List Update:

Added: RotS TUN, AotC Centropy & RotS MoF, aAF (digital)

Kudos : Kan Vijfentwintig, adywan and satanika

link343 wrote:

Shouldn't Puggo's 16mm transfer be include with the rest of the Pre-ANH bootlegs?

Although a great preservation, this threads about the Theater Going Experience, the Puggo editions are from retail items.  Revisiting for informational purposes how the movies appeared when people went to a theater to see it.  Being Pre-ANH is just one criteria some of the SW one's will share, but they're might be a SE boot which will be of merit to save as well.  So with that in mind i've...

Moved RotS workprint to 'Honorary Mention" category.

Personally i'm more interested in the crappier side of this phenomenon, crowd noise and the occasional head in screen are what i'm after.  Would like to hear real people getting into the spirit of the movie.  But to find those, you have to dig up all the 'preferred' preservations which are more about saving the film quality not the atmosphere.

Here's the .nfo for Moth3r's Widescreen SW:

http://binsearch.info/viewNFO.php?oid=38062848&server=

a.b.sw "SWANH_Widescreen_Bootleg"

Kan Vijentwintig also posted SWIVBOOT at around the same time.

The RotS ViSA workprint is the leak from one of the labs working on the color adjustments for the movie.  In the ViSA workprint are 5 Titles, four of which contain 99 chapters, the first title has 94 chapters, and these chapter sync up with every camera change in the movie.  I've been attempting to deconstruct the file to see what other details might emerge:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/VIDEO-TS-sleuthing-forensics-How-can-I-and-what-could-I-learn/topic/12158/

Here are some of the knowns:

Basic rundown of info:

Star.Wars.Episode.3.Revenge.of.the.Sith.WP.DVDR-ViSA ISO

UnRAR Folder : sw3.scr-visa

File : sith.iso

File Size : 1.54 GB

Date : May 18, 2005 10:29 PM

VIDEO_TS Date : May 17, 2005 11:51 PM

- VIDEO_TS.BUP : May 17, 2005 11:51 PM : 33kb

- VIDEO_TS.IFO : May 17, 2005 11:51 PM : 33kb

- VTS_01_0.BUP : May 17, 2005 11:51 PM : 164kb

- VTS_01_0.IFO : May 17, 2005 11:51 PM : 164kb

- VTS_01_1.VOB : May 17, 2005 11:50 PM : 1.02gb

- VTS_01_2.VOB : May 17, 2005 11:51 PM : 512.6mb

Format : MPEG2 Muxed - 352 x 240 - 29.97

Audio : 48000 hz - 224 kb/s

Title 01 - 94 Chapters : Title 02, 03, 04, 05 - 99 Chapters

Subtitles : No

Sample : sample.vob (50mb) - May 18, 2005 10:14 PM

NFO comment: "WEEEEEEE, ripper named the rars funny, isn't he a hoot.  nuke this if you want.  it's real.  check a rar or two could be a SCREENER, looks more like a finished Workprint, since there's 2 fuck off big timers :) "

Since these groups have members who accomplish tasks, might be proof, that there was an uploader, could be the same as the RAR person, then this .nfo creator, then the distributors.

 

Timecode Start : RT (underscored by an arrow) 00:59:49:03 LTCR:00:59:49:02

Timecode End : RT 03:20:44:18 LTCR:03:20:44:14

RT = RealTime???? & LTCR = Linear TimeCode Recording???? (guess)

Timecode 00:00:00:00 : at beginning of count down.

Here's a pic of the unique frames from the pre-movie opening:  (most of the other frames are black with timecode running)

SMPTE -> HEAD (reversed) -> COMMON NO SYNC (reversed) -> (arrow) -> COLOR BY JEDI MASTERING LAB -> HEAD -> (dot) -> PICTURE -> (black ring on red field) -> (black rectangle on red field) -> (yellow background) 1 - R " 2 NOTSSNUD "" -> SOUND START (vertical flip) -> REEL 1 (vertical flip) -> DUNSTON 2 (vertical flip) -> PICTURE START (white background) -> (diamond) -> (count down) 11, 10, 9 NINE, 8, 7, 6 SIX, 5, (diamond) POP or BOB???? -> 4 -> (arrow) -> CONTROL STRIP (7FRAMES) -> (arrow), 3

So although this file has value in that t's a look into the film making process, there are other ramifications of this file.  This file lead to the FBI/ICE takedown of Elite Torrents, the jailing of several people, the suicide of another and a bunch of other things.  If your into this kinda thing, i'm attempting to piece together the puzzle through online searching/requesting and FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests.  Progress on that front can be read here:

http://noneinc.com/tBSWM/tBSWM_FAQ.html#FOIA

If you see an angle of questioning to find out more about, let me know and i'll add it to my further attempts.

Updated main post:

Added section for the 'Special Editions' and 'The Clone Wars'.

