.: LeeThorogood's PAL LaserDisc Preservation Project :. - '97 SE Finished '95 THX Finished - '97 SE Uploaded '95 THX Uploaded to the newsgroup — Page 7

Indeed!

I just finished watching Star Wars through and I couldn't see any problems with the LaserDiscs. I should have time to watch Empire and Jedi over the weekend so once I start capturing on Monday I can do a clear run of all 3 films.

Its so refreshing to watch the OUT and the colours not be all washed out like on the GOUT and as always the level of detail on LaserDisc continues to impress me!

Sorry about not posting an update. Yes I have now watched Empire and Jedi and as far as picture/sound quality goes what I said about ANH goes for them too.

I've begun capturing and averaging, and am hoping to finish capturing / averaging side 4 of ANH tonight. I then plan to capture the VHS footage I need tomorrow night and edit the whole thing together. If I have time I will start Empire afterwards otherwise I will start Empire on Thursday.

It may not take me 3 weeks to do all the capturing and averaging after all! :D

This set is CAV!

As far as being better quality, as I understand it CAV is suppose to be better quality but believe it or not I am not an expert when it comes to LaserDiscs.

As far as CAV sets go, it is my understand there was the following:

1995 French Coffret (English Audio)
1995 French Individual Releases (French Audio)
1995 German Individual Releases (German Audio)

There may have been a German Box-Set but I could not see a listing on LDDB.com

I don't know if any other LD sets have the footage I need. Unfortunately even if there was a set I don't have the finances to buy another set of LDs for the foreseeable future. :(

LeeThorogood said:

As far as CAV sets go, it is my understand there was the following:

1995 French Coffret (English Audio)
1995 French Individual Releases (French Audio)
1995 German Individual Releases (German Audio)

There may have been a German Box-Set but I could not see a listing on LDDB.com

I don't know if any other LD sets have the footage I need. Unfortunately even if there was a set I don't have the finances to buy another set of LDs for the foreseeable future. :(

There were also Spanish individual releases, but I don't know much about them. France was the only PAL country to have the box set.

I remember from Citizen's project that the German releases have the opening logo and crawl in German, and side ends have fade outs. The French side changes are in different spots, so he was able to use video from the French discs to replace the logo/crawl and the side changes.

Jetrell Fo said:

Figures that all the 1995 CAV sets weren't U.S. ones....LOL.

The 1993 Definitive Collection set was CAV. The 1995 "Faces" releases were from the same master.

As for CAV itself, I believe the only discernible difference really is that they are full-featured, meaning they support FF, slo-mo....stuff like that.

True - although CAV has a theoretical signal-to-noise benefit over CLV, in practice I've never seen any noticeable quality difference.

LeeThorogood, are you also planning to make NTSC versions available of these?

I have adjusted my plan of action somewhat as I didn't want to get to one of the final stages and then find there was a problem, so I have decided to complete ANH entirely once I have done that I will do Empire and Jedi in parallel. Now then as far as ANH goes I have finished capturing, averaging, and editing all the sides together along with the tiny segment of VHS footage. Unlike my '97SE project I wont be using the LD chapter points as there are too many with this being a CAV set, instead I will use the GOUT DVD chapter points.

JetrellFo many thanks for the offer of the LDs, however if I were to use any release based on the '93 master I may as well use the GOUT.

msycamore I am certainly planning to have a go at doing an NTSC version but beyond that I can't promise anything.

On a side note if anyone wants to design some DVD covers for this set then feel free, otherwise I will do it myself once the release is finished. :)

Jetrell Fo said:

Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking....the DC was CAV....duh.  I'm guessing the picture quality between the U.S. DC and the Coffret Set may be different as due to the region (NTSC vs. PAL). 

No, the differences between the US and the European releases are not down to a simple PAL vs NTSC format - the transfer is from a different master (see my previous post).

Is the Coffret set based off a different master?

I'm pretty sure that the French box set is from the same masters as the French individual releases.

