7FN

Awsome! Thanks for the link to that guide - very helpful!

Apologies if this has been asked before in this huge thread, but I discovered I have the lossless versions of Belbecus' 1977 35mm 1985 LD audio tracks, as well as his awsome mono restoration too in my Star Wars files folder.

Can I mux these soundtracks into Despecialized V.2 or would they need trimming at all? I THIINNKKK Belbecus timed to GOUT but my memory might be playing tricks...

Ta!

Update: the dvds containing the transfers were sent off to AntcuFaalb via Air Mail this afternoon. Fingers crossed he should receive them within the next few days.

Just finished dloading this via MySpleen - Can't wait to see this tomorrow evening on my projector, but couldn't resist a quick flip through the film. The screen-shots do not do it justice. Absolutely OUTSTANDING work - I really am bowled over by it! Harmy you have done a terrific job on these - the hard work you have done is evident in every frame. Spot-on colouring, and GREAT to see film grain present & correct to - just as it should be! I can almost believe the SEs never happened now ;) You really have achieved a huge milestone with this release, bringing a beloved classic back the way it should be seen.

The only thing I noticed, and would change is releasing the audio tracks at their full bitrates for the Bluray release/version if at all possible? I'm actually just being greedy here as I'd love the Mono audio track in lossless ;)

Really looking forward to watching this tomorrow evening!!! :p

THANK YOU HARMY!!!

7FN

schorman13 said:

Thanks, 7FN.  I have a stack of vinyl that I now no longer need to rip.  

Just curious if you could share you dither settings from izotope.  Cheers

Sure - in the end I couldn't find a better sounding combo than the default settings - Izotope know their own product well ;)

I'm using Wave Editor for the Mac, which is the cheapest way of getting hold of the legit Izotope SRC. For sample rate conversion I use Izotope Resampler, Quality High (filter steepness 150). Cutoff Scaling and Preringing both set to 1.00. For Dithering I select MBIT+ type, with Ultra for shape, and Normal for Amount.

Hope that all helps.

Appreciate the enthusiasm folks, but would politely request that these are only posted to MySpleen and alt.binaries.starwars. If they do happen to appear elsewhere you'll know it wasn't sanctioned by myself - I hope this doesn't happen. This really is meant as a nostalgic preservation for those that already own & have paid for a legit release of the soundtracks.

Ta muchly ;)

I'll get this sent off to AntcuFaalb tomorrow, so hopefully he'll have them within the next week to upload.

AntcuFaalb: PM responded to :)

Timdiggerm: Yes he used selections of my V1 LP transfers in his amazing reconstructions of the full scores.

*** Moving this to the top as it seems many have missed it:

Thanks to the kindness of one of the posters on here, this should magically appear on a 'Spleen near you at some point in the very near future. PMs asking for the files will be ignored. Polite request: PLEASE don’t share these elsewhere… Thank you.

The small-print:

These transfers are solely 100% intended as preservations of the original and long out of print LPs. As with all the GOUT based projects, these preservations are solely for those who already own the originals, but either do not have the equipment to play them back on any longer, or the means to do their own transfers. These are for private home use only… ***

Hey folks!

In an effort to give something back to the OT community for all the amazing projects I’ve enjoyed watching over the years, here’s a little something in return which I hope might be of interest.

Many moons ago, I did some 24/96 captures of the Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back LPs for personal use. I was very happy with them, but times change, standards get higher, playback gear gets better, new techniques are learnt etc etc. So I’ve started from scratch and done V.2 transfers of these, as well as all three ‘Story of’ LPs. I still need to get a mint condition copy of the Return of the Jedi soundtrack LP, but since this didn’t differ at all from the CD release (unlike the other two albums) it’s not a high priority, but it WILL get done. I’m extremely pleased with how fresh & vibrant these transfers sound, compared to the original Polydor CD releases.

