Info: Droids and Ewoks, anybody ? — Page 7

Dang. I'm sorry to hear that you didn't get your tape. However, it's a great help to finally have a picture of it that isn't the size of a postage stamp.

It may help me. I'm relentless about this kind of thing; if that video is out there to be sold, I may find it. Don't wanna jinx it, but I will look high and low. Also, I live in an area with lots of Mexicans, so I'll ask around. I can't hurt. (I even have a couple Spanish speakers in the family to help..to a degree)

Again, thank you for the pictures and thank you for replying. :)  If not me, I hope one of you finds the tape. I realize it will have subtitles now, but you know what?  For something Lucasfilm isn't spending any time on, I think it'll do fine. Personally, I don't care about that this minute, I simply want a high quality way of watching Coby and the Starhunters. :)

I actually have a recording of the ABC airing of Coby.  The quality is about a 6/10.  If anything the mexican tape could provide a nice clean audio track for Coby!  I am still keeping my eyes open for it too.

I am still gathering all of my sources together to see if I can produce a quality set.  Not giving up yet!

FYI, I think that I have moved on from using the UK tapes as the video master.  There is some terrible frame blending going on with the horrible NTSC-> PAL conversion.  Although the audio tracks are the best out there for english.  And it is one of the only versions of The Great Heap on tape.

The Japanese tapes have proven to be much better video masters.  It is very easy to perform an IVTC on them resulting in blend-free progressive video.  The only problem being that the video and UK audio don't always match up (commercial breaks and what not) so you have to keep going in and cutting up the audio track all over the place.

I am thinking about getting together what I have and releasing an MKV/MP4 set just to get something out there.  Not sure if I have the energy for a DVD set as this project has already taken me almost 2 years.  I am beginning to understand why so many people have attempted to make a Droids set and quit before releasing anything :(

retartedted said:

I actually have a recording of the ABC airing of Coby.  The quality is about a 6/10.  If anything the mexican tape could provide a nice clean audio track for Coby!  I am still keeping my eyes open for it too.

I am still gathering all of my sources together to see if I can produce a quality set.  Not giving up yet!

FYI, I think that I have moved on from using the UK tapes as the video master.  There is some terrible frame blending going on with the horrible NTSC-> PAL conversion.  Although the audio tracks are the best out there for english.  And it is one of the only versions of The Great Heap on tape.

The Japanese tapes have proven to be much better video masters.  It is very easy to perform an IVTC on them resulting in blend-free progressive video.  The only problem being that the video and UK audio don't always match up (commercial breaks and what not) so you have to keep going in and cutting up the audio track all over the place.

I am thinking about getting together what I have and releasing an MKV/MP4 set just to get something out there.  Not sure if I have the energy for a DVD set as this project has already taken me almost 2 years.  I am beginning to understand why so many people have attempted to make a Droids set and quit before releasing anything :(

 

 

 

Hey, umm. I'm not too bad at this. How about I send you something to give you an idea of what I can do?   And I don't blame you for a second for wanting to put out MKVs.  I know someone who'll smile over that alone. :)

 

I'm getting good at editing and solving some technical matters related to VHS to digital transfer, and as far as PAL to NTSC, I hire that out. But that's just me. I can see why someone would want to do their own, but as for me, I just don't have *those* kind of means.

 

Still, I have some good hardware to capture and convert.

 

Please let me know what you think.

 

P.S. I in no way want to change anything you guys are doing, I only want to help and be helped. If I got credit for anything, it'd be cool.

Also, I like your idea about using the Audio from the Mexican tape for Coby, retartedted. :)

Be in touch later.

Clarification: When I mentioned the MKVs you mentioned, retartedted, I was basically letting you know that I think MKVs are the best based on what I know, but I haven't personally done one yet.

My AVIs and MPG2s look great to me..for what it's worth.

I'd love to see what you guys put together.

MPEG2s, rather. Ack, I'm blaming this laptop keyboard.

Moth3r said:

retartedted said:

There is some terrible frame blending going on with the horrible NTSC-> PAL conversion.  Although the audio tracks are the best out there for english.  And it is one of the only versions of The Great Heap on tape.

Can you post a short sample? The blending may be partially repairable with AnimeIVTC or Srestore.

But the Japanese video may still end up looking better.

