Star Wars Trilogy 7" 33 1/3 book and record set (Released) — Page 3

TK421138 said:

Would anyone like to take a listen to my work I've done in audacity to the droid World recording? I think I've removed about as much hiss and noise as I possibly can without affecting the quality of the recording. I would welcome some fresh ears to tell me what I can do better to make it sound great. Still a newbie to Audacity, and the sliders are driving me batty. PM if interested.

Cheers,

If you want I'll try to clean it up in audition, I used to edit audio for a living.

Hello everyone, and exciting news on this great project. I just received an email from Raphael including a couple of early samples of rudimentary clean up efforts. It's going to take a while to clean these images up appropriately and restore them to their natural glory. But that is what we are shooting for right?

On the audio front Brooks has volunteered to take his turn at cleaning up the audio rip from the first book I've done. I in turn will also continue to try and hone my skills, but it's gonna take a while to teach an old dog new tricks.

I have uploaded the samples of Raph's amazing clean up samples to Picasa web if anyone would like to see it. To set up each image here is the man himself;

"On sample 1 you'll see a dark area- this is just to show you and emphasize the amount of digital 'dirt' that is embedded in images like this: back page bleed through, shadows, etc."

See the link for pictures:

 https://picasaweb.google.com/109695558536788880331/DroidWorldCleanUpPicsDaveRaphael

Cheers,

Adam

TK421138 said:

...I have uploaded the samples of Raph's amazing clean up samples to Picasa web if anyone would like to see it. ...

Looks great!

General Madine: General Moon, is your strike team assembled

Adam: My team's is ready, I don't have a command crew for this project.

Raphael: RRRRRAAAGGHHHHH!

Adam: Well, it's gonna be rough, pal. I didn't want to speak for you.

Raphael: Growls

Adam: That's one (smiles)

Brooks: Uh, General...count me in.

A little humor to end a satisfying day. Throughout the next week I'll be scanning in each booklet and getting it ready for Raphael to work on as well as recording the raw unprocessed audio for Brooks to work on.

I will also begin mapping out how I want this project to look when finished. Not sure if anyone out there has any ideas but it was suggested that perhaps at each page turn the viewer would have to press the left or right button to advance the page. Either button would in turn make the page turn realistically. Any thoughts on which program to use to make this possible? 

Second thought was, how do you feel about offering two audio options for each book? The first option would be a high quality WAV file with hiss/pop etc removed, so basically a very clean listenable version that is near CD quality.

The second audio option would be the raw WAV capture directly from the record. For the purists out there longing to relive hours spent listening to these records, they might like to recapture that feeling with all the good hiss, crackle, pop left in.

I'm not sure what the menu is going to be like but anyone with experience out there in making DVD menus? Any help would be appreciated.

On a totally unrelated note; I have procured some really nice copies of the Story Of albums along with the Rebel Mission To Ord Mantell audio drama from 1983. Story Of Return Of The Jedi and Rebel Mission are even sealed. Any thoughts on how to scan the covers of the artwork?

Cheers,

Adam

LexX said:

I'm looking forward to this project. I haven't listened any of those audio stories so I'm new to these. I only have the movie stories that were translated here (in 1995).

Welcome LexX and thank you for your interest in this project. The 7" record are I guess a little bit of an oddity in the Star Wars world. First of all a little background information on each record.

Taken from Wikipedia.org. All titles were sold under the Buena Vista Records branding unless otherwise noted. The Narration is done by either Chuck Riley or William Woodson with Anthony Daniels donning the role of C-3PO yet again.

Now as far as the dialogue, these records were very abridged and designed for children so several things had to be considered. One nothing too violent should be contained within the recordings, two each record runs approx 12 minutes so dialogue is not entirely true to the movies. Third, voice actors were hired to read the spoken passages. This results in some really funny readings from Luke, Leia, han and Darth Vader. This alone is worth preserving. The latter books get the voices pretty darn close but C-3PO sound hilarious. 

For actual dialogue and music straight from the movie see the fantastic Story Of albums that 7FN did. Otherwise these books are an important part of Star Wars nostalgia. Hope this info helps.

Cheers,

Adam

    Good news to report today! All the books are here and they look fantastic! With the exception of Star Wars Adventures In ABC which for some reason was not printed on glossy paper. This one might be the hardest one to restore, though I won't hold out hope for it.

    Also in my collection are near mint copies of all the Story Of albums and they too look fantastic. I will be painstakingly scanning in each LP cover and stitching them together to form nice complete Hi-Def cover art.

    Anyone else that would like to volunteer to help with this project? I'm sure I can find something for you to do.

Cheers,

Adam

Still looking for volunteers for this project, just let me know if you are interested.

Cheers,

Adam

Ok, I've come to a decision regarding the three main movie storybooks. Rather than scanning in the pages from the book, which the stills from the film look pretty rough, I have decided to rebuild each book with captures from the film. I opted to use DarkJedi's version of the theatrical releases for my captures as they hold true to the original movies in color and sharpness.