I prefer to keep certain details of the transfer equipment used to myself - I find knowledge of the equipment can sometimes colour one’s reaction to the files they’re listening to which can hinder one’s enjoyment. Rest assured, the equipment used is of a very high standard indeed. All LPs were cleaned several times, first using L’Art Du Son cleaning fluid, then another brand of cleaning fluid I’ve had superb results with from an Ebay seller. A ‘Nitty-Gritty’ & also ‘Loricraft Audio’ vacuum record cleaning machines were used to get the best results possible. To ensure the best quality transfers, the LPs must be as clean as possible. You cannot ‘fake it’ with digital tools further down the line - you HAVE to get the best results possible prior to any digital tinkering. Cheap record players WILL NOT do a good job…

For the tech-savvy amongst you, the LPs were captured at 32/96 resolution. All editing, DC nulling, and de-clicking was done at 32-bit. Click Repair was sparingly used on the DeClick 10 / Reverse / Protect Pitch settings. Additional manual click/pop removal was done using Adobe Audition. I was very careful not to compromise the fidelity of the original recordings, so you WILL still hear some occasional noise or clicks/pops. NO blanket noise reduction or rumble filters were used. I wanted the full fidelity of the LPs to shine through as much as possible, which unfortunately means some of the vinyl flaws are audible. You will notice on the ‘Story of’ LPs in particular that the audio reproduction varies in quality. For example some of the music used in the Story of Star Wars LP in wavers in pitch. This is NOT a fault of the LP itself, or of the playback equipment - it is sadly present on the original Story of masters used to press the LP. The Story of Empire can sound a little muffled in places, with some distortion on dialogue at times - again this is what the original LP sounds like. The Story of Jedi seems to be pretty much perfect however (third time lucky I guess :p).

<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469);">Something not often mentioned (or known?!) is that many LPs were/are pressed with the spindle holes slightly off centre. This results in pitch instability no matter how good the record player (and the one used for these is a high quality Direct-Drive). I had to gently enlarge the holes in some of these LPs to get them aligned 100% perfectly so the stylus/arm didn’t sway from side to side at all. I actually purchased/evaluated 3 different pressings of each soundtrack album too. The PYE version of Star Wars was the best, with red label Polydor a close second. The best quality pressing (technically) for Empire was a rare Japanese release. Unfortunately though the vinyl was absolutely perfect and dead quiet, they must have been given copies of the album masters to use. It didn’t have the sparkle of the US pressings unfortunately. The US versions I have are a promo version, and a standard retail version which was bought brand new/sealed. The promo sounds the best, despite the lower quality vinyl material. How’s all that for dedication? ;)</span>

These files are best listened to on a DECENT playback system. The 24/96 files are to be recommended, but I have also produced some 16/44.1 losslessly compressed FLAC files as well. The 24/96 files are also FLAC files. For the CD quality versions, the files were down-converted from 24/96 to 16/44.1 using Izotope MBIT+ Ultra settings. There will not be MP3 versions. Lastly, to preserve the ‘LP experience’ I have decided not to split the album sides into individual tracks. A lot of thought went into the flow/sequencing of the tracks back in the heyday of the LP. It’s too easy to skip from track to track these days, so I wanted to preserve that part of the ‘sit down and LISTEN’ thing too 😉

Waffle over and done with!

Hope these preservations will be of nostalgic interest to those who own the LPs.

• 7FN

Permission to dribble..... !

So glad this project is in the right hands - just hearing that the reel change markers will be left in, and no artificial sharpening bought a huge grin to my face! Really cannot wait to see this on my projector screen! :)

A very Happy Birthday to you Harmy!

Congratulations on the thesis Harmy - very well deserved! Oh and for that little project called Star Wars too ;)

All sounds very cryptic, in the best possible way ;)

Great news!! :D What with Jaws and the Indy films out on bluray shortly, not to mention the Hitchcock collection, this is shaping up to be quite some year for HD!

Beautiful - just beautiful! THAT'S how I remember Empire looking in 1980! Lovely natural looking film grain and no over-sharpened images. I'm saving these :)

Hi folks!

Was wondering if any UK fans here would happen to have any information on the UK broadcast dates of the Star Wars radio drama? I know they were aired on BBC Radio One during 1981 (my Mum dutifully used to record them onto reel to reel tape for me when I was at school! Bless her cottons!).

