HD version of en Concert

[lilly]

I have the en Concert DVD already but the resolution is kind of small for my new tv, so it looks really grainy. Is there any high resolution version or better a 720p or 1080i!! ? Like, a well re-encoded version, I dont mind coughing upto $100 for it, or even just downloading it from some torrent...:o
Also, where can I get high quality videos of alizée? i used to download them off stage6 but its now shut down:(....Please gimme me a good site Thanks!

[Ali]

Unfortunately, HD is not as prevalent in Europe as it is here in good ol' America. It was even less prevalent in 2004, when the DVD came out. So it is highly unlikely that you will find an En Concert video in 720P let alone 1080P/i. Most of the vidoes that you will find has the standard televsion resolution or even lower. I thought to myself too that it would be great to see her in HD, unfortunately, there are hardly if any HD videos of her, even now.

Your best bet to find HQ videos would be torrents.

[lilly]

Damn! Then im stuck with the grainy picture!? I wish they would re-release that DVD!...Actually if any of the forum's hardcore fans gets their hands on the original scene release of that DVD, someone on the site itself can re-encode it!

No, torrents of Alizee are mostly dead, lack of or no seeders,(at least the english torrent sites) previously I used Azureus for HQ vids, it had some really good mkv formats but I downloaded everything from there, nothing left.
does anyone know a good french torrent site!?? Please!

[heyamigo]

i've heard it was actually shot in HD camera. but i wonder if there is enough demand for them to release it in 1080p blue ray. tbh, i don't think so.

[The Cap]

En Concert WAS, indeed, mastered in HD ... 1080P, I believe. The original DVD source files are 720x576 at 25fps interlaced, if my memory is still working. I've done a conversion for NTSC compatibility which resulted in a 720x480 at 29.997fps progressive with internal flagging to 24fps using playback hardare pulldown. Aside from a few minor compression artifacts here and there, it looks pretty good on a Sony WEGA CRT and a few plasma wide-screens I've tested.

Certainly it's possible to re-encode the original video, but that's very likely to only exacerbate whatever "graininess" you're already seeing. Even so, the resulting up-scaled data file would be HUGE; as is, the concert video exceeds 5GB without any modifications. How would you transport it ? What media besides BluRay HD could you usefully record it onto ? I don't know anyone (outside of video production houses) that can record onto BluRay HD media in their homes as yet. And if you can routinely download well over a dozen GB of data via torrent, well ... good for you, but personally think that's borderline insane, myself.

[lilly]

Oh data size does not matter, Im a guy who has downloaded 56Gb of bulk data at one go (all 6 seasons of 24 the series in 720p):D....so a 12-15 Gb is nothing, if you can provide the links it would be appreciated! Thanks!
Also, can you tell me what you used for NTSC conversion, and how did you manage 30fps, I cant go over 26 without ruining the res!:confused:

[Ali]

Oh data size does not matter, Im a guy who has downloaded 56Gb of bulk data at one go (all 6 seasons of 24 the series in 720p):D....so a 12-15 Gb is nothing, if you can provide the links it would be appreciated! Thanks!
Also, can you tell me what you used for NTSC conversion, and how did you manage 30fps, I cant go over 26 without ruining the res!:confused:

56Gb in one go! Thats crazy! How many hours did it take?

[The Cap]

Oh data size does not matter, Im a guy who has downloaded 56Gb of bulk data at one go (all 6 seasons of 24 the series in 720p):D....so a 12-15 Gb is nothing, if you can provide the links it would be appreciated! Thanks!
Also, can you tell me what you used for NTSC conversion, and how did you manage 30fps, I cant go over 26 without ruining the res!:confused:

See, the reason I said that downloading 12+GB - even via torrent - is borderline insane is because I'd NEVER do such a thing. Over here in the U.S.A., we just don't have the digital infrastructure to support such things. Our "hig speed" service providers have a tendency to throttle and delay large uploads and downloads, all the way to the point of stopping the transmissions completely. Only a tiny percentage of internet users even have access to bandwidth that would sanely accomodate huge file transfers.

And, more to the point, re-encoding the original wouldn't remove or reduce the "grain" problem you claim to see. I have a legitimate DVD of En Concert from France and I can tell you that the original 720x576 video isn't grainy at all, and that's when displayed on high quality equipment that would make such "grain" very easy to see. I suspect what you're looking at is a bootleg copy with an inferior video conversion or transfer.

