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Preserving the...cringe...Star Wars Holiday Special (Released) — Page 17

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HenryPeru77:
thanks for the revamped cartoon segment (and pretty much what really needs the preserving, if anything).

Overall it is very well done - good colors and solid lines on the animation.  I know that the other STAR WARS: HOLIDAY SPECIAL does not have the TV station bumper when Luke and C3P0 crash on the water world the way the KCCI version does - I wonder if you could do a version 2 to take the Rifftrax scene to edit overtop the KCCI watermark, as well as edit out the VCR errors that briefly happen in spots throughout the cartoon (instances occur @ 0.48-0.50, 0.57, 0.58, 1.05, 1.07, tracking error at 1.29 to 1.31, enhancement could be made on Y-wing nose at 2.42, KCCI watermark from 4.14 to 4.22 [could possibly replace with segment from Rifftrax version], 4.26 and 7.43)

Here are screen caps:


time: 0:48


time: 0:57 - 0:58


time: 1:05


time: 4:14 - 4:22


time: 4:26


time: 7:43


It may be something for AfterEffects (or a similar program) to correct these slight errors; regardless, an overall impressive job, considering the source material.

         

 “You people must realize that the public owns you for life, and when you’re dead, you’ll all be in commercials dancing with vacuum cleaners.”

– Homer Simpson

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How many different versions of the Special are in the wild?

I've seen the KCCI, KCMO, and WMAR discs floating around. Are there others, or should I just be content?

Scanning previous pages, WBBM is apparently around on YouTube. I'd forgotten and will have to look for it.

“Before the Dark Times. Before the Prequels.”

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Dudeeeeeee! I'll see what I can do :P

The problem with Rifftrax is that the image have blended frames (ghosting) and its very annoying.. but ill try to replace that part.

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henryperu77 said:

Dudeeeeeee! I'll see what I can do :P

The problem with Rifftrax is that the image have blended frames (ghosting) and its very annoying.. but ill try to replace that part.

Not a problem... I'm just now starting to get into After Effects myself and it is all easier said than done.  Regardless, not so much critiquing your efforts (as there is only so much you can do, short of tracing the whole thing by line and re-inking the damn thing) as posting the flaws inherent in the source in case others want to take a crack at the issues seen.

In progress on another MU set of links, but will download your link shortly...

I guess if any of you out there know of other sources for the cartoon (that can be used to fill in at least the scene with Luke and 3PO in the Y-wing with KCCI's watermark), that would be great!

         

 “You people must realize that the public owns you for life, and when you’re dead, you’ll all be in commercials dancing with vacuum cleaners.”

– Homer Simpson

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MattMahdi said:

How many different versions of the Special are in the wild?

I’ve seen the KCCI, KCMO, and WMAR discs floating around. Are there others, or should I just be content?

Scanning previous pages, WBBM is apparently around on YouTube. I’d forgotten and will have to look for it.

Take a look here:

http://www.starwarsholidayspecial.com/swhs-old/versions.htm

I’ve got one or two more to add now, but that’s the extent of the documented versions out there so far.

–SKot

Projects:
Return Of The Ewok and Other Short Films (with OCPmovie) [COMPLETED]
Preserving the…cringe…Star Wars Holiday Special [COMPLETED]
The Star Wars TV Commercials Project [DORMANT]
Felix the Cat 1919-1930 early film shorts preservation [ONGOING]
Lights Out! (lost TV anthology shows) [ONGOING]
Iznogoud (1995 animated series) English audio preservation [ONGOING]

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henryperu77 said:

http://www.fuzzymemories.tv

Is this version available too??

 That's the WBBM-TV 2 Chicago version.  I haven't added it to the list yet.

There's also a WCAU-TV 10 Philadelphia version, and a newly-discovered Seattle TV version.

Frankly, I'm pretty amazed at how many different versions have turned up, considering how rare VCRs were back in 1978.  I'm sure there were a number of copies that were lost, too.

--SKot

Projects:
Return Of The Ewok and Other Short Films (with OCPmovie) [COMPLETED]
Preserving the…cringe…Star Wars Holiday Special [COMPLETED]
The Star Wars TV Commercials Project [DORMANT]
Felix the Cat 1919-1930 early film shorts preservation [ONGOING]
Lights Out! (lost TV anthology shows) [ONGOING]
Iznogoud (1995 animated series) English audio preservation [ONGOING]

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SKot said:

henryperu77 said:

http://www.fuzzymemories.tv

Is this version available too??

 That's the WBBM-TV 2 Chicago version.  I haven't added it to the list yet.

There's also a WCAU-TV 10 Philadelphia version, and a newly-discovered Seattle TV version.

Frankly, I'm pretty amazed at how many different versions have turned up, considering how rare VCRs were back in 1978.  I'm sure there were a number of copies that were lost, too.

--SKot

 

Do you have links for that two version, i want to check it out , specially the cartoon part..  :D

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I'm sure this has come up earlier in this thread but I'll ask again anyway - is anyone working on a Definitive Restoration from all the available versions?  I'd attempt it if I had the time and resources, but I don't.

What I would do if I could would be to start with whatever the best overall version is and then swap in specific shots from other versions to eliminate station IDs and technical problems, maybe even swap in some of the FX shots that were re-used from ANH and "down filter" them to make the video quality more on par with the surrounding footage.

My outlook on life - we’re all on the Hindenburg anyway…no point fighting over the window seat.

