So until I, or someone, can track down a VHS to do a better transfer than the currently traded DVDR, I am now doing a clean-up re-encode of this DVDR version, with the help of the very knowledgeable jagabo from videohelp who provided me with a great filter script.
You can see a side by side video comparison here - but note that you will need to set to 720p while viewing or it will be full of compression blocking due to youtube’s re-encoding, along with the very extended resolution of this side by side video being non-standard resolution:
Not only are the colors improved, but if you look at the video clip starting around 1:23, you can really notice on the original there is some bounce in the picture, which is more stabilized in the new picture… along with some other improvements
Edit: Still working out some additional improvements with jerky movement such as in camera pans
Yeah deffo. I watched this film a while back and I must admit while it obviously wasn’t the height of The Dollars Trilogy I quite enjoyed it. i’d love to see the film again via a better print than the bootleg I have.
When final touches are put on this clean up, will of course be posted over at CG, but I think I will probably also make a public download link available for anyone who wants it here. Since invites are closed at CG, I feel bad posting about these without also making them available. I would offer to mail copies, but I’ve been a bit overwhelmed with requests for this in the past and I actually haven’t bought blank DVDRs in years, although I may again soon for some upcoming work.
Managed to contact one of the Brazil sellers of the Starblack VHS - and they want about $80USD just for shipping! Get the heck out of here ! That’s one heavy tape !
I used to see spaghetti western titles on 16mm sales lists years ago, and they were generally really cheap, as few people in English speaking territories knew or remembered the films.
‘Today it’s Me, … Tomorrow it’s You’ was being offered by an English dealer for just £25, but I resisted, as my place is really cluttered enough. Kind of regret that decision
Might check at CG, but kinda figured anyone who would have access to this one is maybe not paying attention at this point…
It seems to be pretty rare in all formats. I was surprised to see the few Brazil listings on that site…
I hear ya on not collecting more clutter… I’ve largely started to sell off stuff unless its actually something I genuinely like, rather than simply collecting. 16 or 35mm prints would be pretty cool to have, but not sure I’d ever be able to actually make use of them
Yeah … it’s great fun to have a real movie show, but it’s bulky, expensive and I was always worried that the projector might chew up a film … so I never really relaxed watching them.
Any pennies I manage to save will go to another Almeria trip … that’s Nirvana to me
at first glance they seem the same, but if you look closely you see the coloring is slightly different, along with slight differences in the detail/noise present
Additionally, yours looks to be a PAL resolution while mine is NTSC. Are you able to see if your DVD is PAL with 25fps? (can be viewed under media/codec information if using VLC player)
Also, my DVDR has about 30 minutes of blank footage from a DVD recorder screen at the end of the movie. Does your DVDR also have this?
From what I can tell, the DVD I have has been recorded with an NTSC DVD Recorder, from the original PAL source (original VHS was most likely PAL, and the current DVDR I have may be someone recording a PAL DVDR onto an NTSC DVDR? LOL this is so hard to try and explain)
Anyway, if your DVD is PAL 25fps, and does not include this blank footage at the end, then you could possibly have a better version
First - mine (i resized the screenshot to match your resolution)
Second - yours
So from the looks of it, we have the same DVD but you have a PAL version with slightly different details than my NTSC version
My best guess is that whoever transferred the original VHS used a DVD recorder to capture the tape, which is why we see their DVD Recorder menu and play button in the video. Then someone along the line of trades, somebody didn’t have a computer with a DVD burner so instead they plugged a DVD player into their DVD Recorder and recorded the PAL DVD into their NTSC DVD recorder, producing the version I have.
Their DVD recorder probably also applied some slight noise reduction filters and coloring to the video, causing the slight variation in details…
I might be wrong, but that’s my best guess.
And it looks like your version may be helpful in my current project, because it would be a better quality source without this re-recording onto NTSC which causes more problems with the video…