Here is a link to a short clip of the UK tapes.  It is being played as 25fps PAL and recorded as 25fps PAL so no conversion taking place. From what I understand from sites like videohelp.com etc.. is that there were some terrible NTSC->PAL conversions done back in the day with hardcoded frame blending done on the conversions.  So it is what it is more or less. 

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MDGX13V5

Wow.  That turned out pretty good Moth3r.

Does anyone know where I can find a copy of "The Adventures of Mungo Baobab?"   Mine also got lost in the mail.

Haven't found out the condition of the PAL "Mon Julpa" tape that was in its place, though.  Wish I could know the conditions of episodes 7 and 8.

Thanks.

These were recorded with my personal PAL vcr.  It is kind of an old piece of junk (Panasonic NV-SD25, with mono only audio).  My NTSC captures are nicer.

The captures that we had professionally done were not all that great.  They introduced a number of frame blending problems, as well as quite a bit of pixelation. 

I have NTSC tapes for episodes 1-8 and 10-13.  Here are raw captures of the Japanese NTSC tapes untouched with any editing other than an IVTC to do some decombing.

Where your captures could come in really handy is if you are able to get a good capture of The Great Heep.  As there is no NTSC tapes of that (that I am aware of). 

Whoa. I can see I'm out of my league here. Those are some amazingly good looking images, guys.

I had no idea it could get that technical.

I really look forward to this.  Any timeline?

Video Collector, what are you guys using for the Coby episode?

Personally I have restarted my project so many times from either finding new sources or just a new way to capture/encode/restore.  It really is like peeling an onion. But I think that I am finally at the end game.  

I have decided to just do a slightly cleaned up, interlaced, 30fps DVD set. More of a straight up preservation than anything.  And then if people want to rip the episodes and IVTC, denoise and warp sharp the heck out of them then that is up to the particular person.  

I have read time and time again on places like videohelp, doom9 and digitalfaq that if you have an originally interlaced source (VHS) and you plan on displaying it on an interlaced device (dvd + tv) then don't de-interlace.  You aren't doing yourself any favors. Not to mention that it can make certain scenes stutter, as the frames are reduced.  For instance a scene where it will pan from left to right or zoom in/out. It can be very noticeable with cheap animation as there wasn't many frames drawn to being with. 

Obviously you would want to de-interlace if making an mp4/mkv/avi set, but for a DVD set it isn't needed.  Now the PAL set where there is some pretty nasty frame blending I could see IVTC as necessary too. But with the NTSC sources it isn't as big of a problem.

In the end I am going to try and fit it all on two dual layer discs.  

Thanks for the updates.  As I stated before, I'm really looking forward to this.  I actually have never watched any of these episodes, and I as thinking of Youtubing them, but I now think I'd rather wait till a DVD version is completed.  Thanks for the effort.

PS As you mentioned that there are 14 droids episodes, I'm assuming you're including The Great Heep TV special?

EDIT: Never mind, I just took the time to read a little more in the thread and answered my own question.

Video Collector said:

Speaking for the PAL set; All episodes are captured and forwarded to Pittrek for post-processing and DVD mastering.

Moth3r has kindly agreed to help sort out the blended frames from the PAL tapes.

Bearing in mind there are 26 epsiodes of Ewoks and 14 of Droids this is going to take some time. Pittrek has warned me he doesn't have as much time available as he'd like, but he will make this work a priority. Right now all we can do is cheer him on.

 *Cheering on Pittrek* :)

It really is great to see there is this much passion to make sure both series are being done right. "Droids" is really an underrated series IMHO

Moth3r said:

retartedted said:

I have read time and time again on places like videohelp, doom9 and digitalfaq that if you have an originally interlaced source (VHS) and you plan on displaying it on an interlaced device (dvd + tv) then don't de-interlace. 

This is good advice, as you say for interlaced sources.

However this material is not interlaced, it's telecined. For telecined sources it is preferable to IVTC, if you can.

Here is an untouched example of the NTSC tape.  http://www.sendspace.com/file/nxlmqn

Do you know of any good methods for IVTC that don't make the footage choppy with Avisynth?  

The only good methods I have found have been Virtualdub filters, and I would rather get the majority of the load done with Avisynth if possible.

But if push comes to shove I guess I could just use Virtualdubs IVTC.