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PS78: Pre-ANH Star Wars Bootleg VHS from 1978 ***"RAW" DVD RELEASED*** — Page 6

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SilverWook said:

AntcuFaalb said:

Assuming that everything works OK: how many captures should I take with this new setup? Should I do something like an average-of-five or something crazier like five TooT()s followed by an average of those five?

You will definitely want to experiment with the 1980's built in TBC and the noise reduction.

Oh, definitely. It's going to need the TBC.

I'm reading the manual (PDF) right now, actually. I intend on reading it from cover to cover before inserting any tape into this beast.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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One of the things I did before putting a tape in, was to remove the top cover.  That way, as the tape threads, I can watch it to make sure it is threading properly and so I can catch it quickly if something goes wrong - before the tape starts bunching up.

"Close the blast doors!"
Puggo’s website | Rescuing Star Wars

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Someone with the right tools could probably put a window in the cover. One thing I liked about some decks I've owned over the years.

Most of the Panasonic AG line machines were intended to be rack mounted though. I'm still surprised they even had a tuner. I don't think I could even set the clock without the manual.

Where were you in '77?

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 (Edited)

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

Lots of useful information and opinions online about using the 1980.  There aren't really that many settings; it's pretty easy to use.  The good thing about the 1980 is that it is pretty conservative with its noise reduction. So you don't have to feel guilty about using some of its features.

Yes there are built-in head cleaners, but I opened it up and saw them - they didn't really impress me.   I find it hard to believe that they would actually clean the heads.  Personally, I'm so used to cleaning video heads myself that I feel more comfortable doing it than having someone else (or a machine) do it.  I guess it's because I work with all those old reel-to-reel formats that come from the "sticky-shed" era where you have to bake tapes and clean the heads even just halfway through a tape.  It's really not that hard if you're a careful, detail-oriented type of person.  Don't use Q-tips.

I did head cleaning the old fashioned way on some Umatic decks back in college. You had to "pop the hood". We had a special spray and cleaning cloths made for the task.

By way of comparison, I did have some build up on the head of my AG-1970 that caused some minor picture distortion until I used a cleaning tape as a last resort. I think some tapes I got in a trade were the cause of that though. I don't think I've ever had any real head problems with either 1980 I've owned.

One thing in our favor is 70's and 80's videotape were made to much higher standards. Things went downhill in the 90's in terms of quality.

Where were you in '77?

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I'm indefinitely postponing Release v0.2 in favor of the v1.0 line.

Update: I've decided to do five losslessly-compressed captures of the VHS. After making sure the frames lineup, I plan to feed all five into g-force's Median2 script.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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 (Edited)

Also, a word about aspect ratio correction - as I said before, this is a raw telecine of an anamorphic print with no aspect ratio correction, so it is both squeezed by 50% (approx. 1.20:1) and cropped by the telecine operator to fit the 1.33:1 aspect ratio of the video realm. Thus, the image needs to be horizontally stretched 2x, to an aspect ratio of approx. 2.66:1. Unfortunately, VLC doesn't have such an option.

When you do finish v1.0, could you do an alternative 2x stretched version as well? It would have to be horizontally stretched to 1440x480 to preserve the full vertical resolution.

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TServo2049 said:

Also, a word about aspect ratio correction - as I said before, this is a raw telecine of an anamorphic print with no aspect ratio correction, so it is both squeezed by 50% (approx. 1.20:1) and cropped by the telecine operator to fit the 1.33:1 aspect ratio of the video realm. Thus, the image needs to be horizontally stretched 2x, to an aspect ratio of approx. 2.66:1. Unfortunately, VLC doesn't have such an option.

When you do finish v1.0, could you do an alternative 2x stretched version as well? It would have to be horizontally stretched to 1440x480 to preserve the full vertical resolution.

That's Release v1.1 ;-) Here's what I plan to do:

Release v1.0: Median2() of the five captures, but otherwise unaltered (w/ any of the five captures available upon request).

Release v1.1: Resized v1.0 with gentle filtering; e.g., cropping and possibly some brightness/contrast, HSV, and levels tweaking if the general consensus of the people here is that it's needed.

This entire process will be very transparent and community-led. I may have the PS78 VHS, but it's really our responsibility to preserve the magic it contains.

As you know, an ad hoc committee is forming in #OriginalTrilogy. Is anyone against making this a bit more formal for PS78?

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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TServo2049 said:

Also, a word about aspect ratio correction - as I said before, this is a raw telecine of an anamorphic print with no aspect ratio correction, so it is both squeezed by 50% (approx. 1.20:1) and cropped by the telecine operator to fit the 1.33:1 aspect ratio of the video realm. Thus, the image needs to be horizontally stretched 2x, to an aspect ratio of approx. 2.66:1. Unfortunately, VLC doesn't have such an option.

When you do finish v1.0, could you do an alternative 2x stretched version as well? It would have to be horizontally stretched to 1440x480 to preserve the full vertical resolution.

