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Star Wars Special Edition Trilogy Japan Laserdiscs (2000 set) (Released)

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So folks know, I am uploading my captures of these over at the Spleen. ANH is up and running right now. I did these captures for preservation.

When I’m done, I’ll start another thread, as I’ve got some Widescreen (Letterbox) VHS captures to upload from the Faces set to the Special Edition.

I’ll keep you all posted.

Screen shots for ANH:

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Probably the Empire shot with a blue lightsaber.

Preferred Saga:
1/2: Hal9000
3: L8wrtr
4/5: Adywan
6-9: Hal9000

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Is this the '97 set, or the '00 set?

If I had some gum, I’d chew a hole into the sun…

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Checked out, it is the 2000 set. I remember that the Japan '97 set was better than the U.S. '97 in terms of picture but not by huge amounts. The 2000 set seems to have better colors.

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Nice work! 😃

What gear/software did you use for the capturing and processing?

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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A Pioneer DVL-90 Elite LD machine and my Panasonic DMR-EA18 DVD Recorder. I captured each side of an LD to 1 DVD5. I ripped the video files to my PC, edited out the side changes, and put them back together in to 1 file.

I think they turned out decently. I’m sure they look better on an analog T.V. than a Digital one but that’s okay.

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They certainly look decent imho. Were you able to adjust them to 16:9?

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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I didn’t do any further processing aside from editing out the side changes as my knowledge of such things is limited. For now they are letterboxed as the were presented on the LD’s.

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Did you manage to get the Episode II preview on the beginning of ANH? I don’t think a good capture of that has surfaced anywhere either. Thanks for posting this!

If I had some gum, I’d chew a hole into the sun…

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I just did the movies for these but I still have the LD’s and a way to capture so maybe I can do it up. I know my VHS capture of the 2000 SE should have it on there.

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Have any of you downloaded these? I got a member over at the spleen saying the aspect ratio is off but he or she is using the screen shots vs. media info of the file to say so. I don’t even know that he or she has watched it yet and they wanna use ffmpeg to “fix” said aspect ratio.

I’m confused. LOL

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schorman13 said:

Did you manage to get the Episode II preview on the beginning of ANH? I don’t think a good capture of that has surfaced anywhere either. Thanks for posting this!

Screen shots from the VHS. Tinypic was used for hosting and they were resized to 640x480. They look weird, like this site has done some resizing as well.

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Jetrell Fo said:

Have any of you downloaded these? I got a member over at the spleen saying the aspect ratio is off but he or she is using the screen shots vs. media info of the file to say so. I don’t even know that he or she has watched it yet and they wanna use ffmpeg to “fix” said aspect ratio.

I’m confused. LOL

I think what that member is trying to say is that the files somehow play in stretched 16:9 aspect ratio instead of the correct 4:3 in VLC.
Native playback:
http://i.imgur.com/Z3rDOWW.png

Corrected playback:
http://i.imgur.com/HrEZkIO.png

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Jetrell Fo said:

Have any of you downloaded these? I got a member over at the spleen saying the aspect ratio is off but he or she is using the screen shots vs. media info of the file to say so. I don’t even know that he or she has watched it yet and they wanna use ffmpeg to “fix” said aspect ratio.

I’m confused. LOL

I’ve downloaded TESB and the aspect ratio looks - to me, exactly the same as when I watch widescreen LD’s on my TV and select 16:9 in order to avoid a pillar boxed widescreen image. I’m presented with the same aspect ratio in all my media players as default.

Thanks for doing these! 😃

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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JayArgonaut said:

Jetrell Fo said:

Have any of you downloaded these? I got a member over at the spleen saying the aspect ratio is off but he or she is using the screen shots vs. media info of the file to say so. I don’t even know that he or she has watched it yet and they wanna use ffmpeg to “fix” said aspect ratio.

I’m confused. LOL

I’ve downloaded TESB and the aspect ratio looks - to me, exactly the same as when I watch widescreen LD’s on my TV and select 16:9 in order to avoid a pillar boxed widescreen image. I’m presented with the same aspect ratio in all my media players as default.

Thanks for doing these! 😃

What did you think of the transfer itself? Any comments or suggestions?

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An overdue reply… Considering it’s been literally captured straight from the LD onto a DVD recorder, the results are quite good. For me, the only (minor) issue is the presence of video noise within the image but that’s an intrinsic characteristic of LD players. I have two players: a consumer UK PAL/NTSC unit and an industrial NTSC only model - both suffer from this problem but the latter to a far lesser extent.

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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JayArgonaut said:

An overdue reply… Considering it’s been literally captured straight from the LD onto a DVD recorder, the results are quite good. For me, the only (minor) issue is the presence of video noise within the image but that’s an intrinsic characteristic of LD players. I have two players: a consumer UK PAL/NTSC unit and an industrial NTSC only model - both suffer from this problem but the latter to a far lesser extent.

I’m glad you understand the limitations and to hear that you enjoy these for what they are. I spoke to althor and he’s agreed to apply some of his noise reducing techniques to these once he’s done uploading the LD stuff he has on his to-do list. He’s done some really great stuff with his captures so I’m excited to see what he can do with these.

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I look forward to seeing the results but in the meantime, I’ll enjoy your handiwork. 😃

On a side note, in the past I’ve used VirtualDub with the Neat Video filter to denoise LD captures and the improvements were amazing. If I ever get round to completing my LD projects, that’s what I’ll be relying on.

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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Kinda late, but are these rips located anywhere else besides Myspleen?