The MeBeJedi feedback thread — Page 3

Author: DanielB
Time: 19-Oct-2004 9:03 AM
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Oh well, I gave a friend it yesterday, so that makes up for it.

Author: MeBeJedi
Time: 19-Oct-2004 1:07 PM
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"you can use a standard TV and run the composite out through the VCR first."

Very true. I do have a VCR connected to my computer already. It just would have been a good excuse to buy a new TV for my office, instead of using the crappy one I already have.

"If you calibrate the TV using video essentials it will still be good enough for a reference for gamma levels etc."

Actually, I was just going to adjust the TV by eyeball, so I can see how it looks on a "regular" set. If I used VE, it would be much darker than the TVs people would watch my DVD on. LOL!

" Too late - I've already sent it "

Now I'm being fought over? ROTF!

MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.

MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.

JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.

Author: Laserman
Time: 20-Oct-2004 2:07 AM
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Yer kidding aren't ya?
Calibrate the set using VE, there is no way you can adjust your set to whatever anyone else might be using. That is the path to the very dark side (or light side depending on the TV)

In fact why not chuck the test pattern from VE onto the disc so people can calibrate to your setup for maximum crunchy goodness!

Author: MeBeJedi
Time: 20-Oct-2004 10:57 AM
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LOL. I had a feeling you wouldn't like that answer. I was just going to be lazy and leave the TV as is, but I'll probably get bored and end up calibrating it anyways.

As for putting the signals on the DVD, that's not a horrible idea, but people would need a blue filter for the SMPTE screen (I was pleasantly surprised that my LD came with the original.)

BTW, speaking of being bored, I calibrated my new monitor, and therefore did a new capture. I'm not sure if it made the difference, but IVTCing is almost perfect now, so I don't have to do the rest manually. Now, I can focus on taking out the "sparkles".

MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.

MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.

JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.

Author: Laserman
Time: 20-Oct-2004 8:42 PM
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Cool!
(Yeah I know I am a calibration Nazi) I was serious about at least putting the greyscale settings test pattern on the disc so that people at least have the contrast brightness set correctly.
My friends have all had to put up with me calibrating their TVs at some point in time, and although they bag me out about it, most of them have been amazed at the result (I do a convergence alignment as well, which really scares them!)

Actually Avid Pro 4.5 has a great frame by frame correction tool that would be perfect for sparkle removal. It's a shame your set suffers from it so badly.
Just on another note, I watched my DE set on my home LD player and got about half a dozen sparklies in ANH, on the LD player at work there are *none*. So it looks like some players laser pickups are better at reading crappy areas on the disc than others.

I am very keen to make a DVD-9 for ya, especially if you encode using Cinemacraft encoder - it should look very nice indeed - I finally found some decent priced good quality Dual layer media.

Good luck with it all.

LM

Author: MeBeJedi
Time: 20-Oct-2004 8:57 PM
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"Just on another note, I watched my DE set on my home LD player and got about half a dozen sparklies in ANH, on the LD player at work there are *none*. So it looks like some players laser pickups are better at reading crappy areas on the disc than others."

Oh, absolutely. I just can't afford another one anytime soon. Other than that, this is a great player.

"Actually Avid Pro 4.5 has a great frame by frame correction tool that would be perfect for sparkle removal. It's a shame your set suffers from it so badly."

Well, my school laptop has XP, so I may throw it on there with some short snippets, just to see how well it works. Prior to AVID, I was planning on lining up two copies of the AVIs, and when I found a frame with a sparkle, I was going to "punch a hole" over it, and use the same spot from an adjacent frame on the second AVI to replace it. Do you know if AVID does anything like this? It sure would save me a lot of time, as programming the "holes" can be tedious, especially when a frame has 3-4 sparkles on it (I've seen a few while watching the first segment in slow motion. Damned if I don't know this film frame by frame now!

)

MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.

MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.

JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.

Author: wadetv
Time: 20-Oct-2004 9:18 PM
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Laserman, how do you do a convergence alignment? I calibrated my TV with the THX menu and blue filter glasses but don't know what this other thing is.

