Info: Droids and Ewoks, anybody ? — Page 6

Just a quick update (so people don't think that the momentum has died) I just mailed off a package full of goodies for ringwraith to start working on.  It may be a week or two until we have any results to post, but trust us, we will be working on it.

In the meantime, we still need the following episodes:

Droids: Coby and the Starhunters

Ewoks: The Three lessons and Prow Beaten/Baga's Rival

Also if anyone can track down bumpers/eyecatchs, commercials or any other footage concerning this show, it would be greatly appreciated. 

If anyone wants to give a whack at trying to remove the logo from this, that would be awesome!  Just let me know and I can send you the file.

Hey Guys,

Just found this thread.  I've been looking for raw digital rips of the Pal Tapes for a few years now, but I think you guys taking it to another level and making a "definitive" fan preservation compilation of the series is a great idea. 

I'm based in the states and would love to contribute, however I can.  I don't have much to offer, content wise, that you guys don't already have covered.  I do have three of the Double-length J2 tapes from the early-90's-- the two Ewoks volumes, and the second Droids volume (with "The Lost Prince" and "The New King").  As mentioned before, these tapes do include full opening and closing credits specific to each series (including the season 1 intro for Ewoks).  I have ripped these to digital.

I also have .cbr's and .pdf's of both series' entire Star Comics releases.

I might have something to offer in terms of post work, however.  I've actually been working professionally as a video/audio editor for a few years now, and have a fair amount of high end software at my disposal.  One area where I might could be of help (and one area that I've noticed we haven't spoken much on in the forum) is with some sound clean-up-- when I digitized my tapes I ran a few low pass filters to gate out the tape noise, did a little quick eq-ing and amped up the levels, and got the tapes sounding pretty good, for a stereo mix.  Post-sound is kind of my specialty at work anyway. 

Adding one more step to this already ambitious project might be asking for trouble, and though my schedule is relatively free for the next month I do typically stay pretty busy (as I'm sure most of you do as well). 

Regardless, if I can be involved I'd love to.  Either way I'll keep posted and can't wait to get a copy.

Thanks boondockmickey, we may be in need of your services later!

But for now we are just waiting on our raw captures and to take a look at what we got.

Do you have much experience with video cleanup?

I do, but only with raw material recently shot-- you know, color correcting and working with contrast, some composting, smoothing out some motion, stuff like that.  I haven't really extensively worked with "preservation" or raw material ripped from tape.  I've been ripping most of my VHS collection and doing basic CC on them the past few months, upping the saturation a bit, cleaning some tape noise, cropping the edges, and working with the contrast, but since it's mostly just to get my tapes backed up on my HTPC I haven't done any really detailed or exhaustive work, just kinda throw on a template and tweak it for a minute.

I could tinker a bit more with my Droids J2 captures and throw up some screen grabs in the next few days, if you guys are interested.

Hey Mickey - do you have any screenshots of your captures ? We're looking for the best sources for each episode

I'm so glad to see this project is happening! Just wanted to say thanks!

Good news, I may have a copy of the Mexican VHS in hand soon!

Perfect!

Now we just need really good full copies of the 3 missing Ewok episodes (other than the SciFi channel ones we already have).  We are shaping up really nicely now!  Sounds like it will take about another 3 weeks before we get the professionally done transfers.  They were sent off last week and just in the waiting mode still at this point.

Yeah, definitely!  Give me a day or two to get some grabs together and I'll post them.

aaand the copy of the Mexican VHS tapes are a no go ;(

Hi, I'm a newbie, and I'm very interested in obtaining a "Droids" complete set, if and when it's finished. I'll pay anything... ANYTHING! Well, maybe not "anything," but... you know.

retartedted said:

 

Just a quick update, I have been collecting a few more sources for Droids. Primarily tracking down a decent un-edited copy of Coby.  

I think that I finally have a decent copy in hand.  It is the original ABC airing with commercials. I now have the original Droids bumpers as well as the 'Droids and Ewoks Adventure hour' bumpers and ending (Don't have the Adventure Hour intro).

Ringwraith and I are currently parsing through all of our sources to try and find the best of the best to compare with what everyone else has.  As well as fixing any video defects.

So how did the transfers go for Video Collector and Pittrek?

 

I am not unfortunately in contact with Video Collector anymore :-( I received last mail from him in March.

JJJ_Spirit_Of_77 said:

Hi, I'm a newbie, and I'm very interested in obtaining a "Droids" complete set, if and when it's finished. I'll pay anything... ANYTHING! Well, maybe not "anything," but... you know.

Please don't talk about money, it used to be prohibited here

OK. I don't want to raise false hopes here, though  I may be able to help this project. Please PM me for more information.

I'm hoping this hasn't been shown before: <a target='_blank' href='http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/638/swmexicaintapeebayhidde.jpg/'><img src='http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/2592/swmexicaintapeebayhidde.th.jpg' border='0'/></a>

Hopefully I'll have it soon. Wasn't going to say anything until I got it. Please think good thoughts.

Sorry for this, but the first link is correct. Please excuse the mistake and this post.   So yeah, the second is a 404.

Droids 3 was the tape the had Coby on it.  Although, from what I can gather it appears that the Mexican tapes may have hardcoded Spanish subtitles.  :(

Ahhh. Well, has the tape pictured on the link been viewed by anyone here, I mean, can I wipe it clean from my hopes now?

I'm hoping there's a mistake or something.  From what I've seen, all Droids tapes marked "2" had the Mon Julpa Cycle on them. Wouldn't that have Coby on it?

I was excited because from what I've read here, n o one has a pic of the video in which it resides.

Anyway, I've been trying to put together all the episodes since mid May (which is probably when I first found one of the pages of this thread through a google search ) and it's been a lot of fun.   Thank you for replying. :)

I think that this is the tape that has Coby on it.  As you can see on the back cover it says that it is subtitled. 

I actually bought a copy of this off of ebay for a hundred bucks and then the guy fell through on delivering it.  oh well :(