Info: Yet another restoration... is it REALLY needed?

Hello to everyone.

This is my first post, but I’m a long time lurker.

I want to say thanks to everyone that spread a lot of work and effort on preserving our beloved original trilogy! THANK YOU!

Back to the topic:

is “really” necessary another restoration project?

There are many available, some with very good quality, so…

I have available a dozen laserdisc players, both NTSC and PAL (also “the dream” HLD-X9), with a LOT of Trilogies, OUT and SE, PAL and NTSC, CLV and CAV…

Well, I decided to do a little test with my PAL french THX laserdisc; because it’s a decent PAL master (with 20% more vertical details than NTSC and no problems with IVTC) and in particular because it’s DVNR FREE!

I used a Pioneer CLD-D925 (a less-than-perfect specimen, to say the truth) with a standard S-Video cable (I know, I know, more explanations on the next posts) and a 9-bit capture card based on the Philips SAA713x chip (a good card, indeed).

Then, I “recicled” some Avisynth script found “here and there” to make my own script, called… WHITE MAGIC (an homage to Laserman’s Black Magic).

It upscale the capture to 1920x1080 (actually 1920x810) with some basic noise reduction and color correction.

The (eventual) project aims to upscale the PAL OUT laserdiscs to 1080p@24fps in avc/h.264 and make an AVCHD recorded on a double layer DVD, so it’s possible to see it on a PS3 or a compatible Blu-Ray player.

I know that upscaling doesn’t rapresent a full HD image, but IMHO is better to transcode - and have “fixed” results - than let the HDTV make the uspcaling “on the fly” - leave the work to the internal (or external) upscaler, with different results.

Here you are the screenshots:

raw capture 1

white magic 1

raw capture 2 (look, I have LEGS!)

white magic 2

raw capture 3

white magic 3

(images are formatted to the same size, but the raw captures are PAL SD and the “white magic” are FULL HD)

To see the real improvements, cut and paste the following links to test clips:

raw capture (about 11MB)

https://rapidshare.com/files/817154170/TEST_-_RAW_CAPTURE.avi

white magic (about 11MB)

https://rapidshare.com/files/2227793752/TEST_-_WHITE_MAGIC.avi

(both the test clips are compressed by VirtualDub; video AVC/H.264 at 8000Kbps, audio PCM uncompressed)

You are encouraged to tell the truth: if this project has to be further developed, or must be terminated ASAP because it is REALLY unnecessary.

All comments are welcome!

In case of positive reactions, any help are highly appreciated - in particular Avisynth masters!!!

Thanks to all (k. in particular),

ThaiPanther

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

Well, I decided to do a little test with my PAL french THX laserdisc; because it's a decent PAL master (with 20% more vertical details than NTSC and no problems with IVTC) and in particular because it's DVNR FREE!

The PAL THX disc is not DVNR free - as you can clearly see in screenshot 2. It does however have less DVNR than the equivalent NTSC release (no 4-eyed stormtrooper).

Looking forward to seeing more details.

Welcome to the forum TP! Unfortunatly I'm not at my comp right now, so I can't dl your test shots yet, but I would personally like to see LD caps of the worst DVNR affected scenes, or just about anything that has been altered by the SE. Your caps look good, I wonder if you can release your "white magic" script when you're ready along with some raw captures? Then your rips could be used in other projects as well! Could you let us know which laserdiscs you have?

Oh also, I've had pretty good success combining the GOUT and SE together, I think it would be useful to repace some of the GOUT with a DVNR-free (should such a thing exist) LD rip. Welcome again, I wish you well on your project!

Moth3r,

happy to have your reply so fast!

Well, AFAIK the PAL and the JSC are the same, aren't they?

I choose to capture just *THIS* clip because it's one of the worsts...

Infact, in the GOUT the pedestrian before the landspeeder seems to has "invisible" legs; in the PAL master they are there, also if they are not too much defined.

