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Batman Forever: Red Book Edition - A Scaperat Fanedit - The 15th Anniversary Enhanced Edition

Edit Update:

TLDR: I am going back to square one on the Topaz AI upscale, the adjustment of color ranges, and will be fixing Scaperat's slowed shots using Topaz.

After watching Workprint 1 at 4K, I noted several things Topaz doesn't upscale sufficiently enough to be satisfied with. There are also color banding problems in some darker scenes.
I went back to square one. I initially didn't notice this, but the MP4 I ripped was noticeably worse in quality compared to Scaperat's DVD VOBs. So, I re-ripped the VOBs with better settings and got a much cleaner MP4. Then, instead of adjusting colors and ranges pre-Topaz upscale, I am adjusting colors post-Topaz upscale.

Scaperat slowed a few shots down in the Red Book edit. I will be going back to each of them and using Topaz again, but this time to fix the visible framerate stutter, like I did for my Godzilla KOTM edit.

I won't be using Topaz to upscale this anniversary edit to 4K anymore. That amount of upscaling (and AI "filling in the blanks") doesn't work in too many shots/scenes. Faces and actor's eyes in medium and long shots look bad.
Instead, I will be upscaling to 1080p.
It will still look much sharper than the Standard Definition DVD VOBs, with blocking and pixelation virtually gone. The new results are better on the eyes I assure you.
 
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@motleycat Enterprises inc here are a couple screenshots direct from the rendering that is happening as I type this. These are comparisons before I've color graded it further.

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The 15th Anniversary Fanedit Revision:
-Upscaled everything to 1080p
Click to expand...

Wouldn't it be better to rebuild it using actual 1080p for the scenes that are available, and upscale only SD-sourced material?
 
Gieferg said:
Wouldn't it be better to rebuild it using actual 1080p for the scenes that are available, and upscale only SD-sourced material?
Click to expand...
That's what I was thinking: re-build the edit from scratch using a Blu-ray source. You could make the argument that upscaling the original DVD VOBs saves a lot of time working on it, but I digress.
 
Frankly, saving time should not be a priority.
I consider uspcaling a "last resort" when there's no other way to get a footage with decent quality. That's not the case here, so...

This looks like an interesting idea, but the way to do it certainly isn't optimal one. Just recreating video cuts, when there is a finished audio track would not be that much of work anyway and recreating colors - an interesting challenge, isn't it?
 
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I just assume INIGHTMARES is doing it like this to spare himself the burden of all that extra work, although I strongly agree with your assessment that recreating the Red Book Edition from scratch using a 1080p Blu-ray source wouldn't be too much trouble.
 
@Gieferg I don't think I could re-create his color grade using my bluray source and my skill-set. I know some and am tinkering and adjusting color saturation as I've said in the main post. But I'm still a novice at a lot of this. I have used the bluray source to rebuild the opening credits as well as the end credits. I'll also be fixing the slowed down shots from Scaperat's edit as well. This isn't just a quick upscale job. I wanted this to still feel like his edit and be his edit.
 
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I don't think I could
Click to expand...

That's not a proper mindset for a faneditor ;)
Every edit is an opportunity to improve editing skills. You'll do it the way you want it, but proper HD is always better than upscaled "HD".
Anyway, good luck with the project.
 
motleycat Enterprises inc said:
I strongly agree with your assessment that recreating the Red Book Edition from scratch using a 1080p Blu-ray source wouldn't be too much trouble.
Click to expand...
I wish it were so easy to recreate every single thing he did from scratch and without a proper edit list. This version I'm making will be great I assure you.
 
@Dwight Fry I appreciate your encouragement greatly @Gieferg I also am thankful for your criticism because we are all here trying to make awesome stuff. I never intended for this edit to be a complete remake. I wanted the cornerstone of this to be Scaperat's edit, and tweak and fix from there. If I was making my own version I would be giving a special thanks to Scaperat, not calling it his edit that I'm enhancing. His edit is the foundation. His are the giant's shoulders, for which I am standing on making this, per se.

I'll have more updates soon:cool:
 
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