.: LeeThorogood's PAL LaserDisc Preservation Project :. - '97 SE Finished '95 THX Finished - '97 SE Uploaded '95 THX Uploaded to the newsgroup — Page 8

Okay so vertical adjustment it is then?

Thanks for the links Moth3r, I have read through them all, lots of interesting info. :) I guess I shouldn't complain too much as the NTSC LDs clearly have it much much worse!

Ok, I tried re-aligning the fields with no success. :( I have however found a combination of filters that seem to help smooth out the problem areas while not quite solving the problem altogether. :s

I will post some comparison shots in a few days once rendering is complete so you can see the difference between original and filtered.

Rendering with the new filter combination is complete. So here are some screen shots showing 'BEFORE' aka unfiltered with 'AFTER' aka filtered.

BEFORE


AFTER


BEFORE


AFTER


BEFORE


AFTER


BEFORE


AFTER


BEFORE


AFTER


BEFORE


AFTER


What do you guys think? I know that with the filtered version there is some softening of the problem areas and some slight lose of detail, but then this is to be expected when trying to solve this kind of problem.

Murry, Rockin Thanks for the Feedback! :)

Zombie84 likewise thanks for the feedback and the advice ;)

I am rendering again this time trying out one last filter which should be more selective doing a better job of only softening the areas that need it, once its done I will post some new comparison shots.

link343, The THX OUT will be released when its finished. The '97 SE which is finished has already in my view been released via snail mail. Neither have been uploaded to the newsgroup yet.

If I get a gap while I am working on the THX OUT to upload the '97 SE then I will do otherwise both will get uploaded once the THX OUT is finished.

Thanks for the support Jetrell

Rendering is complete. So here are some screen shots showing 'BEFORE' aka unfiltered with 'AFTER' aka the latest filtered version.

BEFORE


AFTER


BEFORE


AFTER


BEFORE


AFTER


BEFORE


AFTER


BEFORE


AFTER


BEFORE


AFTER


In motion these will look worse then the last filter combination did, but in the stills I think it gives a better result. Let me know what you think.

What filter do you use? maybe the avisynth filter EEDI2 will work, I think that's what g-force used in his scripts for the aliasing, those screen-caps do look a bit murky and dull to my eyes, there also seems to be a lack of color but I guess you're not done tweaking that part yet?

Hi myscamore,

The latest filter I am using is the "Too Much Too Soon" 'Reduce Flicker' filter for Final Cut Pro. Here is a brief description of the filter from the authors website:

Reduce Flicker
Same as Blend Fields, but only blends where there's interlace artifacts. Useful for removing flicker in text and still images while preserving as much sharpness as possible.

Blend Fields
This does the exact same thing as the famous "double deinterlace filmlook method," but it renders *a lot* faster.

LeeThorogood said:

As I have previously mentioned I am doing all this work on my iMac so avisynth is not an option for me. I will address your comments about the picture being murky / dull colours when I get home tonight, at work right now and I gotta go...

Ah, ok didn't know that, sorry. Those jaggies in these '93/'95 transfers are really hopeless, don't know if any filters could fix them by not hurting the picture too much, it's hard to tell what looks best by not seeing it in motion of course but I'm leaning towards unfiltered as the picture is already quite soft to begin with. 

Edit: thanks for the answers and explanation, I look forward to see the results, keep up the good work.

As someone in PAL land It does seem like the only time Lucas gave us a good OUT release was in '77, '80 and '83 in the theatres. Prior to 1995 the picture was grainy and dirty, after 1995 the picture was on the soft side (DVNR?) and there were jaggies.

Thanks for the input myscamore, no need to apologise I didn't mean to sound like I was having a go. :)

Do you have some kind of hi quality scaling available to you? You could try something like doubling the resolution (maybe just the vertical) and resize back, or double and then run your filter and then resize back..

Thank you all for your input and feedback. :)

I have just spent a little time taking a second look at the different versions I have produced in the last week or so. Generally when it comes to filtering my policy is usually less is more! While taking my second look I realised I was comparing the wrong outputs, so I decided to do a comparison of the Anamorphic PAL MPEG2 files. I am so pleased I did because they showed that the filtering is in the end unnecessary. By the time the unfiltered picture has been scaled up and encoded as MPEG2 the jaggies have been sufficiently suppressed. :D

The conclusion from all this seems obvious, I will be leaving the picture unfiltered.

I have an update on my progress. I have finished editing ANH together and it is encoding to MPEG2 / DD 2.0 AC3 as I type. Once that is done I will be ready to start authoring the ANH DVD.

Murry Sparkles as the only person besides myself with a copy of my '97 SE what did you think to the menus I put together for that release? I have an idea for what I am going to do for the menus on this release but I need some help.

Does anyone know where I can find high quality, preferably widescreen versions of the original trailers for the '77 '80 and '83 releases (ANH, ESB, ROTJ)? Any and all help is appreciated!

I am open to not having menus at all, although I think I would prefer to have them then not. :)

LeeThorogood said:

Does anyone know where I can find high quality, preferably widescreen versions of the original trailers for the '77 '80 and '83 releases (ANH, ESB, ROTJ)? Any and all help is appreciated!

Besides the '04 Bonus DVD, there's a nice collection of trailers on Editdroids Special Features preservation DVD's, they are still available on usenet, it includes several ones that wasn't on the official disc.

Link343, I started uploading ANH but then my newsreader reported 'Read Errors' and as I was rendering at the time I figured I was asking my iMac to do too much at once so I stopped the upload. Uploading to the newsgroup for both sets will have to wait until I have finished the 1995 THX release.

Msycamore, you know I never thought to check the bonus DVD of the '04 release (my opinion of the '04 release is that high! *sarcasim*) these are exactly what I need, thanks very much! :D

Just a quick update. I finished putting the DVD project together for ANH, I am actually re-encoding the video just now as I found I had some spare space to fill, so I have increased the bit-rate of the main feature to the max my encoder will allow (7.7mbps VBR Max 9mbps) Once this is done I will be ready to build the DVD image which I will then burn and preview to make sure I am happy with it.

If all goes well this should mean ANH will be finished by the end of today, and then I can get cracking on ESB. :)