Great project!
I’ve got some crudely converted Voyager episodes on my PC, which I got from my UK DVDs - I slowed them down to 23.976fps and deinterlaced using Avisynth filters. Seems to play back better than the DVDs did, and corrects the pitch at the same time.The only question I have is, whether there would be any benefit in looking for alternative sources? I’m not sure if it is now, but I know some UK channels were broadcasting the show in 1080i50. Obviously it’s an upscale, but might be a cleaner image to work from than the DVD… If you’re interested I’ll check to see if there are any broadcasting at the moment.
That’s an interesting idea. If you should happen to have some hd broadcast files I would be happy to have an option to take a look at them.
I guess it all depends on the source they used and how they upscaled.
I came across some HD-upscales of Stargate lately on SyFy; unfortunately they were poorly done: They seemed to have run them through an automated algorithm based on the PAL-Versions they had - so when watching them you could spot interlacing / combing issues and the pitch was wrong, additionally they were over-smoothing the image, probably hoping to reduce noise without paying much attention to the loss of details.
But again, it would be interesting to see if you happen to have the hd broadcasts. The german HD-broadcasts of Voyager I have seen suffer from the same problems I noticed on stargate, at least the ones i know.
And while we’re talking about the matter of DVDs: I have had the same problem with DS9 and Voyager when playing the episodes from the discs - I guess it has to do with the players / TVs (or the way the software on the devices) ability / inability to handle VFR, then again it could also be an issue of the production company adjusting the Framerates to conform the country-standards in the old days (like NTSC mastering to PAL for distribution in Europe). When I started to deinterlace and adjusting to a CFR of 23,976 to more closely conform to live action scenes and later added some filters to smoothen out the cgi, the motion stutter (which was almost always present during DVD playback and very noticeable with space scenes) was at least reduced and more watchable.
I think it is a great example of technology developing in the final consumer segment, so that there is software available to make adjustments by hand / at home. Now if they would only provide us with a software that could do it all at once … how great would that be?