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***The MeBeJedi DVDs *** UPDATE! (Released)

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 (Edited)

First of all, I’d like to thank Jay for taking the time to make this new forum. I hope we can all use it to great advantage.

Secondly, this thread will be my way of letting you all know about my progress on my LD-to-DVD conversions. I’ll will try to keep everyone abreast of what’s going on, as well as what’s coming up.

Thirdly, this thread is not a place for general comments like “that’s cool”, “good job”, or worst of all: “how can I get a copy from you?”. If necessary, I may create a second thread for feedback from you guys, but I’d appreciate it if you all would limit your responses in this thread. The reason being: I don’t give a crap about your opinions…

Nah, just kidding . Seriously, I can tell you from experience that if someone sees this thread being upped, and reads it to find out the latest news, only to see a post from some newbie asking if my version has the infamous C3PO line, then someone’s not going to be happy. (Anyone ever follow the Pabawan thread on TF.n?) PLEASE POST YOUR COMMENTS IN THE OTHER THREAD. I will make an e-mail address that people can send questions to. I will put answers to these questions in this first post - along with some indication of what information is new.

I would hope that others: zion, Magnoliafan, ISOMIX and others follow along, if only to help regular users (yes, I called you all “regular”) differentiate between the various versions out there.

Anyways, here is some initial information.

Hardware:
Soyo P4S Dragon with onboard C-Media CMI8738 5.1 audio card with optical/coaxial in/out
2.8 Mhz Pentium 4
Memorex DVD +/- X1
Maxtor hard drives (3 160’s, 1 250)
Dell 1025TM 17-inch flat-screen monitor
Viewsonic 15-inch monitor (12 years old!)
Pioneer CLD-701
Logitech Z-640 5.1 speakers

Software
Windows 2000 (I prefer the '98 interface, and there’s no 2 GB file limit)
Sony Vegas 5 (for video/audio editing and MPEG/AC3 compiling - Mainconcept encoder included)
<span class=“Bold”>Combustion 3 video editor</span> (BTW, This program is DA BOMB, and is highly recommended!) *** UPDATE ***
Virtualdub (for IVTC, AVI cropping, and Decrawl filtering)
DVDLabPro (DVD mastering)
Nero 6 (for burning)
Photoshop 6 (for photo editing/cropping)
Graphedit/Winhex/Besweet (These three programs were used to create the 5.1 soundtrack from the LD PCM)

Laserdisc sets
Definitive Collection : slightly defective - minor sparkling on films, commentary volumes are wildly eratic. Vegas helped me to normalize the audio for my commentary track. You don’t even notice it now. I’m assuming it is also missing some of the “Leia welding” sequence, but I’ve not bothered to check.

“Faces” set : This is the set I am using for my masters. I don’t feeling like purchasing another Def. Col., and I find the visual quality of the Faces set to be more appealing. YMMV

ANH: Fox Special Widescreen edition : Disc 1, to be specific (long story). Luckily, this is the disc that contains the infamous C3PO line which will go in a future version.

ESB/ROTJ: CBS/Fox fullscreen versions : Hey, they were 10 bucks each!

Upcoming projects:
I will be making a DVD of my version with a German soundtrack to be provided by Soundtrackmaster. (What can I say…I took the language for several years, might as well make the effort worth it. ) The DVD will have the 5.1 English audio (to save space), and the German PCM audio. Greedo’s subtitles will be in English and German, and you will be able to choose between these versions at the menu.

Tentative projects:
I am working with Rikter and Magnoliafan to reproduce the 1977 version of Star Wars as best we can. We have some of the material already, while some footage will have to be recreated (i.e. the opening crawl - my next project.)

Also, I considering making a “Radio Play” version, using the radio plays for the audio, and stills from the movies/comics/etc. for the visuals. I will experiment and see if it’s worth the effort, but I’m stoked about it. BadAshe71 will be providing the CD set. Big thanks to him.

Whenever I am able to purchase a dual-layer burner, there will be a dual-layer version.

Past progress
I won’t get into too much detail, as one can just read the Bootlegs thread to get the jist. Suffice to say, I’ve sent XVIDs of my prior attempt to Rikter to put on BitTorrents. if you’re impatient, go bug him.

Current specifications:
As it stands right now, my DVD will have the “Faces” video transfer, as well as the PCM audio. There will be a second DD 5.1 soundtrack faithfully created from the PCM. Lastly, there will be an audio commentary from the Def. Col., with a scene-specific submenu.

My menus will largely remain the same. In due time, I will post links to them here.

The current DVD will be 4x3. When it is complete, I will reformat it for 16x9.

Current progress
At this point, I am starting from scratch. Prior to receiving the Video Essentials laserdisc, I was experimenting with various capture settings for the LD picture. Ultimately, I was not able to find a happy medium in the final product. Now, my monitor and my LD capture settings are both properly calibrated, and I’ve made my new capture.