Added titles from Kan Vijentwintig and satanika.  Kudos.

"Extra Credit for Crowd Noise!"

Added info about a possible ESB VHS (date unknown)

http://www.aintitcool.com/talkback_display/39615#comment_2428908

Bootleg VHS of Empire Strikes Back by Manos

Dec 30th, 2008 09:17:55 AM

One of my prized posessions is a bootleg VHS copy of The Empire Strikes Back. It's about 4th generation, which means its nearly unwatchable, but I still love it. Some guy in New York used to set up a camera in a theater he ran and tape the movies. I got mine through a hustler I worked with at JC Penny. I lost contact wtih him and found out that the FCC had raided his home about a year later. They confiscated his tapes (blank VHS tapes were worth about $25 a pop then), his VHS machine, and fined him thousands of dollars. That was my first and last foray into the dark realm of bootleg movies.

Anybody remember the first VHS machines... by Manos	Dec 30th, 2008 09:23:18 AM
designed for mass marketing? They cost $999.95, were top loaders and the remote control consisted of switch attached to a long cord that allowed the viewer to pause the recording. The good thing about them was the record heads. They lasted forever and were easily replaced.

Anyone got any ideas how to get word to this user?  He's still active on the boards, last post about two weeks ago.

A second lead on an ESB theatrical preservation: (posted in 1999...)

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=17039&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=1918727

I remember when some friends had a copy of The Empire Strikes Back (on Beta, no less) that appeared to be from a camcorder from a drive-in movie theater. That may have been before the word camcorder had even been coined!

It wasn't terrible. I mean, what do you expect from video tape, anyway? It's not even as good as broadcast TV! The only really bad part was when they apparently switched tapes (or had to hide the camera for a minute).

Lead on an audio ESB drive-in recording:

http://www.chud.com/articles/articles/23797/1/EMPIRE-STRIKES-BACK-IS-30--WE-THAT-SAW-IT-WELL-BEST-NOT-TO-DWELL-ON-AGE/Page1.html

Comment #13 (Posted by Loud and Clear, kid.)

An original bootlegger, I saw it at the drive in my first time, took my cassette recorder and some extra batteries. I listened to that audio tape every night that year when I went to sleep. I can still do a pretty good Taun Taun imitation.

Moth3r wrote:

The first film widely bootlegged on VHS/Beta was ET in 1982. So I imagine that bootlegs of ESB would be extremely rare, but there might be better chance of finding a cam of ROTJ. (The '77 SW bootlegs came from telecine sources, I think.)

Some of the SW biography/history books mention how even then Fox/LFL were worried about reproductions of the film.  Alluding to film reproductions.  So it's a possibility but yeah unlikely. 

http://books.google.com/books?id=MjFL1KbcX_oC&pg=PA73&dq=%22star+wars%22++piracy&hl=en&ei=GBftTLu4FIG78gbZ4vSpAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22star%20wars%22%20%20piracy&f=false

pg. 73

Sixteen millimeter movies continued to be a mainstay of the U.S. Armed Forces-films in that format were shown in bases around the world.  After about 1950 they apparently posed no problem, until 1979.  At that time it was reported that more than 700 U.S. Army and Air Force cinemas around the world would not be able to screen Star Wars because of the distributor's fear of piracy.  Fox refused to release the movie in 16m format to the Army and Air Force Motion Picture Service due to the possibility of piracy.

<omit>

This episode marked the first time the AAFES had been unable to acquire film right for hits houses-16m sites screen the movies for free.  Fox's increased fear of piracy was grounded in the arrival of a new technology: the videocassette recorder.  It worried about how easy it might be to run off cassette copies of it blockbuster hit Star Wars.

Last quote might be from Variety March 21, 1979

Also from this book is mention of another Variety article which could be the source of the SW boots:

pg. 202

"David Barnes admits pic piracy; Star Wars, others to so. Africa."

Variety April 5, 1978, p. 18

Here's a blurb which gives an idea of quantity from back then:

http://www.readfilm.com/PiracyJM.html

(from American Film: Journal of the Film and Television Arts, July-August 1978, vol. III no. 9, pp. 57–67.)

According to Variety, the Los Angeles piracy unit of the FBI has recovered more than $2 million in bootleg audio tapes and videotapes and films, including forty thousand reels and cassettes of films, together with almost $150 million worth of equipment and raw materials, since the crackdown began several years ago.

In the not-too-distant future, videotape is going to have to be considered almost equal with theatrical exhibition. Big hits like Saturday Night Fever will be seen in a theater first, because that's still a special experience, but viewers will probably be able to pick up a cassette copy on the way home for repeat viewings. It is probably no accident that recent blockbusters have been heavily influenced by music. They're less dramatic, more like a record one plays over and over again. Repeat admissions were certainly a large factor in Star Wars' success.

Never heard that music theory before, but it holds up.