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Idea: 'Star Wars - Droids' animated tv series - preservation ideas

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Hello,

I am considering doing a preservation of the Droids TV series. My ideal plan is to get as many of the episodes as possible in both NTSC and PAL formats and do separate simultaneous preservations, so that I can minimize any conversions between standards. I’d also like to get the soundtracks in as many languages as possible so that I can do alternate audio tracks.

I know of the following sources:

The White Witch - NTSC VHS (English, Japanese), PAL VHS (English, Italian, German, French?)

Escape Into Terror - NTSC VHS (English, Japanese), PAL VHS (English, Italian, German, French?)

The Trigon Unleashed - NTSC VHS (Japanese), PAL VHS (English, Italian, German, French?)

A Race to the Finish - NTSC VHS (Japanese), PAL VHS (English, Italian, German, French?)

The Lost Prince - NTSC VHS (English, Japanese), PAL VHS (English, German, French?), NTSC DVD (English), PAL DVD (English, French)

The New King - NTSC VHS (English, Japanese), PAL VHS (English, German, French?), NTSC DVD (English), PAL DVD (English, French)

The Pirates of Tarnoonga - NTSC VHS (English, Japanese), PAL VHS (English, German, French?), NTSC DVD (English), PAL DVD (English, French)

The Revenge of Kybo Ren - NTSC VHS (English, Japanese), PAL VHS (English, German, French?), NTSC DVD (English), PAL DVD (English, French)

Coby and the Starhunters - None?

Tail of the Roon Comets - NTSC VHS (English, Spanish, Japanese), PAL VHS (English, German, French?), NTSC DVD (English), PAL DVD (English, French)

The Roon Games - NTSC VHS (English, Spanish, Japanese), PAL VHS (English, German, French?), NTSC DVD (English), PAL DVD (English, French)

Across the Roon Sea - NTSC VHS (English, Spanish, Japanese), PAL VHS (English, German, French?), NTSC DVD (English), PAL DVD (English, French)

The Frozen Citadel - NTSC VHS (English, Spanish, Japanese), PAL VHS (English, German, French?), NTSC DVD (English), PAL DVD (English, French)

The Great Heep - NTSC VHS (Spanish), PAL VHS (English, German, French?)

Note: The DVD releases are edited into feature-length movies and feature a modified soundtrack. Some assumptions: The Spanish releases are from Mexico, so I’m assuming they are NTSC. I’m making a similar assumption for the Japanese tapes. I’m also assuming that all the non-English sources have new audio tracks, and aren’t just subtitled. If anybody knows differently, please let me know.

So, does anybody know of any other sources that are out there? Does anybody have any suggestions if I go through with this project? I’m looking at capture options now and I’m leaning towards the ADVC-110, but I’m open to alternate suggestions.

If this happens, it will most likely be a fairly long-term project (mostly because getting ahold of all the necessary sources will be fairly expensive).

Thanks for your help!

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It shouldn't be too expensive, all the UK PAL videos are available from sellers pretty cheap on Amazon.co.uk

And if you want to preserve the best quality of each one possible, you can re-edit the DVDs back into seperate stories for the most part.

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Oh I'd love that. I have a few DVDs filled with the complete runs of Droids and Ewoks that I got before they were officially available. The quality isn't that great but at least they're as they were originally presented. I wasn't pleased with the edited together/down versions they eventually released. So a project that combines everything together for the best quality would be terrific! =D

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where did you get the officially released Ewoks series?

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It's available plenty of places, Amazon for one thing.
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I have a bootleg set of all the Droids 'toons I picked up at a convention, gotta be 10 years ago, maybe more.  Not the greatest quality, being VHS and bootleg, but if you can't find another source for "Coby", it may be the only way to go.

My outlook on life - we’re all on the Hindenburg anyway…no point fighting over the window seat.

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Do the elements exist to recreate the original "Ewoks Droids Adventure Hour" format?

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Where were you in '77?

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SilverWook said:

Do the elements exist to recreate the original "Ewoks Droids Adventure Hour" format?

 

Yes in the vaults at skywalker ranch which is really the whole problem,lol.

Well i don't know that for certain, the masters could have been lost in canada somewhere because Nelvana produced them.

Not sure about rights issues either regarding the theme songs to the shows, and who owns the copyright to all the episodes.

It can't be because of having to pay hefty royalties to Anthony Daniels. Who probably was paid a one time fee for the voice work.

