1996 Sonic OVA/Sonic the Movie 4K HDR Upscale Project

It's impossible to keep it up on youtube the way it was before. I may need to reconsider redoing the upscale due to a new source being released, and due to unforseen issues when encoding the audio tracks to sync with the full OVA version.

Give me some time. I'll see what I'm able to do over the coming weeks once I can reorganize all of my source materials and potentially fix/resolve some issues.

 

A few months ago, Windii released an updated subtitle translation along with a new rip of the bandai visual upload of the OVA without the watermark. You can find it at the... usual places where anime uploads tend to be common.

I'm not yet sure if upscaling this source will truly yield a superior picture compared to the older DVD source, but I'll play around with it using a modified version of my filters and find out. However, it may be some time before I can get around to doing anything major, and I'd still need to put in extra work to get all the audio extra tracks in one video file as well, and check their integrity to make sure they all encode properly without errors.

I checked and I do still have the final 1080p and 4K HDR video files from my original release regardless, but I'm holding onto them for the time being since updates would be needed for the extra audio tracks at bare minimum. I also seem to have lost some of my source files that I used to do the upscale in the first place, so it's better if I try to redo it all from scratch now.

 

For a combination of personal and professional reasons, I have to step back from this project for the time being. That may or may not change someday, but others are welcome to do their own attempts, using newer models and the newer source. It's been a few years since I started this, so the scene and tech is still evolving, including actual professional work being done on things like the Origins SCD Intro/ED footage. I still hope an official licensor like diskotek could do their own magic with this OVA someday, but I trust the rest of the fandom to do a good job if that doesn't happen.

ReveriePass' above example is a good starting point, though my main criticism would be that too a lot of newer AI models rely too much on DNR and grain removal, which hurts the film aesthetic from the original source and doesn't capture what a proper scan from a film master would look like. It does sharpen it, but not in a way I'd say brings out the intended details of the original drawing. It's why I tend to avoid traditional AI upscale methods, but that's a conversation I'll leave for another time. In a digital source? Those models can be excellent and both fans and pros have used them to great effect.

However, various people will have their own preferences on that, so for the time being I can only wish you the best. I'm sorry for the sudden change, but sometimes we all gain new opportunities we must focus on.

If things change and I decide to return to this project later, I'll let you guys know. I'd rather focus my the time and effort I do have for this community on research, game design, and retro engine mod efforts for now.

P.S. I would also encourage anyone who tries to do this to at least consider releasing a 2 part OVA edit as well that keeps the title cards and original JPN credits intact.