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.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *) — Page 29

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Originally posted by: Moth3r
Originally posted by: Laserman
...
Also, the PAL versions are framed differently, with the PAL version cropped, so missing some picture. That means what is on screen may look better as you have extra resolution and a tighter frame, but it also means you are missing some of the picture completely , which isn't a good thing. If you have a TV with a lot of overscan, then you are really missing out bigtime.
I think you may be overstating this issue. Decisions on framing were made by the telecine operators who did each transfer, just like if you saw the original films in the cinema, then the amount of picture you would have seen was based on the masking decisions made by the projectionist. "Missing out bigtime" would be comparable to the amount of image lost in watching a P&S transfer on a 4:3 TV!

I have to side with Moth3r on this point because it's really not as bad as Laserman is suggesting, I've been checking out my PAL capture right next to my Definitive Collection capture and it's not the whole film just a few scenes where the PAL version is cropped a little more tightly than the NTSC version, we certainly aren't talking P&S level of cropping.
When I've finished my trilogy transfer I was thinking about capping the Definitive Collection again and putting it together with my PAL capture on the same frame, worked out you can put both widescreen images on a 4:3 picture by scaling them to a width of 600 pixels - that way you can watch both versions of the film at the same time and compare the cropping.
http://www.haku.co.uk/pics/LukeCruise.gif http://www.haku.co.uk/pics/dontcare.gif
***Citizen's NTSC DVD/PAL DVD/XviD Info and Feedback Thread***
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I didn't mean for people to think that it was going to be anything like a pan and scan version
But was pointing out that if your TV is already a bit agressive on overscan, and you then add a more tightly cropped source then you are missing quite a bit of information compared to watching the less tightly cropped source on a system with no overscan (like a PC, or adjusted TV or a fixed panel device).
But no of course it won't be losing anything like P&S.
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Originally posted by: Moth3r
Originally posted by: Laserman
But anyway they will be different in that the PAL scene will be missing some of the picture, and will run at a different frame rate with the corresponding problem of everyone speaking as if they have had a very mild dose of Helium.
The audio on the UK VHS (and also I assume on the French Laserdisc boxed set with English audio) has been sped up with the pitch preserved, so the helium effect is no present.



True, but if you use the VHS audio, then you are missing out on the loveliness that is the PCM digital stereo track. The VHS audio is pretty good, but when you A/B it on my gear, the PCM track is definately preferred, and everyone stops rushing their lines ;^)


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Wow, the theta looks interesting, wonder if there are any friendly owners out there.
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I'm also used to both pitches on Star Wars, as I've watched it so many times in so many versions - but not on Jedi, probably because apart from 1983 the only other times I saw it were in PAL, and I can't now get used to the Butch version of C3PO on the NTSC version now that I am working with it.
It is weird what you get used to.
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Indeed. It's kinda like the entire anime sub vs. dub thing. I've found that I seem to subconsciously prefer the first version I see, whether or not it's subbed or dubbed most of the time. The exceptions are Cowboy Bebop and Princess Mononoke, both of which I saw dubbed first. When I first saw Mononoke in theatres in 1999 (its American debut) it was dubbed, but then I immediately D/Led a crappy-res LD-rip RealVideo fansub of it and watched it to death. To this day I can still remember the subtitle variations between the official DVD and the fansub script(s)...

/off topic
//prefers on principle to see anime subbed
///end nerd mode
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"I think people will want both an NTSC and a PAL version in their arenals."

I doubt I could get even one to fit in mine.

<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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I'd like to buy some deodorant please....

"Ball, or aerosol?"

Neither, it's for my armpits....
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In North America, you can also get "stick" deodorant...
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Originally posted by: Laserman
Originally posted by: Moth3r
Originally posted by: Laserman
But anyway they will be different in that the PAL scene will be missing some of the picture, and will run at a different frame rate with the corresponding problem of everyone speaking as if they have had a very mild dose of Helium.
The audio on the UK VHS (and also I assume on the French Laserdisc boxed set with English audio) has been sped up with the pitch preserved, so the helium effect is no present.


True, but if you use the VHS audio, then you are missing out on the loveliness that is the PCM digital stereo track. The VHS audio is pretty good, but when you A/B it on my gear, the PCM track is definately preferred, and everyone stops rushing their lines ;^)


In my experience, if you are trying to preserve the audio as PCM on a DVD, you will be sacrificing space for the video. You would be better off going with DD audio conversion as I have found no noticable difference between this (at 224/256kbps) and PCM audio (1536 kbps) - it takes less space!!! You can easily tell the DD soundtrack file that it is Dolby Surround encoded. The non-encoding of the black bars also makes more space for the actual video too - on my current version I have managed to fit SW (DE) as WS on single layer DVD with bitrate of 6-7Mbps and DD audio (and a DD commentary track). Quality is really great!!!

I have to redo mine though as I did not correctly cater for the TV overscan in my first attempts and hence some of the WS picture is not displayed on a normal TV.

