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The Cowclops Transfers (a.k.a. the PCM audio DVD's, Row47 set) Info and Feedback Thread (Released) — Page 3

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Well, I finally got to watch some of the TR47 set so here's an UN-educated review. I don't know anything about LD to DVD transfers or video editing or anything like that. I'm here to one day start my own "starwarslegacy" project since Mike (mverta) isn't going to share which is a REAL, REAL, REAL, REAL, BUMMER. I could even provide proof of purchase for the 2004 DVD set, but still NO bites. Anybody else out there wanting to do a similar project as mverta's??? (my PM is working)

Anyway, here's my set up which isn't the greatest in the world, but any improvement based on components would probably be subtle (but not sure):

1) 50" PHD-6UY Panasonic Plasma
2) A/V Reciever Pioneer VSX-D711
3) Brand new $270 Sharp DVD-RW / VHS player (I forget model #)
4) SpeakerCraft AIM3 in ceiling speakers and matching 12" sub

I understand that this is one of the best OT back-ups available for now, so here's hoping the next generation is better (The new TR47 set or the Zion or MBJ set)

PICTURE:

Was soft and looks like analog cable on my monitor, but the colors are a little more washed out. I watched:
a) The opening battle on board Princess Leia's Blockade Runner(ANH)
b) The Battle on Hoth(ESB)
c) The Millium Falcon escape of Hoth (ESB)
d) The Battle on Endor (ROTJ)

The picture reminds me of an old VHS tape.

SOUND:

Since my DVD Player is brand new I haven't had the chance to set up bit stream feed to my A/V reciever, but what I heard I was pretty happy with.

I have NO regrets purchasing this set. Since there are no other choices and that I believe what people are saying that the TR47 is one of the best available.

If the video could match the sound I heard this set would be perfect. I have the OT on LD, but I've been to lazy to dig it out and set up the LD Player. I may just have to do that to see how close the TR47 set is to the disks. If I do this I'll post a follow-up.
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If the new TR47 set is even better than the current one, then I'm already sold. I have the 4 disc set, and it's great.
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Is the new set anamorphic or not?
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That is the plan, yes.
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i've read that the tr47 empire disc is nuked? I tried playing it in my player and it didn't work all that well. The best I could manage was to get it to play the video but not the sound. On my computer, however, the disc plays fine. Is this what is meant by the disc being nuked? is there a fixed version available at the moment? i got my version from the spleen.
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I've not yet uploaded the "fixed" version as of yet

MAYBE soon but we'll see

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

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Sorry if this has been brought up already, but for your new version, will the subtitles be 16x9 friendly?

Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the war room!

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That part is not completed, but any relevant info will be posted here once it is known.
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I mean the subtitles for alien languages. Because Jabba's and Greedo's are kind of cut off when you zoom in on a 16x9 set. Of course I already know it by heart, but it helps.

Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the war room!

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UPDATE:

I went ahead and hooked up my LD Player a Pioneer CLD-V2400 w/ composite to my 50" Panny and compared it to the TR47 set using my DVD player (using component)

I didn't spend too much time but the TR47 was pretty close to the Faces LD. The only difference I could tell was the Original "Faces" LD was brighter w/a little bit of a red push compared to the TR47 set.

PLEASE HELP: What is dot crawl???

Anyway both may had the same amount of jagged outlines of the images on screen w/ a slight egde in sharpness to the Original LD, but not much.

I also purchased the '97 SE LD and boy what a difference the SE LD reminded me of how Star Wars looked in the theaters in 1977. DAMN it's too bad Lucas isn't going to fix and put out the OT on DVD.

The '97 SE LD was sharper than the Faces LD, colors might have been the same except more detailed w/ crushing of the gold colors of C3PO's outer shell. (NOTE: I only watched the open scene on all three discs)

So in order from best to worst:

1) '97 SE LD - sharper picture, less jagged lines on the images, more detail on C3PO's shell
2) Faces LD - Colors brighter (may be too much red push) - very slight edge of sharpness over the TR47 set
3) TR47 - but only what was mentioned above - sound still excellent, same if not better than the Faces LD

I don't know if the Faces LD looked so fuzzy because of the composite connection or my player, I'm not sure if it would have looked better on a different player or using S-video or not. Does anybody know the answer to this???

