How would you go about getting the REMASTER DVDs?

[Serenity]

Those scans look great, can't wait to have a proper look through them later on. Looks like some glorious stuff there. The 'behind the scenes' shots look fascinating. Such a shame that most, if not all, of the sets went up in flames.

I'm planning on remuxing the French transfer with the English audio at some point. I've done quite a bit of anime previously where a show has had a HD transfer in Japan but remains DVD-only here, so hopefully that will stand me in good stead. We'll see! Only MKVs, but it's let me watch English friendly versions of Evangelion, Macross, Gunbuster etc in HD.

I wanted to see how much of an improvement the French transfer was over the English one before starting to do it, but based on the first episode it looks like it would be a worthwhile exercise.

[Crash]

What's even wrong with MKV after all?
You can take a 40GB blur-ay and pack it down to 15GB and you would be very hard-pressed tell the difference in a blind-test.

The only way would be to freeze the picture and walk right up to the TV point-blank.

That sounds fantastic - I saw when I ripped those screengrabs that there was no comparison at all between the UK version and the French.
The French one even beats the Japanese original and REMASTER versions in colouration and sharpness.

[Serenity]

If you rip from a BD into an MKV container then you shouldn't lose anything. AQ and PQ should be retained nicely. I was more thinking of the loss of menus and such. Doesn't really bother me as long as I have the episodes looking and sounding as great as they can be.

I'll try and test the waters with episode 1 when I get the chance. Hopefully the French versions are largely the same, just sans the English track.

[Bladez636]

I'm planning on remuxing the French transfer with the English audio at some point.

No need, because that's what I've been working on doing for the past 3 years. The fact that the French version leaves out the "Next Episode" sequences and cuts down scenes between the area where the commercials would be shown is the primary struggle with that version.

I've had to use the Japanese (get pretty good to decent results from) and English DVD's (get bad to awful results from, thankfully only make at least 1-2% of overall footage needed to be used) to fill in those scenes. It's irritating because the scenes I have to use from the English DVD only because when those scenes appear on the Japanese one, it's got text on it. Such as the scene of X-Bomber coming out of the Moon Crater from the End Credits and the first and last scenes of the "Next Episode" sequences have titles scrawled over them.

[Serenity]

Sounds like an interesting challenge - might have a bash at the first episode, just to satisfy my own curiosity.

Have had a quick scan through the first episode on the French set - given the low(er) quality of the opening and closing credits then I think what I'll end up doing is just swapping out the credits completely and replacing them with the English credits instead. If I'm doing that then there's only a little extra work to take the 'next' time sequence as well so I'll retain that in the remuxed version.

Essentially, all that I'll be taking from the French disc is the actual original episodic content, starting from when the opening credits finish, and the ending just before the closing credits roll. Then take the opening and closing credits from the English disc, along with the 'next time' sequence, and then overlaying the English audio track.

Looks like the timings for the corresponding episodic content is a couple of seconds different across the two versions - will need to check what that's about, but shouldn't be too difficult to correct for. If I can find out where exactly that occurs then I'll just drop a couple of seconds of silence from the soundtrack so that it stays in sync.

[Bladez636]

These are previews I've done with Episode 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAB2do8AY3o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNfvMLBtfrY (same, but alongside the original UK DVD version for comparison)

Ignore the compression from my lack of understanding of compression early on. You learn as you go on.

I expect to finish my project by next year. I can send a copy your way as well, Serenity if you'd like. Either that or the torrents or separate downloads I plan to do and let you do what you will with them. Though you'd probably like to have the latter by the sounds of it. I don't plan to do a blu-ray version of it because I'd just prefer to keep it native video quality to what the French DVD's gave me. As a yank and having NTSC 720x480 for DVD's, PAL 720x576 DVD's definitely look better on my blu-ray player.

[Serenity]

These are previews I've done with Episode 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAB2do8AY3o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNfvMLBtfrY (same, but alongside the original UK DVD version for comparison)

Ignore the compression from my lack of understanding of compression early on. You learn as you go on.

I expect to finish my project by next year. I can send a copy your way as well, Serenity if you'd like. Either that or the torrents or separate downloads I plan to do and let you do what you will with them. Though you'd probably like to have the latter by the sounds of it. I don't plan to do a blu-ray version of it because I'd just prefer to keep it native video quality to what the French DVD's gave me. As a yank and having NTSC 720x480 for DVD's, PAL 720x576 DVD's definitely look better on my blu-ray player.

Thanks for the links - the first one looks fantastic in itself. The second, wow, the side-by-side comparison is very useful. The difference between the two versions is like night and day - the colour is more vibrant, but equally more natural looking than the 2009 DVDs, and there's clearly better detail - all in all, wow!

I'd love to snag a copy of your completed project when finished, in whichever form is easier for you - I was quite happy with the DVDs when they came out originally - anything was an upgrade on the VCD-rips of the US tapes at that point, but seeing the show in this level of detail - who wouldn't want to watch it like this?

Great work!

[Bladez636]

There are people who prefer the look and feel of the old look, which I kinda understand because it has that feel of nostalgia to it. I prefer the old masters for Seasons 1-3 of my childhood favorite "Thomas the Tank Engine". Part of it is the nostalgia in the raw feeling of the masters, which aren't as bad in appearance as "Star Fleet" is, but it probably has more to do with the incompetence of the editors of the remastered versions (they sucked at cutting scenes properly, and use alternate takes in places).

I placed a page on originaltrilogy (a "Star Wars" fan forum where people can document their fan projects of archiving / remastering projects) about the Star Fleet remastering project and my progress/follies. http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Star-F ... /id/15833/

[Crash]

Very good thread but that site is hard to navigate. Could they make that menu any bigger?

[Bladez636]

Very good thread but that site is hard to navigate. Could they make that menu any bigger?

Yeah, the new design for originaltrilogy is simply repulsive. I really despise it, I don't know what the hell they were thinking...