I'm sure the settings use for the X0 will be the optimum for best/ultra quality.

BTW, are you aiming for SL / DL / Blueray? I tend to steer away from DL as there are greater incompatabilities with existing desktop players than with the SL disks (ie technology is still a bit green - probably due to manufacturers of disks and burners not strictly adhering to the DVD spec!)

ntrprs
(Australia)
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"as I have found no noticable difference betwen this (at 224/256kbps)"

Will DVD accept a stereo AC3 signal above 192kbps?

<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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Originally posted by: MeBeJedi
"as I have found no noticable difference betwen this (at 224/256kbps)"

Will DVD accept a stereo AC3 signal above 192kbps?


It certainly will!
The upperlimit for bitrate is about 384kbps.
Lowest limit is 128kbps.

Take a look at lordsmurf's site as he has a nice summary:

http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/authorburn/intro.htm#audio

I generally use either 224kbps (equivalent to most MP2 audio streams from digital broadcasts) or 256kbps for most of my VHS->DVD archives.
The other trick is normalising the audio prior to encoding. A lot of commercial DVDs have soft audio compared with 'old' VHS or TV broadcasts. I normalise all mine to -2dB +/- 0.5dB (DVD standard states -2dB I think). This makes it a lot better and helps me when I need to filter out any noise.

ntrprs
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In my experience, if you are trying to preserve the audio as PCM on a DVD, you will be sacrificing space for the video. You would be better off going with DD audio conversion as I have found no noticable difference between this (at 224/256kbps) and PCM audio (1536 kbps) - it takes less space!!!

You may not be able to tell the difference, but a lot of people -- including myself -- can. I have a $1000 THX receiver and a good speaker system to compliment it. It's pretty easy to tell the difference between the two on a good quality audio setup. I'm not trying to bash on compressed audio formats (768k DTS is actually my favorite format), but nothing compares to the crisp clean sound of uncompressed PCM.

You're right about one thing though, a PCM soundtrack @1536k is not ideal for a single layer DVD. It would be ideal for a double layer DVD though, which is what we're aiming for.

My Projects:
[Holiday Special Hybrid DVD v2]
[X0 Project]
[Backstroke of the West DVD]
[ROTS Theatrical DVD]

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good point Zion,i to have a $1000.00 reciever with nice speakers and a 62' DLP Hidef Widescreen tv to compliment that,and i also notice a big difference with the nice crisp clean sound of uncompressed PCM.
DJ
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Yeah, there is an immediately noticable differencee, I've blind tested it on friends at my place a few times, and they always pick the PCM track.
But for a normal TV or 'all in one' surround system, the difference would be irrelevant.
I'll be keeping the PCM track, have no interest whatsoever in doing a SL disc, if anyone wants one they could alwyas dvdrecode or dvdshrink the thing.
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Thank you Laserman. PCM audio is one of the things that makes Laserdiscs superior to DVD (in some ways, and some particular issues), and I, for one, NEED a PCM track on my Ultimate Transfer. Frankly, I wouldn't care if the X0 was 11 gigs, and could only be stored on a drive or a Blu-Ray - this is the end-all be-all laserdisc transfer of Star Wars, and if it isn't a complete obliteration of existing versions, then what would be the point? Let me also add that I sincerely hope you encode the hell out of your finished product, as a simple 3 pass just doesn't cut it when you spend endless hours perfecting a transfer, only to have it look like garbage after encoding. The higher your starting bitrate, and the more compression the video will see, the more encoding becomes really integral - as I'm sure you well know. If you don't wish to do so, I would be more than happy to run your sources through my machine with 9 passes and a completely optimized Q factor, on a frame by frame basis. Because really, what's an extra 8 hours of encoding for something that took months to create? On that note, I'd also like to know if the straight transfer, in raw form, will be made available to quality maniacs such as myself? Anyway, keep up the good work guys, and we all cannot wait to see a finished product. Maybe merry Christmas?


"Knowledge Is Power, Hide It Well."
sigs are for teh gheys
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Originally posted by: bongloads
I'd also like to know if the straight transfer, in raw form, will be made available?

"Knowledge Is Power, Hide It Well."


Maybe you're answering your own question there...

Seriously, I think the guys running the X0 Project have to be quite careful not to piss off the powers that be while they work on their version. I'd guess telling everyone you're planning to hand out a copy of the raw file maybe isn't a bad way to get officially noticed by LFL and all its legal minions...

If I were in a position to answer your question, I think I'd rather say nothing at all (and hope similar questions would go away) than have to say "no". I wouldn't be at all surprised if Laserman et al feel the same.

I think we're going to have to be very patient here. There's lots of technical stuff to discuss and have fun with, without having to know immediately what's going to be released. I don't know about you, but I'm enjoying just reading about and pondering how to get the best out of a sort of lame source like LD. Most of the fun for me is the technical stuff; the release date (??) is almost irrelevant! As long as the discussion remains focused on the "how" aspect (rather than the "if" or "when"), there's no issue with legality.

