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Fly over via Excel Air of the Tokyo metropolitan area (circa 2003). Mori Tower in Roppongi was the newest skyscraper at the time. Note: Excel Air used to offer cruising tours out of Urayasu Heliport near Tokyo Disney (but had to relocate in April 2025 and are now located in Tsukuba and also have flying tours in Okinawa)
Pro-shot at 日本武道館 (Nippon Budokan).
Nostalgic trip down memory lane… one of the more interesting side things I got to experience ~25 years ago was being part of the rollout for the then new Yamaha PM1D professional modular digital mixing console for Shiina Hekiru’s 2001 Precious Garden Summer tour. For this 2004 New Years Day show, the 2003 show served as a reference where lessons were taken from it with the presets and production audio mix being dialed in more tightly.
Regardless, I’ve long wanted to “visually re-master” the original pro-shot footage (480p) to at least 1080p but that tech didn’t really exist until recent years. Hours of experimenting with different settings plus GPU processing has resulted in this video which now more closely matches the audio. Getting this to 4K (with excellent quality) is years away BUT I almost got a usable 1440p60 version (maybe a few software iterations away). Anyway, this is the fully “remastered” version in 1080p60.
Pro-shot at 日本武道館 (Nippon Budokan).
Nostalgic trip down memory lane… one of the more interesting side things I got to experience ~25 years ago was being part of the rollout for the then new Yamaha PM1D professional modular digital mixing console for Shiina Hekiru’s 2001 Precious Garden Summer tour. Most shows from these tours in 2001 through 2002 (～Around the sadistic～ tour) were at concert halls and smaller live houses except the 2002 ~NEW STEP~ News Years Day show at the much larger Nippon Budokan (which has challenging hall acoustics) which was not pro shot recorded. For this 2003 New Years Day show (which was pro shot), the presets and production audio mix ended up leaning towards a more bass heavy sound that IMHO, lacked the crystal clear separation of the 2001 mix. Hekiru also was slightly congested/not feeling 100% (which may have affected the soundcheck/preset calibrations).
Regardless, I’ve long wanted to “visually re-master” the original pro-shot footage (480p) to at least 1080p but that tech didn’t really exist until recent years. Hours of experimenting with different settings plus GPU processing has resulted in this video which now more closely matches the audio. Getting this to 4K (with excellent quality) is years away BUT I almost got a usable 1440p60 version (maybe a few software iterations away). Anyway, this is the fully “remastered” version in 1080p60.
ML Upscaled/Enhanced 1080p60 (using this newer process). Live audio comparison with a new band + new modular digital mixing console (Yamaha PM1D) used beginning from the Starting Legend 2001 ~Precious Garden Summer~ tour which ran from July-September 2001 (an encore concert was held in November and pro shot). Old band + house soundboard (flat mix for on-air broadcast) from the first part of the Precious Garden tour. STARTING LEGEND 2000 performance of One with the prior band and sound system.
ML Upscaled/Enhanced 1080p60 (using this newer process). Live audio comparison with a new band + new modular digital mixing console (Yamaha PM1D) used beginning from the Starting Legend 2001 ~Precious Garden Summer~ tour which ran from July-September 2001 (an encore concert was held in November and pro shot). This was the live sonic edge being strived for (guitars, drums, bass with very clear separation) on songs like these two (Ken Kimura's short guitar solo in between the two songs is also included highlighting how great this system was). Old band + house soundboard (flat mix for on-air broadcast) from the first part of the Precious Garden tour.
ML Upscaled/Enhanced 1080p60 (using this newer process). Live audio comparison with a new band + new modular digital mixing console (Yamaha PM1D) used beginning from the Starting Legend 2001 ~Precious Garden Summer~ tour which ran from July-September 2001 (an encore concert was held in November and pro shot). Dive into you with the old band + older console/mixer from 2000.
ML upscaled/enhanced to 1080p60 (from what is basically 480p pro shot source). 480p to 720p upscale (using ffmpeg), and then 2x upscale/enhance + 60fps with Topaz. 1440p output was then re-encoded and downscaled to 1080p. I could’ve gone straight with the 480p to 960p (but I find the final downscaling after the ML processing gets that sharp quality; I would need to downscale that to 720p and my objective is to get these to 1080p with as much sharpness as the tech currently allows). The zoomed out shots still present a challenge for the models/algorithms (then again, didn’t try dialing in the granular settings). Still, each software iteration is getting better quality.
First tour with the Yamaha PM1D digital mixing console. The slower songs like this tune were a "simple" preset change.
ML upscaled/enhanced to 1080p60 (from what is basically 480p pro shot source). 480p -> 720p upscale (using ffmpeg), and then 2x upscale/enhance + 60fps with Topaz. 1440p output was then re-encoded and downscaled to 1080p. I could've gone straight with the 480p to 960p (but I find the final downscaling after the ML processing gets that sharp quality; I would need to downscale that to 720p and my objective is to get these to 1080p with as much sharpness as the tech currently allows). The zoomed out shots still present a challenge for the models/algorithms (then again, didn't try dialing in the granular settings).
First tour with the Yamaha PM1D digital mixing console. The slower songs (like these two) were a "simple" preset change.
ML Upscaled/Enhanced 1080p60 (using this newer process). Live audio comparison with a new band + new modular digital mixing console (Yamaha PM1D) used beginning from the Starting Legend 2001 ~Precious Garden Summer~ tour which ran from July-September 2001 (an encore concert was held in November and pro shot). Old band + house soundboard (flat mix for on-air broadcast) from the first part of the Precious Garden tour.
ML Upscaled/Enhanced 1080p60 (using this newer process). Live audio comparison with a new band + new modular digital mixing console (Yamaha PM1D) used beginning from the Starting Legend 2001 ~Precious Garden Summer~ tour which ran from July-September 2001 (an encore concert was held in November and pro shot). Old band + older console/mixer from 1999 with the two same songs.