ROCKY IV (Sylvester Stallone, 1985)

[Dawn]

Remember I am not new at video editing or image restoration, my art degree had a emphasis in digital imaging, I am a whiz at Photoshop myself. So no need to tell me that image restoration is an art, I am very well aware of that! I just asked what you would use and what software you have. Just curious what you like. If photoshop is all you think you will use, then I can do that myself, maybe after December. But honestly I do not have time for that or I would right now! Considering the video is over 3 minutes, that would take a while! I have been able to do some good to the video with the filters in Vegas, but of course this cannot replace the color or take out the distortion. The color is off in the video and I honestly am not sure what color of shirt Dolph has on one part of it. Depending on the lighting it could have been green, maybe black. Oh well.

I do know losseless vs lossy, they teach this even in digital imaging and I am aware of several different types of algorithms from Computer Science classes. However, what they do not teach much is video compression techniques, which is better and what qualities each has. This I have had to learn as I go. I have been learning a lot from vcdhelp.com and other web sites, but there is always more to learn.
In the lab, we use both Mac and PC and many softwares: (on Mac: Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premeire and iDVD (which is quite limited but free). On PC we use Premeire, Vegas Video and MovieMaker 2 (which really sucks in my opinion). At home I just have Vegas for video editing. We probably will not be buying any more Macs for a while due to new federal and state accessibility laws, unless of course Macintosh starts making their Operating Systems more compatible with screen readers and other handiccap-accessible software and hardware.

Generally I use the mpeg2 codec that comes with Vegas Video. This video is currently over 100 MB but I cannot remember exactly the length and size since I do not have it with me here at my parent's house. I really cannot afford to spend any more money, so no video card for me. I have been wanting an ATi All-in-Wonder card for various reasons, but just don't have the $150-$200 it will cost for any video card. I have not seen any capture cards for under $100 and from the reviews I have seen, it would be a waste of that much money to spend it on those, as they are not very good. I have friends with much better systems than mine and they have tried out various cards and say that spending less than $200 on a video capture card will give you inferior captures.That is why I looked into buying a used Dazzle Bridge off eBay, since it could give me good quality and I could also output from computer back to VHS as well. I am broke right now! So, I am waiting until I get out of school and have a job to do that!

Right now I am thinking of sending the video to a friend in Iowa who does lots of video restoration. He offered to do it for free, so I may take him up on that offer since he probably has more time than both of us!

[Dawn]

BTW, here is a look at my computer system: http://www.student.smsu.edu/c/cdr478s/computer.htm

I built this in February very cheaply. So I hope it lasts for a long time. They have already come out with motherboards that support PCIe for video cards and expansion slots since I built it. So I am already behind! They also now have 12x DVD burners and Dual-Layer DVD burners, but it is impossible to find the actual DVDs for either of those anyway. Overall, I am happy with it, but I need more RAM!!

[carrie]

jeeeeeezus you guys, i got a headache just reading that, i have to admit i was impressed because you lot sound like you know real computer shit, if you need any help shutting down your pc`s just let me know because thats about how much pc nowhow i have. good luck guys,keep doing what your doing.

[Dolph_Fan]

Dawn :

I just use Photoshop as its the best in 2D graphics, and the more I use it the less I forget how to use it and the more I know how to use it. And it can do most things.

No I would not use Photoshop (that implies manually processing every frame, not generally, maybe for Some troublesome frames).

Yes filters are the way to do it automatically. But if there is other damage some manual work with other tools is required. Cannot mention as I have done not in Video.

Colour / Distortion problems ?. Can you post me PNG (directly saved) frames of the video to see what the Good and the ad bits are like ?. I can play with them and see what 'could' be done.

Colour is of ?, all gone ?, B+W ?.

Mpeg-2 ?, fine if you have high bitrates and maybe even variable bit rate. Rememebr DVD video is Mpeg-2.

[Dawn]

Right, Photoshop is best, its amazine what you can do. I was able to correct the problems with my Great-grandfather's picture. It was an old tin-type from the 1880's and in very bad shape.

yes, I know that mpeg2 is DVD, VCD is mpeg-1 etc. I am looking at it right now and this particular video with the entire Drago clip is only 59 seconds and 46.3 MB.

No, all color is not gone in the video, It is very strange, because, some colors are just off and too red in some parts and in others there is just black & white in parts with red on objects that are still in red. I'll see if I can post up some pics in a couple of days so you can see. I need to get them to my student page where I have a little room for them.

As for distortion, there are lines of distortion running near the bottom and top in one video that "flip". This is in the whole video and I think that will just have to be lived with. The video is also "fuzzy" in parts like it is out of focus, but its just so old of a tape and most likely, not an original copy and badly stored.

[Dawn]

Dolph-fan, some of the pics already online from this video, are in here: http://www.mosquito.net/dolphforum/viewtopic.php?t=225

[Dolph_Fan]

The video is very bad. Beyond restoration in my experience, but the MPG nd JPG degradation contributes to the materaial what I use to judge.

I believe some colour could be restored to the frames where the colour is faint (not mixed), maybe some sharpness too.

I could not play with the images as they were oriignally LOSSyly compression as MPG, and then again as JPG, so 2 levels of further degradation.

[Dawn]

Well, honestly, I can tell you that the original file is almost as bad even before compression and taking JPG screenshots. It is not as blurry in the video, but of course the color jumps. If I ever get a chance to re-capture, I will let you know. I would rather do it on my computer than the lab's after I get either a capture card or Dazzle. The lab computer has a very slow DVD burner as well as having 1.6 Ghz processor and slower RAM than what I have. They have an HP...shudder. The write time to DVD was originally around 5-6 hours! It failed after 1 hour! Ouch, makes me want to upgrade to 1 gig of Ram or better.

[Dolph_Fan]

Although it original may have looked as bad it 'may' have contained more information that was not visible. Compression would have aimed to strip that invisible information.

Try your Analogue to Digital passthrough, the AVI it produces should have much more quality I think, some I hear are 3.8MB per seconds(compressed), so thats more MB than your current file, although the codec is a factor, and so is the resolution it wil capture at.

[Terminator]

Do you know those Console Games for the Game Cube? Maybe it's nothing "great", but what do you think about this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/3829 ... cky150.jpg

[Jox]

The trailer of this new Rocky videogame is downloadable here:
http://www.dvdrama.com/getvid.php?vid=17 big

http://www.dvdrama.com/getvid.php?vid=16 small

[Dawn]

Hmm, couldn't find the trailer via the 2nd link, just the ad. The first link was to a different game.

Is this not the same game as the one that already came out in the U.S?

By the way, the new Masters of the Universe: Defender of Grayskull game is finally out!

[preacher]

Just read yesterday in the swedish newspaper Expressen a small article about Dolphs encounter with Stallone in Rocky IV.
Apparently Stallone wanted the fights to look real and encouraged Dolph to hit him hard. Thats something he should not have done. Dolph kicked his but pretty bad hand Sly was hospitalised for a week or something.

Is this old news or is this something that Sly is admitting just now? Why else would it be in the paper?

Im just writing this out of my memory. If someone out there is in possession of the actual article, then feel free to correct me.

[Terminator]

Well, I think it is known directly after the movie was released. I've read about it at least one year ago when Sly was answering a few questions in an interview. If you look at Dolph closely, you will see that his punches were really hard and firstly I was really wondering how they used to manage such a great fight without any "damaged" people so far.

[Jox]

This incindent was known even before the release of "Rocky IV", so this also probably made "bad/good" publicity for the movie and for Dolph, who was the guy who beat Stallone on a ring. But as far as I know, Sly was resentful toward Dolph about that.