I’m expecting a delivery very soon of some important software which will help me make frame-by-frame repairs of various visual glitches. technically, I can (and have) made such repairs with Vegas using a method similar to what I am doing with the IVTC repairs. In addition to this, I will be receiving the Cinema Craft 9-pass MPEG encoder, which should be a large step up from Mainconcept’s 2-pass encoder. It will also be interesting to see if the resulting MPEG has creates a sharper image, as Mainconcept is known for softning the picture to some extent.

Due to the inconsistency of IVTC with Virtualdub, I’ve created two sets of IVTC mastered AVIs. As I find IVTC errors in the first AVI, I will swap frames with the second IVTC master. This really shouldn’t take too long, as VD actually does a very nice job overall, but it is something that I feel is necessary.

Okay, just figured something out. Comparing two IVTCed files isn’t working, because they have pretty much the same errors. HOWEVER, if I IVTC individual segments at a time (10-20 seconds), each segment IVTCs almost perfectly. Therefore, I will do this for the rest of the movie. Yes, it sounds tedious, but compared to 1) searching a section, 2) finding an error, 3) re-IVTCing the section, and then 3) fitting it in, this method is actually easier. In essence, it is semi-manual IVTCing. Right now, I am at 8,000 of 160,000 frames.

Having recalibrated my new monitor, I’ve made another capture with no modifications. IVTC looks much better now (but still not quite %100 percent.)

I’m now using Combustion 3 to remove any and all visual glitches in the video, such as “sparkles” and stuff like editing out the yellow tape marks left by splices in the master video. I’ve also played with trying to remove matte boxes in the space scenes, but I’ve yet to create a seamless effect ---- yet!

Well, I’ve had some technical difficulties with Combustion 3 (saving my changes), so until I get that hammered out, I’m going to create some small MPEGs of my current capture. I’m doing this for three reasons.

  1. I don’t think video captures really do the work justice.
  2. I finally have DSL, so uploading’s easy.
  3. My new DSl account has 150 Mbs storage, so hosting them is easy.

This will be the straight video without corrections. Some of the scenes I plan on doing (or have done at this point.

  1. Tantive/SD flyover
  2. Obi-wan/Vader duel
  3. Han/Gringo ( ) scene, with subtitles
  4. Luke destroying the DS

I’m debating whether to make them anamorphic or not, since you would need to burn them to DVD and watch them on an HDTV to get any benefit from them. It’s an easy thing to do, but I don’t know if I have enough space to have two copies of each scene. At the very least, I’ll do it for the Tantive/SD flyover.

If all goes well, they should be posted tonight.

Here are the links to the MPEGs. Get’em while they’re hot!

Obi-wan/Vader duel: 22 Mbs

Luke shoots: 12 Mbs

Vader-Leia confrontation: 12 Mbs

Tantive flyover - 4x3: 9 Mbs

Tantive flyover - 16x9: 9 Mbs

Update: Okay, Just wanted to give some examples of what I am working on. Here’s a 9 Mb segment comparing before and after. Te opening sequence has a slight glitch, see if you can find it. The remaining segments have the most speckles/glitches that I’ve come across so far, so I chose those to demonstrate what can be done with Combustion. (one of my corrected sequences has a missing frame which I wasn’t aware of until now - guess I’ll have to go back and fix it.) Be sure to watch it in fullscreen, as most of the speckles are actually kind of small. It may seem like overkill to fix them, but they would really show up in an anamorphic transfer. Plus, I want a pristine master for future projects (in case my LD player bites the dust.)

corrections.mpg

Anyways…stay tuned for updates. You can e-mail me at originaltrilogy@yahoo.com
And again, PLEASE POST YOUR COMMENTS IN THE OTHER THREAD

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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Update: You can e-mail me at originaltrilogy@yahoo.com (I've had this address for quite some time, actually.) Please don't put me on a mass-mailing list. If the mailbox gets overwhelmed, then I'll not have much interest in wading through all the e-mail

Also, please no request for copies. ANH isn't even done yet!

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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Sounds great. I wish you well on your venture.

And that MagnoliaFan and Rikter set about re-creating the closest OOT you can from the official DVDs does sound AWESOME.
THAT would be the SW DVD set to end all SW DVD sets.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal, please respond in the Feedback thread. Thanks.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

Author
Time
Update: Okay, just figured something out. Comparing two IVTCed files isn't working, because they have pretty much the same errors. HOWEVER, if I IVTC individual segments at a time (10-20 seconds), each segment IVTCs almost perfectly. Therefore, I will do this for the rest of the movie. Yes, it sounds tedious, but compared to 1) searching a section, 2) finding an error, 3) re-IVTCing the section, and then 3) fitting it in, this method is actually easier. In essence, it is semi-manual IVTCing. Right now, I am at 8,000 of 160,000 frames.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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get a better sound card.
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My card is fine, and you needn't respond in this thread, thank you very much.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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Jay - Or any MODS - Can this thread and other "VERSIONS" threads be locked to the top of the forum?

“My skill are no longer as Mad as the once were” RiK

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Not a software update, but a hardware update.

