The TV version of AoD has languished for a long time in standard def purgatory. I made a miniDV recording off the SciFi Channel in 2005 and made it available online (as well as incorporating it into my Primitive Screwhead Edition fanedit) - and for a time that was the best way to watch it. It finally got an official DVD release by Koch, but was a very bad NTSC to PAL conversion with some vertical softening of a good looking NTSC SD broadcast master. Then Shout Factory released it, and they took that very bad NTSC to PAL conversion, and made it even worse with a bad conversion back to NTSC. Despite these problems, the Koch PAL DVD still looks better overall than my 2005 recording.
It's my favorite cut of the movie (a theoretical uncensored version would be perfect), and with the new Shout Factory 4K release I had hoped Shout would right the wrong, but they have not (at least from what I've read - haven't bought it yet).
So I've put in the work to try and convert the Koch DVD back to NTSC, but that PAL conversion is terrible and I've had no luck with typical methods (QTGMC+Srestore or SelectEvery). I have gone to the trouble of creating QTGMC 50fps versions and then manually picking out the best/correct frames compared to an inverse telecine of my 2005 recording. I've managed to get the first unique TV version scene back to 23.976fps through this painful method, but the 2nd TV Version-only scene has much longer shots with slow movement and it's basically driving me insane trying to manually pick the correct frames out of the first 2 slow shots that last over 1000 frames each after processed with QTGMC.
Out of desperation, I've turned to the forums of VideoHelp and Doom9, but so far no one has responded.
Maybe you guys can help - here's some footage:
Bad NTSC to PAL Conversion DVD Source:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aZt1fV5...share_link
Lower Quality Recording of Original NTSC (interlaced) for reference:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ueDuU7q...share_link
I'm hoping beyond hope that maybe someone out there has a high quality copy of the broadcast master, but in lieu of that, this is the best material I know of for the scene. Hypothetically, there is a strange pattern in the NTSC to PAL conversion that could be cracked and we could use QTGMC combined with Avisynth's SelectEvery function to get easily get the footage back to 23.976fps, but so far I have been unable to crack that.
If anyone could help me, that would be amazing. Also, does anyone know of a decent open-matte source for the Director's Cut without burnt-in subtitles? I have a transfer of the Taiwan laserdisc but, alas, it has burnt-in subtitles.
(This post was last modified: 2023-05-21, 05:57 AM by RidgeShark.)
It's my favorite cut of the movie (a theoretical uncensored version would be perfect), and with the new Shout Factory 4K release I had hoped Shout would right the wrong, but they have not (at least from what I've read - haven't bought it yet).
So I've put in the work to try and convert the Koch DVD back to NTSC, but that PAL conversion is terrible and I've had no luck with typical methods (QTGMC+Srestore or SelectEvery). I have gone to the trouble of creating QTGMC 50fps versions and then manually picking out the best/correct frames compared to an inverse telecine of my 2005 recording. I've managed to get the first unique TV version scene back to 23.976fps through this painful method, but the 2nd TV Version-only scene has much longer shots with slow movement and it's basically driving me insane trying to manually pick the correct frames out of the first 2 slow shots that last over 1000 frames each after processed with QTGMC.
Out of desperation, I've turned to the forums of VideoHelp and Doom9, but so far no one has responded.
Maybe you guys can help - here's some footage:
Bad NTSC to PAL Conversion DVD Source:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aZt1fV5...share_link
Lower Quality Recording of Original NTSC (interlaced) for reference:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ueDuU7q...share_link
I'm hoping beyond hope that maybe someone out there has a high quality copy of the broadcast master, but in lieu of that, this is the best material I know of for the scene. Hypothetically, there is a strange pattern in the NTSC to PAL conversion that could be cracked and we could use QTGMC combined with Avisynth's SelectEvery function to get easily get the footage back to 23.976fps, but so far I have been unable to crack that.
If anyone could help me, that would be amazing. Also, does anyone know of a decent open-matte source for the Director's Cut without burnt-in subtitles? I have a transfer of the Taiwan laserdisc but, alas, it has burnt-in subtitles.
