Pete Tranter's Sister

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

The End – Hollister’s Eulogy – 1st Draft

This is the initial test for ‘The End’. It conforms to the final resolution and is approximately where I want it to be in terms of colour but some scenes will have to be dialled back or they end up too saturated.

It plays at 1280 x 720 and 50 FPS. It’s essentially like watching the Remastered episodes but without widescreen cropping, changes to effects and edits.

You’ll also notice a fair amount of compression artefacts in the video itself. These are not from me. I’ve encoded this video in H.264 and when done right, you cannot see any compression artefacts when utilising a modern video codec like H.264. What you’re seeing is the DVD MPEG-2 compression just ripping fine detail out of the image and leaving horrible blocking and noise. When you’re putting six 30 minute interlaced episodes onto one DVD circa 2002, you’re gonna end up with harsh compression.

It’s so evident that I’m seriously considering transferring my VHS copy of Series I and working from that.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Doug has never suggested over the years that it was acrimonious but I recall an interview (maybe in the documentaries?) that Rob wanted to end the writing partnership even before Red Dwarf first aired, then around Series IV & V and finally, he walked around 1996 after tidying up any business around post-Series VI video releases such as Smeg Ups and the books. His heart wasn’t in collaborating over the final two novels, suggested they write alternate chapters but that quickly fell apart and that’s why they became solo endeavours.

I get the impression that Rob felt Red Dwarf had served its purpose and that it would quietly end, especially during the ’93 to ’97 break but just like post-Waters Pink Floyd, the band got back together without him and why not. In his Carpool episode, Rob admits he had to get pished to watch Series VII and it seemed obvious the show and the idea still meant a lot to him but it was too far down the road at that point to conceivably go back to it. Bodysnatcher was a lovely way to celebrate the Rob & Doug years.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

If a hologram knocked one off the wrist, would there be holo-ejaculate and if so, does it sit around degrading like tape generation loss or disappear after travelling a certain distance from said hologrammatic wankee?

Based on that, can the T-1000 strum his banjo and create liquid metal one-eyed milkman’s special delivery?

When Odo was punished and forced to become a solid, did Odo shoot liquid runabout into his bird’s wormhole?

These really are questions Series VIII should’ve answered.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Yeah, that idea pains me now because done right, an alternate VIII based around the main cast settling back into life with the resurrected crew could’ve been great as it would’ve served as both a far more natural continuation of the series and also a thematic insight into pre-accident Red Dwarf without all the bollocky prison pish.

Some ideas for episodes.

– Back In The Red becomes a solid hour-long special that deals with Z-shift getting used to the day to day after seven years of being motley space adventurers.

– Lister, Petersen, Selby & Chen go off on a piss-up and inadvertently discover the prison deck. Hijinks ensue involving trading temporarily trading Rimmer for cigarettes and Kryten becoming the ideal prison councillor and upon conclusion, WE NEVER HEAR OF THE TANK AGAIN, THANK YOU.

– Kochanski tries to help Rimmer’s career along, acting as a go between for Rimmer and Hollister while Lister and Kryten grapple with a particularly troublesome after-effect of nanobot reconstruction, there are duplicates of the Boys from the Dwarf running around the ship.

– The long delayed Cat episode, may as well really, it’s either that or he becomes the compere for Parrots and there’s a philosophical sub-plot with the karaoke machine.

I wonder if Doug would have the nerve to write a full crew series for XIII or XIV, it miiiiiiight just work.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Does Kochanski wear boxing gloves to stop herself from cutting?

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Having had a gander at the broadcast and assembly cuts side by side, there’s sod all notable difference and very little I could take from the assembly to implant into the broadcast. DVD compression punches the life out of the image regardless on both versions so any sort of improvement to the image through getting closer to the first generation tape is squandered and trying to sync it all up would be a fucking nightmare for zero gain.

The look of the broadcast tape is wonderful in my eyes. It’s of its time, it’s classic BBC Manchester and when you pull back the ‘yellow-tan’ tone during colour grading, suddenly the skin tones become very natural, the set pops into life and it looks rather vibrant and almost like watching it all over again.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

THE PROJECT IS CANCELLED.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

More Montague Grey.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

So, you have your broadcast.

