Info: DVNR smearing in GOUT not in the master...? Or is the 1995 release a different master altogether...? — Page 3

The 97 LDs indeed do not have the motion smearing. However, on ANH the Mos Eisley section went pink in the transfer. Otherwise they're probably one of the best looking LDs I own.

This horrible split lightsaber syndrome in the Definitive Collection transfer of the first film confirms that something was improved when it was time for the Faces release in '95. I now remember seeing this in Dr Gonzo's ANH disc which was sourced from the DC.

Some talk about the differences between the DC and Faces in this blast from the past: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/definitive-versuses-faces/topic/2742/

dark_jedi said:

LOL, some of you guys really LOVE your LD's to be going through all of them like this, I am 100% with Harmy on this one, I will probably never, ever watch an LD capture again, I definitely will never capture one again, but hey, to each their own right? but to me, I think all these screens that get posted in this thread and others look like shit, especially in motion on a large HDTV screen, I do agree with captainsolo above, the 97 SE LD's do look pretty good, a lot better than all these being posted, except for the pink issue he stated.

You do realize that the screen shots that have been posted in this thread that looks like shit is what you have worked on all these months, right? :) The few LD screens posted except the last two on this page are instances were the LD transfers clearly beats the GOUT transfer.

dark_jedi said:

I just absolutely cannot watch ANY of my old LD transfers, or anyone else's for that matter, they look WAAAY worse than the V3 DVD or the Blu that I am doing now, now does that mean that the V3 and the Blu are perfect, HELL no, but it is better than all this...... :) (Frink says I should start using these, so there was a smiley)

*edit - 1 more thing, at least I can pop in my latest Blu project, and sit down and actually enjoy what I am watching and hearing, I can't say that with any of my LD's, and I have pretty much ALL NTSC LD's.

Yeah, I do agree with you that the GOUT and most work based on it look overall much better than any LD-transfer out there as of right now, to me it's really a tie between it and your excellent JSC, look better and also worse at the same time. ;) It's the possibility of improving the GOUT by taking use of the scenes that do look better in certain transfers that really interest me.

dark_jedi said:

LOL, some of you guys really LOVE your LD's to be going through all of them like this, I am 100% with Harmy on this one, I will probably never, ever watch an LD capture again, I definitely will never capture one again, but hey, to each their own right? but to me, I think all these screens that get posted in this thread and others look like shit, especially in motion on a large HDTV screen, I do agree with captainsolo above, the 97 SE LD's do look pretty good, a lot better than all these being posted, except for the pink issue he stated.

I reviewed hairy_hen's 5.1 and decided to compare it to both the original PCM and the 97 mix. So, I popped in my LD's and was surprised at how well the Faces ROTJ held up visually. Nowhere near the V3 or GOUT of course, but still not as bad as you would think.

The 97 image just blows it away. If the GOUT master could look like this without all of that smearing a heck of a lot of things would immediately be better. I've never gone straight from 93/95 to 97 but the jump in quality is readily apparent even on an old 4:3 TV. It just has that pink problem in Mos Eisley...because no official Star Wars release can ever be perfect let alone definitive.

zombie84 said:

I have three theories to explain this:

2) The duplicate stock was very bad. In 1985, there was a batch of Kodak stocks that was excessively grainy, and it was replaced the next year with an improved version. Aliens was shot on this, which is why that films looks really grainy, and Cameron is currently de-graining it for the Blu Ray release because he says he was never happy with how grainy it was (I disapprove, but that's another case). Now, negative raw stock is totally different from duplicate stock. I don't know if Kodak's duplicate stocks that year were affected by the issue. The stock Aliens was shot on was a low-light special stock, and low light = graininess, so its no surprise that grain would be a problem. I have a feeling that the duplicate stocks would not be afflicted by this issue, but just throwing it out there that 1985 was a bad year for unusual grain for what it is worth. The duplicate stock of Star Wars might not be so bad as to have the problem of the Aliens stock, but it would definitely be grainier than an interpositive printed today because the granularity of all stocks in the 70s and 80s was poorer.

 

Which would point to problem #2 as the main culprit. You can see negative dirt on the GOUT, but you can see some on the Technicolor print, so that can't be the problem either. There's print dirt and dust on the IP itself, but thats not what is making the image look like shit, it's just making the problem already there worse. The problem also seems to inexplicably get better as the film progresses, as the first two or three reels are really bad and then it gets better; I don't know how to explain that, maybe the negative of those reels was just much dirtier so the image just looks grainier.

I'm kind of rambling now, but the situation is a bit confusing.

I completely agree. I've always thought this was the main problem behind the video image looking this way. The 97 doesn't look like this, although with the smearing from the broadcast versions it starts to. And even the SE isn't as sharp as the original.

captainsolo said:

I reviewed hairy_hen's 5.1 and decided to compare it to both the original PCM and the 97 mix. So, I popped in my LD's and was surprised at how well the Faces ROTJ held up visually. Nowhere near the V3 or GOUT of course, but still not as bad as you would think.

