I am about to begin work on an outstanding project I have had here for quite some time. I received a film almost a year ago now where the soundtrack really wasn't up to scratch, if you pardon the pun.
It isn't helped by the fact it is printed on post striped stock using the grey paste, but in this particular case, i feel even if I cannot replicate the best I can achieve on pre striped brown magnetic striped stock, there is much room to improve upon what i already have here.
With this in mind, starting from the very beginning, I thought I would share here the whole process I use for doing this.
It is quite a long drawn out process from beginning to end, but nevertheless works well for me and hopefully can inspire others to have a go at doing likewise in such similar circumstances.
The film is a Don Bluth animated production from after he left the Disney camp entitled "The Secret Of N.I.M.H."
It fits into the category of most of the later Derann animated films in that it has come from excellent master material, has beautiful vibrant colour and is a pin sharp print. It is only spoiled in my case by a terribly recorded original sound track and can surely be improved upon in this particular case.
As with any re recording or over dubbing task, you really need to do a sample test at the beginning of the film just to check you stand a chance.
i am fortunate with this one as it carries a very long introduction original leader so I will be able to test on that when the time comes.
First though must come the preparation.
Step one, for me is always to decide how the film is to be spooled for recording purposes. In this particular case, the film originally was spooled as 4x 400ft complete feature. When I purchased it, it was already mounted to 2x 800ft Bonum spools in cases.
This is the manner in which I prefer these 4x 400ft films to be library stored so in this instance, I was happy enough to keep everything as is before attempting to record the tracks again.
Step two for me now, is to view the first half of the film again just to act as a reminder of the very point where the first half of the film ends.
It is this point that we need to search and find on the digital DVD copy to be able to approximately split the digital copy into two separate halves
when carrying out the raw initial 25fps rip from the DVD.
You can of course rip the entire DVD in one run and it equally can be uploaded into the VJ software I use to record the soundtrack from come the time, but one of the problems I have encountered in doing this, is that it isn't as easy to go back to a certain point in the film without sending the sound and vision on the digital copy out of sync when using my VJ software, Therefore I try to limit my digital rips and subsequent VJ uploads to around 35 minutes of film. Generally more than 600ft and hopefully in this case, just enough to cover the first half of the actual film mounted onto an 800ft spool.
Step Three. Once the film has been viewed through to the end of reel 1 and a finish point has been established and memorized, using the pc I insert the dvd disc into the drive and quickly run through the chapters until I find the half way point in the film.
In this case it worked out at a tad over 34 minutes as was mounted to reel.
I now have to count the chapters from the index markings at the bottom of the screen frame to get to that point and then go to the next marking. Once this is found, that is the chapter number I will create my first raw rip to. (see below)
Step Four is now to open up a piece of DVD ripping software to obtain this first raw rip. In my case, I use DVD Decrypter.
When you very first click onto the Decrypter software icon, as always you hear the disc loading up to speed and are then greeted with the following display:
From the destination folder icon within this front page of Decrypter, you now have to choose a destination folder for the rip to finish up in:
Then, i my particular case, I always choose "Desktop" as an initial destination place.
You then need to be able to select all the chapters and sound options you want to rip. In this case I ticked all the chapter boxes until I got to 35 minutes into the film.
The first thing you will notice is the right hand boxes are divided into two sections. The upper segment VTS 1,2 &3 is the way the disc is complilled. You first have to decide which VTS will provide you with the section of the disc you are interested in ripping. In this case it is the movie itself from beginning to end eventually, so in this case it turns out to be VTS 02.
Once this sub catagory has been selected, the bottom segment on the RHS will open up all the available chapters from beginning to end on the film. In this case 32 chapters.
please observe the photograph above and notice the total time is written in the corner.In this case 1:18:54:04
Now by deleting each chapter sequentially, you will notice that the time reduces each time a chapter is de selected. (see below)
Continue deleting the chapters until you are satisfied you have just the portion of the film you are looking to rip plus a little extra by going to the next chapter. In my case I was seeking to rip the first 35 minutes worth of film but as I deleted, i went from 37 minutes to 32 minutes so I went back to 37 minutes.
This can of course be established in any way you wish ie you don't have to de select from the end of the movie backwards. You can initially de select all chapters and monitor the time increasing as you select each chapter, it matters none which method you use, only that you find the correct point in the film you want your rip to end at.
Now just before you begin ripping, you will need to select only the languages that you wish to rip from the disc. In this case English 2 CH stereo only for my purposes.
Do this by clicking on the "Stream Processing " icon at the top RHS of the programme. (see below)
You can see clearly from this photo above, that a new window now opens, in this instance, containing 4 options.
The top option is always the video itself, so this HAS to be always selected.
In this case, the next 3 options are all language options. In my case I want to keep the original English language track so I just select boxes one and two and de select boxes 3 and 4 for German and Spanish language options.
Now you are in a position ready to make your first raw digital rip which will playback at 25fps when viewed.
Do this by clicking on the file box in the top LH corner of the programme and select decrypt. (See Below)
You will now see and hear the DVD ripping to it's destination folder.
Once completed, you will hear an acknowledgement alarm chime and the file will be there on your desktop ready to view.
In my case here today, I repeated this entire process for the second half of the film so I had reel 2 at the same stage.
Next we move onto processing this raw footage into what we really want. 24fps digital replica of our films.
To do this, I use a programme called "Any Video Converter" which again is a free download and this will prepare your files sufficiently so that they can be sent to the VJ player to match up at something like the exact running speed of any D.C. electronically driven projector running at 24fps.
With or without physical sync capability.
More on Any Video Converter later.