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Lensman - dvd preservation proposal (* unfinished project - lots of info *)

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 (Edited)

I just won the laserdisc for the anime movie Lensman off ebay. It’s not on dvd in any region and I’m wanting to convert this lost (and one of my favorite’s) title to dvd here soon. A friend of mine has an LD player and a nice standalone dvd recorder and I was thinking of doing 1 side per dvdr, a total of 4 dvdrs with both audio tracks to start out with to get the best quality. Then take the dvdrs, since the audio into 2 different streams, and make a dvd out of it. I just have my laptop so a capture card is kinda outta the question, and we figured that doing it this way would hold quality better. Then I’d make a menu and all that jazz later. I’ve never done this before, but I"m hoping it’s not too hard.

What I am in need of is someone to translate the yapanese audio track and someone else to time the subs. I might just end up hitting up a fansub group to do so, but I figured I’d check the OTT forums first. Anyone interested in either getting this when I ever get it done, or helping me out? Any help would be greatly apprecaited (from how-to’s to just bout anything).

Yapanese audio is on the digital channel, English on the analog, and it’s 4:3 video. I figured that a DL dvd would do both audio tracks and a sub stream (2 if the dub is drastically different, but I’ll come ot that bridge later).

What does everyone think?

I've got better things to do tonight than die! - Springer, Transformers the Movie

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Sounds like a good project. The Japanese LD is supposedly widescreen, but I've never been able to get my hands on a copy. I'm thankful the domestic disc has the Japanese track though. The English dub is mono and sounds like it was recorded on a cheap cassette deck! Would love to also get my hands on the tv series boxset that came out in Japan, but it's still too damn expensive.
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Yea, I lucked up and got the us ld for less then 18 with shipping. Someone has a tv series LD set for around $300 on ebay, which is too much for my blood atm. I have yet to even see the tv series, but hopefully someone will get it and sub it.

now I have a reason to get an LD player....hehe

I've got better things to do tonight than die! - Springer, Transformers the Movie

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Originally posted by: DrGonzo369
Yea, I lucked up and got the us ld for less then 18 with shipping. Someone has a tv series LD set for around $300 on ebay, which is too much for my blood atm. I have yet to even see the tv series, but hopefully someone will get it and sub it.

now I have a reason to get an LD player....hehe


There was a TV series? Dang.

I wish somebody would pick up for release or fansub the Japanese version of Starship Troopers. It was much closer to the book.
There's good in the Original Trilogy, and it's worth fighting for.
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
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A buddy of mine has I think 2 or 4 eps of Starship Troopers on fansubbed vhs. I have yet to see the Lensman tv series, but I want to even after reading terrible reviews. If I could get a copy of the 2nd movie (a compliation of the tv series), I'd be happy with just that.


hmm, seems the ld player I was gonna buy off a guy on Craigslist for $20 only does analog audio. My buddy's ld player does analog and digital and that's how we were gonna convert it to dvd, but I dont' have an ld player myself....just kinda defeats the purpose to have an analog only, I guess. "Pioneer CLD-1070 Laserdisc player in excellent condition, with remote. " guess beggers can't be choicers though. lol

I've got better things to do tonight than die! - Springer, Transformers the Movie

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got the LD in the mail yesterday. It is in pristine condition and freakin gorgeous. I'll hopefully have my ld player tommorow and will check out the quality of the video and all tommorow night after work or tuesday. Unfortunately, my buddy got rid of his standalone dvd-recorder, so I guess we're going to try a different method of "conversion" (some kind of capture card or something that is the norm for this). Anyone have any suggestions?

I've got better things to do tonight than die! - Springer, Transformers the Movie

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Originally posted by: DrGonzo369
got the LD in the mail yesterday. It is in pristine condition and freakin gorgeous. I'll hopefully have my ld player tommorow and will check out the quality of the video and all tommorow night after work or tuesday. Unfortunately, my buddy got rid of his standalone dvd-recorder, so I guess we're going to try a different method of "conversion" (some kind of capture card or something that is the norm for this). Anyone have any suggestions?

I'm planning on capturing a laserdisc onto my hd using my ATI 9800Pro All In Wonder

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my buddy is picking up some kind of dvdmagic box or something. Not sure if it's an actual capture card like the "All-in-Wonder" or not, but he'll have to cap it since I just have my laptop now. So Lensman is put on hold for a bit, unless someone on here has a better idea.