The 97 image just blows it away. If the GOUT master could look like this without all of that smearing a heck of a lot of things would immediately be better. I've never gone straight from 93/95 to 97 but the jump in quality is readily apparent even on an old 4:3 TV. It just has that pink problem in Mos Eisley...because no official Star Wars release can ever be perfect let alone definitive.

Yeah, it's sad that they screwed up when they made the 97 SE video transfer of ANH, you also have some horrible blue tint in certain scenes. Haven't seen Jedi but I do remember that the '97 Empire looked beautiful and pretty much perfect on LD.  

Here's another theory:

'85 IP had been retired by '92

Older IP, which had been discovered in 'special vault' in LA (see Post 38),
was used to make '92 wide VHS, Technidisc LD, and eventually GOUT.
That one contains the "old friends" the two burn marks in Tantive corridor.

'85 IP (JSC & early SWE pressing) don't have the burn marks (so O-neg probably doesn't.)
Burn marks return in '92. [They're not new -- Puggo's pre-ANH transfers already have them.]
'92 VHS, Technidisc LD have them. DC, THX, GOUT have artefacts in their place.

Besides the "old friends" we've also seen different tape/splice/glue marks between the two IP's.
Showed pics in the "smear-free '93" thread.

All of it suggests (I'm not claiming proof) that '85 IP wasn't used for GOUT.

What elements was used for the JSC & early SWE pressing seems to have been used for the '82 LD/Beta/VHS as well and probably the other following releases in the eighties. It lacks the "burn marks" missing the same frames etc. That's why I wondered where this '85 IP info came from. Must have been around in '82 already.

EDIT: Nevermind, it seems the last IP for SW was created in '85.

Have to correct myself here... I am actually not 100% sure if the source was the same for the Beta/VHS tapes (don't own my Beta tape any longer), I recall that the '82 Laserdisc transfer have at least some different choices compared to the tapes in the Pan & Scan framing, so the same transfer wasn't used for the tapes. Anyway, the IP/film elements used for the JSC was definitely used in making the first LD release in '82, how uninteresting that info may be. ;)

captainsolo said:

The 97 LDs indeed do not have the motion smearing. However, on ANH the Mos Eisley section went pink in the transfer. Otherwise they're probably one of the best looking LDs I own.

I skimmed through ANH on the US LD set yesterday and I saw the exact same DVNR-smear that is seen on the digital broadcasts. Maybe there are differences in various pressings, but what I saw wasn't nice.

The Aluminum Falcon said:

Wait what? Smearing on the laserdisc? I thought it was established that the smearing was a result of how the broadcasts were captured...

I don't know where that have been established, both Reivax and Flunk is said to be professional digital beta tape transfers rather than captured broadcasts.

The Aluminum Falcon said:

Would it be less evident on the laserdisc since I didn't see any on mine?

Maybe, ok I don't know if they have the exact same amount of smearing, but the LD I saw of ANH was pretty badly DVNR'd.

DVNR on the SE LDs?? Hmmm....I'll have to check my ANH disc closely....thank goodness for full frame control!!

msycamore said:

captainsolo said:

The 97 LDs indeed do not have the motion smearing. However, on ANH the Mos Eisley section went pink in the transfer. Otherwise they're probably one of the best looking LDs I own.

I skimmed through ANH on the US LD set yesterday and I saw the exact same DVNR-smear that is seen on the digital broadcasts. Maybe there are differences in various pressings, but what I saw wasn't nice.

Do you remember any specific locations where you noticed this? I'll check my copy.

captainsolo said:

Do you remember any specific locations where you noticed this? I'll check my copy.

Yes, the canyon where Artoo get captured by the Jawas for example, if you look close on when the stormtroopers blowing up the door and starts shooting you will see some artifacts causing the lasers to become static and smear which appears on the broadcasts as well.

If you don't see it on yours, the only thing I can think of is that his player smeared it or that it is a variation in pressings. I absolutely can not see the reference quality everyone is talking about and that the only thing that bothers people are a pink tint in Mos Eisley, I see that pink tint right from the beginning aboard the blockade runner and it goes from pink to blue throughout the film along with a quite soft and blurry picture, Empire on the other hand looked pretty damn good as far as I can remember.

You guys want the truth? You can't handle the truth! ;) Seriously though, it's not that I want this to be the case. Like I said earlier, I don't own this set myself, that's why I couldn't post some captures and tried describing it instead. I can try to get a capture of his disc and show you examples of it, but if you don't notice any problems, I guess everything is fine. Don't let my comments hinder you from enjoying your LD.