knight rider online

Hi all

New to the group, but a long time fan!

I've been working on a personal project of mine to restore the episodes to how they were originally broadcast, using the UK Blu-Ray set as my starting point.

Most episodes are fully complete on the release, so nothing is required. Where there are edits, I have "repaired" them:

Slammin' Sammy's Stunt Show Spectacular - reinserted missing music track
White Line Warriors - reinserted 2x missing music tracks
Dead of Knight - reinserted missing music track
Knight of the Drones - re-created original opening credits (apart from 1 short scene lasting 12 frames)

What I am needing help with is the next parts of the project:

1) To restore the stereo soundtracks to Season 4.
I have managed to do most of this using a source I found, and all I am now missing is stereo sources for "Knight of the Juggernaut" and "Burial Ground".

I know Knight of the Juggernaut has had a few releases on VHS in the UK. I don't have the early release (incorrectly titled "Night of the Juggernaut") but I did purchase the Universal Playback release and that is unfortunately Mono.
I also know that the Amazon Prime copy of "Burial Ground" is Mono.

2) To restore the original opening for the second half of season 2. I read somewhere that this had a subtly different opening to the first half of the season. Unfortunately I cannot track down any recordings to confirm this. If someone has an original recording, even if it's just a camera recording it being played back on TV so I can see the scenes used) it would be helpful.

If anyone can help me find these in stereo, I would be really grateful!
Also, if anyone is aware of any other edits on the Blu-Rays please let me know!

Thanks

Love the idea.
you must have a lot of talent on a pc. as I'd never know where to begin to start.
but I don't think universal would be too impressed.
but for personal use who cares. go all the way

Thanks.
I agree it would certainly not be for me to be creating my own discs and selling them or anything like that.
I see it as more of a "preservation project" than anything else.

Having access to lots of off air recordings helps for the most part, and I'm confident that all but the most sensitive of ears will not notice the joins where the original audio has been reinserted.
The Knight of the Drones video was interesting... I wasn't even aware at first, but the opening on the Blu-Ray (the reauthored UK one anyway) has the standard season 3 picture, but still retains the sound from the "original"! So once I'd re-organised and spliced the clips back in, the audio was a perfect match. It was a relief as I thought that recreating the audio would be the biggest headache lol

Anyway, like I said, if anyone is able to help me with the 2 missing stereo tracks, or with information about the original opening for 2nd half of season 2, I'd appreciate it.

If anyone wishes to do a project like this for themselves, I'm happy to give some pointers, although it would require you to have access to the required "missing bits" first!

There was a lost intro from the episode Knight of the Drones check in this link:
http://knightriderhistorians.blogspot.p ... ening.html

RicardoRibeiro2000 wrote:There was a lost intro from the episode Knight of the Drones check in this link:
http://knightriderhistorians.blogspot.p ... ening.html

Yes, that's what I based my restoration on.
There is only 1 very short clip (about half a second) of KITT's dash that I could not locate anywhere, so I used a very similar one from the pilot for that. Aside from that, it is (I believe!) a frame accurate reconstruction in HD

The collector's edition vhs/dvds from Columbia House have the different season 2 openings. The only difference I noticed was one scene that lasted maybe a second. Its the second scene after Rebecca's credit. You might find these dvds on ebay or I could send you the clip.

What music was missing from Slammin' Sammy?

Are you including the commercial bumpers in your restorations?

jeremy223 wrote:The collector's edition vhs/dvds from Columbia House have the different season 2 openings. The only difference I noticed was one scene that lasted maybe a second. Its the second scene after Rebecca's credit. You might find these dvds on ebay or I could send you the clip.

What music was missing from Slammin' Sammy?

Are you including the commercial bumpers in your restorations?

Thanks for the reply. I had a feeling it was only a small difference in the credits.
If you would be able to send me the "missing" bit, with maybe the surround few seconds so I know where it's placed, it would be much appreciated. I'll contact you via PM to arrange how.
Do you know which episodes had the slightly different intro, so I know which ones to alter?

I made a mistake when I said Slammin' Sammy - I meant Give Me Liberty...Or Give Me Death.
I got the two with the long names mixed up lol

As far as bumpers are concerned, I wasn't planning on restoring them, as I have no original source, and to be honest I'm not a fan of bumpers anyway. I don't consider them to be "part of the episode" as such, just the link to the commercial breaks. I know others may well feel differently!

Nick

LOVE this project! I look forward to it!

To clarify, I will not be distributing these episodes freely, nor looking to make money from them. However if you have bought the Blu-Rays and are interested in my project, feel free to get in touch with me.

Thanks to jeremy123, it has been established that the subtle difference in the opening credits for Season 2 is correctly presented on the UK Blu-Ray set. No changes are required.

Also, a reminder that what I am currently missing is:

Knight of the Juggernaut - stereo soundtrack
Burial Ground - stereo soundtrack

And if anyone notices any cuts to the Blu-Rays that aren't mentioned above, please let me know. I used the UK set as my source, which appears to be more complete than the US set (for example, ALL pre-credits teasers are intact). However any missing music etc will likely be missing on both versions.

Just to raise this up again, in case of any new members looking.

I have also now added subtitle tracks to all episodes.

So all I am still missing is stereo soundtracks for the season 4 episodes "Knight of the Juggernaut" and "Burial Ground".
If anyone is able to help, or if anyone knows of further edits to the DVDs that are not listed above, please get in touch.

I feel I'm so close to having as perfect a collection of the original series

any updates on this?

Sadly nothing to report at present.
As detailed above, the only things I am missing to make my collection "complete" are stereo soundtracks for "Knight of the Juggernaut" and "Burial Ground".

The show is being repeated on two UK channels at present, but it will take a while for either to get to Season 4 to see if they're of any use.
Other than that, I am still on the hunt for the UK VHS release of "Night of the Juggernaut" from (I think) the early 1990's. I've seen it on Amazon UK, but it's near £20. I'd be happy to purchase if I could guarantee it is stereo, but chances are it probably isn't.
If anyone has this, and is willing to help me out, please get in touch.
Or if anyone knows of any additional places I could look.......

That KOTJ VHS was from the late 80s, not sure of the soundtrack but I'm nearly sure even my 80s shop bought VHS of the pilot ep had 'hi-fi stereo' sound marked on the sleeve despite being originally broadcast in glorious mono!

Yes, I think the KOTJ VHS has "Hi-Fi" on the spine, but the actual content I am unsure of.
The annoying thing is I actually owned it a number of years back, but once I had bought the DVDs I had no use for it so sold it on eBay!