Dell 1025TM 17-inch flat-screen monitor ***Update***
Logitech Z-640 5.1 speakers (I forgot to mention this last time.) ***Update***

My friend just donated his 17-inch flatscreen monitor to me, and it looks sooooooo nice. This is the first "new" monitor I've gotten in 12 years that is an improvement over my Viewsonic (bigger, newer, better visuals). Now I can use the Viewsonic as my secondary/backup monitor. This will make my frame-by-frame work so much easier, it's not even funny.

(Too bad he didn't donate his NVidia videocard with two video outputs as well - I still have to find a decent PCI videocard to run the Viewsonic simultaneously, and it would have saved me a slot. )

Also, I put up a bad e-mail address. Here's the fix. originaltrilogy@yahoo.com Messages about copies will be ignored. Just be patient, please.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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Jay - can this thread be pinned to the first page??

“My skill are no longer as Mad as the once were” RiK

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Naw, just the feedback one. That way, when this thread pops up, people will know it's me trying to say something important....

..like now:

I'm 1/3 of the way IVTCing Star Wars. I'll be home this week helping my wife watch our 5-month-old recover from heart surgery (from the way he's talking and playing, you'd never even guess it happened!), so I should be able to finish the other 2/3's pretty quickly. Watching the film at 1/20 speed can really take its toll - I try to do this work when everyone's asleep, but this slow playback puts me to sleep as well!

I'll say this much - SW and its music is much more ominous at this speed. Luke looked ready to go postal after finding his aunt and uncle. LOL!

One thing I have noticed is that I have a lot of glitches to fix on my second pass (visual marks and such). That could be a little more tedious, but at least I can do it all in Vegas, rather than jumping back and forth between Vegas and VirtualDub.

More updates as they happen.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

Author
Time
Having recalibrated my new monitor, I've made another capture with no modifications. IVTC looks much better now (but still not quite %100 percent.)

I'm now using Combustion 3 to remove any and all visual glitches in the video, such as "sparkles" and stuff like editing out the yellow tape marks left by splices in the master video. I've also played with trying to remove matte boxes in the space scenes, but I've yet to create a seamless effect ---- yet!

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

Author
Time
Well, I've had some technical difficulties with Combustion 3 (saving my changes), so until I get that hammered out, I'm going to create some small MPEGs of my current capture. I'm doing this for three reasons.

1) I don't think video captures really do the work justice.
2) I finally have DSL, so uploading's easy.
3) My new DSl account has 150 Mbs storage, so hosting them is easy.

This will be the straight video without corrections. Some of the scenes I plan on doing (or have done at this point.

1) Tantive/SD flyover
2) Obi-wan/Vader duel
3) Han/Gringo ( ) scene, with subtitles
4) Luke destroying the DS

I'm debating whether to make them anamorphic or not, since you would need to burn them to DVD and watch them on an HDTV to get any benefit from them. It's an easy thing to do, but I don't know if I have enough space to have two copies of each scene. At the very least, I'll do it for the Tantive/SD flyover.

If all goes well, they should be posted tonight.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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Originally posted by: MeBeJedi
3) Han/Gringo ( )


So, are we now calling him that OFFICIALLY?

Oh, and the benefit from making the anamorphic is a higher quality... I know, this has been denied by many people, but you should consider that any possible compression artifacts get squeezed together (or only stretched horizontally, as opposed to a zoomed letterboxed image), and become teeny-tiny... well, at least less visible.

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Please respond in the feedback thread.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

Author
Time
Here are the links to the MPEGs. Get'em while they're hot!

Obi-wan/Vader duel: 22 Mbs

Luke shoots: 12 Mbs

Vader-Leia confrontation: 12 Mbs

Tantive flyover - 4x3: 9 Mbs

Tantive flyover - 16x9: 9 Mbs

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

Author
Time
I'll answer that in the other thread.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

Author
Time
Update: Okay, Just wanted to give some examples of what I am working on. Here's a 9 Mb segment comparing before and after. Te opening sequence has a slight glitch, see if you can find it. The remaining segments have the most speckles/glitches that I've come across so far, so I chose those to demonstrate what can be done with Combustion. (one of my corrected sequences has a missing frame which I wasn't aware of until now - guess I'll have to go back and fix it.) Be sure to watch it in fullscreen, as most of the speckles are actually kind of small. It may seem like overkill to fix them, but they would really show up in an anamorphic transfer. Plus, I want a pristine master for future projects (in case my LD player bites the dust.)

corrections.mpg

Anyways...stay tuned for updates. You can e-mail me at originaltrilogy@yahoo.com

And again, PLEASE POST YOUR COMMENTS IN THE OTHER THREAD

(BTW, big thanks to Zion for the use of his site for hosting!) Text

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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Hmmm..I assume you mean the one missing frame in the stardestroyer flyby? It's looking cleaner, for sure. Is this without colour correcting so far?
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Yes, yes, and PLEASE POST YOUR COMMENTS IN THE OTHER THREAD.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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that's cool
good job
how can I get a copy from you?
does your version have the infamous C3PO line?
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At least one version will, but I don't bother using this thread anymore.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>