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THX 1138 "preservations" + the 'THX 1138 Italian Cut' project (Released) — Page 72

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Spaced Ranger said:

@ AntcuFaalb

Some time back, you were looking into 2D/3D comb filtering. What is the status of the "phase-inversion trick" and a capture card that properly implements both 2D and 3D comb filtering without AGC problems? Are you using both these in the THX 1138 laserdisc captures? (If so, would you post some pictures & descriptions of the work's application & improved captures?)

BTW, how goes the development of the 3D motion-adaptive comb filter?

1. The "phase-inversion trick" turned out to be a dud. After learning A LOT more I realized that you need to flip the phase of the luma, but the phase of the luma is already set because LD is a composite signal. It can hypothetically work if you pass the signal through a comb filter and have it flip the luma phase 180º between captures. Unfortunately, this would still rely heavily on the quality of the comb filter used and the "phase-inversion trick" in question would just create rainbow-sized and dotcrawl-sized holes in the separated signal that may or may not be pleasing to the eye. It's probably best to avoid this altogether.

2. My quest to find the perfect capture card stalled, unfortunately. Every one I looked at had at least one of the following problems: a crappy comb filter, "AGC Gone Wild!", poor chroma resolution (<1.5MHz), a not-precise-enough clock, etc. I eventually settled on the Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle because of its rock-solid clock, excellent chroma resolution, and lack of other problems. Unfortunately, it sports a crappy comb filter, so I only pass s-video into it and rely on an external comb filter to do the job. In this case I'm just using the internal 2D comb filter in the Runco LJR-II. It's good by modern 2D standards (I've done comparisons) and holds up to typical LD noise rather well. FWIW: Mark S. Brasfield (of MSB—the company that modded the LX900 for Runco) tweaked it himself.

I really can't afford a good external 3D comb filter and the less expensive ones are coupled with deinterlacers (including IVTC) and scalers and it's rarely possible to turn those functions off to just pick up the combed 480i signal. Turning those function off is necessary for me because, for instance, the IVTCer can screw up with an unexpected change in cadence and then... well... what do you do to fix that? Plus, from what I've seen, the scalers have nothing on the NNEDI family due to realtime constraints.

Exception: I'd love to work with a Crystalio II VPS-3300/3800 if anyone is feeling generous. ^_^

3. Slow. My use of optical flow turned out to be a bad idea, so I'm now working on a good pixel motion estimation algorithm and I haven't really designed one that's up to my standards (in terms of accuracy) yet.

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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Mavimao said:

AntcuFaalb: I'm looking forward to your project and can't wait to see any screenshots you may show us.

I'll get around to it! My four-month-old is taking up most of my time outside of work. :-/

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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SilverWook said:

http://youtu.be/eoufubNJguA

 
It is really great to see someone acknowledge and highlight the film this way almost thirty years ago, especially considering the general consensus from critics up until that point.

Thanks for the share!

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SilverWook said:

http://youtu.be/eoufubNJguA

Is this clip available anywhere else? (On a DVD, perhaps?)

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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No idea.

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Where were you in '77?

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thxita said:

SilverWook said:

http://youtu.be/eoufubNJguA

 I didn't remember THX pinching LUH's cheek before the sex scene.

 If there's yet another version of the movie, I'm going back on sedation! ;)

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Where were you in '77?

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SilverWook said:

thxita said:

SilverWook said:

http://youtu.be/eoufubNJguA

 I didn't remember THX pinching LUH's cheek before the sex scene.

 If there's yet another version of the movie, I'm going back on sedation! ;)

 No, LOL! It's cool! I checked, it was always there. 

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I don't think they're going to let us borrow that. ;)

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No, but I thought someone might be able to get a viewing of it, and check out some details.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

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Wouldn't they have to be an academic doing research or have some other credentials?

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@ AntcuFaalb

Thanks for the update! Too bad these things must be dragged along, kicking and screaming.

On the chance you may have already seen this -- I came across a thread, Best VP for Laserdisc playback, under Video Processors of the AVSforum. Those few pages there are a wealth of information and learned opinion (some basic & some in-depth) ... and worth a read.

Aleks.J posted there about a laserdisc player he was upgrading with higher quality components (the man sure knows his electronics -- must be an engineer). He even posted about some of his progress here at OriginalTrilogy, too. For example, this thrilling note:

AVS Forum: Best VP for Laserdisc playback - Aleks.J said:

I have been modding my player quite a bit now, watching the Star Wars 97' special edition i was unsure i were watching Dvd or Ld

Also, with your mention of the Crystalio II VPS-3300/3800, he had words to answer from bygone years (2009):

AVS Forum: Best VP for Laserdisc playback - Aleks.J said:

The one used in the X0 is indeed an old design, the unit was released in 95. The Runco and its father the Nec Ips 4000Q was released in 99 so that means the filter in the X0 is from 94 wich is pretty weak compared to the newer 3D filters. Compared to the mitsu 3D filter in the C2ex the Nec is still better. Head to head i bet it can beat the Crystalio II on LD performance if it outputs s-video because of its design and strong TBC.

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@ poita & SilverWook

Leave the UCLA to me, Prof. S. Ranger (the "Spaced" should get me in the door no problemo).

