2010-11-17 QUEEN: Prince's Trust Rock Gala (definitive version)

[b]December 30th, 2018[/b] I am ashamed to call myself a Queen fan for the last 20 years, not to mention the fact that I had also researched their “Queen +” ventures to create a pretty comprehensive compilation earlier this year, and then only recently (as in 2 months ago) have I discovered this gem featuring five great performances, by Brian May and Roger Taylor as well as a number of top-class guests. Unbelievable! After my initial discovery of Tom Chaplin’s performance with the guys, I looked around for the best quality versions. Ultimately, I found a high bitrate 1080i25 PAL AVC/AC3 file (presumably an unaltered capture of the original broadcast) that was pretty great, if only unpolished as it was. This is what I did with it: [b]AUDIO[/b] [b]- 6 glitches patched up:[/b] the audio goes out briefly, which made it frustrating to listen to. I successfully filled up these very small gaps with a secondary source. [b]- 0.1 s delay fixed:[/b] starting with Brian’s speech (apparently they forgot about Queen playing IAHL live back in the day!), the sound was not in sync with the video anymore. It is all right now. [b]- Normalized audio[/b] [b]- AC3 to FLAC, 48 kHz:[/b] to preserve the original sound quality. [b]VIDEO[/b] [b]- HEVC deinterlaced multipass encode (1080p25 2560 kbits):[/b] Using one of the most modern video codecs, and through deinterlacing the original video file, the result is a more pleasing viewing experience which removes moiré artifacts and provides a higher quality progressive playback. On top of that, it’s about 1/5th of the original file size with hardly perceptible quality loss. In addition, I’m throwing in the extras found in the DVD fan source (backstage, rehearsals and alternate camera angles), also converted to HEVC deinterlaced video with unaltered AC3 audio. And for the sake of completeness, I’m providing the restored audio performances as separate FLAC files, as well as the original AVC AC3 source I found - in case you want those too. Last but not least, [url=http://www.queenzone.com/forums/1509804/golden-salmons-unusual-anthology.aspx]I’ve silently updated my Unusual Anthology to include the + tracks[/url]. Please enjoy! [u][b]TRACKLIST[/b][/u] 01 Queen - These Are The Days Of Our Lives 02 Queen - Last Horizon / Brighton Rock 03 Brian’s speech 04 Queen + Tom Chaplin - It's A Hard Life 05 Queen + Midge Ure - Seven Seas Of Rhye 06 Queen + Tom Chaplin, Tom Jones, Alison Moyet, Paloma Faith & Jamie Cullum - We Will Rock You [b]Extras[/b] – backstage, rehearsals, alternate camera angles (IAHL, WWRY)

Thanks! Is the result 50 fps?

[QUOTE] [b]Chief Mouse wrote:[/b]

Thanks! Is the result 50 fps?[/QUOTE]

Both the original file and the processed HEVC file are 25 FPS :-)

Chief, please see if I did something wrong that you can improve!

Thank you Golden Salmon :)

[QUOTE] [b]Golden Salmon wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]Chief Mouse wrote:[/b]

Thanks! Is the result 50 fps?[/QUOTE]

Both the original file and the processed HEVC file are 25 FPS :-)

Chief, please see if I did something wrong that you can improve![/QUOTE]

Since the source was 1080i 25fps, sa you said, you could have made it into 50 fps, which is what proper deinterlacing is supposed to do. 2 fields make up one frame, on your TV the 2 fields are separated thus it looks like you're viewing a 50 fps video, which essentially you are. In this case, one field of information was thrown away.
Just my two cents. Thanks for the upload otherwise! :)

[QUOTE] [b]Chief Mouse wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]Golden Salmon wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]Chief Mouse wrote:[/b]

Thanks! Is the result 50 fps?[/QUOTE]

Both the original file and the processed HEVC file are 25 FPS :-)

Chief, please see if I did something wrong that you can improve![/QUOTE]

Since the source was 1080i 25fps, sa you said, you could have made it into 50 fps, which is what proper deinterlacing is supposed to do. 2 fields make up one frame, on your TV the 2 fields are separated thus it looks like you're viewing a 50 fps video, which essentially you are. In this case, one field of information was thrown away.
Just my two cents. Thanks for the upload otherwise! :)[/QUOTE]

I'm most certainly wrong and you're right, but the source is originally meant to look like 25 FPS, if that makes any sense.