I'm taking offers for translators, typesetters, and script-timers, but nothing will be sent out until AFTER I can get the LD to dvd format. Also, how many people want DL vs SL? I was thinking DL for the higher quality, plus having 2 audio tracks, but OCP did 2 audio tracks on his Thief and Cobbler Recobbled dvd and it was SL, so SL might just be easier.

Also, I might do what OCP did and send my completed dvd to various anime companies in the US to have them see about releasing it on dvd in the US. Just a thought right now, but I'd love to own Lensman on dvd as well as LD.

Will post again after I check the disk hopefully tommorow or so for visual quality.

I've got better things to do tonight than die! - Springer, Transformers the Movie

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quote :"There was a TV series? Dang."

answer: yes there was in japan the movie was edited together out of the episodes.

It was released in the west dubbed in english.

The film has more in common with star wars than e.e. doc smith's lensman series though.

The best book being in my opinion Gray Lensman/ or grey lensman, and if you can afford the fifties fantasy press edition that is the best edition.

The film by the way is sort of an amalgamtion of galactic patrol and gray lensman.

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

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Well, the Lensman books begat Star Wars, and Star Wars begat the Lensman anime movie, so I thought it was a great movie all things considered (and my 3rd real anime I ever saw oh so many years ago after Nausicaa and Akira, it's is a favorite of mine). I have read the initial 6 books, and I think that book 2 is my favorite.

The LDs for the tv series on ebay are the first 6 eps and a making off for the movie. As much as I've love to get those, I simply can't afford it. I'm going to check with a few fansub groups I know members of to see if anyone of their people will translate it for me.

Should have my LD player in a few hours, but then I have to work until 11pm so it'll be tonight or tommorow before I watch the LD of the movie.

I've got better things to do tonight than die! - Springer, Transformers the Movie

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ok, just hooked up my first LD player, and discovered that yes virginia, it does do both analog and digital audio. Watched a few minutes of it in Yapanese, and now switched to the english track on the analog. The video is the best I've ever EVER seen this movie in, being crisp with just a few color leaks and a few "audio lines" or whatever they're called. it's definitely not "dvd quality" but damn is this gorgeous. I mean....I'm literally in awe at how beautiful this movie is....best I've EVER seen it look. It is 4:3, and I keep reading that the japanese ld is 16:9, but I'm not sure how true that is or how much of a big difference it is, so my dvd is gonna bea 4:3 tranfer.

Now it's just a matter of the actual conversion.

I've got better things to do tonight than die! - Springer, Transformers the Movie

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I'd be highly interested in this. I have a friend that would be intrigued as well.

For translators, you might want to try some of the fansub groups out there. I know Live-Evil, Digital Panic, Hero Legends, and ILA all specialise in oldschool. ILA is a ripping group though so I'm not sure if they've got translators. I'm not sure about Hero Legends. I'd say Live-Evil or DP are your best bets there. Other great groups to consider are The Triad, Anime Kraze, Solar, Froth Bite, Lunar, AonE and NLA. All are the best of the best.

There's a fansub comparison forum here: www.anime-planet.com You have to log in to see it though. Lots of fansubbers frequent it. You might also be able to pique interest is Hongfire.com.

I could possibly be able to time the subs as I've messed with that before, but I'm no pro. I can't translate either.

I'll cross post about this on my friends website. Maybe he'll know something.


Made for IE Forum's Episode III theme month - May 2005.

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I found a page earlier that has a script up, but isn't timed. timing wouldn't happen until after the LD is transfered to dvd anyways. It's not a "dubtitle" script, as alot of lines are completely different, which is a good thing. I'm gonna contact the guys in Live-Evil to see what they can do (I'm a "honorary member" of AonE and they already said no).

Now it's just me waiting on my friend to get his shit together for the conversion process, so this might be a while.....

I've got better things to do tonight than die! - Springer, Transformers the Movie

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Hello DrGonzo369, only now I saw this forum, IM29 years old, I love the Lensman movie, I didn’t know about the series, but I really interested in the movie, do you already have in DVD format?
I’m from Portugal, how can you send it to be? And how much euros for it?