“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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love the idea, you got a pm ;)

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Thanks for the support everyone. The Adventure Hour is a sweet idea that hadn't crossed my mind. I have no idea how that could be done w/o masters and/or somebody's old home videos, but a cool idea nonetheless.

I'm definitely still interested in any other ideas you might have, so keep em coming.

BTW, I currently own a PAL VHS w/ the first four eps, NTSC VHSes with eps 1, 2, 5 and 6 and an NTSC DVD of the two spliced together TV movies (all English). Getting the other sources in English shouldn't be too expensive, as Darth Venal said. The expensive/difficult part is getting all the foreign-language stuff.

I will post back here (possibly infrequently) with any progress.

Thanks again!

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What is the quality of the PAL videos you can purchase off of amazon uk's marketplace or ebay?

I know the US only got a couple of tapes in the 80's

I mean official tapes have  to be better than the bootleg taped off the sci fi channel broadcasts in very low quality almost unwatchable.

If you are really lucky someone out there hopefully taped the first broadcasts in Betamax SP mode on a quality tape, as the vhs recordings done in the late 90's really suck.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Droids-Great-Heep-Anthony-Daniels/dp/B00008T6DH/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=video&qid=1250693007&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Droids-1-VHS-Anthony-Daniels/dp/B00008T6DD/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=video&qid=1250693007&sr=1-3

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Droids-Vol-VHS-Anthony-Daniels/dp/B00008T6DF/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=video&qid=1250693007&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Droids-3-VHS-Anthony-Daniels/dp/B00008T6DG/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=video&qid=1250693007&sr=1-4

They all seem to say copyright 1985.  I had hoped maybe they had remastered re-issues in the 90's like the making of material for the star wars trilogy, looks like i remembered wrongly.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_TV_home_video_releases

This wiki covers at least the english releases in pal and ntsc, nothing on foreign beyond the uk i'm afraid.

“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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i haven't watched my PAL vid yet so i can't speak to the quality, but it is indeed from 1985.

according to http://www.lucasfan.com/ewdr/vanhoof.html there were dutch dubbed versions as well, though i have no idea if these were released.

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It can be a blind shot in the dark, but keep checking ebay auctions for odd lots of Betamax tapes. Sometimes you can read the labels. And sometimes the seller will list what's on them.

I don't know if thrift stores bother with Beta anymore, but that used to be a good place to look several years ago.

 

 

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Where were you in '77?

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SilverWook said:

It can be a blind shot in the dark, but keep checking ebay auctions for odd lots of Betamax tapes. Sometimes you can read the labels. And sometimes the seller will list what's on them.

I don't know if thrift stores bother with Beta anymore, but that used to be a good place to look several years ago.

 

 

 

 

that sounded like a good idea and, while i didn't have success per se, i did find a guy with an italian version of one of the ewoks movies -- "L' AVVENTURA DEGLI EWOKS". ha! (not sure if links to auctions are ok here, but he shouldn't be hard to locate if you're interested).

 

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hi,

i just saw that angrysvn did a preservation of this. has anybody seen that? i'm wondering what the quality is like and whether it's worth me duplicating that work.

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newt said:

hi,

i just saw that angrysvn did a preservation of this. has anybody seen that? i'm wondering what the quality is like and whether it's worth me duplicating that work.

 

I have it and the quality is shit, with aplologies to Rikter, but i am being honest.  I don't think these were his transfers but he was the first person i believe to archive them all in a single disc.  Single layer i think, though i don't have the disc in front of me but for an entire season of a cartoon that is low quality, if i remember most of the episodes are either youtube quality or worse in some cases unwatchable.

At one point he was going to do a version 2 of this and do the ewoks too from pal tapes from the uk, but then afterwords said this was good enough or he lost interest.

The preservation i believe is from online showings from cartoon notwork and the sci fi channel tv re-broadcast in the 90's, and most likely old taped off of tv vhs.  None of them are even close to professional store bought vhs pre recorded tapes, were talking like low quality xvid with mp3 audio, dodgy audio and picture.

At least they have the original opening song, which i my opinion is awful as most eighties tv cartoon themes for Saturday morning were painfully cheesy.

I don't think the great heep was ever rebroadcast beyond the one time it was shown in the usa, we also never had it on tape either but the uk got it.  You know the Episode supposedly written and directed by Ben Burtt, i have heard it was awful and better off forgotten like the holiday special.

