Found this just now. It’s a cam-capture of “Percy Runs Away" & "Coal” taken from different VHS releases;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEqlkJIo4jo&t=14s
The first is taken from the 1988/1992 release which I have and the second is from “Further Adventures Of Thomas The Tank Engine & Friends” 1985 VHS(https://films.discogs.com/release/358471-further-adventures-of-thomas-the-tank-engine-friends) which was the first time the original Series was released. “FAoTtTE&F” is really hard to find but I would much appreciate a capture of this for my project. Until then I’ll see what I can do with the 1988/1992 version. I don’t know if this confirms how the two episodes originally aired though.
I am still working on this gradually but Series 1 is proving to be a bit more hassle than Series 2. I yellow line transitions from VHS to DVD footage is frustrating so I’ve decided to save that until last, maybe ‘release’ a version without them redone and just have the episode footage inserted in and the nameboards completed with what’s available. Obviously, I’ve missed the 35th Anniversary deadline.
The nameboards themselves are proving to be an unexpected problem as well. The footage on the “Truckloads of Fun” AUS DVD are framed slightly differently compared to the VHS versions, in that they’re shifted to the right, so I’m having to line the frames up properly as I’m overlaying them over the VHS. As the frames are shifted over, they do have more image on the left-hand side but less on the right and idealy I’d like to have the more complete, widest frames. This in turn is proving difficult as the settings I’m using on Sony MSP won’t allow this as I’m using DVD/MPEG2-complient settings. It’s a little hard to explain without seeing it for yourselves but there are black bars on the sides and I just can’t get rid of them without losing the extra left-hand-side image, so I may have to sacrifice this and just match the frames as they appear on VHS.
On a positive note, I have decided to include the Ringo Starr US dubs of Series 1 and 2 as a 2nd audio track (high-quality ones sourced from YouTube) and for Series 2 they synced up really well. Only “Saved from Scrap” had to be altered to match the UK timing.
Like I say, I’m still working on this but its all proving to be more challenging and time-consuming that I thought. There’s no telling when I’ll be finished and with the sources I have, it’ll be as “finshed” as it can possibly get. I’ve wanted to see a project like this for a long time and there’s almost no chance of an official release so that’s why I want to complete this.