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Padawan, padawan. Read the forum rules. Da Rules

By the way, awesome project, I would love to see a DL version of this.

FE<3OT

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welcome back to the forums dr. G have not seen you post here in a while LOL.


looking forward to your lensman project.


have you been sucessful in finding the comic scans and stuff? by the way a couple of the lensman books are now public domain and are up at project gutenberg for free in pdf and text as well as image files.

i'll find the links and get back to you.

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

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ok, since my buddy's raidZero drives decided to die on us, we had to wait for him to do his emergency build on his pc. Now that that is up and running, we'll hopefully get started on this yet again (stupid damn raidzero....).

It will happen the way I want it, I promise. I'm leaning towards both DL and SL, but we'll see.

I've got better things to do tonight than die! - Springer, Transformers the Movie

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Originally posted by: DrGonzo369
ok, since my buddy's raidZero drives decided to die on us, we had to wait for him to do his emergency build on his pc. Now that that is up and running, we'll hopefully get started on this yet again (stupid damn raidzero....).

It will happen the way I want it, I promise. I'm leaning towards both DL and SL, but we'll see.

I should've said something about this a while ago, but I do have a couple LD copies of Lensman I could contribute to this project if need be. I have both the Lumivision US release and the original Japanese Pony Video edition.

Please bare with the quality of these pics as I took them with my Playstation Portable's camera add-on...

http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/6449/dsc00006pe8.jpg
http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/4610/dsc00009hb2.jpg
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/751/dsc00007mh0.jpg
http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/5259/dsc00008kh8.jpg

I've also been working on a subtitle script for it as well that's been taking me quite some time to do (namely adapting an old script to be more adaptable for a regular subtitle one through a few subbing programs).
Yours truly,
Chris Sobieniak

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Could you possibly post a screencap from the Japanese disc? I've been curious about Lensman's proper widescreen aspect ratio for years now...

I'm still puzzled why the English dub on the Lumivision disc is so low-fi and mono. The movie posters for Lensman's limited U.S. release clearly have a Dolby Stereo credit on them.
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Originally posted by: SilverWook
Could you possibly post a screencap from the Japanese disc? I've been curious about Lensman's proper widescreen aspect ratio for years now...
I've made an LDrip though I had cut it to the exact ratio of the letterboxing as to remove the black otherwise, but here you go!

Here's shots from the Japanese LD...
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/5060/vlcsnap2888954kk6.png
http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/7881/vlcsnap2889327zr6.png
http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/3669/vlcsnap2890091xy4.png
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/1604/vlcsnap2891798mk3.png
http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/820/vlcsnap2892091em0.png
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/5867/vlcsnap2892585rw7.png
http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/9984/vlcsnap2893253qc4.png

I'm still puzzled why the English dub on the Lumivision disc is so low-fi and mono. The movie posters for Lensman's limited U.S. release clearly have a Dolby Stereo credit on them.

I know how you feel. I can only assume there was a mess-up in the telecining that gave us the copy used on those VHS editions that sounded terribly monophonic, hissy, and for some reason, too much blue intensity in the picture. My LD oddly seems to have a stereo soundtrack on it for the English track though, I can't explain it, but perhaps they went back and fixed it at some point, but I'm telling the truth!

Wait, I can prove it!
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=90XBF0N0

(not too perfect, it it's a last-minute deal)

I also have a few other things like the Japanese souvenir booklet from the film's release and the original Japanese theatrical poster.
Yours truly,
Chris Sobieniak

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Thank you so much for all of that! I may have to sync up that stereo track with my Laserdisc tonight.

Interesting it was apparently fixed. Even the version I taped off the SciFi channel in the early 90's had the same crappy mono track.

I think I like the credits on the Japanese disc better.

BTW, are you familiar with this fan site ?
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Originally posted by: SilverWook
Thank you so much for all of that! I may have to sync up that stereo track with my Laserdisc tonight.
There's a few points that might make it go out of sync, but it's mostly perfect (as I was originally going to sync it with the Japanese LD).

Interesting it was apparently fixed. Even the version I taped off the SciFi channel in the early 90's had the same crappy mono track.
Heh, being reminded SciFi Channel was mono on my cable service in the 90's as they were too cheap to have it in stereo at all (hadn't checked to see if it's in stereo right now).

