PS78: Pre-ANH Star Wars Bootleg VHS from 1978 ***"RAW" DVD RELEASED*** — Page 10

Can the image even be properly IVTC'ed? The problem is that this was done on the older kind of telecine which used pickup tubes. The lag in the tubes caused moving objects to smear, especially light objects over a dark background.

I don't know if there is any clear 3:2 pattern like the later flying-spot systems which did pick up discrete frames. I can't really figure out how the pulldown system worked on the older process - from watching old transfers like these, it seems like even if you were to pull the fields apart, they'd still contain the picture info from adjacent frames smeared together.

I barely even know what I'm talking about here...maybe someone else knows more?

AntcuFaalb said:

Also, is anyone interested in helping IVTC the median-of-five video?

TServo2049 said:

Can the image even be properly IVTC'ed? The problem is that this was done on the older kind of telecine which used pickup tubes. ... from watching old transfers like these, it seems like even if you were to pull the fields apart, they'd still contain the picture info from adjacent frames smeared together.

Actually, that is what happened with those kinds of telecines. I've noticed the very same effect when examining DVD releases of the 1950's science fiction television series "Rocky Jones, Space Ranger" http://www.oldies.com/collection-view/Rocky-Jones-Space-Ranger-TV.html -- filmed on B&W 16mm and telecined to "tape masters" for (later?) TV distribution. The DVDs are sourced from those tapes.

So, yes, when breaking down (24fps) frames into even & odd fields for (30fps) recombined telecine, previous fields were improperly superimposed onto the next processed fields, as the old machinery was not fast enough (nor better designed) to cleanly switch from one field to the next. Fortunately, only less-than-half of the previous field became superimposed on the next! This means that corresponding, uncontaminated halves of the same-frame fields can be joined to reconstruct clean fields for full-frame reassembly back to 24fps.

Spaced Ranger said:

Fortunately, only less-than-half of the previous field became superimposed on the next! This means that corresponding, uncontaminated halves of the same-frame fields can be joined to reconstruct clean fields for full-frame reassembly back to 24fps.

If you have seen this bootleg can you say whether that process would be possible/desirable with this capture as is? 

AntcuFaalb said:

OK, I went all-out and did captures 2-5 last night. I'm exhausted, but I think it was worth it.

I will do one more capture tonight, as VirtualVCR reported 0 "Dropped2" frames for all captures except capture #2.

Observation: The Leitch DPS-290 sometimes (rarely) sends out duplicate frames to catch up to the genlock'd signal. This would be fixable in hardware if the Panasonic AG-1980P had an EXT SYNC-IN, but it doesn't. I believe the duplicates are exact duplicates, so I should be able to use pass 1 of MultiDecimate to identify them and manually replace them with non-duplicates from one of the other five captures.

Observation: The temporal luma variations mostly happen at scene changes. Furthermore, they're most disturbing when moving from a bright to a dark scene; e.g., Tatooine scene -> Sandcrawler scene. I believe that splitting the film by groups-of-scenes-that-should-have-similar-brightness and applying DeFlicker to each group will fix this issue.

Question: Does anyone have any idea as to why the big ugly lefthand-side curve changes in size and shape throughout the entire film?

Question: What is the correct size? Someone mentioned in an earlier post that all I need to do is double the width. Is this correct? If so, please explain further, as I'd like to know!

about the duplicate frames, IF 4 of the five captures always have the correct frame at any one time, the median-of-five script will take care of it for you automatically. The method you describe sounds like a LOT of work (you will get false positives that you will have to weed through, or you will miss some due to noise and other fluctuations)

about the luma variations, sounds like brightness AGC. If so, deflicker won't touch it. 

about the left-hand curve, does it change based on overall brightness (i.e. change on scene changes)? Just thinking of power supply issues old CRTs had, maybe something similar in the capture equipment.

about the size - msycamore for sure would be able to help you with this, as would a bunch of other people here, but he comes to mind because he's been doing so much aspect-ratio analysis on his transfer.

If you post some raw video that exemplify the problems you are describing, SOMEONE here will have an answer for you.

looking forward to seeing the results of your hard work!

-G

@AntcuFaalb - Forgot to mention in my first post that this is an awesome project you're undertaking. But just as valuable is the detailed description of your methodology. Much appreciated!

frank678 said:

If you have seen this bootleg can you say whether that process would be possible/desirable with this capture as is?