It seems that this low definition is caused by repeated composite shots, aimed to cancel the obvious wheel under the speeder, and not caused by the DVNR.

Indeed, you can check on your PAL LD that we have a "two-eyed" stormtrooper and not a four-eyed one!

By the way, before making the capture, to convince myself again, I put on the PC the GOUT DVD with simultaneous view of the LD through DScaler, at the same resolution. After adjusting the LD colors to match the GOUT (just because it's more easy to do than the contrary) I chose some "offending" scenes, like the four-eyed stormtrooper and the one put here.

Well, again I hate that DVNR that is clearly visible on the DVD.

And, despite what many could say, I don't think the LD colors are ugly, but simply different... but I may find some "colorist" here in the forum to help me to choose the best colors, and the best settings to capture LDs.

For the "white magic": is just a "cut and paste" from different sources: I made many many tests with many many avisynth scripts, and at last I decided to use the "white magic" not because is the best in the world, but because to me it seems a right compromise between the perfection and a "cartoonized" movie. But, again, I'm an avisynth novice and all the help are welcome.

About my laserdisc players: check my other thread in this forum.

Thai Panther

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

Well, AFAIK the PAL and the JSC are the same, aren't they?

No, they are different transfers.

I choose to capture just *THIS* clip because it's one of the worsts...

Infact, in the GOUT the pedestrian before the landspeeder seems to has "invisible" legs; in the PAL master they are there, also if they are not too much defined.

It seems that this low definition is caused by repeated composite shots, aimed to cancel the obvious wheel under the speeder, and not caused by the DVNR.

The motion trails are definitely a result of DVNR. If you check any of the pre-THX discs (JSC or SWE), you will see that they are free of this type of artefact.

Moth3r,

thanks for your hints. You are one of my favorite poster here.

Take this in account: I made it for my personal amusement, right yesterday, using one of the oldest CLD-D925 I have (I have other two, one almost-new) with a low quality cable. All done in few hours (between captures, choosing and testing scripts, conversions).

So, *maybe* IF I use

• a better player - the almost new CLD-D925 or the same almost-new LD-V4300D
• a better cable - not an hi-end one, just a very good quality gold-plated one, maybe the BNC out of the LD-V4300D has a purest video path
• a very good hardware processor - thought about an Elite Video BVP-4, one of the rare which could handle PAL video signal
• a very good comb filter - maybe the one in the DVR-320S may suffice
• a better capture card - but I think mine is better than any DV based

then the captures will be better, of course.

But the post-processing is equally important. And there I have much to learn...

So, what do you think about the project?

Should be continued, abandoned, or I just have to capture some scenes to add to other versions?

I'm open to suggestions.

Meanwhile, have you seen my other post about laserdisc players?

Thai Panther

I'm kind of a noob in these forums myself but I'd say since you own one of the highest end LD players available to man, it would probably worthwhile to continue with your project since I'm not sure if some of these have been captured with the x9.  Would you be interested in posting the avisynth script you are using so that we can all see what you are working with? I'm not the best scripter but if i see something wrong or know a better way to do something i will let you know.

BTW, since this is a laserdisc oriented thread, I'd like to ask if anyone here has the technical knowledge to give me a definite answer on my laserdisc player.  I have the cld-hf9g and have heard rumors that it has a direct composite out but I can't seem to verify this. I can say that when I hook up to the composite it seems to be a direct out because the picture is sharper and it even looks like it's bypassing the TBC because the picture is quite jittery compared to the s-video out(w/ all possible filtering turned off).

Dark_Jedi, this is talking!

I appreciate very much your honesty, really!

I admit the upscaled version is far from perfection, but you have to forgive me - at least, I decided to learn the basic usage of avisynth only two days ago, and the so-called "white magic" is only some scripts put together yesterday... but if you see the first and the last section of the clip, it is not soooo bad... or it is?

