Brian May's ANOTHER WORLD Sessions video remaster

Cheers everybody!

In 1998 Brian May opened his own website to promote his solo album ANOTHER WORLD. This short-lived official site had a video section in which there was only one clip, for a total timing of 6:42 - but it was a very interesting home video! It showed THE BRIAN MAY BAND (Cozy, Neil, Spike and Jamie) at the Allerton Hill Studio circa 1997 jamming around ...and supposedly working. It contained a bit from the sessions for the song Another World, specifically Ken Taylor laying his bass guitar track. There was a second clip announced, but it never materialised.

So far so good... The only problem is that back then there was no full HD, no HD and not even a decent PAL or NTSC streaming - so the frame was a crappy 192 x 144 pixels. And it seems that in those modern days... I mean, modeM days, 45.1 kbps was considered a luxury, because that was the bandwidth for the 'high quality' option ('low quality' was 20 kbps). Oh, and did I mention that RealVideo was the format of choice?

Anyway, yesterday I came across the .rv files I downloaded in 1998 and decided to try my best on them. I offer the result below:
[url=https://www.dropbox.com/s/try38fkx15pty17/ANOTHER%20WORLD%20Alerton%20Hill%20Studio%20Sessions%201997%20%5BWA%20remaster%20-%20PAL%5D.mp4]https://www.dropbox.com/s/try38fkx15pty17/ANOTHER%20WORLD%20Alerton%20Hill%20Studio%20Sessions%201997%20%5BWA%20remaster%20-%20PAL%5D.mp4[/url]
[720 x 576 px, 25 fps, 255 MB]

I used VirtualDub (deblocking, upscaling, noise managemente and level/color correction), Adobe Audition (resampling, wave centering, NR and Eq) and Adobe Premiere (just for a/v sync and fades). If anybody wants to get technical, please send me a PM (but don't expect me to answer anytime soon, sorry!).

Hope you like it!

(c) 1998 Duck Productions Ltd.

EDIT: After I did the PAL format conversion, I re-checked the original files and now I believe that these might have been compressed from a NTSC source. So, here you have a NTSC version just in case:
[url=https://www.dropbox.com/s/dn3dkir4cpzh8ji/ANOTHER%20WORLD%20Alerton%20Hill%20Studio%20Sessions%201997%20%5BWA%20remaster%20-%20NTSC%5D.mp4]https://www.dropbox.com/s/dn3dkir4cpzh8ji/ANOTHER%20WORLD%20Alerton%20Hill%20Studio%20Sessions%201997%20%5BWA%20remaster%20-%20NTSC%5D.mp4[/url]
[720 x 480 px, 29,97 fps, 255 MB]

Thanks Wilki. I too downloaded that file at the time but I'll take a look at yours and see what you've done :)

Hopefully Brian may be persuaded to upload a better quality version onto his Youtube channel....

The file isn´t online anymore! :(

[QUOTE] [b]MAYniac91 wrote:[/b]

The file isn´t online anymore! :([/QUOTE]

How strange! Let me check...

 EDIT: Problem solved! I messed up the links when I uploaded the NTSC version. My bad, sorry!

You've seriously kept a file around for 17 years?
Damn, I've got files from almost 8 years back, but 17 years? That's just insane.

[QUOTE]

[b]Nitroboy wrote: [/b] You've seriously kept a file around for 17 years?
Damn, I've got files from almost 8 years back, but 17 years? That's just insane.[/QUOTE]
I've got ALL my e-mails (incoming and outgoing) since 1993...

BTW, here are some screen captures for comparison, taken from times 1:30 (Spike, Brian & Jamie from above), 3:00 (Brian), 4:30 (Neil) and 5:30 (Cozy) in the video.

Left: Original file (upscaled, NN) / Right: PAL version

And more screen captures for comparison, taken from times 1:30 (Spike, Brian & Jamie from above), 3:00 (Brian), 4:30 (Neil) and 5:30 (Cozy) in the video.

Left: Original file (upscaled, NN) / Right: NTSC version

Thanks!

Thank you Wilki.
I also wish Brian would upload the HD of it to his sites. I can harly recognize his face in the video :D
In the mean time, I would enjoy your remaster.

Cool, thanks for this.

Brian really was a great singer in the 90s.

Thanks, I didn't have a copy of this yet.

Thanks a lot for this one.

Converting a 6 MB video to a 255 MB video, only on Queenzone :D ;-)

I remember this well, I think I have a copy of the original file somewhere as well. I used to save everything around that time. I've even got copies of my first message on the queen-fip.com website somewhere, dating back to early 1997.

Such a shame it's been 17 years since a real BM solo release.