Unless you buy a legit copy from Europe, you'll never get the quality you're looking for. When I did my own re-work of the DVD to make it fully NTSC compatible, I used the original French release as my raw data source, and the output I got still has a few occasional digital artifacts and some small amount of color noise (what you might call "grain"). However, for the sake of native compatibility with my video equipment, it was very much worth the effort.

[The Cap]

Just realized I screwed up on the frame rate conversion explanation. I didn't actually change the native data source's "real" frame rate at all. I re-flagged all frames of the final re-mapped (scaled, new color space, etc.) video output internally to tell the player firmware that it should use 2:3 pulldown during playback, which eliminates the "judder" and skip effects that often happen during PAL to NTSC video conversion. The net effect is 25fps native PAL video (converted from interlaced to progressive) playing perfectly on 29.997fps (progressive) NTSC equipment.

[lilly]

56Gb in one go! Thats crazy! How many hours did it take?

14 days......:o

[lilly]

See, the reason I said that downloading 12+GB - even via torrent - is borderline insane is because I'd NEVER do such a thing. Over here in the U.S.A., we just don't have the digital infrastructure to support such things. Our "hig speed" service providers have a tendency to throttle and delay large uploads and downloads, all the way to the point of stopping the transmissions completely. Only a tiny percentage of internet users even have access to bandwidth that would sanely accomodate huge file transfers.

And, more to the point, re-encoding the original wouldn't remove or reduce the "grain" problem you claim to see. I have a legitimate DVD of En Concert from France and I can tell you that the original 720x576 video isn't grainy at all, and that's when displayed on high quality equipment that would make such "grain" very easy to see. I suspect what you're looking at is a bootleg copy with an inferior video conversion or transfer.

Unless you buy a legit copy from Europe, you'll never get the quality you're looking for. When I did my own re-work of the DVD to make it fully NTSC compatible, I used the original French release as my raw data source, and the output I got still has a few occasional digital artifacts and some small amount of color noise (what you might call "grain"). However, for the sake of native compatibility with my video equipment, it was very much worth the effort.

Just realized I screwed up on the frame rate conversion explanation. I didn't actually change the native data source's "real" frame rate at all. I re-flagged all frames of the final re-mapped (scaled, new color space, etc.) video output internally to tell the player firmware that it should use 2:3 pulldown during playback, which eliminates the "judder" and skip effects that often happen during PAL to NTSC video conversion. The net effect is 25fps native PAL video (converted from interlaced to progressive) playing perfectly on 29.997fps (progressive) NTSC equipment.

Actually both of my en concert dvds are legit copies, one from amazon.fr and the other bought in Europe itself, the thing is I didn't have this problem with my old tv, this is happening only on the newer hd compatiable one. Probably because lcd/plasma technology of today does not support true black may be the problem. Even I used the original as raw, but I used it to convert it to an .avi(xvid encoding) so that I could convert it to ipod format (I brought it down to a li'l more than 1Gb with li'l loss in quality, not bad huh!?:cool:)
My prob is the NTSC conversion, as all the en concert dvds ever made were native PAL, so could you tell me what you used for conversion.
Coz my conversions mysteriously have lossy bitrates, and I would prefer to have it in 16:9 if possible!


Anyway what's the point in having 'high speed' internet if your throttled!?
Where I live, I can sue my ISP for not giving the promised bandwidth, P2P itself is not illegal on its own!;)

[Tchaikovsky]

14 days......:o

You my friend, have A LOT of patience.

[The Cap]

... my conversions mysteriously have lossy bitrates, and I would prefer to have it in 16:9 if possible!

If you can target to a double-layer DVD, you might be able to mostly avoid the "lossy" data problem. I had to use some data compression in order to fit the entire concert portion of the disc onto a single-layer DVD - a little less than 20% compression - and the results are some compression artifacts here and there, but still very acceptable. The re-encoding process also introduces a tiny amount of data compression and a few small video artifacts all on its own as well, so nothing is completely perfect.

Real 16:9 is a little trickier but if you set the right flags during the re-encoding process and during DVD re-authoring steps, things work out exactly as you expect : you get a true anamorphic output with flags that trigger the DVD player and your TVs to display TRUE widescreen video.