LeeThorogood said:
msycamore I am certainly planning to have a go at doing an NTSC version but beyond that I can't promise anything.

That sounds great. :) I'm looking forward to see the results of this! NTSC version or not.

Hi guys, I am sorry to report that it looks like ANH has a problem with interlace flicker / jaggies. The problem is most noticeable on horizontal / diagonal lines like on C-3POs shouldar and collar, or on the orb in the Death Star briefing room. Unfortunately it appears to be a problem with either the way the LDs have been mastered or the 1995 PAL master itself as it effects the French audio LDs as well as the Coffret LDs.

I did test using my s-video connection instead of composite to see if that helped but it didn't! :(

As I see it at this point I have two options, I can leave the jaggies as they are or I can try and fix them up as best I can. To be honest I have no idea where to begin tackling this problem, any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Many Thanks

I do happen to have newsgroup access at the moment but I have never uploaded to the newsgroup before so bare with me while I figure things out, I will let you know once they are posted :)

LeeThorogood said:

Hi guys, I am sorry to report that it looks like ANH has a problem with interlace flicker / jaggies. The problem is most noticeable on horizontal / diagonal lines like on C-3POs shouldar and collar, or on the orb in the Death Star briefing room. Unfortunately it appears to be a problem with either the way the LDs have been mastered or the 1995 PAL master itself as it effects the French audio LDs as well as the Coffret LDs.

I did test using my s-video connection instead of composite to see if that helped but it didn't! :(

As I see it at this point I have two options, I can leave the jaggies as they are or I can try and fix them up as best I can. To be honest I have no idea where to begin tackling this problem, any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Many Thanks

Missed this post - I can't remember seeing jaggies on these discs, but there were some strange interlacing artefacts when Han was unholstering his blaster under the table in the cantina.

Maybe a screenshot would help?

Hi Moth3r,

Thanks for the reply, I recently got hold of your release of the 1995 THX set, and I am sorry to say the problem is present in your release as well, which makes me think its a problem with the 1995 THX master :(

Here are some screen shots:






With this one its hard to see the problem in a still but those thin grey lines seem to flicker when in motion which I think is being caused by variations in the jaggies :(

In case anyone was wondering I put in the red circles to highlight the problem areas :p

Hmmm, interesting. Yes, I do remember that effect now, IIRC the grille of Luke's speeder exhibits it pretty badly. I always thought it was a byproduct of my scaling up to anamorphic, but you say it's present on the actual source? I never noticed.

The avisynth filter EEDI2 helped a bit with the jaggies on the GOUT, it might help here.

I also remember that the US DC/Faces discs had a much worse problem, that Laserman described as a misalignment between the fields that make up the frame. In which case, a sub-pixel adjustment of one of the fields may also be a solution, but would only work if the misalignment is constant. I'll have to dig out the old threads on the subject.

If for a moment we assume this problem is the same as the DC/Faces set and if we take it that Laserman was right about that problem and that the misalignment is constant. Then I think I may have a solution.

I have just found a filter for FCP that should let me make either the upper or lower fields of a clip transparent. If I was to set-up a timeline with two video tracks containing identical video clips (LD Sides + VHS Clip) and then apply this filter to the clips in both tracks but setting the clips in one track to make the upper fields transparent and the clips in the other to make the lower fields transparent then I should be able to adjust the vertical position of the clips in one track to try and bring the two fields back into alignment.

I will give this a try when I get home tonight and post back with the results. :)

I actually think it's a horizontal adjustment that's needed?
EDIT: No, forget that, I'm talking rubbish as usual...

See this thread for a discussion about the jaggies in the rebel war room.

Also, some of Laserman's thoughts on "jaggies":

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/The-X0-Project-Discussion-Thread/post/148930/#TopicPost148930

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Are-the-PAL-GOUT-DVDs-upscaled-from-the-NTSC-masters/post/246605/#TopicPost246605