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The Phantom Menace -Theatrical Version - NTSC DVD- ADYWAN - NOW AVAILABLE

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 (Edited)

While having a short break from ESB:Revisited I decided to recreate the theatrical version of EP 1 as this is another version of a Star Wars movie that has disappeared into obscurity and is only available on VHS, laserdisc or a slightly better quality TV broadcast version. For this i am using my colour corrected 1080p HDTV as a source and the TB PAL theatrical broadcast DVD. Here is the specs of the DVD so far:

Video: 720 x 480 NTSC DVD-9
Audio: 5.1 Dolby Surround sound taken from the Japanese laserdisc
Subtitles: English (forced), English

Full motion menus

Extras: Isolated music score track
           Teaser trailer
           Theatrical trailer
           Duel Of The Fates Music video - Revamped (with choice to have music only,with added dialogue & new rock version)
           Music of Episode 1: short John Williams featurette

 

Now the main video and audio sides of things is complete along with the majority of the DVD authoring.

I am revamping the Duel of the fates music video by using better quality movie footage from my colour corrected version and it will be presented in 2:35.1 with the original BTS footage re-framed for this.

 

I won't be posting any physical copies of this so please don't ask. It will be freely available through usenet in the usual group from Tuesday 21st July 2009

There is a very minor problem with the DVD: if you select the movie through the chapters menu the forced subs fail to show. It was a problem with the authoring software.  If going through the chapter menu just select the first subtitle track using our remote then the forced subs will show. There forced subs work perfectly when playing the movie via the main menu and options menu

 

ANH:REVISITED
ESB:REVISITED

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adywan said:

Audio: 5.1 Dolby Surround sound

Untouched from the Japanese laserdisc, yes?

BTW you're not really supposed to request things on this forum that are available on retail DVDs, but seeing as you have already bought the R2 disc I'll let you off this time... ;-)

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Moth3r said:
adywan said:

Audio: 5.1 Dolby Surround sound

Untouched from the Japanese laserdisc, yes?

Unfortunately , no. The laserdisc audio isn't as good as the OT laserdisc 5.1 tracks. It has some really bad volume compression/ dampening , similar type to an auto volume level filter, on the FL & FR channels.  I used the laserdisc audio only for the theatrical sections. The main audio i used was the Retail DVD which was much better.

Moth3r said:

BTW you're not really supposed to request things on this forum that are available on retail DVDs, but seeing as you have already bought the R2 disc I'll let you off this time... ;-)

Oops, sorry.

 

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ESB:REVISITED

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That's interesting. Everyone on Ebay raves about the TPM 5.1 track and how good it is. Maybe just a good sales trick...

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yeh, its strange because the OT SE discs are so good. The volume fluctuates so bad. You can here the compression kick in on some of the louder parts and then the volume slowly increases. . Only the 5.1 track suffers with this. the 2.0 track is fine. It's nothing to do with my setup either because i ripped TPM's audio at the same time as i did the SE OT's and they were fine. Attempted a second rip and that's still the same.

Here's a quick 5.1 AC3 sample that shows what i mean

http://rapidshare.com/files/256771696/tpm_laserdisc_5_1_audio_sample.ac3

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gltaylor74 said:

When comparing the Star Wars Episode I DD DVD (at 448kbps) to the DD on the LD (at 384kbps) it is no contest. The LD is far more agressive of a mix and faithfully represents the theatrical viewing experience that I had. The DVD sounds "dumbed down" so to speak.

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Superbit/topic/4794/

So who's right?

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Its a strange thing indeed. it seems to be side 3 that suffers the most. some scenes are fine while others suffer highly. I may see if i can fix this issue, or at least make it less noticeable or if that doesn't work i may just stick it on the DVd for preservation sake. the laserdisc mix is slightly better than the DVD but the dampening problems just stick out like a sore thumb to my ears.

 

EDIT: just done a short rerecord of the laserdisc 5.1 but this time i recorded it with the soundblaster X-FI crystalizer enabled and this seems to have cured a lot of the problems and also made the whole mix amazingly better. I think i may well go with the laserdisc audio for this project now if all goes well with the whole recording

 

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This is fantastic, Ady!

I have the NTSC R1 DVD, I'll see about ripping the music video for you.  Be ready for a PM later today.

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adywan said:

EDIT: just done a short rerecord of the laserdisc 5.1 but this time i recorded it with the soundblaster X-FI crystalizer enabled and this seems to have cured a lot of the problems and also made the whole mix amazingly better. I think i may well go with the laserdisc audio for this project now if all goes well with the whole recording

Woah just a minute, I'm sorry but alarm bells are ringing now.

When you "record" an AC-3 stream off laserdisc surely the stream that you end up with is bit-for-bit identical to the digital data stored on the laserdisc?

The "sound" that comes over the SPDIF is effectively just "noise" (as it's encoded digital data). So how would running it through a proprietary processing system improve it?

Oh and BTW I Googled X-Fi and found this:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=54212

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This sounds cool Ady, but which theatrical version? ;)

-G

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Wasn't there only one theatrical version of TPM?  I know AOTC had three (35mm, DLP, IMAX), and I've read that ROTS may have had some differences between the 35mm and DLP version, but I didn't think TPM had any different versions besides theatrical and DVD.