And then there’s me, taking liberties.

The ‘Restored’ project is gonna use the approximate colour grading of the Remastered episodes but that’s where the similarity ends. There’s no edits, changes to SFX and audio and the end titles are overhauled and rendered in high definition but they emulate the originals pretty much beat for beat.

Broadcast – 576i50

Restored – 720p50

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

The titles don’t render very well at 720 resolution due to light border work around the characters so they are rendered at 6x resolution and then scaled back down into the land of normality and it keeps everything very clear and sharp.

End credits – 5520 x 4320

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

You would be shocked at how low-key the process is. 80% of the overall work is completed in VirtualDub, a video application that although is rather limited in terms of editing power, it has some of the best filters out there for processing and most of the work goes through that. It allows me to set up a filter chain and essentially let the program and PC churn through every step of what is needed for every frame in the video.

A very simplified filter list for an individual frame is as follows.

– De-interlace
– Remove chroma noise
– Crop unused horizontal and vertical space
– Upscale

But that’s for one particular type of video. Some shots such as model work aren’t interlaced by virtue of being filmed on 35mm and transferred to video so you have to segment the episode and figure what is interlaced, what is progressive, where the fades are between interlaced and progressive footage and make sure you don’t pull interlaced 50i footage into 25p or vice-versa. Filter chains are different for each type and you end up with a nice piece of A4 paper that details exactly where each transition is, what it is and what filters need applying to it.

So after a bit of work, you end up with a nice, edge to edge, 50 frames per second, 720 resolution master.

Then you have your titles to think about. Character overlay, wipes, fades, inserts, everything else that isn’t handled by VirtualDub goes through Adobe After Effects along with colour grading.

Then there’s audio.

Then the wrath of the forum.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

I’d love Paul Jackson to appear at Dimension Jump and berate the cast and crew for charity. Every tenner raised adds another minute.

Don’t even tell him it’s for charity, he’d go for it regardless.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

You’re right in acknowledging it will never be pin-sharp as upscaling to high definition is interpolation by any other name and you’re not uncovering new detail but simply presenting the footage at a resolution of 720 or 1080 but the footage itself is not 720 or 1080 at the point of filming. You can upscale true, progressive 576 line footage and have it come out looking pretty glorious after colour grading and addition of subtle grain as I’ve did with some 35mm shot video that never made it to DVD. But as with many shows like Red Dwarf, the source is 576 interlaced which means when you push that out into 50 progressive frames, the resolution of each frame at the very beginning, before any upscaling trickery, is essentially 288 which is frankly shite.

Strangely enough, within the entire process, upscaling is the minor stage as you have to overcome the technical limitations of interlaced standard definition video first and I’ve got that, after trial and error, down to a standard process.

You want to preserve every element of the source video, so you don’t de-noise unless ABSOLUTELY necessary, you don’t convert from interlaced to progressive by halving the potential frame-rate i.e. Remastered and you don’t put your mark on the video creatively which means you colour grade to bring out the best the video can offer, remove green tinge, all that, but you don’t start making choices about colour, overall look etc… because that was down to the director and you follow their lead.

With Red Dwarf, Series I to VI and VIII were shot and presented at 576i50 and that’s what we saw on the telly so you don’t piss about with that. You push up to 720/1080p50 and through that, you’re halfway to preserving exactly what is on the screen and from there, you can pull as much from that footage as you can.

But I’m pissing mightily into the wind and face of tradition and conjuring up newly minuted titles and end credits along with a partially stereo-ised soundtrack because frankly, although the show itself comes out nice after upscaling, the titles look like shit but the new titles are accurate down to the kerning and scrolling rate.

God I’m boring myself now.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

I would happily buy the badges and a similar jacket to sew them on if I had a comprehensive guide to follow.

*Hint*

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

And the full-sized image link

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

THE SAME, BUT BETTER.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Deleted, but I may resurrect it as a bonus for the ‘Restored’ project.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

It’s not just about generational loss from editing down during wipes, transitions, effects and so on. Pulling standard definition tape into a high definition realm allows to utilise every scrap of information in the picture and take advantage of modern codecs, grading and video / audio enhancement.