I sometimes think I could do a better and faster job than the X0 Project -- but then I realize I'm free to try at any point, and haven't yet done so. Until I'm actually investing time and money and real effort into a better project, I figure I should just keep my mouth shut and enjoy the vicarious thrill of watching the X0 Project succeed.
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Originally posted by: ntrprs
It certainly will!
The upperlimit for bitrate is about 384kbps.
Lowest limit is 128kbps.

Upperlimit of 384? I encode in 448 kbps sometimes and it plays fine on my dvd player.

Normalizing to -2 db? Isn't that extremely loud?!?! Since 0 is the maximum?
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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You should use Sound Forge or Cool Edit to measure what the proper dialog normalization is for your audio.

This is a great Doom9 guide for properly encoding AC. Check out the 'Referencing Volume to a Known Level' section, it tells you all you need to know: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=56020

Dr. M

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Karyudo,
I couldn't disagree more. I think Lucasfilm would have popped our dear friends Dr. Gonzo, TR47, Rikter, and the like, long ago if the Laserdisc transfers were a concern. Just because they're doing it the best, means nothing. A Laserdisc transfer is for backup purposes only. Specifically, for the people who own them but either cannot play them on current hardware, or desire to have an archive version in case of loss or damage - which is perfectly legal. What's illegal is owning transfers and not owning the originals. Plain and simple. So if anything, they should be going after recipients, not creators - and that's highly unlikely. George Lucas doesn't give a hoot about us fans of the OOT (as he's made perfectly clear), nor does he care about the Laserdiscs. Generally, he doesn't care about his masterpiece in their true form. A raw cut of the transfer would be completely within the scope of a personal backup, probably even more so than an actual DVD, as it does nothing to affect DVD sales of the current version(which is total garbage).


And p.s : Laserdisc is anything but a "lame" form. In fact, many laserdiscs are known to contain higher video bitrates, and naturally, higher-quality audio than their DVD counterparts. As well as the fact that Laserdisc data is written via frequency modulation (like an LP), as opposed to the lackluster digitally-encoded video on a DVD, where the dreaded encoding problems can cause quality loss and significant errors in the video stream.



"Heresy grows from idleness."
sigs are for teh gheys
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Well, in Australia it is illegal to even 'backup' a CD or video - other countries may vary. I don't think it would wash that it was a backup of your discs either, unless it actually was *your* discs being backed up.

Laserdisc doesn't have a bitrate, so that is a bit of a mixed statement. Laserdisc doesn't suffer from MPEG artifacts, but seriously, an anamorphic well encoded DVD will beat an NTSC letterbox laserdisc unless there is something seriously seriously wrong with the DVD encode.

The audio isn't necessarily of higher quality either - many Laserdiscs and DVDs have the identical 5.1 soundtrack, bit for bit.
The reason *some* laserdiscs sound better (in 5.1) is that there was sometimes a different mix for the laserdisc and the DVD, and the DVD one was compromised to get a mix that would still sound 'good' when mixed back down to stereo or mono. ("Heat" is a good example of such a disc - the laserdisc has a much much better sound mix).

On your other statement re current bootlegs, and people not coming after them - I won't comment except to say I disagree.

The movie houses are getting more and more litigious, it is harder to go after copies of Laserdiscs because they had no form of 'copy protection' to break, so it is only the copyright breach (unlike DVDs which get covered by the DMCA in the US which makes it a crime to circumvent copy protection) but there is nothing to stop them coming after anyone, even after a long period of time.

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Originally posted by: Laserman
I don't think it would wash that it was a backup of your discs either, unless it actually was *your* discs being backed up.


I was just gonna chime in and say this, while it is technically legal to make a backup of your laserdisc, ts not enough to just own the disc and grab someone elses backup. the backup you have technically needs to come from your disc for it to fit into this category. so basically laserman is correct on the above quoted point.

-Darth Simon

Why Anakin really turned to the dark side:
"Anakin, You're father I am" - Yoda
"No. No. That's not true! That's impossible!" - Anakin

0100111001101001011011100110101001100001

*touchy people disclaimer*
some or all of the above comments are partially exaggerated to convey a point, none of the comments are meant as personal attacks on anyone mentioned or reference in the above post
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Allright then, let's just call it :

"For Evaluation Purposes Only, must be destroyed within 24 hours of reciept."

There is a number of ways to usurp the legalities in whichever country you reside, hence they market duplication hardware in the first place. Not to mention the fact that an anonymous post to newsgroups is completely untraceable to the originator, making you safer than an armoured car




"It is better to die for the Emporer than live for yourself."
sigs are for teh gheys
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"Well, in Australia it is illegal to even 'backup' a CD or vid"

Nobody had better not tell DanielB that - don't want him to think our country has something over his.

<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>