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The Cowclops Transfers (a.k.a. the PCM audio DVD's, Row47 set) Info and Feedback Thread (Released) — Page 17

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Not scientific, I did an informal side by side comparison of the EditDroid and the Original TR47 ANH disks. In short, on whole both disks are equal in quality.

- PQ - the EditDroid set is slightly sharper, but you can only tell on freeze frame. With picture in motion, it's difficult to tell the difference.

The TR47 set is brighter (looks nice), but the shadowy areas are just a little washed out - very subtle.

- AUDIO - The TR47 set sounds nicer, but I think the original audio track is louder than on the EditDroid set.

- FEATURES: The only one I noticed because I don't dig into extras that much is that the EditDroid set has menus.

- MY SYSTEM: (Not the greatest in the world, but nice for the money)

MONITOR: Panasonic 50 in. PHD-6UY
DVD PLAYER: Toshiba SD-6200
RECEIVER: Pioneer VSX-D711
SPEAKERS: 5 ch. SpeakerCraft in Ceiling AIM-3's
SUB: SpeakerCraft 12 in. Sub
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Just got my set today and to Cowclops I must say "Great job!" And to TR47, thank you for getting these things out so quickly! One question, and my apologies if this has already been answered here before. Is the Definitive Collection Bonus Disc the exact same one that came with the original TR-47 set? Or has this been enhanced and redone as well?

Top notch job guys and thank you so very much!
My DVD Collection

alt.binaries.starwars
Usenet. Get it! Learn it! Love it!
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TR47/Cowlcops - I know you just got finished with v2.0, but are their any plans on a v3.0? Some suggestions would be trying to acquire a X0 LD player to do your transfer. It looks as though Laserman and crew are having great results with that. Also, I think you've mentioned before that you use miniDV discs to capture your video. If you used a more recent video camera that records onto mini DVD's, wouldn't that yeild a higher quality transfer? I'm not sure if mini DVD's have as much space as miniDV tapes though, so this might be more time consuming.
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Originally posted by: Observer
Also, I think you've mentioned before that you use miniDV discs to capture your video. If you used a more recent video camera that records onto mini DVD's, wouldn't that yeild a higher quality transfer? I'm not sure if mini DVD's have as much space as miniDV tapes though, so this might be more time consuming.


Welcome to the forum!

MiniDVDs don't yield better quality than MiniDV tapes, worse actually. Well, let me clarify, the methods of recording the cameras use (video compression, etc) are different, the actual media doesn't make much difference as they are both digital. DVD cameras are really only on the market for convenience in playback, so therefore are really only good for videoing family holidays, etc.

http://www.kineticpast.com/starwars/thecheatlaserdisc.gif
Ooh, a laserdisc. The Cheat's playin' something on a laserdisc.
Everything is better on a laserdisc. Whatever happened to the laserdisc? Laserdisc!

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From what I remember, Cowclops used a MiniDV camcorder to do his first version. DV is a form of compression which is used in consumer and prosumer video cameras/editing systems. The problem with it, in this case, is the color sampling which causes a "shift" in the red spectrum.

MiniDVDs are MPEG-2 videos. Even more compressed than DV. Not a great codec to record your baby's first steps IMO (especially when hardware is doing on the fly compression)

In version 2, he used a capture card in a computer. I don't recall what codec he used though. In any case the codec he used yelds a higher quality than DV.

Got it?

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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Version 2 is the final version, and if you have $7k to spend on an X0 LD player, be my guest.
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Gillean, Mavimao - Thanks for your insight. I'm slightly less ignorant than before.

TR47 - Do it for the kids.
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LOL!

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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Another entry in "Things I've Learned from Politicians"

23. When anyone uses "it's for the kids" as the sole reason for doing something, watch your wallet.
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The real problem with going with DV for NTSC stuff is that NTSC DV is 4:1:1 and DVD is 4:2:0, so you end up with 4:1:0.
If doing PAL you are OK, as PAL DV is 4:2:0.
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Yeah, to capture it I used a Phillips based card with a 10 bit color decoder, all fed into huffyuv which is lossless compression. It stayed lossless right up to the final mpeg2 compression. Soo, it wasn't sampled with any lower quality color until it hit 4:2:0 mpeg2.
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Actually, I think the laserdisc source is already - sort of - subsampled. Isn't the composite analogue video signal in NTSC YIQ format? This format uses a similar technique to reduce the analog storage required.

