Hey guys I have this on VHS (pal) which I recorded from a Win TV broadcast in around 1980, The colour is more natural and not so obscene as the NTSC captures I've seen. I still have the tape and have been meaning to do something with it for around 20 years. I recently got hold of a working VHS player and captured it to my PC at 720x527 and the video quality is excellent compared to some other captures I've seen some years ago (I probably haven't seen the better ones) however I'm having a bit of trouble getting the sound across perfectly so I'll have to do it again once I get a better sound catching setup. What I also really need is a Video player with s-video out I guess. Below is a full screen capture from todays effort

I'll try again to do the sound in a better quality, the recording is complete right from the beginning but the commercials were removed during the recording, that's ok because there's a picture of the Wookie treehouse after each commercial break so none of the footage of the special itself is missing, well maybe one second right at the end credits.  So far without doing anything special and recording out of a average VHS player to an old capture card the video looks about the same quality as the WMAR 2 or KCCI screenshots I saw on page 22 of this thread, although the colour on my copy is better than the WMAR 2 because it's without the "NTSC Redness". I think the potential in the tape is better if I had better equipment.

I'm willing to loan the tape to someone than can do a proper job of capturing it if this tape is deemed worthy of the effort.

I'm sure at least in my location it only aired the one time on Channel Win TV and that was around 1980 or 1981, which was the only channel I had that aired it (I never had Channel Ten in those days)

Looks quite good. Someone with a good JVC or Panasonic S-VHS VCR should get an even better result.

Jesus, the capture looks nice. I would recommend some color correction and maybe some NeatVideo work, but still it looks lovely

Ok guys tomorrow I'll cut a little part of the capture I've done and upload it somewhere as a basic quality test of what I've got here. I'm sure with some better equipment that can enhance the old tape and then with some extra cleaning up with software it would come up quite nice. Should really have done this years ago. I always knew I had a quite rare tape on my hands just never seemed to get around to it. I don't think there's any shortage of period Australian commercials on my other VHS tapes if you want to see advertisements for the local classic ice creams and chocolate bars that either don't exist any more of have been purchased by Nestle in the meantime and are now half the size taste like sh*t :P (same story the world over I'm sure). Back in the days of Star Wars everything was more colourful, bigger and tasted better, at least according to my memory// Then again Tabasco sauce used to be deathly hot..

These are at the actual size I captured it without going to full screen (taken with screencapture in VLC player), there's the odd tracking line and sound going slightly wobbly but I think better equipment will sort that before it gets out of the player

Here you can see the same frame that was taken from lots of different captures on page 22, my capture looks pretty noisy in those dark scenes and outright bad compared to that Zion version, but maybe it would be improved off a better player/capture card/cables and some software clean up, it seems fairly good straight to the TV

One more thing, this is about the first frame I have, how far away from the actual first frame is this?  

I'm willing to loan the tape to someone than can do a proper job of capturing it if this tape is deemed worthy of the effort.

As Video Collector mentioned, I have a PAL SVHS player that I have been using for captures.  I have already done some of the Droids VHS captures with it and they have look pretty good (check out my Droids preservation thread).

I am all the way in the US, so not sure if that causes a problem, but I would be willing to give a crack at it if you have no other options.

My deck is a Philips branded SVHS player, but I am almost positive that it is a re-branded JVC (which are still considered some of the best consumer/prosumer decks). When it sits next to my JVC 9600 SVHS deck it has the exact same chassis down to the screw holes and vents.  Just a different front plate and menu GUI. http://i.imgur.com/sndiL.png

Your tape looks great!  If I am not able to assist, I hope somebody else can so we can maybe get a different glimpse at this.

On a side note, does anyone know if the special was filmed on video or film?  If it was video there may be some odd frame timing and possibly blended frames.  If it was film, I would assume a speed up was applied.  

^ what Asaki is referring to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOoxIegtNws

foam said:

These are at the actual size I captured it without going to full screen (taken with screencapture in VLC player), there's the odd tracking line and sound going slightly wobbly but I think better equipment will sort that before it gets out of the player

 

these look fantastic!  I want a copy!! :)  I've been meaning to dig up my old vhs and see what version it is (I got it at a convention in the early 90's, it's sure to be worse looking than this one)

I've only just recently signed up here, but I am from the UK and I have a JVC S-VHS HR-S9600 hooked up to my PC that I would be more than willing to capture this tape with, should the owner of the tape wish to send me it.

I've seen many preservations of this show myself, but as mentioned above, never one as good as this.

I've got friends from my old days working in television editing that still work at stations that might have a prograde vcr available, I can ask it you want.

Has any one seen this?

Star Wars: Holiday Special (1978) in 1080p HD! - (Test)