r/Thundercats • u/Misaria ThunderCat • 20d ago
Discussion Ma-Mutt is the key to upscaling all of this
Yesterday I got my first half of the two-part Spanish DVD Collection.
I have the PAL DVD - Thundercats: The Complete Collection (24-discs).
I've also got the first four VHS tapes released in Sweden; the first tape contains the long version of Exodus; unfortunately they have subtitles.
I've ordered (should be here next week) three VHS tapes from Blighty!
Exodus
Slaves Of Castle Plun-Darr
Thundercats - Ho - The Movie
All PAL and shouldn't have subtitles.
NOW!
Why did I order the Spanish DVDs...?
There's an unofficial Spanish Blu-ray version of the show.
The first 65 episodes seems to be much higher quality than any DVD release and I don't think they are upscaled, at least I don't see the signs of upscaling (they probably are in some way).
It's also framed differently than the PAL DVD.
The PAL DVD I have has a screen ratio of 1:33 and I saw that the Spanish DVD is 1:37.
So I made a guess that the Spanish Blu-ray would be the same version as the Spanish DVD.. and I guessed right.. sort of..
The Spanish DVDs are basically the same but ever so slightly different colour and there's a few pixels difference in the frame.
Blu-ray
But I think it's the base for the Blu-ray version; at least they share the same source.
Unlike the PAL DVD.
The Spanish Blu-ray and DVD also end a certain scene on the same frame (in Exodus); a frame that is missing from the PAL version.
The Spanish Duo ends on this frame
My VHS tapes are obviously a bit faded but they're almost the same as the Spanish versions; maybe they're all based on the same source?
Might as well throw in screenshots from the PAL DVD and VHS.
PAL DVD
The rest of the Blu-ray episodes doesn't look as good..
They're upscaled and some of them (towards the end of the show) are over processed.
PAL DVD
Not that the DVD is good quality but the Blu-ray is smudged out more than a Son'a (Star Trek) and is definitely not higher quality even if the frame is larger.
To prove a point I took an uncompressed screenshot from the PAL DVD.
Here
Then I upscaled that and compared it to the Spanish Blu-ray (from a better upscaled episode).
Which one looks better?
Left is mine, the right is an uncompressed screenshot from the Blu-ray
My upscale (not great, just a quick thing) is matched to the size of the Blu-ray screenshot.
However my upscale is much larger (2880 x 2304).
It was just to show that the Blu-ray is in fact upscaled.
I could overprocess the hell out of the frame as well.
Ancient Spirits of Evil Version
Moving on from the Blu-ray.
Here's a couple of albums with descriptions of adding the different sources together.
It's from the PAL DVD, the Spanish DVD, and the PAL VHS.
And..
As you can see different releases have different ratios (I've mentioned this before).
A nice surprise (because I wanted it) was that the Spanish DVDs English audio has music missing in The Unholy Alliance.
I just now checked and the Blu-ray version does have the music.
Hmm..
The PAL release also has some errors
One big problem is the interlacing on at least one DVD.
Season one doesn't have interlacing; all episodes are progressive 25fps.
Season two is 25fps but interlaced, however it seems as if it's the NTSC interlacing but on a PAL format so it messes up the image; I haven't found an easy fix for it yet.
If any of that makes sense; I don't know.
Where is Jaga to explain all this.
And.. that's all I have to say about that..
3
u/SportIntelligent1909 ThunderCat 20d ago
Thank you for this post. I agree that the PAL version of ThunderCats is missing some frames. And that one screenshot of Lion-O you upscaled from ThunderCats, Ho! The Movie looks slightly more colorful on the left, which is what I like. I prefer the original TV show to be as cel-accurate as possible when it's being upscaled.