Harmy's THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK Despecialized Edition HD - V2.0 - MKV & AVCHD (Released) — Page 39

Harmy said:

That's possible? That would maker syncing the VHS rips of the Czech dubs so much easier!

Oh yeah. You put the gout and the Czech file on two different video tracks in your editing suite of choice (make sure they're both the same frame rate), increase the opacity of the top most video track and sync away. 

Nthis can't be as easily done on Puggo strikes back for reasons I don't have time to explain now (I'm with friends and I'm being a bit rude typing on my cell phone)

Harmy said:

That's possible? That would maker syncing the VHS rips of the Czech dubs so much easier!

Yes, I've done it before.

It's great for us video folk who don't know too much about audio processing.

Also, I forgot to mention: I don't know if VirtualDub inserts silence or does something more elaborate (e.g., cross-fading) when modifying the audio to handle frame insertions in the video. It handles frame deletions just fine, of course.

OK, so the problem with the Puggo Strikes Back audio is this:

When I set out wanting to do a sync with the GOUT, I had two goals in mind. The first was to create an A-B left ear/right ear comparison file with the standard stereo track to see if there were any other differences in the audio that people could listen to and point out. The second was, well, so people could mux it with any GOUT project they wanted!

The issue is that the PSB audio is in no way in sync with the stereo track. I had first tried to sync it up with the beginning of the opening theme song but then the piece starts to drift out of sync to the point that the probe droids launching are no longer in sync. 

While the PSB video is locked at a solid 23.976 fps, the audio was captured by running the film through a projector running at 24 fps. Puggo mentioned that he had a lot of problems syncing the sound to the picture and was constantly having to splice and re arrange the sound to get it to sync up. I don't know his exact workflow (and I wonder how rock solid the fps was on the projector - for all we know, it could have hovered 'around' 24fps), but I saw the same thing happen in film school when friends would edit their films on Steenbecks and edit their sound with 24fps sync in mind and when they would get their films transferred to video to edit a reel together, they couldn't understand why their films weren't in sync anymore. They were forced to, like Puggo, go through and splice up the sound and move it around. Well 23.976 and 24 doesn't seem like a large difference (and in terms of pitch, you really can't hear the difference), but when you're dealing with exact timing like syncing sound and picture together, it makes a HUGE difference.

The key is to decrease the speed of the 24 fps source -0.1% and then you obtain perfect sync. 

Puggo might have done this, I don't know, but I wanted the original projector captures to see if decreasing its speed down a bit would fix the sync issues I was experiencing or if it was the projector not projecting at a precise 24 fps. 

TK-949 said:

 

Mavimao said:

Oh yeah. You put the gout and the Czech file on two different video tracks in your editing suite of choice (make sure they're both the same frame rate), increase the opacity of the top most video track and sync away. 

Do you have to cut and paste to get to the same length, or is it possible to stretch/squeeze the video and audio to the correct length? I don't have much experience with editing suites.

 

As long as the two videos are running at the same frame rate (23.97 or 25 fps) there's no need to stretch and squeeze. You just line up the corresponding frames. For example, you find the first frame aboard the Tantive on the GOUT and overlap the corresponding frame on the Czech file, and everything else will line up. 

BUT! There might be a few frames missing/extra at reel changes so you'll have to go through and make sure that those match up, in which case, you will probably need to cut a few frames here, paste a few frames there. 

It's exactly like audio syncing where you're looking at the peaks in soundwaves to line up the sound to sync, except here you're looking for matches in video frames. 

TK-949 said:

I asked, because I have the same problem as this guy here:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Matching-VHS-audio-to-a-DVD-video/topic/15348/

I want to sync the audio of the german Making of Star Wars VHS Tape to the BluRay version of the documentary. But it gets in and out of sync a lot, although it has the same length and fps (after a little conversion).

Ah! I see. I will admit I've never actually done this myself, and was speaking theoretically, but the link you sent does bring up an interesting set of questions. 

Spaced Ranger says the following "(Only some?) capture cards sync audio to the video on-the-fly and don't always make a full accounting of "rounding errors" in it's sync-delays (both "+" and "-"). All other things being equal, this causes instances of drift that may or may not cancel out each other across the length of the stream. Editing can exacerbate these errors. This information (for mpeg, as best I know) is fully embedded in the audio stream (.MPA, .MP2)"

It could be errors in the VHS capture. 

The sync problems have nothing to do with 24 vs 23.97.

The video capture is frame-by-frame, so the video is rock solid whatever speed you want, depending on the pulldown you choose.

The audio, however, is captured using a mechanical 16mm projector, a completely different machine than does the video capture.  It has a motor and belts and gears etc., and naturally will vary slightly in speed due to different tensions on the belts as the film mass moves from the supply reel to the take up reel.

It is a trivial matter to sync something at the beginning, then move to the end and stretch the audio until the end also aligns.  But, given the sway in speed over the course of the audio capture, parts in the middle will still be way out of sync.

My workflow was that I synched the beginning and the end in a Vegas timeline.  Then I'd go back to the start and watch.  When it drifted out of sync, I would insert a cut in the audio timeline, and stretch/shrink both sides until it was aligned again.  I then would have to go back and make sure the earlier part was still in sync.  Then I'd continue to play forward until the next time it went out of sync.  I'd guess that by the end of a reel there would have been about 20 or 30 cuts.

