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Making our own 35mm preservation--my crazy proposal — Page 8

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This is my first post to the originaltrilogy forum. Be gentle.

I have a special interest in this thread because I do a lot of 16mm film and obsolete video restoration for various organizations. The idea of restoring a 35mm print is intriguing. It might be worth considering building your own telecine unit. Now before you say "that's nuts", consider what this guy is doing: www.moviestuff.tv. His 16mm telecine units are selling like hot cakes, and they are very simple mods to existing 16mm projectors. All he has essentially done is replace the motor with a much slower one, and added a line out to plug into the mouse port of a computer. That allows the computer to grab the camera images frame-by-frame using existing stop-motion software. In fact, you could even use the existing cinecap software he recommends. The mod to a 35mm projector can't be much harder (heck, maybe that guy could help). It would have to be MUCH cheaper than buying a telecine unit. Then you could fiddle with different cameras, camera settings, lamps/lenses, etc. to get as clean a transfer as you can. It wouldn't be a rank transfer, but it could work, no?

"Close the blast doors!"
Puggo’s website | Rescuing Star Wars

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Originally posted by: Puggo - Jar Jar's "Yoda"
It wouldn't be a Rank transfer, but it could work, no?


Sure, it would work. But it is very complicated, very expensive, and very difficult to get good results. Not impossible, but not easy, either.

It's easy to outline a reusable, home-built spacecraft that can launch into orbit, land, and relaunch within a short period of time, too, but as the X-Prize has shown, there's a huge difference between outline and actually turning that simple outline into reality.

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The key here is getting results better than those that already exist. For which you're looking at pro scans I think.
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Sure, it would work. But it is very complicated, very expensive, and very difficult to get good results. Not impossible, but not easy, either.


Well, you're probably right. Although I'm not so sure that it would be that expensive. Time-consuming, yes, and I also imagine that most owners of 35mm projectors aren't eager to have some Star Wars fanatic dismantle it.

"Close the blast doors!"
Puggo’s website | Rescuing Star Wars

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I was kinda assuming buying a 35 mm projector as a necessary first step...

Hearing you have a Workprinter puts you several steps further down the road to success than I think I've ever seen or heard anyone else around here get. It'd be cooler to hear it was 16 mm and not 8 mm (you'd have PM by now), but it's pretty cool that you've found your way here and have joined right in!
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It'd be cooler to hear it was 16 mm and not 8 mm (you'd have PM by now), but it's pretty cool that you've found your way here and have joined right in!


Er, I have a 16mm Workprinter too! Anyone have a 16mm print they'd like telecined?
More to the point, would it be worth posting a new topic to bring up the possibility? I haven't been here very long, and I rather assumed that 16mm print(s) had already been transfered by fans. But if not, hey it sounds like it could be fun. I'm not sure I'd want to transfer everyone's 16mm prints, but if someone had a really good one...

"Close the blast doors!"
Puggo’s website | Rescuing Star Wars

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I think anyone with a 16 mm print would probably want to take the discussion private, which is usually accomplished by PM -- which you don't have turned on (because it's turned off by default)...
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Originally posted by: SilverWook
Someone on the HTF claims to own a 35mm print, but it's supposed to be in such a bad shape, they are contemplating tossing it out! http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/showthread.php?t=234933&page=95 From that thread (in a sig):See Han Solo Shoot First! Sept 12, 2006
But with 33% LESS RESOLUTION than all of your anamorphic DVDs
Some people amaze me. Anamorphic DVD's have 25% more resolution. But then again,

2.35:1 has approximately 326 lines PAL, and 432 lines for Anamorphic PAL (25% more).

But then again... Anamorphic NTSC has 365 lines (11% more then non-anamorphic PAL).

You can confirm this yourself:

here

Now I know the framing is slightly different, and that PAL is resized from NTSC resolution - but hey that's how the cookie crumbles.

Thus I conclude that this release has 11% less resolution then about half of my 2.35:1 anamorphic DVD's.

[ontopic]I doubt what comes out of a home-effort will look anywhere near as good the OUT[/ontopic]
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
Originally posted by: SilverWookBut with 33% LESS RESOLUTION than all of your anamorphic DVDs
Some people amaze me. Anamorphic DVD's have 25% more resolution.