All I can tell you about what I used to do the job was that it took more than half a dozen different pieces of software costing, in total, less than $1000 retail (U.S. dollars, 2006-7), plus a few freeware utilities and at least one program some people here in the U.S. might consider to have "illegal" capabilities. I can't discuss in any more detail because (1) even though the NTSC conversion process is technically legal here in the U.S. in order to make a back-up copy of material for which I already own a license, there are people who think I should be horrifically punished for even thinking such things; (2) from time to time, folks here in the forums have similar feelings, for some irrational reason. So, for the sake of maintaining the peace, let's not discuss such things.

I will say that I wish there was a one-program, one box, one button solution to this problem, but I've never encountered such a solution that actually does the job correctly, and none that produce very good quality output.

Anyway what's the point in having 'high speed' internet if your throttled!?
Where I live, I can sue my ISP for not giving the promised bandwidth, P2P itself is not illegal on its own!;)

Exactly. That's why we're all so upset about the situation here. Our high-speed ISPs make all sorts of promises in the headlines and then disguise their true intentions way down in the fine print. They say "unlimited internet" and then fine-print "but if we need to manage traffic on our network, we can slow you down anytime we want to". They promise a certain speed, but then the fine-print says "oh, no, sorry, only UP TO that speed, not ACTUALLY that speed". And then they wonder why their customers hate them so much - ot maybe they don't wonder why, just as long as we write the checks every month.

[lilly]

Thanks! 'The Cap' for your help! I think I know what type of softwares you're talking about! I am using dual-layer dvds so size is almost not a problem..almost. I think I'll give it another shot. And yeah, those one button conversions are pure BS, whether its a paid software or freeware.I think my mistake was trying to keep it interlaced.I think progressive should work fine.Thanks anyway for your help.



Exactly. That's why we're all so upset about the situation here. Our high-speed ISPs make all sorts of promises in the headlines and then disguise their true intentions way down in the fine print. They say "unlimited internet" and then fine-print "but if we need to manage traffic on our network, we can slow you down anytime we want to". They promise a certain speed, but then the fine-print says "oh, no, sorry, only UP TO that speed, not ACTUALLY that speed". And then they wonder why their customers hate them so much - ot maybe they don't wonder why, just as long as we write the checks every month.

Even we have the 'upto xxx mbps' thing. But you can sue them if they go below 70% of the promised bandwidth except in special circumstances. And these 'special circumstances' include only serious stuff like terrorist bombing, national internet backbone system crash,etc...Thankfully we never had one of those!:)

[ZachLovesAlizée]

i got most of my lili stuff from demoniod, but it got shutdown

[Max]

Also, where can I get high quality videos of alizée?

Buy a big harddrive, and...

http://vdb.alizee.cz/browse.php

[lilly]

Buy a big harddrive, and...

http://vdb.alizee.cz/browse.php

I have a big HDD......this may sound a li'l noobish, I visited that site,it has all the info about the video,but where is the download button!??
:confused::confused:

[Nicolas]

Cool site!
And, just for warning: You really need a big HDD!

[RadioactiveMan]

I have a big HDD......this may sound a li'l noobish, I visited that site,it has all the info about the video,but where is the download button!??
:confused::confused:

http://vdb.alizee.cz/browse.php?nid=264

Near the bottom of a video's page, there are links to download. On that particular page, it is a link to the rapidshare website where the video is hosted.


edit- nevermind. I guess that a lot of videos don't have downloads anymore. :/

[Emmanuel]

The stuff you guys are talking about sound pretty complicated. Especially with that encoding thing. They should have just filmed it in HD and done all that stuff.


Emmanuel

[highdefdude]

Hi, I'm totally new on these forums, I hope I can find interesting stuff here..

When I read this thread I felt the need to react..

No offence but the original DVD "Alizee en concert" Is absolutely not grainy at all!!! So if it is, something must be wrong with equipment or settings.
The original DVD is from a high def master and although the sharpness is limited to 720x576(?), contrast and color are exellent.

Even blown up on my 100 inch screen with my high-def Barco CRT-projector, the quality of this DVD is one of the best I've seen!! (among DVD's ofcource)
BTW, I'm looking at it while writing this..

