top of page

Of Codecs and Coasters

The SINISTRE DVD has been authored and uploaded to the duplicator facility.

Whew! What a long road it's been to finally say that! As with most aspects of this endeavor, it was much easier said than done. Analog interlaced video doesn't play nice every time you cram it into the digital realm. It's like a square peg getting shoved into a round hole. After much trial and many errors, it's ready for duplication and release. As I mentioned in that editing/restoration video, the computer monitor doesn't display exactly what a DVD player produces for your TV. Lots of DVD-Rs became coasters for the landfill because of stuttering playback problems, macroblocky image quality and other weird video artifacts. Each of the screenshots below are from various master sources with individual image anomalies. Hover over each pic for details:

End title before the credit scroll. MKV format. Higher contrast image results with aliasing artifacts, sawtooth edges on the logo.

Well darn. Text boxes only work on the desktop view it seems. Your phone might not be showing you the explanations for what each pic represents..

Mpeg-4 format. Oops! Progressive video was the default which caused combing and more aliasing stair-step sawtooth edges.

QuickTime format of the interlaced master which looks great most of the time but still resulted in aliasing of the red logo. Analog video hates red. The white logo at the beginning is razor-sharp!

Mpeg-4 interlaced 1920x1080 format. Softer image but it's finally got clean edges! This is from the final master file.

Yuck! Ugly frame combing of the two video fields.
Blow up of the above frame. Fast movements or bumps in the road make this problem more noticeable.

MKV format looks much better but there's a big problem with it later. See below on the next set of frames.

From that great-looking QT master that I could not duplicate 100% via the DVD authoring program. Trust me, it looks much better in motion.

From the final DVD. A tad on the soft side but this was where I declared the winner.

Just for comparison, this frame is from the 2006 DVD release.

Raw, uncropped, unfiltered digital conversion. Notice the control track at the bottom of the frame. This was cropped off for the entire movie on the master.

MKV format. The image was resized to 102% and shifted down vertically to crop that pesky control track. This caused that odd horizontal banding I saw most prevalent in this type of file. Goodbye MKV.

Video noise filtered with Photon Pro noise reduction to soften the "grain" in the final master. Horizontal bands still there but less noticeable. This is the worst shot in the movie to see that artifact.
A split-screen look at the old version with the new one. Pretty neat, eh?

Making DVDs from digital sources is relatively easy but this time was like having to translate an alien language. I got 'er done though! The movie looks & sounds good and the menu buttons & whatnot work correctly. There was a point where I considered simply releasing a movie-only disc with no menus or extras because the master DVD really looks fantastic and those authoring frustrations seemed endless. Here's a sneak-peek at the root menu:

Extras? Not a lot. A new commentary for this version and a little somethin'-somethin' that has been buried in the vaults for a very long time... My check-disc shipped already, which I should have in-hand later this week. Once it gets approved, then I'll order stock and decide how to sell this thing.. The duplicator has an option for fulfilling orders so that's tempting. LUNG will be released in a couple of weeks so I'll let that movie enjoy the spotlight for a minute or two before unleashing SINISTRE on March 31.

Recent Posts
Archive
Follow Us
  • Facebook Basic Square
  • Google+ Basic Square
  • YouTube Reflection
bottom of page