Actually, you are both wrong: Anamorphic DVDs have 33% more resolution than non-anamorphic ones, and non-anamorphic discs have 25% less resolution than anamorphic ones. The math is extremely simple: 1.78/1.33 = 1.33; 1.33/1.78 = 0.75.

But at least SilverWook is arguing for better quality, rather than trying to prop up a piss-poor transfer by claiming resolution created through upsampling and across video formats reduces this number to an 11.9% difference. So, really, boris is "wronger."
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And Karyudo is a "righter."
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The heck? I wasn't arguing about video resolutions. (I got enough aggrivation.) I was pointing out someone over at HTF owns a 35mm print and is contemplating trashing it because of fading and wear. Someone on there want to ask the guy if he wants to sell it? If it's beyond salvage, we can give it a proper Viking funeral at the big SW con next year.
Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

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I apologize, SilverWook: it wasn't your quote I was referring to, it was the one in the thread over at HTF. It was boris alone who brought up the resolution issue. In which case it's boris and some other guy from HTF who are both wrong about the increase/decrease in resolution. Sorry to have dragged you into it.

Boris is still the one arguing that a lame NTSC-upsampled non-anamorphic transfer is only 11% worse than most of his other DVDs. That must be some pretty sad collection, technically speaking, since the OUT continues to have 25% less resolution than the entire rest of my collection of DVDs, and even has less resolution than more than 50% of my LD collection!
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The 33% argument also doesn't take into account the fact that this is a 1993 telecine made for Laserdisk, also with DVNR. So, accounting for those things, which in my opinion are far more significant than the anamorphic issue, the disks are probably closer to 40% or more in terms of actual visible quality. A non-anamorphic modern 2006 transfer is passable--but not a 1993 LD one.
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Originally posted by: Karyudo
Actually, you are both wrong: Anamorphic DVDs have 33% more resolution
We can do this mathematically if you like:

The claim was:

But with 33% LESS RESOLUTION than all of your anamorphic DVDs

Anamorphic NTSC is 365 lines, 1/3rd of that is 122, 365-132 is 233 lines... hmm, no the PAL disc has 326 lines, thus the statement must be wrong.

But then again, since you're comparing PAL->Anamorphic PAL, here goes:

326 lines for non-anamorphic PAL. 1/3rd of that is 109 lines. 326+109 = 435 lines... so you could say that when compared to non-anamorphic PAL that anamorphic PAL has 33% MORE lines... but that wasn't the claim. The claim was that it has 33% LESS lines then anamorphic PAL. His claim can be rewritten such: "non anamorphic disc = 2/3rds resolution of anamorphic DVD's". But 2*(432/3) = 288, far less then the 326 lines that the PAL disc has.

His claim was completely wrong. Especially considering it has only 11% less lines then anamorphic NTSC. And here's the proof for that. Anamorphic NTSC disc has 365 lines... 365 * 0.89 = 324.85, the PAL disc has 326 lines, Ergo it's 11% less then the anamorphic NTSC SSE 2004 DVD. Alternatively:
326/365 = 0.893 (approx).

Now, here's an interesting note, some of my anamorphic discs don't go all the way to the side of the picture. My OUT PAL Discs do. SOOO... if you were to compare to say an anamorphic NTSC disc which has 9 horizontal black lines to the left and right of the picture, then the total number of pixels would be (720-9*2)*363... or 254826 pixels. The PAL DVD has 720*326 pixels (234720 pixels).... 234720/254826 = 0.92. So this statement would be true:

The OUT DVD's have 8% LESS RESOLUTION than some of my anamorphic DVDs

Some of my NTSC discs have even more missing picture then just 9 lines on each side.
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
Originally posted by: Karyudo
Actually, you are both wrong: Anamorphic DVDs have 33% more resolution We can do this mathematically if you like:

The claim was:

But with 33% LESS RESOLUTION than all of your anamorphic DVDs

Anamorphic NTSC is 365 lines, 1/3rd of that is 122, 365-132 is 233 lines... hmm, no the PAL disc has 326 lines, thus the statement must be wrong.

