Thundercats picture quality and mastering for DVD

"Booshman, post: 118683, member: 25641" said:

After a long while away from this project, I've managed to redo the scripts I was using before I lost everything in a hard drive crash. Luckily the after effects project was on another drive so I had all of the recolouring settings saved in that. I've got a pretty decent sytem for upscaling to 720P now, I think. I've finished Excalibur, if anyone wants to take a look to give feedback I'd appreciate it. The file is around 3gb. PM me for the link.

Wow, that screenshot looks great!

Wow! you got rid of those annoying pixels! Why wouldn't they remaster the series? I don't get it.

"Daremonger, post: 118684, member: 25241" said:

The 720p quality looks really good!

"adssse, post: 118685, member: 25051" said:

Wow, that screenshot looks great!

"mumm_ra_n_rana, post: 118686, member: 26022" said:

Wow! you got rid of those annoying pixels! Why wouldn't they remaster the series? I don't get it.

Thanks for the feedback. Glad you like it. It's a shame this is unlikely to see an official bluray. Of course it all down to WB not wanting to cough up the money to do it properly. Same issue with waiting to get an official release of the score. I'd love to see them go back to the original elements for this. My upscale can only look so good based on the source, fighting a battle between cleaning and not erasing fine detail. A proper scan of the film would reveal detail that hasn't been captured by the tapes used to create the DVD's.

"Booshman, post: 118688, member: 25641" said:

Thanks for the feedback. Glad you like it. It's a shame this is unlikely to see an official bluray. Of course it all down to WB not wanting to cough up the money to do it properly. Same issue with waiting to get an official release of the score. I'd love to see them go back to the original elements for this. My upscale can only look so good based on the source, fighting a battle between cleaning and not erasing fine detail. A proper scan of the film would reveal detail that hasn't been captured by the tapes used to create the DVD's.

True.

Weird. don't they usually go right to the film to make DVDs? are they really THAT uninvested in the series to do that?

"mumm_ra_n_rana, post: 118700, member: 26022" said:

Weird. don't they usually go right to the film to make DVDs? are they really THAT uninvested in the series to do that?

It depends if they even have them anymore. And if they do, who knows what state they're in. Since some episodes have "closed captioned" during the intro, we know they used broadcast tapes. Much cheaper to go to them for capture than restoring original elements.

The quality of this series on DVD always bugs me compared to TransFormers and the like.

I don't think I'd double dip for a new remastered DVD/BD release of this. I'm happy with what I got.
And unless Thundercats becomes popular again whether thru a new series or movie, WB wont spent the money on this.
Only way I can see it happening is if it's sub-licensed by Shout Factory, Mill Creek or some other company.
And even that is a big IF.

I doubt it would ever happen, and even then I wouldn't trust those involved to do a good job. If Shout can't do The Transformers the Movie properly, I couldn't see a whole series coming out OK. That's why I'm doing it myself, shame I don't have better sources to work from, but nothing much can be done about that.

"Booshman, post: 118899, member: 25641" said:

I doubt it would ever happen, and even then I wouldn't trust those involved to do a good job. If Shout can't do The Transformers the Movie properly, I couldn't see a whole series coming out OK. That's why I'm doing it myself, shame I don't have better sources to work from, but nothing much can be done about that.

Thanks for taking things into your own hands Booshman!

I've gotten the first 6 episodes done, and I'm working on the second six. I've hit a bit of a snag with a couple of episodes. The beginning credits for Trouble with Time, and segments of The Tower of Traps are field blended. I believe they might have tried to fill in parts of the NTSC DVD with a PAL source leading to stuff that looks like this:



I can fix Trouble With Time by using the intro from a different episode, but if anyone with the PAL discs can help with The Tower of Traps please let me know.

PAL is a better system than NTSC, I have seen the same concert footage in both formats, and the PAL one is better picture every time.

"LiamABC, post: 119454, member: 25438" said:

PAL is a better system than NTSC, I have seen the same concert footage in both formats, and the PAL one is better picture every time.

Typically yes, given the increased resolution, but it's not always a guarantee. Depending on the master used, and the way it's handled. Personally I prefer to have the audio at the correct speed and pitch over the image quality gain, if the PAL version happens to be superior in that case. Luckily with HD we have a standard that's the same for all regions now. It's still worth keepingan eye out for superior versions being released in different regions though, for better picture/ colours, sound, extras, etc.

I got hold of the Tower of Traps episode in PAL, and luckily it doesn't suffer from the video issue the NTSC one does. Here's a comparison of the 2 sources:

OK, the NTSC one is definitely sharper there.

I have a feeling that the PAL broadcast tape was derived from the NTSC tape. This would lead to the image being enlarged for PAL and would account for it being less clear. Had they gone back to the film source, then I'm sure the PAL would have come out as clear, if not a bit better.

"Booshman, post: 119463, member: 25641" said:

Typically yes, given the increased resolution, but it's not always a guarantee. Depending on the master used, and the way it's handled. Personally I prefer to have the audio at the correct speed and pitch over the image quality gain, if the PAL version happens to be superior in that case. Luckily with HD we have a standard that's the same for all regions now. It's still worth keepingan eye out for superior versions being released in different regions though, for better picture/ colours, sound, extras, etc.

I got hold of the Tower of Traps episode in PAL, and luckily it doesn't suffer from the video issue the NTSC one does. Here's a comparison of the 2 sources:

Interesting comparison for both versions. :)

"Booshman, post: 119463, member: 25641" said:

Typically yes, given the increased resolution, but it's not always a guarantee. Depending on the master used, and the way it's handled. Personally I prefer to have the audio at the correct speed and pitch over the image quality gain, if the PAL version happens to be superior in that case. Luckily with HD we have a standard that's the same for all regions now. It's still worth keepingan eye out for superior versions being released in different regions though, for better picture/ colours, sound, extras, etc.

I got hold of the Tower of Traps episode in PAL, and luckily it doesn't suffer from the video issue the NTSC one does. Here's a comparison of the 2 sources:

Very interesting. Thanks for the comparison!

These screen grabs look great. I am highly interested in a 720p version.

"Adancarter, post: 122474, member: 26538" said:

These screen grabs look great. I am highly interested in a 720p version.

I've actually stopped upscaling these and just moved onto cleaning them up in 480P. They look better than the upscaled version and take up less space.

Any chance you will share them when you are done?
Thanks for all your hard work!