I also think that many capture cards use YUY2 internally, which is YCrCb at 4:2:2, since this is the digital equivalent of YIQ. If you ask for RGB output, then what you get is just the YUY2 data upsampled. Since huffyuv is much better at compressing YUY2 than RGB, it is better to stick with YUY2.

The chain is:
Analogue YIQ
-> Digital YUY2 - uncompressed, 4:2:2
-> huffyuv - compressed (lossless), 4:2:2
-> MPEG - compressed (lossy), 4:2:0

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It depends on your card and how much colour correction you need to do.
If your card can capture in RGB native, and you need to colour correct, then stick with RGB til the final stages. There are some colour adjustments that can only happen in RGB, and you will get a better result, even if your final output is 4:2:0.
Yes, NTSC laserdisc is YIQ combined into a composite signal.
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Would be interesting to get a comprehensive side by side comparison of the old and new Cowclops DVD's, maybe with screenshots. A few peepz on here have already gotten it, so hopefully someone will answer the call and give us a hands on review. I´m really exited to know how much of an upgrade this new version is in fact. And maybe how it compares to the forthcoming X0 project.
peace,

Rebelscum
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One issue with the first Cowclops version that bugs me a lot is smearing. Has this been improved upon in the latest release?

And while we're on the issue, what causes it? I'm curious to know.

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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Originally posted by: Rebelscum
Would be interesting to get a comprehensive side by side comparison of the old and new Cowclops DVD's, maybe with screenshots. A few peepz on here have already gotten it, so hopefully someone will answer the call and give us a hands on review. I´m really exited to know how much of an upgrade this new version is in fact. And maybe how it compares to the forthcoming X0 project.


As long as we are talking about screenshots, I'd love to see some final screenshots of the menus that were created for this set.
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/1113/userbar381851ln2.gif
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/8653/userbar381853dp6.gif
Super Mario Bros. - The Wicked Star Story
"Ah, the proverbial sad sack with a wasted wish."
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Rebelscum - I think the real quesion is: how long are you willing to wait for the X0 project? TR47 is already offering an above average version while the X0 team is going through the films with a fine tooth comb - a proccess that could take many months, if not years. Don't get me wrong, that's the way it should be done and we should all be grateful they are giving up their time for the project. However, don't hold your breath for the X0 project. Get the TR47/Cowclops set now to hold you over until better things. Besides, wouldn't you feel like a dummy if the restoration projects get shut down and you're left empty handed? :::knock on wood:::
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Ouch! That's my head!

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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The smearing is caused by noise reduction that acts too frequently.

Think of it this way... you have two dimensions to the noise reduction filter... the "more often/less often" dimension and the "stronger/weaker" dimension.

The first time around, to avoid the smearing, I used a more often and weaker noise filter. This resulted in less overall video noise and because it was on the weaker side, the smearing wasn't completely intolerable (though you noticed it and I knew about the side effect all along). Of course my goal was to minimize the smearing while maintaing lower overall noise.

I realized that there is no way to really eliminate the noise without trading it off for smearing in the moving scenes or loss of detail everywhere, so on the new set I used noise reduction that is actually stronger (because it searches more frames at a time to decide what the noise free version is) but it is applied in full strength less often. What this means is that in the most still scenes, you get near perfect noise reduction, but as soon as you get any movement the entire frame basically reverts to the sharp, but noisy image. What it really means is that you don't get anywhere near as much smearing because no real noise reduction is being applied to the moving scene, PLUS since its moving you're less likely to be able to focus on any noise ANYWAY. This goes back to the whole reason some still frames may not look that great... if you freeze frame something that isn't perfectly still, you'll see the noise and it won't look that pretty, but in motion your eyes won't be able to follow it anyway.

Mind you, I didn't manually do this on a scene by scene basis, just decided on an overall setting once and used it for all 3 movies. When I say its "applied less often" it means that the algorithm that decides whether to apply noise reduction or not to any individual portion of a frame kicks in less frequently.
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Some smearing is present in the source; a result of the dirt concealment processing used when the laserdiscs were mastered.

What noise reduction filter did you use, Cowclops? A plugin for AVISynth, VirtualDub, or something else?

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Received my copies today and I got to hand it to you Cowclops. You did a great job. I threw this up on my 106" screen and watched various scenes from all 3 films. Thanks a bunch!
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Refresh my memory here, are those new Cowclops transfers anamorphic, and if so where are the alien subtitles, in the picture or in the black bar?
peace,

Rebelscum
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Yep, their seems to be an awful lot of wind but no proper facts posted yet