Speaking of syncs, here's a Spanish language track I extracted from a VHSrip of the film I found elsewhere online (I assume it's Castilian dialect, but the visuals to it were the Streamline release).
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=GJPTKGTG

I think I like the credits on the Japanese disc better.

They are a lot better personally. I decided to clip the opening and ending from my Japanese LD to further show that!
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8D334H37

It's interesting at noticing how the opening prologue, as well as captions for the different places are written in English in the film itself, which I guess was mainly due to this having been based on the work of an American SciFi novelist and they wanted to preserve that sort of origin of the language (much like the recent anime "Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo" uses French in a few places).

BTW, are you familiar with this fan site ?

Yes, I've been there before. Probably were I had gotten the idea to do a fansub due to a movie script having being put up on there. The only problem though is getting it re-written due to it's exhausted use of adding in lines for character's moans, groans, yowls and other meaningless bursts.

Here's another nice gem to gander at, the first 10 minutes of the "Harmony Gold" version from the late 80's! Somehow both the movie and TV series was once in their hands, though the best they could do was two separate feature-length movies that might have been aired on TV or released on home video around the world. One was "Lensman: Secret of the Lens" (a dub of the movie with slight modifications in music, editing and dialog which I've heard was meant to make it closing to the books than what it was originally), and "Lensman: Power of the Lens" (a compilation of several episodes in the TV series "Galactic Patrol Lensman"). The copy I found of this on might've aired or was released on home video in Israel as it contains Hebrew subtitles on it.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1W4LXJYN
Yours truly,
Chris Sobieniak

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Toledo- I was thinking of preserving the Harmony Gold version as well (have an avi of it someplace which is clean), but I hated what they did to Worsel. They also had alternate audio in there, so it still might be worth doing (the parts as they wait for Bill to come home has new audio of Kim and Kris NOT in the Streamline dub). I still an hunting down the tv series complitation movie in any format.

As for SpaceShake, that's where I got my script from. I have the Lumivision LD (that's the one I won off ebay), and would kill for the jap LD. You suck. ^_~

Sounds like you've done more work then I've been able to on this so far. Widescreen = niiiice. I"m envious.

I think you've beat me to the punch. Good job, sir.

I've got better things to do tonight than die! - Springer, Transformers the Movie

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Originally posted by: DrGonzo369
Toledo- I was thinking of preserving the Harmony Gold version as well (have an avi of it someplace which is clean), but I hated what they did to Worsel.
Heh, hadn't gotten through this yet personally. Feel like I have to be in that mood to watch a crummy anime dub of the 80's to fully appreciate it somewhat (Worsel had a far better voice in the Streamline version obviously).

[quoite]They also had alternate audio in there, so it still might be worth doing (the parts as they wait for Bill to come home has new audio of Kim and Kris NOT in the Streamline dub). I still an hunting down the tv series complitation movie in any format.
Not sure if having new audio would mean a thing if it was an excuse to pad out the time in that scene with exposition (what Harmony Gold was famous for with Robotech). Being reminded of a few other things HG had in their hands at the time like Dragon Ball, Dr. Slump, Minky Momo, as well as the films "Birth" and "Windaria", both of which got re-edited and re-written into completely different movies altogether.

I do have an AVI of that TV series compilation too, though in Spanish.

As for SpaceShake, that's where I got my script from. I have the Lumivision LD (that's the one I won off ebay), and would kill for the jap LD. You suck. ^_~
I know I do! It cost me a little under $30 to get that from an HK seller. Too bad that fansite is slightly outdated if the guy stopped caring to maintain it for so long.

Sounds like you've done more work then I've been able to on this so far. Widescreen = niiiice. I"m envious.

True, I also tackled making a subtitle script if you like to check out the 30-40 minutes I managed to get through so far (in .ass format)...
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7GF5JFN8

The widescreen isn't too perfect, it's the typical "shoot-everything-in-full-frame-crop-the-top-&-bottom" method that we've seen or talked about in the past, but at least it makes it easier to get a anamorphic transfer if one ever happens.

I think you've beat me to the punch. Good job, sir.

Thanks.

Still haven't gotten this item off eBay...
LENSMAN - LD SPECIAL BOX
Yours truly,
Chris Sobieniak

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I think the Japanese credit video files may be corrupt.
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