Featured:
Updated ML upscaled/enhanced to 1080p60 live audio comparison of (2000.8.7 Nakano Sun Plaza) TOUR STARTING LEGEND 2000 "live to love" version of One. 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 sound system (with a vastly improved live sound, more guitars, and very clear separation of the bass and drums): ** link to be added **
Notes: 480p to 720p upscale (using ffmpeg), and then 2x upscale/enhance + 60fps with Aiarty Video Enhancer. 1440p output was then downscaled to 1080p with Digiarty VideoProc Converter. 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).
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 Aiarty Video Enhancer. 1440p output was then downscaled to 1080p with Digiarty VideoProc Converter. 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).
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 (using this newer process). This concert (thankfully pro shot) was also live streamed (Real Media at a slide slow/low frame rate 160p resolution).
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).
August 6, 1997. Fresh off his developer fireside chat in May at WWDC 1997, these two presentations led me to eventually invest in Apple (after further due diligence) in the fall of 1997 (many thought I was crazy at the time and rightfully so given the uncertainty). Jobs had been an adviser to CEO Gil Amelio (as part of the NeXT acquisition by Apple) until Amelio was asked to step down by the board of directors on July 6, 1997 after a massive quarterly loss. This paved the way for Jobs to become interim CEO.
Jobs presentation begins at 5m40s after the introduction by Colin Crawford. The part of this keynote that I wished more (people and companies alike) subscribed to is "personal accountability" where he stated "if we screw up and don't do a good job, it's not somebody else's fault -- it's our fault". I still do get a laugh at the Microsoft part of this keynote since it was very heavily ingrained in the Apple culture (company + customers) at the time to despise Microsoft; I wasn't really part of that since I was heavily involved in other environments (like Unix and OS/2) early in my career (and viewed this as tools to get the job done). When Gates is projected on to the screen though, that part was always funny (to me) since these two were the definition of "frenemies" in constant coopetition with each other; but that was like sacrilege to those diehards in attendance 😂
The other side effect of this as a then Unix gearhead/system engineer (Sun Micro with Solaris+Ultra SPARC) is that Rhapsody (Mac OS X Server 1.0) is what also led to me to be a part of Apple Enterprise with Mac OS X Server v10 (Cheetah-Jaguar) with focal points being Server Admin and Workgroup Manager/Xserve/Xserve RAID. I occasionally re-watch these older videos for a retrospective look as to what shaped things over the next decade leading into the release of the iPhone.
Rhapsody (a PowerPC version of OPENSTEP) is what morphed into Mac OS X Server 1.x and became the core foundation for the Mac OS X v10.x releases (and all current day macOS versions) that came shortly after that. The lower level stacks of the operating system formed what became the system software that power the iPhone (iOS), iPad (iPadOS), AppleTV (tvOS), Apple Watch (watchOS), and Apple's current foray into spatial computing with the Vision Pro (visionOS). All of this has its lineage in NeXTSTEP (what became OPENSTEP), the BSD based Unix operating system that came with Apple's acquisition of NeXT, Inc (and also brought Steve Jobs back to the company he co-founded).
The web broadcast was of very low quality (given the technology at the time) and later "better" sources came off a recording on video tape (still of grainy quality once digitized). So I put my RTX 4070Ti Super to good use to ML upscale/enhance/noise reduce this keynote to 720p 60fps (tried it on my M4 Pro mini but the RTX in my PC was crunching through it twice as fast). Trying to get this upscaled to 1080p didn't look good (maybe a few more iterations of the software algorithms and LLM's will allow that).
Didn't always agree with his takes over the years, but I always appreciated the articulated responses he gave to questions. Might as well have these in better quality.
This was at WWDC in May 1997 at the San Jose Convention Center. Jobs was still an adviser to CEO Gil Amelio at the time (as part of the NeXT acquisition by Apple). How he could articulate responses to q's on the fly + his 1997 keynote at Macworld Boston a few months later in August is what led me to eventually invest in Apple (after further due diligence) in the fall of 1997 (many thought I was crazy at the time and rightfully so given the uncertainty). The other side effect of this as a then Unix gearhead/system engineer (Sun Micro with Solaris+Ultra SPARC) is that Rhapsody (Mac OS X Server 1.0) is what also led to me to be a part of Apple Enterprise with Mac OS X Server v10 (Cheetah-Jaguar) with focal points being Server Admin and Workgroup Manager/Xserve/Xserve RAID. I occasionally re-watch these older videos for a retrospective look as to what shaped things over the next decade leading into the release of the iPhone.
Rhapsody (a PowerPC version of OPENSTEP) is what morphed into Mac OS X Server 1.x and became the core foundation for the Mac OS X v10.x releases (and all current day macOS versions) that came shortly after that. The lower level stacks of the operating system formed what became the system software that power the iPhone (iOS), iPad (iPadOS), AppleTV (tvOS), Apple Watch (watchOS), and Apple's current foray into spatial computing with the Vision Pro (visionOS). All of this has its lineage in NeXTSTEP (what became OPENSTEP), the BSD based Unix operating system that came with Apple's acquisition of NeXT, Inc (and also brought Steve Jobs back to the company he co-founded).
The web broadcast was of very low quality (given the technology at the time) and later "better" sources came off a recording on video tape (still of grainy quality once digitized). So I put my RTX 4070Ti Super to good use to ML upscale/enhance/noise reduce this fireside chat to 720p 60fps (tried it on my M4 Pro mini but the RTX in my PC was crunching through it twice as fast). Trying to get this upscaled to 1080p didn't look good (maybe a few more iterations of the software algorithms and LLM's will allow that).
Didn't always agree with his takes, but I always appreciated the thoughtful replies. Might as well have these in better quality. Note: had the starting and ending music tracks by the Grateful Dead erased to remove the visibility reduction in certain regional territories.
Rare live version of Never Say Never from a 1988 spring break concert held at Isla Blana Park (South Padre Island in Texas). Video was ML enhanced and audio tweaked a little (the quality is what it is). That tour for their Surveillance release had only 4 more shows; the final one in September 1988 would be guitarist Rik Emmett's last with the band until they reunited 20 years later for the two shows in 2008; Sweden Rock Festival and Rocklahoma.
The fact this footage exists is incredible since back then, this was around the time when digital cameras (both photo and video) were just coming on to the scene; this was around the time of the analog 8mm camcorders (like the Canon ES-series and Sony Handycam); not very small handheld camcorders which was held to shoot this entire show (no pro shot recordings exist for any of the 1988 shows). I'm slowly "re-mastering" the entire footage but did this one section first given how rare this live version is.