Darth Editous said:

What you've described is extremely weird, to the point that (and no offence is intended) I believe you must have be mistaken.

I'm not aware of any circumstances under which you can rip a DVD, load it into, say, VirtualDub-MPEG2, and not see every frame.

Happy to be proven wrong, but if you're only seeing them on your PS3, your PS3 is doing something wacky.

DE

Here is a list of every "missing frame" error in the prequels and SE trilogy DVDs:

TPM 0:57:38 and 1:44:37

ROTS 1:18:19

TESB:SE 0:03:25 (obviously not a reel change) and 0:41:34

All of these are missing some information at those places. If you are using the DVD audio to sync up to an HD cap you need to *add* audio at those places in order to stay in sync. So obviously the DVD is missing *something* compared to the HD cap. And yet you can still find the frame on the DVD in some form depending on which player you use.

That first TESB error at 3:25 is the POV binocular shot and the *entire shot* is actually encoded interlaced. I am guessing the grid pattern somehow confused the encoder.

 

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Now contrast those errors with these other errors. These are simply places where it switches to interlaced video for a few frames. But nothing is actually missing. No audio editing is required to sync with another source.

ANH:SE 2:00:15 (a chapter mark)

TESB:SE 0:20:10 and 1:25:29 (both reel changes)

ROTJ:SE (mostly chapter marks, some just in random places)

0:12:22
0:17:35
0:22:10
0:29:37
0:31:28
0:45:15
0:48:21
0:53:31
0:54:22
0:58:42
1:06:16
1:07:44
1:11:58
1:15:50
1:18:11
1:22:26
1:36:37
1:42:59
1:43:06
1:45:21
1:48:36
1:51:31
1:54:31
1:55:02
1:56:55
1:57:34
1:57:53
2:04:44
2:05:20
2:07:54

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Now after all that I did take a look at a couple of the GOUT errors mentioned here and the frames do appear to be completely missing. But when you look at it in something like DGIndex there is an encoding error there where it switches to interlaced video. So its not just a matter of the frames simply being cut out cleanly.

It is not surprising at all that there are frames missing at reel changes because it is common practice to cut off the first and last frame of each real while "building" a print for projection. It makes it easier for the projectionist to put the correct head and tail back on each reel. So, I would expect (at least at the theater in the US) to find 2 missing frames at each reel change. It is kind of interesting that sometimes these frames are mission when converted to video.

I think that it is interesting that there are versions out there that have the frames and versions that do not. I wonder which is intended? It is possible that an extra frame was left on each reel in order to account for this practice.

This can give some insight into which versions (on video) share comon ancestry (from the same print).

I also wonder if cutting these frames is not practiced at certain facilities, and is at others.

Just some thoughts...

Yeah it doesn't really makes sense to me. Obviously the HD broadcasts and the DVDs come from the exact same source master. And the GOUT and the LD come from the same master. So the number of frames should be the same. That's why I said it is an "encoding error" on the DVD. What I meant I guess is that its not a master issue. Its something unique to the DVD. But there ARE plenty of encoding errors on the DVD that I just listed.

Going off on a tangent, the Braveheart Blu-ray has an interesting issue related to a reel change too. Which is that the entire first reel of the movie has aliasing. The problem goes away instantly at the reel change somewhere after the 20 minute mark. From then on no aliasing. So something went wrong when they transferred that first reel of film to HD.

iojabba said:

It is not surprising at all that there are frames missing at reel changes because it is common practice to cut off the first and last frame of each real while "building" a print for projection. It makes it easier for the projectionist to put the correct head and tail back on each reel. So, I would expect (at least at the theater in the US) to find 2 missing frames at each reel change. It is kind of interesting that sometimes these frames are mission when converted to video.

I think that it is interesting that there are versions out there that have the frames and versions that do not. I wonder which is intended? It is possible that an extra frame was left on each reel in order to account for this practice.

This can give some insight into which versions (on video) share comon ancestry (from the same print).

I also wonder if cutting these frames is not practiced at certain facilities, and is at others.

 

The materials that would be transferred to home video are not treated the same way, so the point is not really relevant. For telecine, each reel would be scanned independently, without cutting the head or tail.

What might be a factor with interlaced transfers is joining the reels together on a master where the first or last image from the reel is partially interlaced with a black frame.

Back to the print screening, however, some forward-thinking locations do NOT cut one frame in, because as the print travels from location to location, you lose more and more of the heads and tails. At each successive location, projectionists will often ignore the splice that already existed and move to the next frame.

[citation needed]

DE

(Did I do that joke already?)

And I remember very well the words "blue laser" used for describing that technology.

Describing [i]what[i] technology? Are you implying that George Lucas invented Blu-ray in 1983, before even MPEG had been invented?

At best, perhaps, he was getting excited about someone else's idea for, say, an improved laserdisc using a blue laser. Extrapolating that to Blu-ray is like claiming Henry Ford invented the Tesla Roadster.

DE

Darth Editous said:

 

Extrapolating that to Blu-ray is like claiming Henry Ford invented the Tesla Roadster.

 

...or that Nikola Tesla invented the Ford Mustang!

A B C said:

Anyway, the facts for me are:

In 1983, they planned to develop what they called the "blue laser".

Who are "they"? What was this "blue laser" meant to be for? Why was George Lucas, who is a writer/producer/director, involved?

If you think it's linked to the laser discs then ok, why not.

It seems infinitely more likely than thinking that a half-remembered quote from an article that you read as a child is linked to a digital medium that wouldn't be available for another 20 years.

DE

Darth Mallwalker said:

Found more missing from GOUT

These frames from ROTJ:




It's the tail end of the establishing shot just before Mon Mothma's briefing.
Happens to be the end of a reel too.

Screen caps taken from Editdroid disc.
Now this is puzzling:
If Editdroid used DC laserdiscs, then 'DC master' should also contain those frames, right?
So what's GOUT's excuse for cutting them?
My childhood is raped!

 

Those two frames are intact in the PAL GOUT.

 

However the PAL ROTJ is missing this frame instead.

Darth Mallwalker said:

What's missing from GOUT



That frame is missing from GOUT



Here's those two fields after re-assembly

Faces frame from MeBeJedi prototype (IVTCed)


That frame shouldn't be missing from GOUT

 

But the PAL GOUT seems to have it.

These two frames are missing from the NTSC ESB.

 

It's strange that the NTSC GOUT is missing frames compared to the PAL version as this is just a conversion from the same NTSC D1 mastertapes, but it probably happened when they joined the D1 segments and trimmed of any redundant frames and probably also messed up the IVTC.

There are i.e. interlacing errors in the NTSC (top) that are not present in the PAL (bottom).

 

A couple of frames missing at scene/reel ends really isn't a big deal though, except for perhaps loss of audio sync if anyone wants to use the DC/Faces PCM track with the GOUT video.

No those frames are clean in the PAL (bottom) 13588

 

145590

 

Here's another error NTSC (top), PAL (bottom) 149900

 

Although here it is the PAL (bottom) version that's seriously messed up 148959