Author: MeBeJedi
Time: 20-Oct-2004 9:37 PM
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IIRC, convergance alignment is for front/rear projectors. It aligns the Red/Green/Blue guns (bulbs). I had to do this on my father-in-law's new rear projection HDTV.

MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.

MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.

JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.

Author: Laserman
Time: 21-Oct-2004 12:09 AM
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No, convergence is also for normal TVs, but doing it is difficult, requires opening up your TV and can easily kill you, so don't attempt it unless you know what you are doing.

To check your convergence, put up a very fine white grid pattern on your TV. (fine lines a pixel or 2 wide with say a grid of 16x12 squares)

Have a close look at the white lines, if they are kind of blue on one side and red on the other in places, then your TV needs converging.

You can see the effect sometimes on crisp white text - it will look like it has a red or blue outline around it.

Author: MeBeJedi
Time: 21-Oct-2004 12:35 AM
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How Cow, Batman! (uh....I mean, laserman.

)

How do I use AVID to fix the sparklies? Is it part of "color correction"?

MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.

MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.

JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.

Author: Laserman
Time: 21-Oct-2004 3:19 AM
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I was thinking you could use intraframe paint, but that might only be available on our Avid, not on DV Pro - not sure...better yet, use Combustion for it and it's paint tools.
While you are in combustion you can also use the selection tools to only colour correct the parts you wish to change, great for a gamma fix in the first reel.

Author: MeBeJedi
Time: 21-Oct-2004 10:09 AM
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"not sure...better yet, use Combustion for it and it's paint tools."

Good idea, especially since it works in W2000.

"While you are in combustion you can also use the selection tools to only colour correct the parts you wish to change, great for a gamma fix in the first reel."

That sounds intriguing in a Lowry kinda way.

BTW, I guess I'm really going to need to play with CCE, because my initial results don't look any better than those I get with Mainconcept.

MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.

MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.

JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.

Author: MeBeJedi
Time: 21-Oct-2004 1:20 PM
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Okay, just wanted to give my initial impression of Combustion 3. It kicks ass!

Photoshop for video - who'da thunk it?!?

[EDIT] In fact, rather than recreate the opening crawl for the tentative "'77" version Magnoliafan and I were planning, it would be far easier to just remove "A New Hope" from this crawl frame by frame. This is great software!

There is one concern, however. The script for the serial number isn't working, so I can't put in the authentification code. Anyone got any suggestions?

MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.

MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.

JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.

Author: Laserman
Time: 22-Oct-2004 3:24 AM
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Yes, combustion is probably one of the most under rated programs out there. It is really similar to the flint/flame units we use - and its a lot of fun. I strongly recommend it to anyone trying to do this sort of work.

Re CCE, to anyone out there playing with it - it does take a lot of playing to get the best results, you really notice it's advantage on scenes that cause problems, but like a lot of things an untrained eye will really only see the difference when displayed side by side with other encoders results.

Check out doom9 or other sites for advanced CCE techniques.

Author: The Bizzle
Time: 22-Oct-2004 4:28 AM
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MeBe: If you're going to be accurate, you can't just paint out the "Episode IV: A New Hope" because the scroll size and word placement of the original scroll is different. You'd be better off re-creating it in After Effects, as has already been done on at least one Capture. They did it real well, too, matched the resolution up, softened it so it didn't look out of place with the laserdisc image. If you're going for 77 accuracy, just painting out the Chapter number and title won't do it.

The Best Show You've Never Heard

Author: MeBeJedi
Time: 22-Oct-2004 11:23 AM
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"MeBe: If you're going to be accurate, you can't just paint out the "Episode IV: A New Hope" because the scroll size and word placement of the original scroll is different."

I knew someone was going to bring that up, and you are entirely correct. That being said, recreating the crawl is a real bitch. Every new attempt I've made brings up a host of technical problems. (That doesn't mean I'll give up, just that I'm not looking forward to try again.)

MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.

MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.

JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.

