Sonic CD DVD Final is Go! - UPDATED

[TheBuilder]

The reason for this update can best be explained by the text posted to the Pirate Bay torrent page:

Unfortunately, due to a system restore that I performed before mastering Sonic CD DVD, some of the programs required to play back some of the multimedia in the z_extras folder off the root of the DVD were removed from their appropriate directories. Download this torrent for the codec/program installers (some of them hard to find) necessary for playback.

I sincerely apologize for the omission. You may download the files using the torrent posted below:

SCD DVD codec additions.torrent

(1.94 KiB) Downloaded 310 times

The torrent download page on the Pirate Bay can be found here:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4869256



What the heck is it?
This is a DVD five years in the making that features the cinematics of Sonic CD and their audio in the highest quality seen yet. It features fully-animated menus, every version of every audio track ever recorded for the videos, a retro interface that emulates the look and feel of the Sega CD game, a number of easter eggs, and a ton of extras, including making-of sections, technical documents, Exact Audio Copy Redbook audio rips, and every single version of the SCD opening and ending videos ever released, all ripped from their respective game discs (NO analog captures!). This is THE definitive presentation of the Sonic CD DVD videos and their music.

Why the heck is it?
As far as I am concerned, Sega has done a lousy job presenting these fine videos in a high-quality format and making each version of the music that goes with them widely available. The highest-quality release of the videos from Sega thus far needs to have their visual artifacts cleaned up and made available for everyone to see. Additionally, viewers should have a choice between the North American and Japanese/European soundtracks when watching the videos.
Enter Sonic CD DVD. The Sonic Mega Collection videos have been ripped from the Gamecube disc and have had their visual encoding artifacts extensively cleaned up. The seven different versions of Sonic Boom Opening Theme, Sonic Boom Ending Theme, Sonic You Can Do Anything, and Cosmic Eternity are all presented here as pristine, 1536kbps 48KHz LPCM WAVs (and as 44.1KHz Redbook rips in the z_extras folder off the root of the DVD directory!) and are selectable for each video. None of that 192kbps AC3 baloney.

Aside from the music of Masafumi Ogata, Naofumi Hataya and Spencer Nilsen and the Toei videos, the entire DVD was made by me in my spare time over the past few years. I poured my heart into it, and I like to think that it shows. I offer it to you as a tribute to the cinematic and musical works of Sonic CD for you to enjoy. Spencer Nilsen sure did seem to enjoy it:



Scroll past the images for the torrent file, or go to the torrent page on the Pirate Bay:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4856972
Be sure to point your burning application at the .mds file, NOT the ISO file! It contains layer break information. Furthermore, since the disc contains Redbook audio rips, you may wish to burn the image at a low speed (1x-2.4x) so as to maintain their integrity.

[Zero]

The DVD was spot on, everything was very well thought out and nicely executed. Audio was great as well. My only nitpick is with the video. Granted, they're far superior to the originals but I feel that you might have gone slightly too far with the filtering. My eyes instantly cought on that some of the lines were overly blurred/thinned and had lost their sharpness, some of the dotcrawling was also still there (this though is sometimes VERY VERY hard to get rid of without overfiltering). The ending also suffered from "shaking lines" (don't really know what the correct name for that is) which can sometimes be created by bad deinterlacing/telecide but it can be nearly impossible to completely remove as the originals already suffered from it. Otherwise the video was very well done, good overall sharpness and very clean.

All in all, in points I'd give:
Presentation 10
Audio 10
Video 9

This is my personal opinion and I give you this feedback out of respect for the time and effort you've put into this, knowing that you'd like this DVD to be as perfect as possible.

[TheBuilder]

Those blurred lines are only noticeable for the sequence where there are no colored-pencil backgrounds, when Sonic is bounding off of all the rocks after running through the tunnel. It was either that or horrible encoding artifacts. That was the only sequence in which heavy filtering (specifically, msmooth) was used. This filtering is not present in the rest of the opening video, and is not present at all in the ending video. I didn't like the trade-off either, but I was less bothered by that than I was by the encoding artifacts. As you can see in this image, some artifacts are still present even after the aggressive filtering.
As for any telecide you may experience, this was unfortunately an inherent issue with the Sonic Mega Collection videos, and is not a result of anything I did. Rather than rely on some encoder to resize the frames from 640x448 to 720x480, I performed a batch resizing run on all frames in Photoshop using the "bicubic smoother" resizing filter. After that the video was encoded using Sharktooth's Unrestricted 1pass lossless x264 encoding profile at a ludicrously high bitrate in order to perform the mfToon filtering. Finally, it was encoded using Cinema Craft Encoder @ 8mbps. I say this to impress upon you that I did the best I could with what I had when it came to encoding.

[Ralbalboa]

6GB? My god, how am I going to rip that? If I take out the extras and burn them on another DVD then could I reach the 4.35GB for the conventional DVD's (at least compressing the video_ts folder with clone DVD or something). Please let me know, cause it's too big for my internet conection speed and I really want to see your incredible work.

[TheBuilder]

I honestly don't see what the problem is. Why would you need to rip anything? If you don't have any dual-layer discs, go download Daemon Tools, use it to mount the ISO, then watch. I would also recommend against recompressing the video, as that completely defeats the purpose of the project. Also, saying that it's "too big" for your internet connection suggests that you don't understand how bittorrent works. Even if it takes you a few days (not uncommon for larger bittorrent downloads), it'll still arrive in time. All you need is patience.

[Ralbalboa]

Yeah, the thing is that I hate having to wait a whole week or two to have the thing downloaded. And I wanted to see it on my TV with a DVD player. Well, thanks. I'll star the download in a few days, I need to free hard drive space and finish downloading something. This looks amazing, can't wait to see it. Thanks again.

[Bomb Bloke]

Re TV-watching, you can get an old X-Box quite cheap these days - mod it, network it, stream to it.

[TheBuilder]

...or just buy a $50 video card with S-video out.
Just tossing that one out there. :-p

[Shadowhedgy]

Back again, after a very long time...
Starting the download.
Good job TheBuilder.

[konio38]

Hi there first of all congrats on your project, i have just finished downloading, and gave it a soft look. Well in one word.... AWSOME... seeing the sonic cd videos in this Quaility has impressed-me much, and you even explain, how you managed to do all those thing, just great, i just have a minor complaint, you see, yo have already used more than a normal DVD, to record this now we have to use a DL-DVD, well my opnion is, that instead you have only the main themes version on the soundtrax part, you could have both soundtracks from, US and JAP/EU ones, because having such potencial as this DVD as, this is the only thing that is lacking.

Anyway its just a minor complaint, dont get me wrong, the project is awsome, and deliver more of these if you can.

Greetings

PS: i am keeping my seed on this torrent as long as i can.

[tech3475]

I just noticed this, I must say it looks good. Ill give it a try.

[SonicXFan]

First thing to say this Custom DVD looks awesome and is! God if this was available for sale officially I'd buy 'cus I'm a Sonic fan.

Downloading and at 86.1%

[tech3475]

Not sure if anyone's interested, but I am currently attempting to merge/blend the instrumental sonic boom and the guitar ending from the "sonic boom rip". I am currently doing this for personal reasons but if anyone is interested Ill upload it (if I feel the quality is good enough).

[BrandontheHedgehog]

Oh man, I am so upset. I think this looks reeally cool and everything. but when I tried downloading the file, it couldn't read, on limewire AND on my desktop. Could someone please help?
I don't know what to do and I really want to see this! I would appreciate this VERY much.

[tech3475]

try utorrent.