Let me know what scenes appear grainy and I'll post screenshots..

Regards,

HDD.

[Idéaliser]

get a smaller TV just to watch En Concert :cool:

[jung_adore_ALIZEE]

Samsung 226bw monitor=no graininess

a bit smaller screen, but much higher resolution no complaints

[Roman]

Hi, I'm totally new on these forums, I hope I can find interesting stuff here..

When I read this thread I felt the need to react..

No offence but the original DVD "Alizee en concert" Is absolutely not grainy at all!!! So if it is, something must be wrong with equipment or settings.
The original DVD is from a high def master and although the sharpness is limited to 720x576(?), contrast and color are exellent.

Even blown up on my 100 inch screen with my high-def Barco CRT-projector, the quality of this DVD is one of the best I've seen!! (among DVD's ofcource)
BTW, I'm looking at it while writing this..

Let me know what scenes appear grainy and I'll post screenshots..

Regards,

HDD.
100 inch? Dude! Where do you live? I need to come over.
Thanks for showing up and please introduce yourself here: http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/showthread.php?t=707

Download sites/threads: http://www.alizee-forum.com/showthread.php?t=16806&highlight=download
http://www.alizee-forum.com/showthread.php?t=14050&highlight=download

[Rocket]

We have a 52 inch screen and En Concert is excellent. :)

[jung_adore_ALIZEE]

^eh it looked fine on my uncles 120" setup on his projector too (well as good as anything else does on that big of a picture and a textured and white wall)

[lilly]

Me too! Put it on a 52 inch Sony Bravia! Thought it was a bit grainy! Maybe its all those damn blurays I've been watching!!

[JimmyDean23]

I would rather watch it on an 11 inch OLED Sony XEL-1 than a 52 inch Bravia.
That little tv makes everything look a million times better.
The resolution isnt very high but it doesnt matter since En Concert isnt in HD.
However I would love to see it in 1080p on a 42 inch.

Also, are they ever going to make a DVD of the Mexico concerts?

[rcs]

Don't we wish for those Mexican concerts to be available in BluRay? I went to those concerts. It's not like I forgot how they went. There's so many pics we took and video available on the net, but it would be nice to see Lili in 1080p. :wub:

Note: There were 4 cameras in every concert hall. I hope they don't let all that footage go to waste. We were told there would be a DVD. I'm still waiting...

[Roman]

Don't we wish for those Mexican concerts to be available in BluRay? I went to those concerts. It's not like I forgot how they went. There's so many pics we took and video available on the net, but it would be nice to see Lili in 1080p. :wub:

Note: There were 4 cameras in every concert hall. I hope they don't let all that footage go to waste. We were told there would be a DVD. I'm still waiting...
Who told you that? We were told there would not be, though one can speculate that they are perhaps just waiting to finish the 2nd half of the tour before they select what they want for a DVD. Or are you talking about the guy who said he got a DVD "out back" essentially, at the concert?
I did see en concert 2004 projected on a wall for the Alizée birthday party virtual concert in 2007. That was a really great night.

[highdefdude]

The problem with most flatscreen tv's is that they use internal digital signal processing that almost always introduce a small amount of side-effects like grain. (most visible on LCD's)
And as small this effect might be, it always ads up to the imperfections of DVD's. Ofcource, BluRay has a much "cleaner" picture (but not always!!)

So if your DVD has a grain that is hardly noticable, it can become noticable added with the grain of digital processing. With most higher quality tv's, these digital filters can be switched off. These filters are introduced to make the picture look sharper.

Best way still is to watch movies on a high quality CRT-monitor or in my case, with a high quality CRT-projector. Just try "Alizee en concert" on a Illyama or Eizo 21 inch monitor (calibrated) and you'll see what I mean..

But times change: When OLED becomes "adult", even the day's of high-end CRT-systems are numbered!


Regards,

HDD.

[Roman]

The problem with most flatscreen tv's is that they use internal digital signal processing that almost always introduce a small amount of side-effects like grain. (most visible on LCD's)
And as small this effect might be, it always ads up to the imperfections of DVD's. Ofcource, BluRay has a much "cleaner" picture (but not always!!)

