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HBO Star Wars preservations (a Work In Progress) — Page 3

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I have already contacted him about getting the videoo, and he is willing to do it for a fee. I'll pay it if no other source comes up, but i want to make sure i can abtain the HBO airing first.

FE<3OT

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The HBO is time compressed, it runs slightly less than two hours even accounting for the missing Fox Fanfare on the recording. Not as sped up as a PAL video would be. This can be slowed down if need be?

Upon closer examination, the second more problematic tape is not time compressed. I'm leaning towards the idea it's a bootleg of a pre 1985 video release. Might be the 1982 "for rental only" which I have in my collection, and would be a better source for the vintage look, or to patch the HBO recording?

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Where were you in '77?

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Does the second source have the 80s Fox logo and fanfare? (Not the one on ESB and ROTJ, the long one that was on non-SW Fox films in the 80s.)

If so, it's most likely the same transfer used on that rental-only tape (and on the standard '82 VHS/Beta as well). Check the macrobinocular shot, whether it's cropped like the '82 VHS/Beta or squeezed like on the LD/CED and on HBO.

Another way to tell if it's copied from the official video is to check the end. Fox videos had the FBI warning at the end of the tape rather than the beginning, so if you see one at the end of yours....

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The recording starts right on the movie fanfare ends right before the warning would appear.

I'll look for the other tell tale signs on the DVD capture I made later this weekend.

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TKF821 said:

TServo2049 said:

TKF821 said:

P.S. : I own super-8 copies of the three original Star Wars movies (not 16mm). They are in English, widescreen, and stereo : no special editions, no additional FX or scenes. Just the original as we watched them back in the 70s and 80s.

Wow, you mean you have the Derann scope Super-8's? :-O That's awesome.

Derann released a super-8 copy of Star Wars in scope, and this is the one I own. But Empire and Jedi are copies that I found in Germany from an unknown source.

I don't think Derann ever issued copies of those two last movies.

Derann did release Jedi and the quality was spectacular from reviews i have read. The audio was folded down to monaural but some folks rerecorded it in stereo.  I once did not bid on a print because of this reason as i wanted the theatrical audio and not audio replaced from the laserdisc.

The classic home cinema release  was from a 35mm release print and had print damage.

Derann had two releases of star wars or two batches from the negative the second batch was not as good as the negative by then was in poor shape, after that batch the neg broke so they could make no more copies.

It also was the theatrical except for the episode IV redone title scroll.

I have heard of fans splicing in the 77 crawl onto the numerous 80's 35mm re-release prints.  

Sometimes onto a Eastman LPP low fade copy which is very rare, but the title scroll was from a pre LPP source and was faded to reddish pinkish tint.

Imagine vandalizing a perfect copy print only to remove the Lucas addition, but fans would do this for the 77 experience.  But doing so devalued the resale value of their print,lol.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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SilverWook said:

The HBO is time compressed, it runs slightly less than two hours even accounting for the missing Fox Fanfare on the recording. Not as sped up as a PAL video would be. This can be slowed down if need be?

Upon closer examination, the second more problematic tape is not time compressed. I'm leaning towards the idea it's a bootleg of a pre 1985 video release. Might be the 1982 "for rental only" which I have in my collection, and would be a better source for the vintage look, or to patch the HBO recording?

I wouldn't change the time compression, since it's how it was originally broadcast, I would make any patches with sped up video.

FE<3OT

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Agreed with reave. An as-is transfer could be interesting, complete with speed up. It's just interesting to see what quality audiences back then needed to put up with when broadcasted on HBO.

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I gladly put up with/didnt know any better.

FE<3OT

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Depending on the cable company involved it could be very nice for analog tv, or incredibly crappy. (Even better if you had one of those big dishes in your backyard!) I saw and recorded things at both ends of the scale back then.

The family didn't get a VCR until well after the big fuss over Star Wars on tv though.

Going to capture the old '82 rental Beta while I'm at it. The time compressed LD would look way too good for this. ;)

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Looked over the '82 rental version and a later early Beta HiFi release, (pre '85) and they are different from the HBO version. No squeezed macrobinocular shots, and much different pan and scan in many shots. Just how many fullscreen transfers were there? I'm going to have to dust off my ancient LD version at this rate.

I contacted the guy who sold me my "new" beta, and apparently linear audio reproduction can vary quite a bit over all the models Sony made. So I may have to capture everything twice.

I might also try recording audio from the headphone jack, which is something I did once or twice back in college. Although I can't recall exactly why I needed to do it at the time. ;)

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Where were you in '77?

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Wow! Have you documented other notable differences?

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No. Not yet.

Once I get the ITV broadcast discs sent back to me and buy the US NTSC 2006 Fullscreen Limited Edition version of Star Wars (as well as Empire and Jedi) with the GOUT DVD as a bonus, I plan to do something similar with other shots.

4 - 5 - 3 - 1 - 6 - 2

Discuss…

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Here's another fullscreen transfer of the flyover shot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBpTwiI0lMc

That's right: In Spain, the original rental video release had the 1977 flyover.

However, this 1990 retail copy shows that later releases cut the Spanish crawl into the same PAL transfer you showed (notice the crossfade from 1977 to 1981 before the pan-down):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETli-fE7Ha4

I wonder if even the first release just cut the foreign crawls, credits and unsubtitled Greedo scene into the existing PAL masters (as in at least some of the French and German releases).I know that on the pre-THX French and German widescreen LDs, the Greedo scene is very dark with a blue-purple cast.

Of course, none of this really has to do with HBO...:)

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I like that Spanish logo and crawl! They should have collected all the foreign crawls, and made a Blu Ray extra out of them.

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Got an adapter plug today, and it looks like capturing the audio via the headphone jack is going to work. I'm tempted to use the simulated stereo mode on the amp section, but I won't. ;)

The tracking is finicky on this machine, but I'm getting a better picture over the older deck. Wish me luck!

 

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Is anyone keeping up with this? ;)

I can say with confidence that the HBO recording and the 1983 Laserdisc are from the same time compressed master. Even the film scratches are the same.

The whole custom 16mm transfer made for HBO story is full of holes now. ;)

Where the heck the second betamax copy I have was recorded from and when, I have no clue. Unfortunately, it has hopeless tracking issues that don't clear up until several minutes into the movie. I think the '83 Laserdisc would be a much better option than using this to patch or replace the HBO. You also won't have to speed the video up.

My second pass off the "new" Beta got me as good a capture of the HBO as we're probably going to get. Spots where I knew there were dropouts previously didn't have them this time around.

I will try to post screenshots later this week.

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Awesome! Were there HBO watermarks throughout the movie? Can't wait to see it.

FE<3OT

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No watermarks or bugs. That didn't start until later in the 80's.

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I don't think HBO ever did watermarks. (Wasn't that strictly a Showtime thing?)

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I wouldn't know for certain. My father cancelled HBO right before the final season of Fraggle Rock. Never give a kid a cable descrambler box as a birthday present. ;)

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