Haven't watched it; my bandwidth is the proverbial "98-pound weakling". :) My reply was strictly according to TServo2049's description of the anomaly (which is likely considering the "old VHS bootleg" context). I would say that the correction is desirable and workable (I've manually tested this in the previously mentioned RJSR circumstance). Also, the correction should be automatable in, for example, Avisynth, as such an anomaly would have been machine generated.

Darth Mallwalker said:

^Spaced Ranger in the scenario you describe, would it look something like this? So far I'm not seeing that in PS78v0.1. Fields look pretty-well blended there but I suppose it could be the result of DivX encode, as AntcuFaalb said.

Your frame doesn't quite look like what TServo2049 was describing. Your frame has part of one field is shifted, not double-exposed to give a "smeared" appearance. (Of course there's no motion here.) I've separated the fields of the frame. Switching between them shows what is happening to that one field:

This could be an alternate manifestation of the same anomaly, where the anomalous part is not double-exposing, instead superseding. A review of 5+ sequential frames (preferably with moving subjects or background, but not both) should make that determination.

On the other hand, this could be the result of AntcuFaalb's equipment-chain interacting to produce a new anomaly. Maybe TMTBC (Too Much Time Base Correction)? :)

AntcuFaalb said:

Question: Does anyone have any idea as to why the big ugly lefthand-side curve changes in size and shape throughout the entire film?

Question: What is the correct size? Someone mentioned in an earlier post that all I need to do is double the width. Is this correct? If so, please explain further, as I'd like to know!

q1. nope. not sure what it is either. My guesses were an unstable piece in the projector masking part of the film or a crack or warp in the 1978 vcr or master cassette?

q2 I would refer to TServo2049's post

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/NEW-possibly-2nd-Generation-77-78-Bootleg/post/583437/#TopicPost583437

When I used the force aspect ratio 266:100 in vlc it looks pretty spot on, unfortunately at the moment I have very limited internet access so I can't access much at the moment. There are aspect ratio calculators online and you can count pixels and stuff. To me one way to be really really sure you are spot on MIGHT be to find an accurate reference (e.g. blu ray frame) with a square/rectangular shape within it (since you can't use the outer edges of the PS78) then resize the matching ps78 frame so it overlays perfectly via that square/rectangle then go back and find what you multiplied the original height and width to make it fit and apply that across the whole thing

Spaced Ranger said:

Haven't watched it; my bandwidth is the proverbial "98-pound weakling". :) My reply was strictly according to TServo2049's description of the anomaly (which is likely considering the "old VHS bootleg" context). I would say that the correction is desirable and workable (I've manually tested this in the previously mentioned RJSR circumstance). Also, the correction should be automatable in, for example, Avisynth, as such an anomaly would have been machine generated.

 

I posted static shots which show the effect:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/NEW-possibly-2nd-Generation-77-78-Bootleg/post/584163/#TopicPost584163

But I can't do much else at the moment due to access could some one post 5+ sequential frames from one of these scenes so Spaced Ranger can determine if it is improvable or no 

frank678 said:

I posted static shots which show the effect:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/NEW-possibly-2nd-Generation-77-78-Bootleg/post/584163/#TopicPost584163

 

Comparing one of those static shots (24fps) to a screen-cap from the 2006 "bonus" DVD (30fps):

The tape's smear appears to be too indistinct and large to match what a bad-telecine would be (a smaller and quite solid blur, much like in the DVD cap).

AntcuFaalb wrote: I think the only way to do this properly is on a scene-by-scene basis

Please define what's you mean by 'this'.  Are you talking about the IVTC process and merging of the captures or additionally the DeFlicker attempt?  The IVTC and merge, as long as the captures were done in one take should be consistent and the merge should return a better product.  But agree the DeFlicker would require each transition to be scrutanized.

I will post all five raw captures to Usenet

Very few have the resources to download one version, 5 raw seems overkill for the abilities of the people around here, maybe a small couple minute test piece first.  Then see what people say.

Does anyone have an index of the scenes that were kept in the film?

negative1 has been setting out the individual shot frame in-out times for the GOUT: (each movie is around 2,200)

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/frame-data-star-wars-GOUT-NTSC-widescreen-V10-now-complete/topic/9567/

There is also a publicly editable spreadsheet which may be of help, but it does not include the frame numbers at the moment:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Shot-List-Spreadsheet-v0505-6-films-publicly-editable/topic/13403/page/2/