I'll wait for some days to decide if I'll go on or abandon the project; obviously all will depend by the comments here. I'm also thinking of a better script to merge together PAL and NTSC captures, and upscale them with less artifacts.

Again, I don't want to do the N-th version of the trilogy if no one is interested in, but I'll be glad to do it if someone is interested.

Also, if some other projects needs some help, here I am.

Yes, the HLD-X9 is one of the best laserdisc in the world, second only to HLD-X0... and, it happens I also have the fourth(?) better laserdisc player, the Panasonic LX-HD20 (clone of Sony HIL-C2X) that reserves some respect...

...and thanks, I'm very proud of my username!

Thai Panther

Nice! Of course you should continue on with this project, IMO there's still not a truly solid transfer out there in LD-resolution, some of them come close but all have their own unique problems. A capture from an X9 is very welcomed. :)

As Moth3r said, the THX PAL LD's had DVNR applied as well, fortunately you don't have the same amount of smear like you have on their US counterparts.

I bought a brand new BNC cable with RCA reductions, so I think next days I'll capture some test clips from the Pioneer LD-V4300D and see how good it will look.

Meanwhile, if someone has some directions in choosing the best scene I have to capture... and, may a one minute clip to be sufficient to judge the capture quality?

Now it's time to sleep - is night here!

Thai Panther

dark_jedi said:

... I still find it amazing that people are even still messing with LD's LOL.

I wouldn't say amazing, I'd say disappointing.

Disappointing that the GOUT DVD that was officially released is so plagued by DVNR, telecine wobble, aliasing and a loss of vertical detail that a capture of a laserdisc is actually a worthwhile consideration.

Of course you have to contend with the limitations of the format - reduced bandwidth (horizontal detail) and the difficulties in getting good separation of composite video. But each to his own - some people may prefer a blurrier image with dot crawl over 4-eyed stormtroopers. 

It wasn't that long ago that Laserdiscs were the best quality home video format you could buy. Okay... it was 15 years ago, that's not that long. SE fans have forgotten that Lucas made them wait until 2004 for DVD's... even TPM was released on VHS in 1999/2000 and not on DVD! It's like he wanted to wait until the last possible moment to release the films in the DVD format; however there were so many different LD releases before that!

After watching my own GOUT/SE blend of SW, I was happy with the result. However I think for a small number of some of the worst DVNR affected scenes... like the speeder posted above... that it *may* be better to replace the scene with an LD cap.

I'd like to see a good smere-free NTSC disc captured, only because the Pioneer HLD-X9 will be a far better player than any available PAL player and probably provide much better picture if the source LD is good.

RU.08,

the HLD-X9 will ABSOLUTELY blow away any PAL laserdisc player!!!

By the way, I have not any LD based on a smear-free master, based on what Moth3r replied some posts before... or not?!?

So I decided to find the truth, because, as Mulder says, "the truth is out there"... and finally I found this thread.

Reassuming all, it *SEEMS* there is a smear-free (so, AFAIK, DVNR-free too) master that is not "shrinking"... ANH LD with cat.#1130-85.

Now, it happens that my french PAL LD has cat.#113037... maybe it's just a coincidence, but... check the following comparisons (all the first three images are just taken from the former thread).

Comparison 1: Tantive corridor burn mark

It seems that my capture has better blacks but lack of details and yellowish white.

(Note: this time I used the Pioneer LD-V4300D with a brand new gold-plated "fat" BNC cable with RCA plug, but it seems there is no quality improvements: on the contrary, the resolution seems lower, but it may be the re-adjusted Pioneer DVR-320S comb filter settings where the LD-V4300D is passed through - needs further investigations)

Comparison 2: Two-eyed VS Four-eyed stormtrooper

One of the first test captures done. The colors are similar to JSC. Note that is hald stormtrooper on the left, and not only his shadow!

Comparison 3: Sandspeeder over dude's legs

No color correction between my two captures; to my eyes, the spanishLD capture's sky has the best color of the lot.