I am SO looking forward to the next generation of SW LD b/u projects, from the pictures i've seen there may not be a difference between the LD and the b/u's w/ a slight edge to the b/u's do to the filtering.

Hope this is helpful.
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Hi Daniel.

Dot crawl is exactly what it sounds like, lots of dots crawling around the edges of colour boundaries.
The most obvious places to see it are in the 'LUCASFILM' green logo at the start of EPIV. You will see the edge of the green lucasfilm text have lots of dots craling around it. (Like the perforated edges of a stamp.)
Unfortunately the LD player you have (CLD-V2400) gives a pretty awful picture, and suffers from dot crawl but it can be converted to play the old laserdisc games like space ace etc. so it has some redeeming features. So I am not surprised that the TR47 set looks comparable on your setup.

As far as plasma's go, the 6UY is a damn good screen with good black levels, but it's limitations don't make it a good choice for comparing sets, a normal TV will actually be better for this. The jagged edges you are seeing are mostly a by product of the internal scaler on your plasma screen not getting it right.

(Compared to other plasma screens, the 6UY has good black levels, and contrast ratio, but compared to a CRT it is badly lacking in both areas, as well as colour reproduction - also its internal scaler is good but not great. You really need to run an external scaler for the Laserdisc. and a scaling DVD player like the Momitsu V880DX or the Nueneo or similar to see the best out of that screen. They do a MUCH better job of scaling to the panels native 1366x768 resolution. The screen is truly wasted without a scaling DVD player running from the HDMI port. Also, turn CATS off for the best pic, and I would shell out a couple of hundred to get it professionally calibrated by a pro with a colourimeter, the difference is astounding.)

You should actually see a noticable increase in quality from the new DVD versions we are preparing from LD, vs what you see on your laserdisc player.
This is mainly due to a much better quality laserdisc player being used in the initial transfer. So bizarrely for anyone out there with a laserdisc of the CLD-99 ilk or lower quality unit, the new bootlegs we are working on should look better than your original laserdiscs on your players!

On other topics, jeez guys how tight are you all. 7 Bucks is too much to pay to have a Dual Layer version of the movie????
DL burners are less than $100, and though the media seems really expensive in comparison to DVD5 blanks, really for one off projects like this, 6 or 7 dollars isn't really a problem is it?
That way you get the pure PCM sound, and a big increase in picture quality. If you are capturing from a good laserdisc player (an X9, X0, S9 or 925 etc.) then the difference in DVD9 vs DVD5 is quite drastic.
I can't even fathom the prospect of doing a DVD5 version of the OT anymore - I just can't see the point - unless you own a cruddy 20" TV set or smaller, the difference is instantly noticable. I agree that PCM on a DVD5 is crazy though, it leaves you with so little space for the movie that you are seriously compromising the picture.

Of course, if you are coming off a low end LD player as your source, then a DVD5/9 version with 2.0 DD is probably not going to look any different, so from that pov, it makes sense. But the DVD5 versions have already been done - repeatedly- and you aren't going to get that big an increase in quality out of a new DVD5 version.
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Laserman, Thanks for the reply.

I'm married so I have no more money to buy cool toys (i.e., DVI/HDMI blade and player, HDMI/DVI cable, scaler or ISF Calibration ) - though I may save my pennys from allowance for the cal.

I bid for a Pioneer Elite CLD-79 on e-bay, but lost.

Two questions:

1) What's CATS???
2) How do explain the diff w/ the '97 SE LD???

Thanks Again for the GREAT Info -
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A neo scaling DVD player can be had for around $US200 all up, a momitsu V800DX for a little more - either would be a superb investment to get the most out of that screen. Spending huge bucks on that screen to get a substandard picture from DVD for the sake of a few hundred dollars is nuts.

