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Presentation

Here is a new preservation of The Phantom Menace Laserdisc. I made it for my own purpose (so that I can use some scenes in my almost finished theatrical HD restoration), but I think it has sufficient quality, sharpness and resolution to let you enjoy it as such!

IMHO, it offers the most comfortable experience of watching a Laserdisc capture, according to current standards (choice of subtitles and audio tracks, average quality of the image, encoding in x264), while being as consistent as possible with the original Laserdisc (original chapters, original subtitles, original soundtracks, original colors…): no source other than the LD was used, nothing was changed, added or removed.
This preservation was achieved with the best hardware (Pioneer HLD-X0, Comb Filter EVAL-ADV7842…) and the best softwares, at the best possible resolution.

Method

Average of 4 captures of two different copies of the (new) discs with a Pioneer HLD-X0 player
Composite to 3D Comb Filter EVAL-ADV7842
Capture Card Magewell HDMI Pro
4 x Uncompressed 8bit RGB captures (MagicYUV)
Manual IVTC, except for the beginning chapters (disclaimer and “logos”) which were not interlaced and/or not telecined
Denoising with Neat Video 5.0 (cleaning on a profile built solely on the basis of the digital noise, no cleaning of the grain): the residual noise was kept for future reintegration
format warped to the correct ratio (177/160 according to SMPTE RP 187)
Improved sharpness: average of several upscales via Topaz Video Enhance 1.2 with different settings (HQ and CG), then downscale to the original size of 720x480 (DAR 4:3).
Overlay with the noise previously removed
Isolation of the original Japanese subtitles, deinterlacing, scanning and then inlaying in VOBSUB format (with SubLog filter + BDSup2Sub512)
Chapters fully compliant with the original LD (original titles translated from Japanese inlay)
Original sound captured in bitperfect mode (Dolby Digital EX 6.1, PCM 2.0) and mono analog track, without any retouching, fade in/out or gain change.
Dolby Surround Track 4.0 (L, C, R, S) recreated from decoding PCM 2.0.
HD scan of the cover (outside and inside), insert, OBI, bonus cards and discs

Result

Matroska container (mkv)
Video 720x480 (4:3) encoded in x264 High 3.1 at 17,5 Mbps, 23.976 progressive fps
Original Japanese subtitles (bitmaps embedded in a IDX/SUB file)
Audio tracks:
o Dolby Digital EX 6.1
o PCM 2.0
o Analog Audio (mono)
o Dolby Surround 4.0
Bonus pictures (cover, inserts, OBI, bonus cards…) embedded into the mkv file as attachments

Disclaimer

Downloading this version requires to own an official version of the film.
This file can be shared or used in third-party projects, under the following conditions:

In the case of a share, its quality cannot be altered (no recompression please), and it must always be accompanied by this presentation
In the case of use in third-party projects (fan-edits, reconstructions, regrading, etc.), please always mention this original source.

Requests

If you detect errors (missing frames, bad disinterlacing…), don’t hesitate to contact me
If you own the original VHS in other languages (French, German, Spanish, Italian, etc.), and if you can record the audio track (raw, without cleaning or retouching), I would be happy to be able to integrate it into a future v2.