Then, to me, the PAL LD master is the same of the smear-free edition, that is, if I'm not wrong, the Special Widescreen Edition (SWE).

Now, I'm sure Moth3r is more expert than me about these things, because he said the PAL master is NOT DVNR free, but in the linked thread he's not talked about this issue...

At the end, is the PAL master DVNR-free or not? If yes, then the SWE should be the same, and so not smear-free, as it seems they have the same master...

I'm lost now... please save me ;-)

Waiting for your comments!

I thought the JSC was smere-free but had other problems (like bad color and glue marks or something?) The thread you linked to at the end they were saying the "smear free 93" LD is full of cross-talk, but besides that it had a good review by everyone, so maybe it's a good option if you can convince someone to lend you one.

I still think, and this is my own opinion, that we really only need a few select scenes from a smear-free LD... not necessarily an entire transfer. That way you could up managleable-sized pieces to sendspace or whereever, and re-integrate it into SE or HD/SE-based projects.

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

By the way, I have not any LD based on a smear-free master, based on what Moth3r replied some posts before... or not?!?

So I decided to find the truth, because, as Mulder says, "the truth is out there"... and finally I found this thread.

Reassuming all, it *SEEMS* there is a smear-free (so, AFAIK, DVNR-free too) master that is not "shrinking"... ANH LD with cat.#1130-85.

Now, it happens that my french PAL LD has cat.#113037... maybe it's just a coincidence, but... check the following comparisons (all the first three images are just taken from the former thread).

 

Then, to me, the PAL LD master is the same of the smear-free edition, that is, if I'm not wrong, the Special Widescreen Edition (SWE).

Now, I'm sure Moth3r is more expert than me about these things, because he said the PAL master is NOT DVNR free, but in the linked thread he's not talked about this issue...

At the end, is the PAL master DVNR-free or not? If yes, then the SWE should be the same, and so not smear-free, as it seems they have the same master...

I'm lost now... please save me ;-)

Waiting for your comments!

The THX PAL Laserdiscs had DVNR applied like the US THX LD's (GOUT), it isn't entirely smear-free, it's just less agressive on the PAL-transfers, like Moth3r pointed out, there is motion trailing artifacts on your Landspeeder screen-caps albeit nowhere near as horrible like on their US counterparts.

The unique smear-free Laserdisc talked about in Mallwalker's thread is an entirely different beast, it's a NTSC LD mastered just before the Definitive Collection LD set in '93.

The Spanish LD seems to have very nice colors. :)

Dark scenes may be better for showing the motion smearing on the PAL THX LDs. Look at the pan across the Tatooine evening landscape when Luke is looking for R2, and the pan across cantina just before Han meets Greedo.

The "Smear Free '93" LaserDisc is the same transfer as the 1992 Letterbox VHS.

^Sure seems like it, I agree.


Anybody remember which Deutsch disc Citizen used?
He said it was a THX set; however I cannot find any German THX one listed at the blam1 website, nor LDDb -- doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Blam says 1130-05 issued in 1993, but do you see any THX logo on the cover? I don't.
What could it mean ???!?!?!!?!!1!?!1!!111one?!
Somebody buy it

Darth Mallwalker said:

Anybody remember which Deutsch disc Citizen used?

Star Wars: Krieg der Sterne (1977) [5895-05]
http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/36798

Star Wars: Das Imperium schlägt zurück (1980) [5896-05]
http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/36799

Star Wars: Die Rückkehr der Jedi-Ritter (1983) [5897-05]
http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/35197

Now I'm very interested in the quality of the "silver screen collection" A possible smear-free PAL source?

Interesting, what about these then?

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/37365/113035/Star-Wars:-La-guerre-des-étoiles-(1977)

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/37366/142535/Star-Wars:-L'Empire-contre-attaque-(1980)

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/37367/147835/Star-Wars:-Le-retour-du-Jedi-(1983)