It is complicated by the fact that the original film wasn't always perfectly in sync either.  There are some spots where overdubbed voices and foley sounds don't match perfectly.

I don't know how well the PSB audio would synch with the GOUT, because I don't know how well the 16mm video matches the GOUT video.  If they are identical, it would be easy to simply stretch it to fit.  I suspect there are going to be enough micro-differences at scene changes to make synching with GOUT tedious, but easier than what I had to do.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

The sync problems have nothing to do with 24 vs 23.97.

The video capture is frame-by-frame, so the video is rock solid whatever speed you want, depending on the pulldown you choose.

The audio, however, is captured using a mechanical 16mm projector, a completely different machine than does the video capture.  It has a motor and belts and gears etc., and naturally will vary slightly in speed due to different tensions on the belts as the film mass moves from the supply reel to the take up reel.

It is a trivial matter to sync something at the beginning, then move to the end and stretch the audio until the end also aligns.  But, given the sway in speed over the course of the audio capture, parts in the middle will still be way out of sync.

My workflow was that I synched the beginning and the end in a Vegas timeline.  Then I'd go back to the start and watch.  When it drifted out of sync, I would insert a cut in the audio timeline, and stretch/shrink both sides until it was aligned again.  I then would have to go back and make sure the earlier part was still in sync.  Then I'd continue to play forward until the next time it went out of sync.  I'd guess that by the end of a reel there would have been about 20 or 30 cuts.

It is complicated by the fact that the original film wasn't always perfectly in sync either.  There are some spots where overdubbed voices and foley sounds don't match perfectly.

I don't know how well the PSB audio would synch with the GOUT, because I don't know how well the 16mm video matches the GOUT video.  If they are identical, it would be easy to simply stretch it to fit.  I suspect there are going to be enough micro-differences at scene changes to make synching with GOUT tedious, but easier than what I had to do.

Thank you for chiming in Puggo! I had a very strong suspicion that the projector was not giving you a locked frame rate and glad you proved me right in that respect (and therefore proving me wrong in thinking that it was a simple 24 -> 23.97 conversion.)

We had briefly talked about me obtaining the original, uncompressed sound to make a GOUT sync with and since interest has seemed to flair up a bit, I would like to ask you again. 

I had already done a quick sync of your first reel to the corresponding scenes in the GOUT, and it seemed to work ok for the most part. A few parts go in and out in respects to the GOUT audio, but it came together by the end of the reel if I remember correctly. 

TK-949 said:

Okay. I did not mess up. The company that did the german tape did. Instead of changing the framerate, they just converted it to PAL (altough I don't know if it would have been possible in 1982 to correctly ICTV a 29.976 fps video). So the PAL audio IS in perfect sync to the NTSC video without any further tinkering.

I had wondered about that when you first talked about that, and silly of me for not saying anything. 

Glad you figured it out!

OK, can anyone tell me, where the reel changes are on ESB?

If I'm not mistaken...

1st - about 21 minutes into the film, the rebels in front of a matte painting say "Group 7 and 10 will stay behind the flat speeders. As soon as each trasport is loaded...", Reel change and then Han is shown fixing the Millenium Falcon, but with explosive results, and Chewbacca in the cockpit can't find the right button to switch it off. 

2nd - About 41 minutes. Luke crashes into Degoabah Lake. MS of Luke's face. Reel change, establishing shot of Degobah.

3rd - About 1:03:00, Luke goes into the evil spirit cave, Yoda sighs. Reel change. Next shot is looking up from the hole in the ground with the lizard climbing out, Luke goes in. 

4th - About 1:24:00 "That boy is our last hope" - "No there is another". Reel change. Luke gets the hell outta dodge. 

5th - About 1:44:25 Luke kicks DarthV down the trench in the fight in the Carbonite chamber. Luke switches off his lightsaber and jumps down to follow. Reel change. Luke enters the tube with the lights all around. The door closes behind him. 

Thanks :-)

Harmy said:

OK, can anyone tell me, where the reel changes are on ESB?

GOUT-based frame numbers of each reel change: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Reel-lengths/topic/11666/

Hey Harmy,

Did you decide to go ahead with the v2.0 encode as mentioned or hold off to just making v2.5?

Edit: Actually, if you're asking about reel changes I'm assuming that's probably what you're doing so, I'll just wait patiently for any updates. :)

I'm definitely sticking to the plan of releasing a v2.0 first and then probably making the BD a v2.5, like SW.

Same as with SW v2.0, there will be a workprint for each reel, which is why I was asking about the reel changes.

I can't wait.  :)

I have noticed that there was some alternate dialog in the audio of the super 8mm version of the movie and I was wondering if that could possibly be synced into this source

Mavimao is working on syncing the 16mm mono track, which also has alternate dialogue. I'm not sure anyone has a copy of the 8mm track to work with.

CatBus said:

Mavimao is working on syncing the 16mm mono track, which also has alternate dialogue. I'm not sure anyone has a copy of the 8mm track to work with.

you are right they are hard to come by these days

CatBus said:

Mavimao is working on syncing the 16mm mono track, which also has alternate dialogue. I'm not sure anyone has a copy of the 8mm track to work with.

I sent a PM to Puggo asking for the uncompressed file. Still waiting to hear back. If you're reading this, please reply!