1) CATS is the automatic brightness/contrast setting that is meant to cater for ambient light - its awful, turn it off.
2)The SE discs look better because they are a better transfer from a mostly restored print. The 3:2 has far less errors than the OT laserdiscs had, the colour is far superior, and there is a lot more detail on the discs themselves. So they will look better on your set. If you can get to a high end AV store though, get them to play it through a terranex scaler, then you will really see what a scaler can do

But anyway, we are getting off topic. PM me if you want more details.
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Hi. I'm the one that made "The TR47" set and I'm the one making the new one. So far, the in movie video is finalized for the new set, and this week I'm finishing up the extras. One thing that TR47 said (he's sort of the executive producer of this little project... I sold him a set back when I was selling them on ebay in March 2003 and he liked it, so thats how he ended up on this) is that I would use the actual Definitive Collection chapter stops. I may not be doing this because I think it has an unnecessary number of stops per movie... something like 60 i believe. I'd prefer to do less than 30, as this actually makes it easier to navigate the movie (and frankly takes less effort to author). I might just do every other stop, or "the most important ones" but anyway, I didn't use the original stops for the so-called "TR47" set and it works. As long as they're not arbitrary, I can't imagine anyone complaining.

As far as using PCM audio on a single layer disc, there has been talk of the video quality suffering far too much. This is not the case. Because the Laserdiscs are so much softer than a true film->dvd transfer, it actually makes it very easy to compress. The average bitrate I'm using on the new set (which is actually a little less than I used on the old set because I'm making room for menus) still produces a maximum Q level (as reported by bitrateviewer) of LESS THAN 5, and an average of less than 3. While this doesn't imply that the final video quality is perfect, it DOES imply that the quality lost due to compression is extremely minimal. As a comparison, I popped in the theatrical version of Fellowship of the Ring, and the average Q was around 4 and it peaked all the way up to 8 for a max. The point is, because of the nature of the source, it is very compressable... so you lose just about nothing when comparing single layer to dual layer versions. For those who don't believe me, I did actually compress it twice and I will keep the "dual layer" version archived for future purposes if necessary, but right now, it just isn't necessary.

They will be anamorphic, so that people with 16:9 sets can watch them without black bars on the sides. The one thing that might be an issue is that while the subtitles in the Jabba the Hutt scenes aren't cut off because of the resizing process, they well almost certainly be in the overscan area on typical 16:9 CRT sets. This shouldn't be an issue for LCD/DLP projection and it won't be an issue on a PC monitor, however.

For those that think the color saturation in the original set is lacking, I've picked up a lot more knowledge on color processing in the last 2 years, so hopefully people should agree that the color on the new set far exceeds the quality of the previous set.

If you have any more questions, you can get me on "Cowclops" on AIM.

For those wondering about the previous version, you can find my crappy leftover "faq" site on the original version at http://www.cowclops.net/sw.htm

Feel free to continue referring to it as the TR47 set, as he is going to do most of the "promotion" work anyway, as you've probably already noticed.

Enjoy.
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I find that quite surprising, as I get a major difference in quality going from single layer to dual layer from the X0 laserdisc transfer. I would still be reluctant to put the PCM on a single layer transfer, unless the source capture was considerable worse than what I am getting.
I found the compression artifacts on the original TR47 set to be pretty awful, it was the worst feature of the original TR47 set. (I'm not dissing it, that was just the thing I liked least about the set, and the other bootlegs). It is paticularly noticable in the closeup scenes of the xwing canopies etc. Perhaps its just because I watch it on a big screen that it is particularly noticable, but it is common to all the DVD5 bootlegs I have seen, and is a noticable step down in PQ from the laserdiscs.

