I've always wanted an HD version of the "Shenmue II Special Trailer" that Sega released at some point in the middle of 2001. I remember back then IGN usually had 640x480 versions of most of the trailers, but those have been lost to time. The only remaining copy that I can find is the low res-version on Disc 4 when you place it in a PC. This project was to remaster the trailer in HD.
Version 1 completed trailer:
My primary video source has been Mr357's Shenmue 2 movie, but there are several clips that are either from the wrong time of day, different in the final game (the lighthouse scene in Beverly Hills Wharf for example), or just aren't part of the 9 hours that Mr357 recorded. (7pm night transitions, Fengmei scene in the diner, etc.) Also, the font used in the trailer doesn't appear to be publicly available. A font search engine found me one that's close, but as you can see some letters are slightly different.
There are also some interesting differences to be noted in the scenes that do match. For example, the scene with Yuan and Duck Race Man in the basement of the warehouse, one of the random henchmen is different in the trailer. In some cases characters blink at different times.
This project has given me new appreciation for the time and effort required to produce a trailer, and it make sense now how time consuming it would've been for YSnet to produce a Shenmue 3 trailer for MAGIC this year. Putting together what you've seen so far took over 8 hours, and it's less than 2 minutes long. There are several scenes where things are chopped together not only in small bits, but out of order that they appear in the game. I wouldn't be surprised if the original version of this trailer took someone a few weeks to make.
I'm hoping to have a finished "draft" of the base trailer using the clips I have already have finished in a few weeks, then I can go back and replace some of the stuff that's inaccurate. I might also consider using something like SVP to interpolate the source footage to 60fps, but my current video editor actually only does 30. (There's a newer version that does 60, I just haven't had a reason to buy it yet.) I wanted to post the WIP here in case anyone's interested in helping to improve the accuracy at all. I can replace the font for example, if someone either finds the original or wants to recreate the existing text as vectors. Or if someone is interested in recording more 1080p source footage, it would save me time. Either way, I plan to finish this since it's over half way done.
What do you think?