Let me find my posts from a while ago regarding the rumoured Series I – V blu-rays heading to Japan.

—

You can de-interlace the video and present those 50 interlaced fields as 50 full, progressive frames. Upscale to 720 or 1080p and de-noise when and where necessary. Trim out the black bars on all 4 sides to utilise the entire viewing area. Colour correct and bring back some detail lost in the darkness and glare to a reasonable extent. You can be sure that blu-ray compression doesn’t get in the way of the image onscreen as sometimes seen in DVDs with heavy compression to fit all of the episodes onto one disc.

—

I meant in a more obtuse sense, for example, going back to the studio rushes and re-editing from there. It’ll ensure there are zero drops in tape generation as shots, fades and effects would now be composited digitally and as a result, the final master of each episode will be as clean and clear as one can hope for when utilising SD video. Of course, upon thinking about it, even that is dodgy as there’s a very low chance of those analogue-era effects and so on being accessible again, let alone being able to reconstruct an accurate soundtrack.

—

The irony, speaking from my own perspective, is that there really is so much you can do with knackered masters.

A friend of mine has a bundle of 1″ C-type reels with various music promos on them and boy, once you put the work in, you can really make something wonderful out of it all on blu-ray and from there, high-bitrate online video.

Blu-ray has the resolution, frame-rate, audio and colour capabilities to allow standard definition footage to, in a way, make the most of itself. SD video at that point is not encumbered by an SD format to be played over. It doesn’t have to deal with interlacing, compression codecs that are 20 years old and relatively low capacity discs to contain itself on. Blu-ray and conversion to what is an HD format allows for much, much more freedom and ability.

The remasters, when you look at them from a purely visual point of view, were a valiant effort up to a point. They were stripping back the murkiness of the original colour scheme, boosting it all up and trying to bring some life into the first two series. But, like any idea that’s ran with, they ran and ran and they lost focus of what was there and good and great to begin with. They tore away alternating fields to half the effective frame-rate from 50 fps to 25 fps, bringing it more into line with film at 24 fps. They added a very strange, early-era digital grain filter to try and knock some of the video look out of it all but it just doesn’t work and it especially doesn’t work with digital encoding, it smears and just looks like shit. In addition, the picture ratio has been cropped to 14:9 to nod and wink at widescreen presentation and it introduces us to the land of cropped heads and eerily too close close-ups.

I swore I wasn’t going to go off on another whinge about the remasters but alas.
Anyway, the remasters showed what could be done with the series from a visual standpoint. The colour grading is admittedly great, flawed but a real change for the better and I love how it looks at times. There’s life to the first two series, deep blues and reds and greens, the skin-tones aren’t overly saturated and fundamentally, it also shows how much you can extract and utilise from SD analogue video, no matter the source. There is always a way to make the best of what is there.
It’s been nearly 20 years since the remasters appeared and 15 since Red Dwarf made its debut on DVD. In the right hands, with the right love, care and attention, the first six series of Red Dwarf could fucking shine on blu-ray. Go back to the original masters, transfer them in as best as can be achieved and don’t treat them just as an upscale to satisfy the requirements for blu-ray, but treat them as a precious find, the source from which you can create vibrant and colourful new masters which will take pride of place not just on blu-ray, but online and on the telly.

But they won’t, so fuck it.

On a related note, if anyone has a copy of pretty much any episode or episodes from the first six series which haven’t been derived from either the DVD or a consumer recording source (VHS, Betamax etc…) I would be QUITE interested in obtaining that for purposes of what would essentially be a fan restoration.

—

So there’s a lot you can do with the broadcast tape, and there’s a shit load you can do with the original rushes, the first generation tapes.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

A draft of the Series I & II theme utilising the stereo element from the Remastered opening and mono from the original run along with some reverb to give it a fuller sound.

Naylorphonic

It scrubs up not bad.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

I’m disappointed nu-Gordon didn’t get his 15 minutes.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

There’s sod all they could’ve did with IV, V & VI regardless. The model work was spot-on, the effects were really starting to come of age and fitted the medium well, the cameras gave a clean, clear picture in contrast to the BBC Manchester days and overall, the three series pushed the PAL 576i format further on than virtually any show that had come before. Any Remastered work would’ve been change for changes sake. Not that I’m saying I, II & III needed an overhaul but you can see how re-grading those 18 episodes really uncovered some life and vitality in the picture that was obscured before.