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Will this latest "restoration" of the Holiday Special include the lost animation that supposedly was made to play just before and/or after the animated segment? Not necessarily edited in the program, just included somewhere.

Also, I think it would be great to include the live action Boba Fett concept suit black and white video footage as the animated Boba in the HS was obviously was designed after it.

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RowMan said:

Will this latest "restoration" of the Holiday Special include the lost animation that supposedly was made to play just before and/or after the animated segment? Not necessarily edited in the program, just included somewhere.

That totally needs to be in there, although wasting electricity turns people off.

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SKot said:

henryperu77 said:

http://www.fuzzymemories.tv

Is this version available too??

 That's the WBBM-TV 2 Chicago version.  I haven't added it to the list yet.

Inferring from general silence, in the community, I'm guessing that the KCCI, KCMO, and WMAR discs are are the only ones floating around in the wild.

I'd never looked closely at the WBBM files because I assumed they were only partial. They're not. Twelve parts, but all the material is there. And the quality's pretty good -- for something half the dimensions / quarter the area of a standard screen.

Anyone know where these files came from? I'm playing about with DVDStyler, just for fun, but it's always better to have an original than to downconvert and then upscale.

“Before the Dark Times. Before the Prequels.”

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MattMahdi said:

SKot said:

henryperu77 said:

http://www.fuzzymemories.tv

Is this version available too??

 That's the WBBM-TV 2 Chicago version.  I haven't added it to the list yet.

Inferring from general silence, in the community, I'm guessing that the KCCI, KCMO, and WMAR discs are are the only ones floating around in the wild.

I'd never looked closely at the WBBM files because I assumed they were 

I wish I knew more about the versions, but I don't.  I only have the KCCI and I think the KCMO versions.

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MattMahdi said:

Inferring from general silence, in the community, I'm guessing that the KCCI, KCMO, and WMAR discs are are the only ones floating around in the wild.

I'd never looked closely at the WBBM files because I assumed they were only partial. They're not. Twelve parts, but all the material is there. And the quality's pretty good -- for something half the dimensions / quarter the area of a standard screen.

Anyone know where these files came from? I'm playing about with DVDStyler, just for fun, but it's always better to have an original than to downconvert and then upscale.

My "hybrid" release is actually the WBBM version with the commercials from the WMAR version added in.  I got the WBBM DVD from the guy at fuzzymemories.tv. I made a donation to his web site and he agreed in exchange to give me a copy of the master DVD he had, which looks to have been made using a standard DVD recorder rather than a computer.  The video quality suffers a little bit because of that, but overall it's very good quality because the source tape was only 2nd generation and in such good condition.

When I have the time, I'm going to be revisiting my hybrid release and making several improvements.  The top two items on my list are to include the higher-quality versions of the commercials (the ones posted on a.b.sw), and also to remove all the jaggies which I can't believe I forgot to address the first time around. If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

My Projects:
[Holiday Special Hybrid DVD v2]
[X0 Project]
[Backstroke of the West DVD]
[ROTS Theatrical DVD]

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Well I've finished my own hybrid of KCCI/WMAR, and I'm REALLY happy with the way I got everything edited together and sounding.  The sources I used for both the special and the commercials were from previous dvds of each, and because I was able to do all editing without any re-encoding both of their qualities haven't been altered at all.  I worked on all the edit spots to make everything flow as smooth as possible, and also I tried to let the Special breath a little more so that the commercials don't get in the way like they sometimes did during the broadcast.

Using denoising software I was able to eliminate quite a bit of the inherent tape hiss from the soundtracks making everything clearer than before.  And with Protools I tried to smooth out as many audio problems as I could and generally make things flow together as one.  It is still VHS though in the end.  I've found that with all this it can be cranked up quite a bit louder than before, whether thats a good thing or not I don't know...

Except for a small drop in quality with the commercials I think that it makes for a really clean version of the broadcast made up of all the best elements availible.

Here's the catch though.  After all this work I've hit a wall with my system, and I can't get the thing to author as a dvd with more than one audio track.  I worked on and synced 4 tracks, the cleaned up original, the rifftrax, the MMM commentary, and the IHNRADIO commentary, but with my mac I just can't do this on a dvd.  All I was able to do for now is put everything through tsmuxer and make a single TS file and its working great off my PS3 drive.

I had planned all along to share this, but I'm not sure if its worth it now in just TS form.  Anyone with better resources maybe want to take it from here and make a proper dvd of it?  Even better I really think that with the right picture enhancing, which I also can't do, this could be the best version yet.  Even with its slight brightness/contrast problems to me KCCI is the most clean, consistent and stable of all the versions.  Its the closest to a master I think we got and it just seems to have the feel that video from 1978 should have.

Let me know what you all think?

Tobor is robot spelled backwards.

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Thanks Zion.  You reminded me that sometime after I had initially checked for any bitrate issues I replaced the WMAR SW commercial with a better version that I already had, and that seems to be the culprit.  So it looks like a dvd can be done and shared if anyone wants it.  Still with my limited mac software I can only do 2 tracks and no chapters or menus.

Henry was already going to attempt some enhancements on some segments that I sent him, but I haven't heard back from him.  Once I can get this out there I think the more people trying to make it look its best the better.

Tobor is robot spelled backwards.

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"To Dream the Impossible Dream", Zion. And hoping that someone who can steps forward to assist balsho.

“Before the Dark Times. Before the Prequels.”