So I will in essence be rebuilding each book to look cleaner and overall more professional. I'll be posting the results later tonight for at least Star Wars.

Dear all,

Despite my great enthusiasm for this project, I've realised that I have bitten off more than I can chew, time-wise.
My work schedule is more loaded than I initially estimated and I'm going to find it hard to dedicate time to this project this year.
I'm really sorry about that. My eagerness to help is not at all diminished, but for the time being, unfortunately, I'll have to sit on the sidelines.
I will of course keep checking on the project's progress and if my services are still required next year I can reassess my schedule then.

Ah, if only we didn't have to make rent!

apologies again and good luck - it's a great project!

dR

Were you able to use the copies I sent you of my clean ups

Shawn

Well, as they say, back to the drawing board again.

   Last night's attempt at using stills taken directly from DarkJedi's DVD transfers of the original theatrical editions proved to be bunk for me. It seems that each frame was in fact cropped for the book. In addition it seems like alternate angles of certain scenes were also used, and they do not appear in the film.

   I thank David for all of his hard work and fully understand why he is unable to participate in this project. Grown up responsibilities sure do suck sometimes.

    This has led me to rethink this project and come up with yet another new approach to it. I'm thinking vintage looking. Since this is a nostalgic thing for me, why not recreate the feel of picking these up for the first time after they've been sitting in a box in the attic for 30 years.

The process is something like this; present a clean image overall intact with a few blemishes and natural age to it. Regarding the audio; the hiss and pop should be there preserving the original sound, however it should be moved to the background and NEVER be intrusive to the listener by obscuring any dialogue or sound effect.

I think this approach is by far the best way of presenting the material that will appeal to both fans of these books and newcomers. I'll begin work on image cleanup right away as well as continue scanning and recording new audio.

"Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances."

Cheers,

Adam

Lexx,

  I suppose I should clarify what I mean by image issues. I'll refer you to

Post 52 to see what I mean.

Cheers,

Adam

Ok to make this crystal clear to you. Alternate angles of certain scenes were used for some still frames in the book, and they do not appear in the film. I can also tell that each image is a full frame image, not cropped to a widescreen image. 

I have included samples of the alternate angles scanned from the book. This should be a good indication for you.

https://picasaweb.google.com/109695558536788880331/StarWarsReadAlongAltAnglesSamples#

Cheers,

Adam

If that's the worst of the issues it doesn't look too difficult to fix. I'd be happy to have a crack if you want to send me a page or two.

    The thing is I don't want to replace anything as that would take away from the original context of the book. Since this is a preservation I believe the book images should be presented as they are. If anything the brightness, color balance etc, needs to be adjusted accordingly for each image.

On the audio front I have suffered a slight hiccup. The USB turntable I am using to transfer the records is not of good quality. There is no way to adjust the tone arm for weight and as a result it is riding too low in the groove of the record and the result is a very noisey record. The quality of the records themselves is not all that great- that is to say they are not pressed on high quality vinyl. It is possible that these records may just be very noisey.

However I have resurected my hi-fi turntable and am ordering a new cartridge and stylus for it. My hope is that with the proper adjustments to the turntable, I can get a quieter, cleaner recording without having to digitally clean up each file.

In the meantime Brooks is doing a killer job with his attempts at cleaning each record up. The results are promising. I am hoping to get another couple books scanned in this week which will then free me up to work on cleanup of the pages and then I can begin designing how the project will look.

Update: I just ordered a brand new cart for my Pioneer PL-518 turntable. Once it is up and running and the new cart is properly broken in (avg of 10-20 hrs) I will try recording again. Meantime work continues on scanning and picture adjustment.

So happy to have my old TT back!

WOW! Seems like its been longer than a week since I posted here. My TT is up and running and I must say it has never sounded better. For fun I played my mint copies of The Story Of Albums and the quality was so amazing that I couldn't believe it. My Read Alongs are going to sound killer too!

I have purchased an amazing audio restoration program that shall remain nameless as to not colour anyone's opinions. I simply can't get over how well it cleans and preserves the original tone and warmth of an analog recording.

I hope to be up and running on the audio portion in aprox two weeks from now though it could vary with cart break in time. On the picture restore front that is progressing well too. Almost finished with Droid World and ready to move on to Planet Of The Hoojibs. Pictures to follow soon.

Cheers,

Adam

negative1 said:

TK421138 said:

 

I have purchased an amazing audio restoration program that shall remain nameless as to not colour anyone's opinions. I simply can't get over how well it cleans and preserves the original tone and warmth of an analog recording.

Cheers,

Adam

do you mean izotope?

 

later

-1

 Izotope, nope.

It's designed just for the transfer of audio from an analog source to a digital one. Not really a big deal which program it is. That is not the focus of this project. I'm not keeping any secrets by not releasing the name of the program nor am I being boastful, rather I simply want the spotlight to be on the audio and images and not on the software used. 

My rig is by no means professional, however I am pretty happy with it and I think once I get it all set up and dialed in, I can produce some potentially great preservations.

"Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future." Yoda