I can’t even imagine how they would’ve chopped up VI. The effects and model work are splendid and to imagine a digital Starbug crashing into digital lava, even 2004-05 lava is an affront. Oh, and Streets Of Laredo would’ve been changed to some pokey looking PS1 era 3D walkaround. Fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that, fuck that.

That’s what bugs me about Remastered. If you undertook it now, you could go right back to the rushes, pull out the relevant scenes, clean them up, grade them, scale them to HD, re-composite effects digitally, trim blue-screen fringing, all that. Loads of work but you’d end up with a really beautiful picture and there’d be no need to edit jokes down, change lines for international audiences and whack on completely different picture and sound effects because there’s a real push now towards preservation and restoration rather than revisionism like the Star Wars Special Editions.

But, I do wonder how IV, V & VI would’ve turned out in a morbidly curious way.

Just imagine Back To Reality. It would’ve had all sorts of ker-aaaazzzzzzzyyyy pixelation and posterisation effects and whacky loading screens slathered all over it.

IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT, BECAUSE I’LL FUCKING DO IT. I’LL REMASTER IV, V & VI, JUST TO SEE YOUR WEEPING FACES.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

I started with Legion in the ’96 repeats, so got in juuuuust before the wilderness years.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Fans – Restore the episodes back to their potential, repair any really bad effects and audio glitches but don’t change the fundamentals of the show and through it all, bring about a fresh, new, positive perspective to this classic series.

Doug & Ed – THE NIPS NEED A NEW DUB TRACK, QUICK, FUCK UP EVERY SHOT AND SCENE IN EVERY FUCKING EPISODE AND STOP AT SERIES III BECAUSE FUCK YOU ALL, THAT’S WHY.

I will be properly commenting on your beautifully researched and written post soon, Darrell, I promise you.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

I was expecting a story about you finding out your dad was a nonce or something.

What the hell have I wrought? I ask for .VOB files and I’ve brought about the official G&T group therapy thread.

I LOVE YOU ALL.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

It is possible as I’ve done it.

Last year, I reconstructed Ouroboros into a 720p50 master from the original, which is in essence 288p25.

The original was de-interlaced, motion interpolated from 25 to 50 frames per second, re-sized and the original colour grading was flattened to pull it away from the film lighting enveloping the sets at the time and towards Series I & II.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Sorry for linking to it, now I feel like a right shite.

I had a LiveJournal around the same time and reading it back, I can really sense who I truly was back then and who I projected to deflect my insecurities and shyness. I projected an egotistical, aloof, opinionated, chronically arseholed little runt who used to whine about people not wanting to be his pal and how dare they not like this fucking amazing dude.

I’m slightly more reasonable and accommodating now.

Slightly.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Found it

I’ve fucked up my chance to get the intro and outro, haven’t I.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Did you go all ‘Star Trek: Axanar’ on GNP?

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

I’m just glad the pace of the opening shots has picked up, more in-line with III to VIII. Still not a fan of the names being overlayed but now I’m just being a nitpicking sod who wants everything my way.

‘But why can’t everything be my way’ he queried into the blackness, the sheer nothingness of the night that surrounded him.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

I was going to suggest that once I’ve bagged the loot, delete the thread before the space-filth turn up.

By email would be grand – patrickelliot10@gmail.com

Darrell and Billie, thank you for doing this, it’s a real help.

Looks like I’m going to have to buy a fucking Region 4 Bodysnatcher eventually, the Region 2 edition is rarer than John Hoare watching an episode of ‘On The Buses’ and not complaining about cuts made to the DVD release.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Trailers aren’t spoilery by definition as they’ve been out in the public space for a good while and you see only quick clips that don’t give away the exact moments where the plot takes left and right turns.

Or, whatever.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

I also need the opening bars of the I – II theme from Remastered as they are in NAYLORPHONIC STEREO SOUND.