For nostalgic reasons I'd love to have the air dates/times for all 13 episodes aired on Radio One. Have done a Google search but no luck other than a brief mention on Wikipedia. If anyone happened to have any of the Radio Times listings they'd be willing to scan in that'd be even better ;)

Many thanks!

7FN

Jonno said:

 

Hi msycamore, thanks for stopping by! The original broadcast was definitely October 1982 (see the TV Times listings magazine I posted earlier in the thread). One of my projects for the summer is a decent assembly of this version - I have some very good DVD copies from an original recording (courtesy of Russ), and I need to compile the best versions along with a bit of authoring polish.

I'll drop danny_boy a PM - the ideal version would include the broadcast ad breaks, which have their own nostalgic appeal for those of us who grew up in 1980s UK (the recordings I have unfortunately don't include these).

edit: what's up with the HTML today?

 

This sounds awsome! Would love to 'relive' that premiere - I remember it was a really big deal at the time! Now we take dvds and blurays for granted, but back then a TV premiere of a big film was still an event. I expect the TVS version (where we were) had different adbreaks?

LOVE these clips - even unfixed they just have that natural filmic look. A breath of fresh air after artificially sharpened blurays, or DNR smeared DVDs, or low res LD captures.

The untreated clips give Star Wars a delightful kind of grindhouse feel too (I'm sure somebody else mentioned a while back too). Would love to see an unfixed edition of the film released at some point, in addition to the restored version. Say just an 8GB version for fun...

As always, amazing work!

- 7FN

Asaki said:

I don't think any lawyer could be helpful in a situation like this. I don't even think a "grey area" could be found.

This has already been released on laserdisc to DVD transfers, 16mm, 8mm etc etc. Why should one this be any different? Yes it's 35mm and the quality is better, but technically no more or less legal than all the other releases/preservations going on here on a daily basis...

Cobra Kai said:

Here's a cool promo on the Jaws restoration for the upcoming blu-ray release.  I assume that is film guard they are using in this video?

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

 

Nice to see a studio actually treating a classic film with the respect that it deserves.  They are doing a similar restoration for the Indiana Jones Trilogy.

 

 

Only Raiders got the full restoration treatment alas. The upcoming blurays apparently use the 2003 HD transfers (used for the DVD sets), with a bit of digital tinkering, for TOD and TLC.

The Jaws restoration looks amazing from the HD clips I've seen. Ditto for Raiders too.

Interesting stuff - thanks for that! Wonder what the long-term effects of using filmguard treated prints are though. Visions of sticky rolls of film in the future? One hopes they did some accelerated age testing on film stock ;)

Whatever the future concerns may be from using this liquid, certainly does a great job of cleaning up the image though!

That filmguard treatment looks fantastic. Not quite sure how exactly it works (blurs the image where it 'seeps' into the scratches perhaps (Edit: doh somebody above beat me to it lol!) but very impressive. I believe they use a similar process for the 1989 restoration of Lawrence of Arabia!

Glad to see Star Wars getting the deluxe treatment/handling it deserves. This is the only SW project I'm still excited about seeing, other than Harmy's v.2 of Star Wars.

Have to see do miss the updates on the Jedi1 site, but understand the reasons why ;)

Ok cool Dark_Jedi if you could pm me your address details I'll get those files off to you asap.

Okay D_J. You have first dibs. Just going to see if fettip is going to upload them anyway. If not I'll send you out the two dvds. Im in the UK so mightntake a week or so to get to you.

Cheers.

However..... The first person to reply to this I'll be willing to burn a dvd of the hgh-res files for, so long as they're able to upload them themselves so others can access them. I classify these as high quality preservations of the LPs for those that already own them, but either don't have a record player any longer, or the one they have isn't much cop...

First reply to this below (don't pm) gets the dvd :)

7FN

Have today sent out high quality 24/96 transfers of all the Star Wars story of LPs to fettip. Fingers crossed they'll be of use in this project.

(Please don't PM me for these files folks - unfortunately I am unable to torrent/upload anything at present)...