Regardless, the original file is in the upload, so can you please take a look at it and see if you can improve its quality? Is there a point to making it 50 FPS if it effectively duplicates frames?

[QUOTE] [b]Golden Salmon wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]Chief Mouse wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]Golden Salmon wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]Chief Mouse wrote:[/b]

Thanks! Is the result 50 fps?[/QUOTE]

Both the original file and the processed HEVC file are 25 FPS :-)

Chief, please see if I did something wrong that you can improve![/QUOTE]

Since the source was 1080i 25fps, sa you said, you could have made it into 50 fps, which is what proper deinterlacing is supposed to do. 2 fields make up one frame, on your TV the 2 fields are separated thus it looks like you're viewing a 50 fps video, which essentially you are. In this case, one field of information was thrown away.
Just my two cents. Thanks for the upload otherwise! :)[/QUOTE]

I'm most certainly wrong and you're right, but the source is originally meant to look like 25 FPS, if that makes any sense.

Regardless, the original file is in the upload, so can you please take a look at it and see if you can improve its quality? Is there a point to making it 50 FPS if it effectively duplicates frames?[/QUOTE]

I checked it out. You are quite right. In fact it doesn't even look interlaced, meaning something is screwed up in the headers or flags.

Thanks a lot for this ! I'd always hoped for a better quality version. Without a doubt, this is one of the best things Brian and Roger have done since 1991.

It's A Hard Life with a horn section ? Monumental. And it only happened once.

Thank you very much!

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

Thanks a lot for this ! I'd always hoped for a better quality version. Without a doubt, this is one of the best things Brian and Roger have done since 1991.

It's A Hard Life with a horn section ? Monumental. And it only happened once.
[/QUOTE]

Perhaps Chief or somebody else with the know-how can do a better job than me at processing the original file and provide a sharper version. I tested a higher bitrate encoding but maybe I did something wrong because it shows some aliasing (particularly in straight lines such as guitar strings) and the picture generally seems less stable compared to the encode I shared, so everyone is welcome to try and improve it. Meanwhile, it's a file with a good quality/size ratio.

At this point I'm not very surprised they forgot / nobody told them that they had played IAHL live before, but still...

Great job! Thank you!

[QUOTE] [b]Golden Salmon wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

Thanks a lot for this ! I'd always hoped for a better quality version. Without a doubt, this is one of the best things Brian and Roger have done since 1991.

It's A Hard Life with a horn section ? Monumental. And it only happened once.
[/QUOTE]

Perhaps Chief or somebody else with the know-how can do a better job than me at processing the original file and provide a sharper version. I tested a higher bitrate encoding but maybe I did something wrong because it shows some aliasing (particularly in straight lines such as guitar strings) and the picture generally seems less stable compared to the encode I shared, so everyone is welcome to try and improve it. Meanwhile, it's a file with a good quality/size ratio.

At this point I'm not very surprised they forgot / nobody told them that they had played IAHL live before, but still...[/QUOTE]

I think you misunderstood. This version is the one he hoped for (the better one) ;)

[QUOTE] [b]Chief Mouse wrote:[/b]

I think you misunderstood. This version is the one he hoped for (the better one) ;)[/QUOTE]

Nah, I'm only saying that surely it can be polished further than the little processing I did. I just thought it was fine to share everything.

Any work that anybody does to improve the quality of something is always appreciated, and for that I thank you.
BUT:

Can you clear something up please?.
You've de-interlaced it.
Did it look like interlaced VIDEO to begin with, or had it been broadcast looking like film?
If the latter, then what you've done is fine. BUT, if it looked like a live video broadcast and you've changed that look in the deinterlacing process and it now looks like it was shot on film, then that's a massive "NO NO" to me...

The only other issue is HEVC. Whilst it's a superb codec and allows you to keep interlaced programmes interlaced with no problems (unlike .264), it's not very user-friendly for the masses.
Personally I avoid it like the plague because unless you're playing it back on a computer, it's useless.
It's not a supported codec on smart TV's yet and no one makes media players anymore that you can plug a hard drive into like they did 10 years ago.
Whilst the Amazon FireTV will support HEVC playback (for example), they'd stupidly not put a USB port into it that accepts a hard drive for playback!

Thank you, nice find