With DVD9 blanks being cheaper than purchasing a movie, I don't see the point in going DVD5... Are people here really so cheap that they won't shell out 10 bucks for an excellent copy of any of the OT movies in the best possible quality? Or is it that Dual Layer sets would be less profitable for a seller?
The only reason I can see now for a DVD5 version is if your DVD player won't play a DL DVD+R.
Still though, there is plenty of room to improve on the existing DVD5 sets, I'm looking forward to seeing this one!
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Originally posted by: Cowclops
Hi. I'm the one that made "The TR47" set and I'm the one making the new one. So far, the in movie video is finalized for the new set, and this week I'm finishing up the extras. One thing that TR47 said (he's sort of the executive producer of this little project... I sold him a set back when I was selling them on ebay in March 2003 and he liked it, so thats how he ended up on this) is that I would use the actual Definitive Collection chapter stops. I may not be doing this because I think it has an unnecessary number of stops per movie... something like 60 i believe. I'd prefer to do less than 30, as this actually makes it easier to navigate the movie (and frankly takes less effort to author). I might just do every other stop, or "the most important ones" but anyway, I didn't use the original stops for the so-called "TR47" set and it works. As long as they're not arbitrary, I can't imagine anyone complaining.

As far as using PCM audio on a single layer disc, there has been talk of the video quality suffering far too much. This is not the case. Because the Laserdiscs are so much softer than a true film->dvd transfer, it actually makes it very easy to compress. The average bitrate I'm using on the new set (which is actually a little less than I used on the old set because I'm making room for menus) still produces a maximum Q level (as reported by bitrateviewer) of LESS THAN 5, and an average of less than 3. While this doesn't imply that the final video quality is perfect, it DOES imply that the quality lost due to compression is extremely minimal. As a comparison, I popped in the theatrical version of Fellowship of the Ring, and the average Q was around 4 and it peaked all the way up to 8 for a max. The point is, because of the nature of the source, it is very compressable... so you lose just about nothing when comparing single layer to dual layer versions. For those who don't believe me, I did actually compress it twice and I will keep the "dual layer" version archived for future purposes if necessary, but right now, it just isn't necessary.

They will be anamorphic, so that people with 16:9 sets can watch them without black bars on the sides. The one thing that might be an issue is that while the subtitles in the Jabba the Hutt scenes aren't cut off because of the resizing process, they well almost certainly be in the overscan area on typical 16:9 CRT sets. This shouldn't be an issue for LCD/DLP projection and it won't be an issue on a PC monitor, however.

For those that think the color saturation in the original set is lacking, I've picked up a lot more knowledge on color processing in the last 2 years, so hopefully people should agree that the color on the new set far exceeds the quality of the previous set.

If you have any more questions, you can get me on "Cowclops" on AIM.

For those wondering about the previous version, you can find my crappy leftover "faq" site on the original version at http://www.cowclops.net/sw.htm

Feel free to continue referring to it as the TR47 set, as he is going to do most of the "promotion" work anyway, as you've probably already noticed.

Enjoy.


Hello Cowclops and welcome to the board.
You did a very good job with your DVDs and I am looking forward to your new set.
I agree with you that 30 chapter stops are enough for a movie, but I also understand the people that prefer the original LD chapter stops.
I am also pleased to read taht your next set will be anamorphic, because this will increase the quality a little.
However using PCM on a single layer DVD is just plain stupid IMO. (No offense.)
Of course you are right if you say that because of the LD-source the video is easy to compress, but the video quality could still be better with a higher bitrate. I think video quality should always be first, especially because the difference between PCM and ac3 sound is extremly minimal if noticable at all. If you choose a high bitrate for the ac3, lets say 384 Kbit, there is no way anyone can hear a difference. You would save more than 1 Mbit that could be used for the video track. 1 Mbit will make a big difference in scenes with high motion. Another factor is that instead of 1 PCM track you can easily add 3-4 alternate audio tracks (other languages, music, DC LD commentary, 2004 DVD commentary).

Greetings
Grisan
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I believe you missed what I said about bitrate viewer. Every mpeg encoded video, be it mpeg1 or mpeg2, has a number associated with each small sequence of frames. This number is called the "Q level" and describes, basically, the difference in quality between the source frame and the mpeg2 compressed frame. It ranges from 1 to 100 with 1 being best and 100 being worst. There is nothing to be "gained" by forcing the bitrate higher because there is nothing LOST at the bitrate I used for the single layer discs (about 3500kbps).

