold of the 5.1. Some speculate that the MGM BDs Aussie mono is also a fold due to it missing a line just like the 5.1 remix. Currently only the SE DVD has the Aussie mono with the missing line but it starts to deteriorate in the last third and has some distortion. I'll have to do more in depth comparison, but if this is true and we wanted to try and clean it up a bit, the American mono dub could fill in the gaps as it is in better shape.
Damn Fool Idealistic Crusader
There are 3 different versions I think
- original Warner DVD
- The SE R1 DVD which looks like the Blu-ray, only with near correct colors and contrast
- The Blu-ray which looks a bit dull, drained of colors, but have more detail and information than all others
+ The HDTV which I need to upload for this project, but it's 8gb and it takes time. HDTV looks to me like the SE R1 only in 720p.
Lotto, this is a great discovery! Bravo!
I checked out, my HDTV rip is 720p 1280x546.
It's from japan so there are some subs popping up from time to time in the picture.
It looks the same as Lotto's, so i'm guessing it's better to use his for the color timing corrections.
it's not cropped in the "hand" shot.
(This post was last modified: 2015-06-23, 07:51 PM by Stamper.)
Outside of the differences Lotto pointed out, should the WOWOW just have a polished up release instead of going the regrade route?
Regrain it, remove the subs, etc ,etc
(This post was last modified: 2015-06-23, 08:18 PM by PDB.)