Have you experimented with "force aspect ratio" you enter in a value 266:100 in video preferences and save, and it plays it like that on restart. This is how it looks doing that.

http://i48.tinypic.com/1zftpwp.jpg

However, if thats not right another thing that might work is use an aspect ratio calculator counting the number of pixels and try to find the correct force aspect ratio numbers to output that number of pixels.

 

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AntcuFaalb said:

 

That's Release v1.1 ;-) Here's what I plan to do:

Release v1.0: Median2() of the five captures, but otherwise unaltered (w/ any of the five captures available upon request).

Release v1.1: Resized v1.0 with gentle filtering; e.g., cropping and possibly some brightness/contrast, HSV, and levels tweaking if the general consensus of the people here is that it's needed.

This entire process will be very transparent and community-led. I may have the PS78 VHS, but it's really our responsibility to preserve the magic it contains.

As you know, an ad hoc committee is forming in #OriginalTrilogy. Is anyone against making this a bit more formal for PS78?

 

I'd say keep an unfiltered release in reserve in case you later want to scale back any changes you made (i.e. do the opposite of George Lucas). Also i'm guessing if you capture the best spread of information at the capture stage the less you will need to do after, which it sounds like you are planning to do in earnest. I'd be wary of making this project too formal that it becomes a chore for you - i'd say the only responsibility on this is don't chew up the tape - and getting all that original colour goodness out would be a bonus

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frank678 said:

...its like someone spilled pink blamanche over the mona lisa.

But even the Mona Lisa isn't the same colors it originally was: http://www.lumiere-technology.com/Pages/News/news3.htm

This signature uses Markdown syntax, which makes it easy to add formatting like italics, bold, and lists:

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Asaki said:

frank678 said:

...its like someone spilled pink blamanche over the mona lisa.

But even the Mona Lisa isn't the same colors it originally was: http://www.lumiere-technology.com/Pages/News/news3.htm

 

Holy S***! All my cultural touchstones are turning out to be incredibly flawed! We need Lumiere Technology working on the Blu Ray this minute

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frank678 said:

AntcuFaalb said:

 

That's Release v1.1 ;-) Here's what I plan to do:

Release v1.0: Median2() of the five captures, but otherwise unaltered (w/ any of the five captures available upon request).

Release v1.1: Resized v1.0 with gentle filtering; e.g., cropping and possibly some brightness/contrast, HSV, and levels tweaking if the general consensus of the people here is that it's needed.

This entire process will be very transparent and community-led. I may have the PS78 VHS, but it's really our responsibility to preserve the magic it contains.

As you know, an ad hoc committee is forming in #OriginalTrilogy. Is anyone against making this a bit more formal for PS78?

 

I'd say keep an unfiltered release in reserve in case you later want to scale back any changes you made (i.e. do the opposite of George Lucas). Also i'm guessing if you capture the best spread of information at the capture stage the less you will need to do after, which it sounds like you are planning to do in earnest. I'd be wary of making this project too formal that it becomes a chore for you - i'd say the only responsibility on this is don't chew up the tape - and getting all that original colour goodness out would be a bonus

I plan to hold on to all five losslessly-compressed captures of Release v1.0.

Nothing can keep me from finishing this project!

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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 (Edited)

AntcuFaalb said:

frank678 said:

I tried to keep my hand off the vlc image adjust settings, I really did, but I could'nt help myself. This is very subtle tweak (no hue change) and makes the colour 'spread out' a little more on my monitor. Adding a bit more yellow to sand, hair, skin etc. However I'm fairly certain this is pretty needless i.e. the print behind this bootleg I think is probably as good as it gets possibly 100% correct and its only the 1978 capture which can't by its very nature display the whole of the 35mm range with one setting.

contrast 0.98, b 0.93, h 360, s 1.02, g 1.38, also sharpened 0.16

http://i46.tinypic.com/2ibkgoj.jpg

http://i48.tinypic.com/t8neb7.jpg

Can you rephrase this? I'm not too sure what you're trying to say here.

here's our version of it:

=================

 

 

 

 

 

frank678 said:

This is the still Mike Verta posted of a star wars print being projected with a 70s bulb,

http://i46.tinypic.com/10f84e9.jpg

PS78

http://i50.tinypic.com/23u6893.jpg

PS78 with a merged gold overlay to replicate the effect of the 70s bulb

http://i45.tinypic.com/2up69zn.jpg

What I'm trying to determine is is the Pre ANH bootleg different from PS78 colourwise because it was captured with a different bulb. Also is the cinematography of star wars dependent on this 70s bulb completing it/pushing it over the edge (i.e. the colours are muted and then the 70s bulb makes them shine , so it is not dynamic in contrast but still dynamic in colour). This is speculation - input/correction invited.

edit/add: or do some telecines just produce a slight hue change?

 

 

here's our version of it:

===============

and one more:

=============

 

Have you experimented with "force aspect ratio" you enter in a value 266:100 in video preferences and save, and it plays it like that on restart. This is how it looks doing that.

http://i48.tinypic.com/1zftpwp.jpg

However, if thats not right another thing that might work is use an aspect ratio calculator counting the number of pixels and try to find the correct force aspect ratio numbers to output that number of pixels.