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There were a few prints of TPM that got out showing Maul falling in one piece. They were recalled after the first week or so. This was done as a PG-safe alternate.

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Moth3r said:
adywan said:

EDIT: just done a short rerecord of the laserdisc 5.1 but this time i recorded it with the soundblaster X-FI crystalizer enabled and this seems to have cured a lot of the problems and also made the whole mix amazingly better. I think i may well go with the laserdisc audio for this project now if all goes well with the whole recording

Woah just a minute, I'm sorry but alarm bells are ringing now.

When you "record" an AC-3 stream off laserdisc surely the stream that you end up with is bit-for-bit identical to the digital data stored on the laserdisc?

The "sound" that comes over the SPDIF is effectively just "noise" (as it's encoded digital data). So how would running it through a proprietary processing system improve it?

Oh and BTW I Googled X-Fi and found this:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=54212

Thats how i originally recorded the audio,bit for bit through the optical front input of my sound card,  which didn't have a great result, but this time i tried a different approach and recorded it using "what you can hear" with the crystalizer enabled and the difference is amazing. it still has the obvious auto volume effect, but to a lesser degree and the clarity is so much better

That link is for the cheaper x-fi xtreme audio card. The one i have is the fatality which has a different chipset. I've never listened to all the hype about this range of cards. i got it just because it had the front input bay with optical input & output , coaxial input & output, midi, full size microphone jack & standard phono inputs and it was on offer at half price when i got it. i have to say though that it is a damn good soundcard now they fixed the drivers bug when it first came out. The crystalizer really does improve the audio on many sources. You want to hear the ROTJ soundtrack through it. no more muddy sound

And thanks ChainsawAsh :)

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Edit:

It's ok i just nominated myself for the biggest dick head award. The original bit for bit recording is fine. I had recently updated the drivers for the soundcard and there's an extra feature that doesn't seem to be linked with the main audio control panel and this one has extra effects. turns out that the problem lay within one of the new filters for playback. In the main panel all effects are disabled but in the new one there was a few new ones that were enabled by default. So the final DVD will have the bit-for-bit  laserdisc audio after all. I feel such a bloody idiot :(

 

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So your using the soundblaster after the demodulator to rip the ac3 audio then ? What laserdisc player do you have by the way.

Laserdisc for life, Denon LA3500, Sony C2ex/+\Mdp999 “Hercules”
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zombie84 said:

There were a few prints of TPM that got out showing Maul falling in one piece. They were recalled after the first week or so. This was done as a PG-safe alternate.

 

 

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I thought that was just for pre-screenings, and all the final release prints were the split-in-half version?  If that's the case, it doesn't really matter that much and the one-piece-fall version is just a curiosity, since many movies are tweaked here and there between pre-screenings and general release.

At least, that's the way I look at it.

And Ady, glad to know you got the link - hope it helps out.

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Sluggo said:
zombie84 said:

There were a few prints of TPM that got out showing Maul falling in one piece. They were recalled after the first week or so. This was done as a PG-safe alternate.

 

 

 

 Ha! I've always heard about this but never saw a screen cap or video! Thanks! :D

SSWR’s YouTube channel

Attack of the Clones: Alternate Timeline Edit Thread:
https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/SSWRs-Attack-of-the-Clones-Alternate-Timeline-Edit/id/66888

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Ady, Go easy on yourself - using Creative[tm] hardware is like banging your head against a brick wall sometimes.

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adywan said:

Edit:

It's ok i just nominated myself for the biggest dick head award. The original bit for bit recording is fine. I had recently updated the drivers for the soundcard and there's an extra feature that doesn't seem to be linked with the main audio control panel and this one has extra effects. turns out that the problem lay within one of the new filters for playback. In the main panel all effects are disabled but in the new one there was a few new ones that were enabled by default. So the final DVD will have the bit-for-bit  laserdisc audio after all. I feel such a bloody idiot :(

I'm just glad you discovered where the problem lay. Reminds me of a similar problem I had a while ago - I couldn't work out why LAME was missing off the first half a second on my MP3 encodes, and it turned out to be a DirectShow filter causing playback problems.

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The Dolby Digital 6.1 Ex soundtrack for Tpm laserdisc is one of the best ever put on laserdisc, straight from the theatrical master. Most of the audiophiles who know used high end equipment to demodulate and decode it. Dvd is another story because its all digital and dont change much from one player to another leaving little room for difference. It is the same story with mission impossible wich i checked myself, the laserdisc got more of a cinema feel to it. Lack of reauthoring and compressing the tracks again for dvd is the likely culprit.

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I hope Ady now uses the uncompressed laserdisc sound for the eventual HD clean-up version.  :)  I'm sure he'll have to compress it for this DVD release so as to get the best possible audio/video presentation.

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Dolby Digital on laserdisc is still compressed. (In fact, AC3 on LD at 384kbps is actually more compressed than a standard 448kbps AC3 track on DVD).

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