_,,,^..^,,,_ said:
Just for curiosity, stating that "Star Wars" begins at frame 711, what is the number of the missing frame?
I'll let you know when I find out (again) as it was several months ago. I may have posted it earlier in this thread, I cannot remember.
The DVB broadcasts are certainly more detailed than any laserdisc releases, but that means that the DVNR smearing is more apparent. Of course, it can vary from version to version, but only with experimentation can we find a nice compromise ;)
Please follow my thoughts:
all of those DVB were broadcasted years ago, almost surely before 2004/5, because George "changed his mind again" and then after 2004/5 only the third version was available (also for broadcasting use). The compression techniques were not refined as today; also, the experience was shorter.
And, who can be sure that these DVB programs were recorded directly in digital domain? As satellite internal tuners were not so easy to find, probably who recorded them used a digital satellite receiver, and used a PC or a DVD recorder to capture the movies; in both cases, the original signal was digital, then converted in analog and then reconverted again from analog to digital by the PC or DVD recorder... I say so, because I did quite the same; I recorded an aerial DVB broadcast with my DVD recorder in 2005, which was connected by a SCART cable to the DVB receiver!
Actually, I think the likelihood of this is higher than you may think. DVB tuner cards (satellite or digital terrestrial) usually record the data directly to a container format on the hard drive, and have done since they have been available, AFAIK. I have owned a few cards that have been able to do this as far back as 10 years ago, and I'm sure they existed before then, judging by how many DVB file manipulation tools I used to see on a certain video capture specialist site back circa 2000(ish).
A couple of the broadcast versions I'd heard were sourced from the professional digital tapes used by the broadcasters, although I have no source for this information to hand, nor information on which ones (I think Flunk may have been one).
In any event, you are right when you say that all DVB versions have been compressed with MPEG2 in some way at some point, which will inevitably create some sort of artifacting, and that the time they were produced will have an impact on the overall quality. The laserdisc versions don't suffer from these digital artifacts, as you said, but the best laserdiscs are lacking the image detail of the best DVB captures (ignoring digital artifacts).
Let's see together some interesting facts, according to myspleen torrent:
the ANH DVD, from GKar set, which is supposedly the best of the DVB broadcasting, has three soundtracks, one German DD 5.1, one English DD 5.1, and one English 2.0; as I have not the DVD myself, I have to guess how much space those soundtracks take.
I'm not sure there is a 'best' of the DVB broadcasts. There has certainly been a lot of debate on the subject in the past! Each has their own weaknesses, Flunk, for example, is on an 8GB DVD but suffers from crushed blacks and has been sharpened up. G'Kar looks really washed out in colours (but does seem to have all the frames present) and has burnt-in subtitles, as does Reivax (which is missing loads of frames), and TB is less detailed than G'Kar overall but is often considered the most consistent.
I don't say the laserdisc, as an analog medium, is better than digital; I state that, following my thought exposed before, and my brief experience with the OUT ruLes project, it *may* be better to start with uncompressed material taken directly from laserdisc captures, using good hardwares and sources, medianed and averaged, than using compressed, low bitrate material recorded who knows how. This is only my personal opinion, that's it.
I understand what you're saying and I do agree with you.
However, its also important to realise that the DVB broadcasts are anamorphic and therefore have much better vertical resolution than any letterboxed laserdiscs, even the PAL ones. I think its a matter of whether you prefer detail with digital flaws, or less detail with a filtered analogue image. I don't mean this in an "digital is better than analogue" sense, just in a sense of knowing what is already out there.
I'd be very happy to see a nice laserdisc rip (like your OUT ruLes project, or Lee Thorogood's SE laserdisc captures) provided the colour was accurate and the smearing was cleaned up.
I must add, just for the sake of completion, that I could use my Pioneer HLD-X9 to capture not only from one NTSC US boxset, but from two different copies of it! And I could use also another MUSE player! ...If only I have learned to do proper IVTC... (xx_)
Look up the AviSynth function SelectEvery() for that. Its not too hard to learn, especially as I think the pulldown pattern per-side is always the same on the NTSC SE discs. Just SeparateFields() and find the pattern, do a SelectEvery() function set which frames to keep and Weave() back together. I will be happy to explain this in more detail in a PM should you wish.
I have your same UK PAL and US NTSC sets (actually two of the last), plus the german and french PAL boxsets (the last one in english).
Excellent! How do the French and German sets compare to the UK set? Is the video the same?
New year, new captures! Just wait some days.
No rush with the Special Editions, of course. I'm too keen to see your OUT ruLes transfers of TESB and ROTJ ;)