An average of less than 10 is usually considered acceptable (at least by people who author SVCDs, who usually accept less than perfect quality anyway). Most pro hollywood DVDs have an average ranging between 2 and 8, and usually a max of not more than 10. The Q level on all 3 of the discs I made now is about 2-3 average, 5 max. This means that it is LESS COMPRESSED than most high-quality professional DVDs. Consider extreme examples of compression difficulty... on one hand you could have a "video" comprised of a static black background and nothing else for 5 minutes, and on the other hand you could have a white-noise video. It might take over 15 megabits per second to get anything resembling white noise on a DVD in mpeg2, but the static black background will be "perfect" with very very little bitrate. Because of the softness of the LD source, and the noise reduction i've applied (I used a slightly different method this time around, so the "Grainy" clouds on Cloud City in ESB no longer look as such. This was actually a side effect of too much noise reduction rather than "not enough) keeps the bitrate required to maintain near-uncompressed quality VERY low. So, with "just" 3,000 kbits per second, its less compressed than some movies that require 5000 or 6000 kbits per second to appear acceptable.

If you take the original TR47 set as proof that I can be trusted on matters of video quality, believe me when I say that "quality gain" by going dual layer or using DD audio is, for all intents and purposes, ZILCH. Nonetheless, it costs me nothing to leave a higher bitrate version on my hard drive, so I did encode a dual-layer friendly version, but mostly just to keep around to show people that the difference just isn't there.
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Cowclops,

Have you been keeping up to date w/ the OT LD b/u's going on on this board??? (It's all techno babble to me, but...) Are you applying some of the filtering / sharping ideas going on here???

Some of the screenshots here really make me look forward to the next generation. Have you considered sending some screenshots here for comparison???

Have you considered a de-SE'ing DVD set like the one at starwarslegacy.com??? (My PM is working)

Thanks for the good job on the last set.
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I did consider the possibility of doing something like starwarslegacy.com but since the person on there is already doing such an excellent job, i'm better off preserving the original than creating yet another edit (even if its an edit people agree with).

I can take some screen shots, i'll probably do so this weekend. I figured out an easy way to rip out a lot of screen shots in a short amount of time, so there will be stuff to see soon enough.

I'm aware of some of the techniques being used by people, but frankly i'm not convinced. Most of the reason the first versoin came out so good is because I tweaked the video as LITTLE as possible... if you try to sharpen it you might just bring out artifacts that you don't really want to see, and I've already got a good noise reduction method. The reality is, you can't polish a turd, and if you try to you're probably just going to break it up. I'm still split as to whether the noise reduction i did is an "improvement" but what it comes down to is, its necessary. If I just captured the video and compressed to mpeg2 with no processing in between, it would be too hard to compress for even dual layer, and thus it would suffer. The noise reduction I'm doing (which is similiar to what you saw on the last set) allows me to do unheard of things like compressing the video at "only" 3000kbps. Its hard to explain without illustrating the full process, but when I'm done you guys should like it.

The two major "hardware" differences between what I used this time and last time, is that last time I used a Pioneer CLD-59 and a DV camcorder. Since then, I've figured out how to keep the video in sync with a cheap consumer TV capture card (10 bit phillips based asus tv fm). So now i don't need to use the camera, and i got a CLD-97 (TR47 funded that purchase). I know those who talk more often than they actually do something will probably scoff at the fact that I didn't use an HLD-X0 to do the recording, but these are all but impossible to come by and I'd have to question what I'd really gain by using such a player. If it was a perfect world, i'd just pay somebody to break into the Lucasfilm archives, steal me a print, and steal me a telecine machine and I'd be all set. Unfortunately, that isn't going to happen, so I have to draw the line somewhere of what is possible and what is unfeasible.
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You do realize, Cowclops, that the set at starwarslegacy.com will never see the light of day since he is making it solely for himself right?

I would officially shit my pants if I were to learn that a skilled video editor was working on a similar "edit" that would make it's way into distribution. If the reason you decided against it was that it was already being done, I still say go for it. Somebody make one that we can all have.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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(Disclaimer When saying 'you' in the following comments, I mean anyone doing this stuff, not "you" as in any particular person. I tried typing it all as "when one does this and one does that, but I sounded like the Queen)

The noise reduction is where I get the rub.
If you apply heavy noise reduction, then of course you can compress the image more - you are effectively 'posterising' the image, so creating larger areas of block colour, and therby making it more compressible.