I'll do some research into Fanboys to hatch a plan of attack. Just don't tell me the odds.

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The NEC does well on test patterns, but not very well in actual scenes.

Unfortunately for all his playing, Aleks never got that player performing better than the same player just calibrated properly. We discussed a lot of mods to LD players and I tried them as well, it cleaned up the noise in the power supply rails a little, but introduced other issues.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

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Thanks for the Aleks.J's hardware-upgrade info! He went M.I.A. on the 2 forums after some posts and we never found out about the final result of the upgrade. Too bad about The Law Of Diminishing Returns. I hate that law.

BTW, somewhere in that thread (or one of it's references) was mention that the 3D motion adaptive comb filter (as hardware implemented) is practically ineffective. It only works on static images (to make use of temporal filtering, from images before & after) and switches back to 2D filtering when movement is detected. Aside from the theoretical proof offered by test patterns, the picture is almost always moving in the real world and therefore is almost always being 2D filtered. (I hate The Real World law, too.) Hopefully, AntcuFaalb's usage of "pixel motion estimation" will allow the use of the 3D filter all the time. (I like temporal filtering.)

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Spaced Ranger said:

Thanks for the Aleks.J's hardware-upgrade info! He went M.I.A. on the 2 forums after some posts and we never found out about the final result of the upgrade. Too bad about The Law Of Diminishing Returns. I hate that law.

BTW, somewhere in that thread (or one of it's references) was mention that the 3D motion adaptive comb filter (as hardware implemented) is practically ineffective. It only works on static images (to make use of temporal filtering, from images before & after) and switches back to 2D filtering when movement is detected. Aside from the theoretical proof offered by test patterns, the picture is almost always moving in the real world and therefore is almost always being 2D filtered. (I hate The Real World law, too.) Hopefully, AntcuFaalb's usage of "pixel motion estimation" will allow the use of the 3D filter all the time. (I like temporal filtering.)

This "movement or no movement" decision isn't made on a per-frame basis. It's not like some frames are 2D and others are 3D*.

These decisions are usually made at the block or pixel level. Think of a ship moving across a static background. You can, in this case, recover the static background via temporal (3D) comb filtering and use other techniques (2D, etc.) for the ship. Most 3D comb filter designs work this way.

* This is certainly possible, but it's generally not a good idea. Frames with tons of movement are mostly 2D comb filtered, but this a heuristic decision rather than a design one. It's also worth mentioning that the old pre-upgrade Bifrost 3D comb filter for Avisynth made per-frame decisions. O_O

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 getting ready to generate a new 8-bit file to work with from the 10-bit master.

I needed to stretch the luma levels from [64, 888] to [64, 940] before moving on.

I did a ton of analysis on the previous 8-bit work file, so unless there's a glitch in the matrix, I should be ready for a release sometime soon.

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)

Will your work be applicable to other problematic Laserdiscs, or is this geared toward the unique issues of THX?

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Where were you in '77?

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SilverWook said:

Will your work be applicable to other problematic Laserdiscs, or is this geared toward the unique issues of THX?

The analysis work is applicable to any multi-capture LD project. It's really just a few Avisynth functions I wrote way-back-when to check for temporal alignment.

Stretching the luma levels before dropping to 8-bit, on the other hand, is just necessary for my setup. I capture "flat" and correct in post.

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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AntcuFaalb said:

... unless there's a glitch in the matrix, I should be ready for a release sometime soon.

Cool! (hopefully some raw/processed compared caps?)

And ... wait ... that black cat ... deja vu?

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 (Edited)

This may be old news, and I can't recall seeing a link to it, but I just saw this website:

http://lucasfilm.com/thx-1138

Some interesting things are noted and presented, e.g. a behind the scenes picture I hadn't seen before:

Also, they feature a few quotes and informative pieces regarding the Director's Cut:

In an extensive restoration, THX 1138 was put through ILM's "digital intermediate" process. The film's original negative was scanned, digital color correction was applied, and a new digital master was created.

Nothing new here but I am hoping that the digital master will see another release by Disney. THX was part of the acquisition right?

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No mention of the new scenes pasted on afterwards of course.

Nobody seems to know if THX was part of the deal. It might be jointly owned/controlled by Warner and American Zoetrope? Disney had to deal with Paramount to fully own Indiana Jones, but THX might not be something they really want.

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 (Edited)

Spaced Ranger said:

AntcuFaalb said:

... unless there's a glitch in the matrix, I should be ready for a release sometime soon.

Cool! (hopefully some raw/processed compared caps?)

The raw will go on Usenet (a.b.sw) and the median-of-three'd DVD will go on MySpleen and Usenet.

The DVD will be the LD. By this I mean: every frame on the LD will be preserved down to the last one before the A->B side-change and the last one at the end of side B. There will be no menu, but the chapters from the LD will be ported over. The only audio option will be the English 1.0 PCM track from the LD. I'm still on-the-fence as to whether or not to AC3ify it or to just include it raw.

I'd like to include subs and/or CC despite not being present on the LD. This is low priority at the moment.

JEDIT: Whoops, I missed the word "caps"! Silly me. Those are coming soon as well.

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