 

ours:

=====

 

later

-1

[no GOUT in CED?-> GOUT CED]

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 (Edited)

blast you negative1 and your trump cards! :O)

what about this frame:

http://i50.tinypic.com/29xjbl1.jpg

some previous runner-ups: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Calling-all-Color-Correctors-Can-this-source-yield-a-different-set-of-results-to-Gout/post/561945/#TopicPost561945

russs15= if you want to throw up some early PALs/the ITV tape against this one I reckon it will take on all comers!

grisan= 1982 german Laserdisc bring it on!

i'm not messing about on this one - this is a still throwdown!!

*Terms and conditions apply: I B Technicolor screening is excluded :O)

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ITV

1982

1987

 

4 - 5 - 3 - 1 - 6 - 2

Discuss…

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Hey thanks again! I wasnt sure if people would want to do this. Well the ITV version is the clear challenger here for me. Its got that slight grey-brown-greenness over it but otherwise its as good (maybe that 'burnished' thing undercuts the lifelikeness a bit=but not much). 1982 and 1987: too pink. I expected more of the UK 1982 tape it looked a bit pink in the frames you posted in your Pan and Scan thread but I thought the first tape wouldnt have looked so washed out right out the gate (compared to say Empire).

Do you know anything about the Krieg der Sterne Vhs - if its the same or not?

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Putting aside the colour stuff for now - it seems like the audio is a little slow - the pace seems more right when I increase it by 3% via vlc. This is on release v0.0.

?

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There's nothing wrong with the speed of the audio. It probably seems slow to you because you are used to the PAL versions, which are sped up by 4% (from the original film speed of 24fps to 25fps).

In NTSC (that is, true interlaced NTSC), the conversion from 24fps to 29.97fps is accomplished by 3:2 pulldown, which doesn't result in any change to the actual speed or pitch - it basically creates extra frames between the actual film frames by means of interpolating and field-blending.

It's all about your frame of reference; since you've seen the PAL versions for so long, you're accustomed to the movie running 4% faster than it's supposed to.

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yep raised on pal speed, i thought i was finally used to the correct speed having watched the Technidisc but I think also watching the time compressed 82 laserdisc has completely screwed up my perception of the correct speed forever - best i pay more attention to the soundtrack from now

 

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In terms of the color comparisons, it's important to remember that the color differences aren't necessarily due to fading. In the early to mid 80s, the film would not have been fading yet, at least not visibly. The color issues are more due to how the color was timed in the video transfer. Most of the pre-SE transfers of the trilogy (especially the first two) had a desaturated, low-contrast, overly bright look. (I think Jedi was always the closest, but even it looked too warm; compare the official video transfers to the clips in the 80s documentaries.)

A lot of 80s video transfers had that in common; I think it was so the image would read better on standard TV sets?

The THX transfers had a higher-contrast look (maybe too high - witness the clipped whites), but they were still desaturated and still not accurate to how the films looked in theaters.

The ITV transfer was not "properly" timed for home video; it was reminds me of TV film-chain, and it was likely transferred in-house, as the U.S. TV networks did before they started receiving ready-made video transfers from the studios.

That green-gray look is probably because the color was not adjusted too much in the video realm. Notice you can see color detail that's not in the home video releases.

Luke's skin color in the ITV frame may be closest out of the three to the theatrical prints - from what I can tell, skin tones in the original timing were more orange than pink, and Mark Hamill seems to have had a decent tan anyway.

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 (Edited)

Thanks TServo2049, I am glad there is someone willing to post reasoned information to counter my often wild misinformation. This idea of colour timing for standard tv sets makes sense to me now I think back to when my Dad brought home a bootleg of Return of the Jedi for one night only kids and it was a little bit of a let down because it was so dark. (except if probably wasnt that dark at all - it was dark relative to what we were used to seeing)

So would the ITV version look too dark on the old tv sets would you think?

I realize I have moved this thread quite far off topic, I apologize and will rein in future off topic posts

 

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frank678 said:

Thanks TServo2049, I am glad there is someone willing to post reasoned information to counter my often wild misinformation. This idea of colour timing for standard tv sets makes sense to me now I think back to when my Dad brought home a bootleg of Return of the Jedi for one night only kids and it was a little bit of a let down because it was so dark. (except if probably wasnt that dark at all - it was dark relative to what we were used to seeing)

So would the ITV version look too dark on the old tv sets would you think?

I realize I have moved this thread quite far off topic, I apologize and will reign in future off topic posts

 

Frank, it's no problem! I think the discussion's interesting.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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 (Edited)

OK, so everything's here! I love Amazon Prime. The Panasonic AG-1980 is with my VCR tech and should be done tomorrow.

The following's a picture of everything else. Yes, that's a brand new copy of TPM on VHS. I bought it to test with, as I wouldn't feel guilty destroying it.

 

My new gear!

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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i'm hoping you didn't have to pay $16,99 to get that phantom menace tape.. even though it is mint   
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Isn't the TPM VHS copy-protected? You need to find a way to bypass that if you want to test the machine with that tape.