Sailor Moon Color Correction

[sapphire91]

Interesting, I saw this image that shows that the laserdisc is a lot less pink.

Also here's a direct comparison between my cel and the same frame from the show. The contrast is way too high and the detail in his eyes is completely lost. Imagine the millions of other tiny details that would be visible in a BD release that we'll never see...

I still hope one day they will miraculously produce these film materials and we will see the show in all the detail we can. I just do not believe how in such a short time-frame all the film got lost as it was available in the 2000s

 

[sapphire91]

If Toei was willing to do so, they would have done it a decade ago when everything else was getting Bluray remasters. The fact that it's 2021 and we still don't have a true HD Sailor Moon (or Even Dragon Ball Z) bluray says that we're never getting it.

In any case I believe they could have done a much better job with whatever masters they have available. Just look what Dynit did with them and what you manage to do from the Italian dvds and imagine if you had these uncompressed masters.

Anyway, back to the topic. I wonder how come the episodes are usually hella pinkish/reddish, and in many cases the previews for the next episodes are bluish/greenish.

 

[sapphire91]

Maybe it's the physical film aging? I've seen something like this happen with old prints of Star Wars, where they turn super red.

Yeah, but then some scenes are blue-ish or greenissh. And I don't know if it is just me, but have you noticed how some episodes, 23, 24, 25 come to mind are less sharp, I don't know what the right word should be to describe it.

 

[Rika-Chicchi]

Maybe it's the physical film aging? I've seen something like this happen with old prints of Star Wars, where they turn super red.

Yeah, it's like the aging of color photos processed from films in the old days - they also turn pinkish/reddish over the years.

 

[sapphire91]

This is not color-correct (my mac is on maintenance and I will try working on it next week) but I wanted to show you guys how even if you want to remove the grain, you do not have to lose that much detail the way toei did. Sure, do not mind my colors, as this is NOT color-corrected. Both make my eyes bleed when it comes to the color nightmare, simply wanted to show you how terrible their degrain process is - it it is still grainy, but most of the detail is lost.

 

[NJ_]

If Toei was willing to do so, they would have done it a decade ago when everything else was getting Bluray remasters. The fact that it's 2021 and we still don't have a true HD Sailor Moon (or Even Dragon Ball Z) bluray says that we're never getting it.

One of the problems here is they got into it late since they didn't start putting out TV Blu-ray sets until Galaxy Express 999's upscale in 2014 while everything else before that were a couple of movies and OVAs.....starting ironically enough with the Galaxy Express 999 movies in 2009 (which while not upscales, were infamous for the heavy DNR that was applied to them).

Another problem that I have noticed, with the exception of the original Devilman, the only shows they seem to have no issue giving proper remasters to are those that used 35mm film, this was why Mazinger Z (1972) and the original Dragon Quest Dai (1991) got better treatment.

Since DBZ was brought up, they did put out the movies a few years back ("corrections" and all) but with how they have handled their other 16mm shows lately (80s GeGeGe no Kitaro, Fist of the North Star, Goldfish Warning, etc), I can only see all 3 Dragon Ball shows get SD Blu-ray sets at this point which would kinda suck for the 8 Freeza episodes that were done on 35mm.

 

[Mosaic]

This is not color-correct (my mac is on maintenance and I will try working on it next week) but I wanted to show you guys how even if you want to remove the grain, you do not have to lose that much detail the way toei did. Sure, do not mind my colors, as this is NOT color-corrected. Both make my eyes bleed when it comes to the color nightmare, simply wanted to show you how terrible their degrain process is - it it is still grainy, but most of the detail is lost.

Yikes. The background on the Toei blu-ray looks like a bunch of blobs.

One of the problems here is they got into it late since they didn't start putting out TV Blu-ray sets until Galaxy Express 999's upscale in 2014 while everything else before that were a couple of movies and OVAs.....starting ironically enough with the Galaxy Express 999 movies in 2009 (which while not upscales, were infamous for the heavy DNR that was applied to them).

Another problem that I have noticed, with the exception of the original Devilman, the only shows they seem to have no issue giving proper remasters to are those that used 35mm film, this was why Mazinger Z (1972) and the original Dragon Quest Dai (1991) got better treatment.

This is such a shame. The Devilman blu-ray includes the pilot, which is in HD and it looks fantastic. The upscale is fine, but a few episodes (especially episode 2) are really dark and muddy.