“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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thanks. it sounds like i should keep on trucking, then.

i guess i'll keep my eyes out for a copy of his dvd, in case it turns out there are any interesting differences between the broadcast and VHS versions or interesting bonus features or anything.

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Well if you can find someone with a dvdr copy that has not succumbed to rot of the dye layer, how many years ago was that Rikter project?

“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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I have a copy of Rikter's disc. I'm pretty sure it will still copy. Maybe I'll give it a CRC test now. And yeah, skyjedi is right, it looks like shit.

EDIT: Yeah, my disc is still good.

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Hi everybody. You’re all awesome. Keep up the good work.

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hi everyone,

i thought i'd give you a quick update on this project. i currently have:

  • the dvds in ntsc and pal, with english, french, and japanese audio
  • the 'pirates & the prince' "movie" on ntsc vhs
  • episodes 1, 2, 5 and 6 on ntsc vhs in english (the j2 releases). these are in good shape, and look nice for vhs.
  • the complete series, except ep 9 and the great heep, on pal vhs in english (the cbs fox releases). two of these won't play in my vcr and are giving me error messages. the other looks kind of bad, with all sorts of scratchy video, audio glitches and tracking problems.
  • en route, but not in hand: the complete series (except coby) on ntsc vhs in japanese
  • a bad quality download of ep 9

 

in addition to all that, i've also found a bunch of the foreign language audio online:

  • the dvds in spanish
  • the great heep and eps 3 and 5-9 in one spanish translation
  • eps 1, 2 and 4 in two separate spanish translations
  • the opening theme in spanish (two versions), german and swedish

 

i also got my advc-110 and started the transfers, which is going well.

i haven't completely decided how i'm going to put this all together. i'm thinking of aiming for one dvd per "cycle". for those episodes that were part of the "movies" i'm thinking of having two angles, one that's straight vhs-sourced, and one that's got the dvd frames in where possible. then, multiple audio tracks for each. i've also thought about splitting the movies up into their constituent episodes and having those as separate options. so for example, episode 5 would have a "VHS/broadcast version" and a "DVD version", each w/ separate audio etc. i haven't decided yet whether i'm going to do subtitles, but the dvds i have have english, french, and dutch (and maybe japanese? i can't remember) subtitles. i haven't checked out closed captioning at all yet.

i've also put some thought into bonus stuff, but not much, so if people have suggestions feel free to let me know.

ps if anybody has a sony slv-x315 vcr and knows what error "e2 09 03" means, could you give me a shout?

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Could the tapes possibly have macrovision?

“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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i don't think so. the advc-110 has a trick to circumvent macrovision, but even if that wasn't working it detects macrovision and flashes a status light at you if it's there, which didn't happen. also, on the one that plays, the quality isn't SO bad that i'd think it was macrovision, it just seems like the tape is in rough shape. almost like a constant tracking issue.

for the ones that won't even play, i think it's some kind of physical issue. the tape starts to play, for maybe a second, and then the vcr stops it dead and pops up that error code. i'm wondering if maybe the tape is getting jammed or something and the vcr is stopping it to prevent catastrophic failure. the weird thing is, it rewinds and fast-forwards ok, so maybe it's just that the vcr THINKS it's jammed. sigh.

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At the point where the tape stops, take it out and flip the cover up.  See if the tape is physically wrinkled or damaged.  That's probably what's stopping it.  When you forward and rewind, the tape isn't wrapped around the head drum and into all the rollers, so the machine wouldn't complain when you're doing that.

Assuming that's the problem and you feel brave enough to get into some basic video tape surgery, you might be able to repair it.  Unwind the section of tape onto the table.  Put hopefully a single piece of scotch tape on the back of the damaged video tape section.  Ideally, you should try to get scotch tape that's the same width as your tape, or at least very close to it.  If it's wider, then you'll need a steady hand to trim the lateral edges.  If it's thinner, you'll need a steady hand to trim the lateral edges after you've carefully applied the scotch tape as upper and lower halves.

If you need pictures to illustrate the procedure, let me know.

My outlook on life - we’re all on the Hindenburg anyway…no point fighting over the window seat.

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hey guys,

quick update: basically i haven't done much with this lately, as i'm still trying to locate german, italian and french (and maybe dutch, swedish, and other languages if possible) copies at reasonable prices. if anybody sees anything, please let me know.

the vhs transfers of the japanese tapes went really well, so i've put my problems with the pal tapes on hold for now as i work on ntsc.