But then again, since you're comparing PAL->Anamorphic PAL, here goes:

326 lines for non-anamorphic PAL. 1/3rd of that is 109 lines. 326+109 = 435 lines... so you could say that when compared to non-anamorphic PAL that anamorphic PAL has 33% MORE lines... but that wasn't the claim. The claim was that it has 33% LESS lines then anamorphic PAL. His claim can be rewritten such: "non anamorphic disc = 2/3rds resolution of anamorphic DVD's". But 2*(432/3) = 288, far less then the 326 lines that the PAL disc has.

His claim was completely wrong. Especially considering it has only 11% less lines then anamorphic NTSC. And here's the proof for that. Anamorphic NTSC disc has 365 lines... 365 * 0.89 = 324.85, the PAL disc has 326 lines, Ergo it's 11% less then the anamorphic NTSC SSE 2004 DVD. Alternatively:
326/365 = 0.893 (approx).


So, all that obfuscating math and prose just to show that I was right: anamorphic discs have 33% more resolution than non-anamorphic discs of the same format (the only reasonable way to compare).

Now, here's an interesting note, some of my anamorphic discs don't go all the way to the side of the picture. My OUT PAL Discs do. SOOO... if you were to compare to say an anamorphic NTSC disc which has 9 horizontal black lines to the left and right of the picture, then the total number of pixels would be (720-9*2)*363... or 254826 pixels. The PAL DVD has 720*326 pixels (234720 pixels).... 234720/254826 = 0.92. So this statement would be true:

The OUT DVD's have 8% LESS RESOLUTION than some of my anamorphic DVDs

Some of my NTSC discs have even more missing picture then just 9 lines on each side.


More obfuscation. You may be gaining picture area, but you are probably not gaining picture resolution. Especially if you're upsampling NTSC to PAL. I could start with VHS, upsample it to 1080p, and through your disingenuous, twisted logic, claim that this somehow had four times the resolution of DVD!

Give it up, boris: you are trying to argue something so stupid that it's not worth the effort to type it out. Your time would be far better spent doing the sort of research you did with the crawl.

Again, by definition, anamorphic DVDs have 33% more resolution than non-anamorphic discs; conversely, non-anamorphic DVDs have 25% less resolution than anamorphic ones. QED. No more trying to argue that a PAL upsample is somehow superior to the NTSC source it was upsampled from!

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Math problem:

If poster b is 100% wrong and poster K is 100% right, how much more right than poster b is poster K?
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Uhh... hmm...

...carry the four...

Is the answer 200%?
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I don't know, but I'm pretty sure it's more than 11%.
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Originally posted by: Karyudo
So, all that obfuscating math and prose just to show that I was right: anamorphic discs have 33% more resolution than non-anamorphic discs of the same format (the only reasonable way to compare).
Untrue, he was comparing to " all of your anamorphic DVDs"... not the other way round. If the OUT really had "33% LESS RESOLUTION than all of your anamorphic DVDs"... then the anamorphic version would have 50% more resolution then the non-anamorphic discs.

Q.E.D.
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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Time
Originally posted by: boris
Originally posted by: Karyudo
So, all that obfuscating math and prose just to show that I was right: anamorphic discs have 33% more resolution than non-anamorphic discs of the same format (the only reasonable way to compare).
Untrue, he was comparing to " all of your anamorphic DVDs"... not the other way round. If the OUT really had "33% LESS RESOLUTION than all of your anamorphic DVDs"... then the anamorphic version would have 50% more resolution then the non-anamorphic discs.

Q.E.D.


That is exactly what I wrote: anamorphic DVDs have 33% MORE resolution than non-anamorphic ones. The original poster was wrong, just like I said. 1.78 divided by 1.33 is still 1.33 -- that's 33% more where I learned math. And your explanation was overly complicated and obfuscating, just like I said. You don't need to worry about how many lines, yadda, yadda, yadda; you just need the display aspect ratios.
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Has there been any progress on this 16mm print scan?

The Star Wars trilogy. There can be only one.

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I had a friend i made via ebay who was gonna do a 16mm transfer of rotj then he dropped off the face of the earth. He lived in warsaw poland then went to college in germany and have not heard from him since.


he was also doing a telecine of spfx and the making of star wars in 16mm. I don't know if it was legal issues or just plain cost of doing a digital telecine of these projects that made it impossible.

Jambe also would know of the guy I am talking about, his screename /alias was maxiuca.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.