So, fire up your DVD Decrypter, put it in IFO mode and… y’know, do it.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

The tentative blu-ray artwork for ‘Red Dwarf – Restored’.

Full-sized image

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

I couldn’t find it anywhere then I just happened to download some of the Bodysnatcher extras from A PERFECTLY LEGAL SITE THAT DEALS WITH THAT SORT OF THING and lo and behold, the fucker was hiding at the end of the most awkward episode of Red Dwarf ever.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Full-sized image

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Some of you have thought the announcement today would be a remastered Yeah, No, Yeah, No but that’s not going to be the case.

Because today’s announcement is about TWO new editions of Yeah, No, Yeah, No.

*CROWD ERUPTS INTO VIOLENCE*

It’s been all about blackmailing the guys back for another run and that didn’t take too long and obviously Seb was an issue because of tagging and his curfew.

We’re making Yeah, No, Yeah, No, Yeah, No this year and then having a nice break of forty-five minutes to nip down the Lord Byron and back up to make Yeah, No, Yeah, No, Yeah, No, Yeah, No.

*CROWD WEEPS UNCONTROLLABLY*

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

John’s pronunciation of ‘HAPPENING’ is fucking outstanding, it clips the microphone.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Right, I’ve had a listen to the audio for YNYN and it can be brought up a few notches as a starting point through careful noise reduction on some elements, EQ, de-clicking and all that. Replacement of music and foley with stereo and clearer elements is a little trickier but thankfully, most of the parts to be replaced don’t run over dialogue and where there is overlap, it’ll come down to two choices.

The first is to get a fresh voice dub for a scattering of lines from mostly Tanya and John or the latter choice, which is to leave it as it is. But that’s no fun. The Red Dwarf engine sound should play gently over the entire film, it will hide a lot of background noise differences as shots are placed together and give a more coherent feel to it all.

Deleted scenes could be incorporated back in considering there’s no ten minute limit anymore and fresh, sparkling new titles can be generated.

Kill me.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

I was thinking more of a completely transparent cash-grab of a reboot with a female cast and John Hoare as ‘John Hoare’, the undervalued yet strangely alluring secretary.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

ShaneG?

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Ganymedegender.

I prefer Ganyhe, or Ganyshe if watching VII & VIII.

You fucking shitlords will probably just call me a ‘Red Dwarf fan’ though.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

You couldn’t write the joke about Lister losing his virginity before 16 now, even if it was a tall-tale.

In fact, there’s an article – Top Ten jokes that nowadays would have Doug Naylor & Rob Grant fucking chased out of BBC Manchester for.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Audio oddities don’t end with the original run. The Series X blu-ray audio is inconsistent from episode to episode in how it uses the surround space. Sometimes the opening theme is mixed in with FX such as Blue Midget pulling away in the opening titles, sometimes the FX are in the centre channel with the main theme clean. Sometimes dialogue comes entirely out of the centre channel, sometimes it diverts to front left – right leaving the audience diverting to the rear channels. The rear channels are almost always silent bar audience reaction and the odd cue or sound effect and it’s kinda jarring that a good, solid stereo mix wasn’t included on the blu-ray.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

I thought I remembered a kerfuffle regarding the moniker ‘ShaneG’ many years ago, so I looked him up.

ShaneG’s LiveJournal

He might just be right, you self-serving shits.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

I’M COLLAPSING, CHRIS.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Billie, I reckon you work for Grant Naylor, that’s outstanding work. If XI or XII doesn’t begin with that glorious shot and sound of Starbug roaring away from the planet, then we don’t deserve it.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Billie, what you needing? I got surround, I got stereo, I got mono, hell I could even do you quadrophonic, quintaphonic, veryphonic, motherphonic.

And public service announcement, if you want Taiwan Tony cleanly dubbed out, it can be done with the blu-ray surround audio. I’d have a go but I find him fucking hilarious!

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

You wanted to cheer, you filth.

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

They were taken from the Series VIII DVD extras. There’s a tad more definition in the Series X blu-ray audio, so V2 is juuuuuust around the corner, and I’m going to put them up on Dropbox or some other site so you can all achieve MAXIMUM LOSSLESS CLARITY.

[Author]

Replies