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Offshot outtakes from the (now shuttered) Nakano Sun Plaza show on August 7, 2000. ML upscaled/enhanced to 1080p60
Found this 2000 era PR (shot in the office) clip of Shiina Hekiru for the Sony VAIO (since she had a tie-up with them since the Face to Face release in 1999). The original clip I had was 320x240. I used Aiarty Video Enhancer to upscale it to 480p (using the superVideo-HQ model); longer writeup about this.
This is also testing the "CC" (English) subtitling (click the CC button to turn on subtitle captions).
Live audio comparison of STARTING LEGEND 1999 ～Face to Face ver 417～ ガンバレ. This was the old (second) live band which emphasized keyboard arrangements. The guitar tones from the Nobu K era band were really studio quality bright/crisp; I'm glad this song was pro shot during this period. Comparison video from the January 1, 2004 show at Nippon Budokan with the new band (from 2001) and the now 3 year old Yamaha PM1D digital mixing console (with a vastly improved live sound, excellent guitar tone, and very clear separation of the bass and drums): ** link to be added ** 30th anniversary (2024) performance (with most of the band from the 2004 video): ** link to be added **
#代々木第1体育館
ML Upscaled/Enhanced 1080p60. Live audio comparison of STARTING LEGEND 1999 ～Face to Face ver.417～ Kaze ga Fuku oka + ROLLING STONE. This was the old (second) live band which emphasized keyboards. Comparison video of the same two songs from the encore concert in November 2001 with the new band and what was then, the new Yamaha PM1D digital audio mixing/sound system (with a vastly improved live sound, more guitars, and very clear separation of the bass and drums):
#代々木第1体育館
ML Upscaled/Enhanced 1080p60. This concert (thankfully pro shot) was also live streamed via Real Media at a slide slow/low frame rate 160p resolution (which made the 480p source look good). To get this upscaled, I used a different process (cutting out the ffmpeg step) by using Digiarty VideoProc Converter to transcode the MPEG-2TS source to 1080p since the output looked pretty good (the de-interlacer worked much better). I then ran that through Aiarty Video Enhancer AI to upscale/enhance that to 2160p60 (video detail plus frame rate increase) and then performed the final downscaling to 1080p60.
ML Upscaled/Enhanced to 720p from grainy 480p source (this was a more granular upscaling utilizing Topaz Video AI as the backend). The original broadcast (NHK POPJAM) was recorded using VHS tape (Panasonic VHS Hi-Fi). This is just the OA performance part (not the initial interview with Moriguchi Hiroko). The footage was originally digitized with an PowerMac 8500 (it had AV inputs making it easy to connect to a VCR). Video formats and compression technology (in terms of being cross platform compatible) was not great around this time. Since this was also on a Mac, the Quicktime MOV container format was used along with the Sorenson video codec (since it was included with QT3 and looked the best). A few years later, I re-digitized it (better tech) and used MPEG-4 (various permutations were created since then by others).
Trivia: these on-air performances with bands for music shows are normally backing tracks. Longer songs are also usually shortened (entire section and/or solo removed). Some performers would also lip sync (Hekiru's vocals for this were live).
ML upscaled/enhanced to 1080p60 (video source from the 80's is much more difficult to upscale since it really is garbage in, garbage out territory). From Surveillance (released in November 1987), the original official music video was released on July 27, 1987. This (a progressive rock tune with a guitar instrumental prologue entitled "Prologue: Into The Forever") was also one of my favorite Triumph tunes (the melody, the lyrics, the guitar riffs and solo). I still crank the volume on this one. Surveillance would also be the last release with Rik Emmett who left the group in 1988.
ML upscaled/enhanced to 1080p60 (video source from the 80's is much more difficult to upscale since it really is garbage in, garbage out territory). From The Sport of Kings (released in August 1986), the original official music video was released on September 11, 1986. This (a pop rock tune laden with synths and guitars) was also the bands biggest hit (27th place in the Billboard 100 over the course of 15 weeks).