Author: MeBeJedi
Time: 23-Oct-2004 5:13 AM
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I just got DSL (finally!)

Now I can upload sample AVIs/MPEGs (if someone wants to host them - I don't have a lot of server space.)

Let me know what you want to see.

MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.

MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.

JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.

Author: MeBeJedi
Time: 23-Oct-2004 11:06 AM
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Good news - I finally got Combustion to authenticate.

(Man, do I love this program!)

MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.

MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.

JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.

Author: Laserman
Time: 26-Oct-2004 4:44 AM
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Glad to hear it.

Anyone that hasn't looked at combustion really really should!

Author: MeBeJedi
Time: 29-Oct-2004 12:29 PM
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From the other thread:

"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."

Expanding to anamorphic makes any visual glitches larger along with the rest of the picture, and they are still going to be compressed in the image - thus being especially visible on the widescreen image that they are intended to be shown on.

MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.

MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.

JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.

Author: BadAsh71
Time: 29-Oct-2004 1:22 PM
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Originally posted by: MeBeJedi
From the other thread:

"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."

Expanding to anamorphic makes any visual glitches larger along with the rest of the picture, and they are still going to be compressed in the image - thus being especially visible on the widescreen image that they are intended to be shown on.

Why don't you take a scene, maybe 5 minutes from any of the OT movies, capture it, run it through all the filters and color correction you feel is necessary and then encode it to MPEG-2. Then, transfer the same scene again, crop out the black bars as necessary for the AR, run the video through whatever filters and color correction necessary, keeping in mind that these filters, etc. may be slightly different with anamorphic video in mind, then encode this version as a 16x9, anamorphic widescreen MPEG-2, create a DVD with both transfers and then compare the scenes on a Widescreen TV using Component Video Cables.

Make sure to zoom in on the video using both transfers and decide for yourself.

This topic comes up a lot and many people look at bad Anamorphic transfers and point out the flaws in comparison to a more superior 4:3 letterboxed transfer. If you ask me, this is comparing apples and oranges because the transfers are never from the same authors. MeBeJedi, you have been doing a really great job of finding just the right filters and alternative editing software to make sure you get the best transfer possible. If you could put this same knowledge into creating two short transfers as mentioned above I think we and you would have a more definitive answer on what is possible and what is good.

The gauntlet has been thrown... okay, just kidding but I would love to see the results of such a test

Author: MeBeJedi
Time: 29-Oct-2004 2:22 PM
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Well, like I said, I'll do two transfers of the Tantive flyover, one 4x3, the other 16x9. People can zoom in the 4x3 on their monitors and compare it to the 16x9.

MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.

MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.

JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.

Author: skeg64
Time: 30-Oct-2004 2:12 AM
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Remember to compare which one looks better on a 4:3 TV as well.

I think the results of this test would be that both look similar on a 16x9 TV, but the 4:3 version will look better on a 4:3 TV. Actually I would say that the zoomed 4:3 would be better than anamorphic on 16x9 because TV sets can resize the image better than a PC. But of course this is the argument that still goes on...

I see many posts on these boards from people who argue that anamorphic is the better choice, because they know that commercial anamorphic DVDs have a higher resolution. Therefore they automatically think anamorphic is better. But they don't realise that those are created from the original film, and these DVDs will not be. It is impossible to take advantage of the extra resolution when you don't have the source film. So either way you are just increasing the size of the picture to fill the frame. The debate then really comes down to whether a PC or a TV set is better at resizing the image.

Anyway, if you make both versions, I will be getting the 4:3 one even though I have a 16x9 TV.

Author: MeBeJedi
Time: 30-Oct-2004 2:34 AM
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skeg, I completely agree with you on all counts.

MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.

MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.

JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.

Author: Laserschwert
Time: 30-Oct-2004 8:36 AM
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That's what I meant... you won't get a sharper image because of the higher resolution, because this resolution-boost is only fake. But still, an 8x8 pixels large compression artifact block appears bigger on a letterboxed image than it does on an anamorphic image. That's fact... at least mathematically. I am looking forward to your samples, MeBe.