I'll be heartbroken whenever they do an SD release of Honey.

 

[snowgeisha]

Do you by chance have digital rips of the laserdiscs?

I don’t unfortunately. I was actually curious about doing that but I’m not familiar with the set up for ripping LDs.

 

[Mosaic]

Ripping laserdiscs seems like a headache. I sent a guy a laserdisc a year ago and he still hasn't converted it.

 

[snowgeisha]

Ripping laserdiscs seems like a headache. I sent a guy a laserdisc a year ago and he still hasn't converted it.

Yeah, I looked into it a while back and it seemed pretty complicated. Seems the easiest way would be to first record the LD to a DVD then rip that.. but for archival purposes, that would lessen the quality, so it kinda defeats the purpose. There are other ways to do it, but it requires equipment that I don’t have at the moment. So I dropped the idea altogether. Maybe somewhere down the line I’ll give it a go.

 

[sapphire91]

Yeah, I looked into it a while back and it seemed pretty complicated. Seems the easiest way would be to first record the LD to a DVD then rip that.. but for archival purposes, that would lessen the quality, so it kinda defeats the purpose. There are other ways to do it, but it requires equipment that I don’t have at the moment. So I dropped the idea altogether. Maybe somewhere down the line I’ll give it a go.

You can transfer to dvd and then use make mkv, it is a free software that remuxes the dvd without reencoding it, so there will be no loss of quality.

 

[sapphire91]

Damn, that sucks. I tried posting in a video restoration forum too and it seems that nothing can be done. While I'm here I might as well post this Bluray vs CC image for ep 3, it's really just so embarrassing that the left side is an official product.

Please keep updating us with images like these while working on the show.

 

[sapphire91]

My take on few shots from episode 10

 

[julayla]

My take on few shots from episode 10

Wow, this is so amazing. They look great in your style.

 

[sapphire91]

Wow, this is so amazing. They look great in your style.

I cannot blame toei for not attempting color-correction though. The episodes are so uneven, I had to cut like every 5 seconds of the episode and color correct them separately. because every scene is different in terms of colors. It takes ages to even try to make an episode look somewhat consistent in colors.

 

[Mosaic]

Wow, these look fantastic!

 

[Memento]

I cannot blame toei for not attempting color-correction though. The episodes are so uneven, I had to cut like every 5 seconds of the episode and color correct them separately. because every scene is different in terms of colors. It takes ages to even try to make an episode look somewhat consistent in colors.

I mean, you're one person, they're a massive media company with millions of dollars and the best software and equipment at their disposal. If they wanted to bilk fans out of more money, they should have put in the work.

 

[sapphire91]

I mean, you're one person, they're a massive media company with millions of dollars and the best software and equipment at their disposal. If they wanted to bilk fans out of more money, they should have put in the work.

I acknowledge that, but I also know there is no software yet capable of making accurate guesses on color jumps to cut the video automatically as well as adjusting color as nice as a person could. Also I know they won't hire 1000 people to work on this, even if they do color is subjective and even two people won't necessarily come to the same adjustment to make it consistent. And their film was so degraded in color and maybe even shot in such bad lighting conditions that even stock footage they reused is vastly different from episode to episode. What I cannot comprehend is how on earth they could lose so much detail, while de-graining. I specifically removed the grain to see how much detail could be retained and I certainly do not have access to uncompressed masters.

 

[Rika-Chicchi]

I acknowledge that, but I also know there is no software yet capable of making accurate guesses on color jumps to cut the video automatically as well as adjusting color as nice as a person could. Also I know they won't hire 1000 people to work on this, even if they do color is subjective and even two people won't necessarily come to the same adjustment to make it consistent. And their film was so degraded in color and maybe even shot in such bad lighting conditions that even stock footage they reused is vastly different from episode to episode. What I cannot comprehend is how on earth they could lose so much detail, while de-graining. I specifically removed the grain to see how much detail could be retained and I certainly do not have access to uncompressed masters.

Maybe AI could do that in the future, & by then Toei would make a new release to milk the fans yet again.

 

[sapphire91]

Maybe AI could do that in the future, & by then Toei would make a new release to milk the fans yet again.

And it will still look [BLEEP], because they will use their terrible upscale for future releases, which is a shame. Even color corrected it would still be
a blurry mess.