So if your DVD has a grain that is hardly noticable, it can become noticable added with the grain of digital processing. With most higher quality tv's, these digital filters can be switched off. These filters are introduced to make the picture look sharper.

Best way still is to watch movies on a high quality CRT-monitor or in my case, with a high quality CRT-projector. Just try "Alizee en concert" on a Illyama or Eizo 21 inch monitor (calibrated) and you'll see what I mean..

But times change: When OLED becomes "adult", even the day's of high-end CRT-systems are numbered!


Regards,

HDD.
Thanks. That was educational. Out with the boob toob!
and yeah, I'm underwhelmed at the quality of say television on some of these flat screens. My friend has a like 40 or 50 " plasma, but it does weird things and the action looks strange on a movie or something. maybe just a cheap set.

[Idéaliser]

I want a 120" screen! Hehe En Concert works fine on my little 22" that's in my room :)

[Just a Guest]

Bigger ain't always better... ;)
People tend to replace their screens with bigger ones but they keep watching at the same viewing distance.
There is a somewhat general rule that the optimal viewing distance is about 4 to 5 times the diagonal of the screen.
For that reason I like to sit in a cinema at least in the middle or beyond that. (depending on the size of the theatre of course)

Sitting to close at the screen makes bad quality images (noise, mpeg encoding artefacts etc.) more obvious and it's more tiring to watch.
(your eyes and/or neck movements)

A postcard looks allright holding it in your hands to look at.
You can blow it up to a huge poster and it looks like crap.
Increase the viewing distance so it will look about the same size as the postcard and you won't even notice the difference...

Best way still is to watch movies on a high quality CRT-monitor or in my case, with a high quality CRT-projector. Just try "Alizee en concert" on a Illyama or Eizo 21 inch monitor (calibrated) and you'll see what I mean..
I can not agree more with you.
I am a pro-user and I have never seen a decent broadcast LCD monitor.
€ 20.000 +++ for a Mickey Mouse sized "broadcast" monitor... It was a laugh! Terrible.
(not to mention plasma crap)
http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/9347/barfta0.gif

[jung_adore_ALIZEE]

There is a somewhat general rule that the optimal viewing distance is about 4 to 5 times the diagonal of the screen.


I highly disagree with that

both my brother and uncle have projectors (80"+and 120" respectively) and I see very little distortion sitting at a viewing distance of 6' at my bro's and about 9' at my uncles so both under the size of the diagonal of the screens and I don't see a big difference (I've seen some really bad quality screens :p)

the thing is getting a good projector or TV with a projector I believe DLP is the best way to go and projected on a smooth gray screen (not white)

I've watch the same movies on my Samsung 226BW LCD monitor and various CRT monitors as well and as far as I can tell there is little difference
a bigger screen will always distort more
but I find that my Samsung monitor shows in the best quality, even better than an HD TV with BluRay
just what I've noticed

[Just a Guest]

I highly disagree with that
That's fine by me, but do not confuse "impressively big" with "comfortable".
It's a matter of how the human eye with the brain works.
but I find that my Samsung monitor shows in the best quality, even better than an HD TV with BluRay
just what I've noticed
All LCD's (still) looks like shit. Trust me.

[jung_adore_ALIZEE]

That's fine by me, but do not confuse "impressively big" with "comfortable".
It's a matter of how the human eye with the brain works.

All LCD's (still) looks like shit. Trust me.
that's fine you go ahead and think that

[rcs]

[QUOTE=Roman;122736]...We were told there would not be, though one can speculate that they are perhaps just waiting to finish the 2nd half of the tour before they select what they want for a DVD...QUOTE]

Blah, I missed that news. So they apparently will scrap the footage. What a waste.

[espire]

All LCD's (still) looks like shit. Trust me.

that's fine you go ahead and think that

Oh no, not this again! :p

[rcs]

Tube, Projectors, DLPs, plasmas, or LCDs...it's a never ending debate when the new comes out. Go to any HD forum, and you'll be sure to come across the like. I can remember having to defend my 1st purchase of an HDTV vs the old boobtube.

But as with any new Lili music or video, it's caused quite a few of you guys to go out and spare no expense to update electronics. Only the best for Alizee, eh? ;)

[Zack -Alizee Lover-]

Please gimme me a good site Thanks!

I miss OneAlizee
Damn it Moe D: