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Are the PAL GOUT DVDs upscaled from the NTSC masters? — Page 2

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Originally posted by: Moth3r
My ultimate dream for V2.0 would use colour-corrected shots from the 2004 version (which have been cleaned up without that damn ghosting), and only use the GOUT version where necessary. A sort of ultimate classic edition, if you like.


That would be the greatest version of the Trilogy ever if you could do that

"The Empire can't stop us now..now its our turn" -Luke-

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Originally posted by: boris
Honestly? No. Very little actually bugs me about this release, so I'm not going to let a little thing like that worry me.
Of course, someone who would describe the letterbox vs. anamorphic dilemma as a "little thing" wouldn't be bothered at all. Similar people couldn't care less about a potential significant improvement in video quality, so long as their widescreen display allows them to stretch their letterbox DVD horizontally to fill up the screen.

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

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Of course, someone who would describe the letterbox vs. anamorphic dilemma as a "little thing" wouldn't be bothered at all. Similar people couldn't care less about a potential significant improvement in video quality, so long as their widescreen display allows them to stretch their letterbox DVD horizontally to fill up the screen.
Zion, I'm not stupid. I've gotten so pissed off at seeing people here just dismiss the OUT as shit - before even seeing it - and then claiming that the crawl is recreated, that there should be PCM audio (name 1 official DVD with PCM audio?) whine, whine, whine. What would bother me is if we got an NTSC release, or an interlaced release.

But if you can't be happy with this Zion, if you can't be "mostly" happy with this release - then I doubt you'll ever be happy. I'm pretty sure that if they remastered it and released it in a pristine format I would be more disappointed due to the over-saturation, inconsistent colour, contrast and brightness that plagues the 2004 restoration.

It's good enough for me. And you know what? Personally - while I respect you Zion - I wonder how it could possibly be worth it to you spending soo much time restoring your X0 project, so that certain scenes may have a very slight edge over the OUT. I don't think it's worth that much time, blood sweat and tears. Also, I have more respect for Falle, Coov, Rikter and the other partakers in the SW covers thread - now that really is creative, and I think sometimes that it would never have existed if Lucas hadn't kept the OUT from us. And there's some great stuff in there - I've printed some of it too.

If you would rather spend 2000 hours restoring Star Wars from a laserdisc capture then to spend $20 to get the official DVD - well that's your choice. It wouldn't be worth it for me to do that, however... I have other hobbies which are more entertaining then removing defects frame by frame.

Anyway, I'm not trying to kill your passion for your project, I'm just saying my priorities are different, and if you can't see that then so be it - but I don't need to be flamed for my opinion.
Some were not blessed with brains.
<blockquote>Originally posted by: BadAssKeith

You are passing up on a great opportunity to makes lots of money,
make Lucas lose a lot of his money
and make him look bad to the entire world
and you could be well known and liked

None of us here like Lucas or Lucasfilm.
I have death wishes on Lucas and Macullum.
we could all probably get 10s of thousands of dollars!
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Originally posted by: boris
(name 1 official DVD with PCM audio?)
Star Wars: A Musical Journey bundled with the ROTS soundtrack CD

However, in practice you must take into account the “fuckwit factor”. Just talk to Darth Mallwalker…
-Moth3r

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Originally posted by: boris
I wonder how it could possibly be worth it to you spending soo much time restoring your X0 project, so that certain scenes may have a very slight edge over the OUT. I don't think it's worth that much time, blood sweat and tears. Also, I have more respect for Falle, Coov, Rikter and the other partakers in the SW covers thread - now that really is creative, and I think sometimes that it would never have existed if Lucas hadn't kept the OUT from us.


Gosh, you look at things in a weird way.

Soo... you respect people who have to spend no money at all to make covers that would never have existed "if Lucas hadn't kept the OUT from us," but you don't have as much respect for those people who spent their own money to start LD-to-DVD preservation projects (and thus provide the need for third-party SW covers) back when Lucas said he'd never release the OT on DVD?

Leech.

I see you sucking up to those people providing you stuff for free, and dissing those people who you now consider of no use to you. Making covers is creative and difficult, but it's not nearly as creative and difficult as making a top-notch LD preservation (which you'd know if you'd ever tried it). And the X0 Project Zion is part of is as top-notch as top-notch gets.

I am very much looking forward to the day when the X0 Project trumps any official release. Which I am now sure it can, and will (especially since it now has access to the GOUT discs in addition to all its other sources). I know you say you're satisfied with the GOUT release, but you'll be curious to compare, and I believe you'll have a tough time finding a sympathetic audience for your continued support of the GOUT as best-in-show.

I imagine if Lucas ever put out a collection of alternate DVD covers, you'd find another "creative" group to kiss up to, tossing cover makers in the bin along with LD preservationists, eh?


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Originally posted by: boris
Absolutely not! The picture may actually be greater quality, because they've stretched it (professionally) all the way to the sides of the display, whereas they haven't with the NTSC. Therefore, the thin black borders will distort the picture at the very edges right and left. Also the audio isn't a problem... technically they don't "speed it up" anymore anyway, what they do is they "stretch it" in a way that keeps the pitch consistent (rather then speeding it up, which raises the pitch slightly). Also, you get thicker scan-lines on NTSC which may bother some people, and the NTSC pulldown - which is far worse the speeding the movie up 1 frame per second.

Personally, I don't think it would be worth importing PAL if you live in NTSC-land either.


I've read what you're saying about "stretching the picture to the edges" on two threads now and still don;t know what you mean. Some comparison screen shots would help to clarify. I don't see how you can gain resolution when you are upconverting from NTSC to PAL size, no matter what gets cropped off the edges. Thats like saying if you crop a JPG image to a section in the middle of the images and then stretch that up to the original images resolution, the second imag will be better quality. That defies all "digital" logic, surely?!

You're wrong about the audio anyway, your statement saying "they don't "speed it up" anymore anyway" is totally false. It has been done (very very occasionally) in the past (ie the PAL Faces LD and VHS releases back in '93) but when you listen to the audio on a high fidelity system, it sounds rubbish. No audio engineer with a clue would choose time stretching over just letting the audio be sped up these days, it makes things like the orchestral score sound horrible. PAL Pitch Correction of film soundtracks is to audio what NTSC 3:2 pulldown is to video, both give awful results.

www.bardothodol.net

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I actually think this is worse than the non-anamorphic thing. Okay, the resolution difference is smaller, but there's a perfectly good PAL LD master that could have been used at no cost.
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Originally posted by: THX
...there's a perfectly good PAL LD master that could have been used at no cost.


I agree, but the PAL LD master isn't wholly without its own set of flaws. However, I think the PAL flaws would have been easier to fix by determined preservationists. It's sort of hard to unscrew four-eyed Stormtroopers...

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The PAL master tapes don't exist anymore.

Lucas cut them up when he made the Special Edition laserdiscs.

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?

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I'm guessing it's because more work was done on the NTSC version and that now represents the only official version of the OSAT.
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Originally posted by: boris
name 1 official DVD with PCM audio

There are lots of official dvds with PCM audio especially music dvds (the eagles, robbie williams, direstraits etc.), but not many movies because they're mostly multi channel.

Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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the NTSC has black areas at the sides the PAL doesn't, so it's the PAL version for me.
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Originally posted by: Karyudo
Leech.

I see you sucking up to those people providing you stuff for free, and dissing those people who you now consider of no use to you. Making covers is creative and difficult, but it's not nearly as creative and difficult as making a top-notch LD preservation (which you'd know if you'd ever tried it). And the X0 Project Zion is part of is as top-notch as top-notch gets.

I am very much looking forward to the day when the X0 Project trumps any official release. Which I am now sure it can, and will (especially since it now has access to the GOUT discs in addition to all its other sources). I know you say you're satisfied with the GOUT release, but you'll be curious to compare, and I believe you'll have a tough time finding a sympathetic audience for your continued support of the GOUT as best-in-show.

I imagine if Lucas ever put out a collection of alternate DVD covers, you'd find another "creative" group to kiss up to, tossing cover makers in the bin along with LD preservationists, eh?
I meant no offence. I do have respect for Zion, as I've explained.

pupil:

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/6279/19oi2.png

As you can see, the picture doesn't go all the way to the sides on the NTSC version, and there's some slight distortion over the picture (introduced from compression next to the black borders) which is eliminated when the picture goes all the way to the sides, it seems to have affected the left-hand-side more then the right. These are both within the "tv safe" area anyway, so on a CRT Telle you won't see it anyway... but it's there. On a projection unit, plasma, or lcd you will see it, and the picture won't go all the way to the side of the frame. Many DVD's are like this though.
Some were not blessed with brains.
<blockquote>Originally posted by: BadAssKeith

You are passing up on a great opportunity to makes lots of money,
make Lucas lose a lot of his money
and make him look bad to the entire world
and you could be well known and liked

None of us here like Lucas or Lucasfilm.
I have death wishes on Lucas and Macullum.
we could all probably get 10s of thousands of dollars!
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Originally posted by: boris
Of course, someone who would describe the letterbox vs. anamorphic dilemma as a "little thing" wouldn't be bothered at all. Similar people couldn't care less about a potential significant improvement in video quality, so long as their widescreen display allows them to stretch their letterbox DVD horizontally to fill up the screen.
Zion, I'm not stupid. I've gotten so pissed off at seeing people here just dismiss the OUT as shit - before even seeing it - and then claiming that the crawl is recreated, that there should be PCM audio (name 1 official DVD with PCM audio?) whine, whine, whine. What would bother me is if we got an NTSC release, or an interlaced release.

But if you can't be happy with this Zion, if you can't be "mostly" happy with this release - then I doubt you'll ever be happy. I'm pretty sure that if they remastered it and released it in a pristine format I would be more disappointed due to the over-saturation, inconsistent colour, contrast and brightness that plagues the 2004 restoration.

It's good enough for me. And you know what? Personally - while I respect you Zion - I wonder how it could possibly be worth it to you spending soo much time restoring your X0 project, so that certain scenes may have a very slight edge over the OUT. I don't think it's worth that much time, blood sweat and tears. Also, I have more respect for Falle, Coov, Rikter and the other partakers in the SW covers thread - now that really is creative, and I think sometimes that it would never have existed if Lucas hadn't kept the OUT from us. And there's some great stuff in there - I've printed some of it too.

If you would rather spend 2000 hours restoring Star Wars from a laserdisc capture then to spend $20 to get the official DVD - well that's your choice. It wouldn't be worth it for me to do that, however... I have other hobbies which are more entertaining then removing defects frame by frame.

Anyway, I'm not trying to kill your passion for your project, I'm just saying my priorities are different, and if you can't see that then so be it - but I don't need to be flamed for my opinion.

I guess I struck the wrong chord there didn't I? OK, first of all, the second part of my comment was not intended to be directed at you. I was making a point that some people who don't see the anamorphic issue as a big deal also don't seem to care if they have to stretch the picture on their widescreen TV - or even notice for that matter. I did not intend to mean that you were one of those people. Personally, I can't watch anything in "fish eye" mode on a widescreen TV because it's way too distracting. Anytime my friends are watching a movie on TV, I'm the first one to point out if it's in the wrong aspect ratio, which is usually at first glance. Some people say they can't see any side effects of the DVNR like the ghosting shots I posted or the "4 eyed stormtrooper", but I notice that stuff all the time while I'm watching the films in regular motion. Did I "dismiss the OUT as shit" before I even saw it? In a way I did, yes. But if you go back and read what I posted, you'll note that I was the first person to point out that the DVNR would be present on these and, combined with the letterbox presentation, these were going to be subpar by today's standards. I was also one of the first to point out that these would be slightly more detailed than the even the PAL transfers, which was a good thing. So call me what you want - a vidophile, a quality nazi, whatever. I've been editing video for years as a hobbie - well before I ever got started on Star Wars. And to be honest, I'm in the X0 Project more for my own enjoyment than to please "fans". If people like what we do, that's great. If nobody else on the earth cared but us, it wouldn't change my attitude one bit.

The fact that they upscaled the NTSC video to create the PAL version means that they clearly had the time and resources to create a pseudo-anamorphic version. It especially bothers me that they didn't do it because I know how ridiculously easy the process is.

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

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I know this is going to sound like I'm a kiss ass....however; Zion, even though you are involved
in the X0 Project more for my own enjoyment than to please "fans"
I want to thank you for not writing us off either. We are grateful that you and the other X0 members are willing to share the results of all your hard work.....My God, without the X0 effort all we have left is the GOUT......excuse me....ever see a grown man cry?

I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.

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Originally posted by: Laserman
Is it just me or does the so called 'original' crawl on the PAL GOUT look errm completely new and CG?
LM, what's your opinion on the "grain" in the GOUT version? Present on the master or added during post?

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Originally posted by: Moth3r
Originally posted by: Laserman
Is it just me or does the so called 'original' crawl on the PAL GOUT look errm completely new and CG?
LM, what's your opinion on the "grain" in the GOUT version? Present on the master or added during post?


yep I too would be interested to hear what you have to say Laserman, as far as the technical aspects of the discussion on these forums go, I respect your opinion pretty much above all others. I read you also aren't at all pleased with the treatment that the PAL version was given, could you clarify a few points discussed here, ie, will the colour be inferior on the NTSC version compared to the PAL version (I'm not too sure what format the "master tape" was in so unsure as to what colour it would retain before conversion to MPEG2, would the master be 4:1:1 colour?), will the image in the PAL version be stretched vertically very slightly compared to the NTSC version? I also not convinced by Boris's arguments that the PAL version will have better detail than the NTSC version. In my mind upconverting resolution of a NTSC source to PAL will gain nothing in quality? (I get what you mean about cropping the black border though Boris, thanks for that)

Essentially, which would you buy Laserman, NTSC or PAL? I'm really rather sick of all the arguments with OT Star Wars now, I just want to get the best version and then leave this whole thing alone.

thanks

www.bardothodol.net

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Who remembers this shot, posted by Citizen ages ago:

Originally posted by: Citizen
But first a comparison, cropped non-scaled caps of the definitive collection vs the German THX collection:
http://www.haku.co.uk/pics/StarWarsLDjaggy2.jpg
http://www.haku.co.uk/pics/StarWarsLDjaggy4.jpg
Is this the "aliasing" that is being reported on the GOUT version?

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Is this the "aliasing" that is being reported on the GOUT version?


http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/9657/clipboard01fz3.jpg

http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/2571/clipboard02gl2.jpg
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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I reckon it is. All the more reason the THX PAL master should have been the GOUT master - no potentially flawed IVTC and good enough resolution to make a good anamorphic NTSC upscale.
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Moth3r, I would love to see you do another version, and STAY away from the GOUT when you do it.

There is far more detail in the captures that you made from the pal discs and much less noise, and from what i gather you think you could reduce that even more if you made another transfer!

Something very strange has happend to the resolution in the gout this especially show in vertical and diagonal lines, I can see more detail in every shot in you transfer compared to the gout, I thinks its just an illusion of the higher coulour contrast that give the impression that the gout has a crisper image. Perhapes if you colour corected one or your shots to match the gout you might show this more clearly?


While talking about loss of detail in diagonal lines, I have noticed on ntsc transfers some very jagged star destroyers in the opening flyover, - Zion the X0 fly over clip was beautiful! the cleanest availible, but i did notice the jagged line on the side of the star destroyer still, I wondered if you had thought about trying to improve this at all,( is the correct term anti aliasing? i'm not sure how to put it.)

Regards to all,

Wookie Monstrer
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I've taken a look at the grain on the GOUT for ANH and it is consistent with the film stocks used, so I'd take a punt and say it was present on the master.

The problem is threefold.

1) They have used the pressing master instead of the telecine master.

2) They have used the NTSC pressing master.

3) They have used the post 'noise/dirt reduction' master.

The reason the pressing master is a problem is that laserdisc is notoriously 'soft' and so were the televisions of the day.
So when making an LD pressing master it was not at all unusual to crank up the sharpness and do some edge enhancement as well, in the hope that the laserdisc would then look more detailed.

When using it to master a DVD the problem is that the sharpening and EE used is of course old technology and has the side effect of causing edge ringing and making the grain jump out at you and punch you in the face. Some DVD players also have sharpening 'built in' and many people have the sharpening function on their TV cranked to 100 as well. This combination makes the grain near unwatchable. Turn off any player and TV sharpening and it gets a little better, but is still too much.

Using the NTSC pressing master brings a few problems with it, most of which are just due to the very low resolution of letterbox NTSC, and the over zealous sharpening routines. Jaggies are completely unavoidable when you have less than 280 lines to work with and if you then sharpen it further.

There also appears to be some 'field wobble' in the NTSC telecine process. This can happen if the telecine device uses a field based (interlaced) camera instead of a progressive scan one (non interlaced). This can also happen for other reasons, but this is one possible cause.
What can happen is the film frame can move slightly inbetween the capture of field one and field two, which means the fields end up out of alignment slightly.
This is definately the case with the star destroyer (that the fields are misaligned - the cause of the misalignment is up for debate), and it can be fixed somewhat by selecting out each field and moving one field in relation to the other by a sub-pixel adjustment to get them back in alignment.
It is a technique we used on the X0, the final shot of the star destroyer is much improved.

The use of the post 'dirt reduction' master adds insult to injury with the ghosting, smearing and loss of detail.

As for which one I would buy, I bought the PAL GOUT of ANH, and after taking a look at it posted it to George along with a letter stating my disappointment at how the PAL territories have been treated with this release. (Didn't mention the whole laserdisc thing, just that a PAL upscale from an NTSC master was an unaccetably cheap way to treat fans when a PAL master existed.)

I have ordered the NTSC version but it hasn't arrived yet.

So I haven't sighted the NTSC version yet, but the PAL version was obviously an upscale, and if you wanted to have a PAL anamorphic version for your own personal viewing pleasure it makes more sense to get the NTSC version, upscale it to PAL anamorphic, run it through combustion's grain reduction along the way, and pop the PCM audio track or the 5.1 track on there to your preference.

It is not surprising that the PAL laserdiscs have more detail in places than the NTSC upscaled GOUT, you are starting off with a lot more lines of resolution and what appears to be a lighter dirt reduction treatment. You have the generational loss with laserdisc (which
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Originally posted by: Laserman
As for which one I would buy, I bought the PAL GOUT of ANH, and after taking a look at it posted it to George along with a letter stating my disappointment at how the PAL territories have been treated with this release. (Didn't mention the whole laserdisc thing, just that a PAL upscale from an NTSC master was an unaccetably cheap way to treat fans when a PAL master existed.)
How do you know that the PAL master is all it's said to be? After reviewing screenshots I don't think the PAL LD's have more picture detail in most scenes... and only have the edge in a couple of scenes... so wouldn't it be possiblethat overall the "PAL" mastertape has less detail?
Some were not blessed with brains.
<blockquote>Originally posted by: BadAssKeith

You are passing up on a great opportunity to makes lots of money,
make Lucas lose a lot of his money
and make him look bad to the entire world
and you could be well known and liked

None of us here like Lucas or Lucasfilm.
I have death wishes on Lucas and Macullum.
we could all probably get 10s of thousands of dollars!
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Absolutely not, look at the NTSC laserdiscs vs the PAL laserdiscs if you want to compare.

The fact that even compared to the NTSC master tape that the PAL laserdisc transfers (with three generational losses - tape to LD to capture card to recompress to DVD) still have more detail than the GOUT in some scenes categorically means that the PAL master has more detail than the NTSC one.
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Originally posted by: Laserman
Absolutely not, look at the NTSC laserdiscs vs the PAL laserdiscs if you want to compare.
OK, so am I to believe that *you* put an NTSC laserdisc through your Japanese model Pioneer-X0 laserdisc player because it would give you better quality then using a PAL release with a PAL player... but that the same scenario (ie-that the NTSC master-tapes are better quality then the PAL ones) isn't possible with LFL?
Some were not blessed with brains.
<blockquote>Originally posted by: BadAssKeith

You are passing up on a great opportunity to makes lots of money,
make Lucas lose a lot of his money
and make him look bad to the entire world
and you could be well known and liked

None of us here like Lucas or Lucasfilm.
I have death wishes on Lucas and Macullum.
we could all probably get 10s of thousands of dollars!