Of course if you process an image to throw a lot of its detail away, then you won't see any quality difference between medium vs high bitrates *because the quality was already thrown out in the first step*. I now understand why there is no difference between DVD5 and DVD9 on your set.
With a good player and disc set, the noise is almost non-existent except for where it should be there (i.e. film grain)

The problem with noise reduction is that it always throws away *some* detail. No matter how good it is, it is impossible for an algorithm to fully discern between actual noise, and say, the subtle weave pattern of the fabric of a costume, fine detail in a cloud and film grain for instance. This usually looks fine on an average 20" TV, but on a big screen it looks soft, posterised and awful.
For example, if you are getting dot crawl then that needs to be fixed at the capture stage - if you try to fix it later with filters then you are once again throwing out detail along with the noise.

I agree that applying sharpening filters etc. in most cases causes problems in the other direction, it can emphasize any noise or abberations in the source footage. Colour grading is an important step though, as it is off on the original laserdiscs and can be brought into line for a much better result that actually improves the image without introducing other issues.
I enjoyed the original TR47 set, it was the first time I heard of DVD bootlegs, and was what got me involved in the first place but thought its video quality was its biggest problem. Your new set should be a huge leap over the old just by using the 97 and a capture card rather than DV capture. The CLD97 is a great unit. It still introduces some noise, as does the asus card, but far far better overall than the previous setup. It should look great.

I don't think anyone will scoff at not using an X0, (whoever does, feel free to donate one to the cause) but if you want to know what you would gain by going to the X0, its mostly greatly reduced noise, zero sparkle artifacts, and absolutely no comb issues. The laser machanism really picks up exactly what is on the disc, even if it is somewhat damaged. They are available, but they are outrageously expensive, the cheapest I have seen one lately is 3 Grand, so for most of us, borrowing one is the only option. The other option is to pick up a CLD-2950 and a PAL set of disks, it gives you better quality than the CLD-97 NTSC setup, but the difference is quite small indeed.

Everyone here needs to remember that all of us trying to save the OT in the best possible way do so out of our own pockets, many of us have sunk a horrible, wife unmentionable amount of money into trying to do this

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This is probably the set I'm looking forward to the most. I thought the first one was great, especially for how old it is and the equipment that was used. Now that it'll be done on a CLD-97 and captured to uncompressed video, should be quite a step better. And I like the idea of using as little video processing as possible.

One question, will the audio be captured digitally or via the analog outputs?
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I just wanted to chime in here and go over a few things. First off, these are LASERDISC copies.. they can only look as good as the source, and they're not going to look good on a large HD monitor no matter what capture method or equipment you use. For most people these are a large step up from crappy VHS tapes, and that's all they are meant to be-a non degradable DVD copy of the true versions of these films. Secondly, most people assume I made the transfer despite the fact that I have stated the opposite several times. Now that the creator is here, it will dispel any more misconceptions. The simple fact is, I was looking for the best version I could find of the OT on DVD, and this just happened to be the best one. If Gonzo's set was the best, I would have championed his set... so it could have been anybody's. As Cowclops has already stated, the best thing to do would be to raid either LFL or the Library of Congress to get prints of the originals, and rent a telecine machine to make transfers, but obviously that is just a pipe dream. The LDs are the best we will likely ever have unless my theory of Lucas' ultimate marketing ploy becomes a reality somewhere on down the road. Only time will tell.....
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Interesting info - looking forward to seeing some screenshots - hopefully the same scenes (and maybe more ) as the ones in the official screenshots thread on here.


Hi & welcome to Cowclops - a great set you did.

A little patience goes a long way on this old-school Rebel base. If you are having issues finding what you are looking for, these will be of some help…

Welcome to the OriginalTrilogy.com | Introduce yourself in here | Useful info within : About : Help : Site Rules : Fan Project Rules : Announcements
How do I do this?’ on the OriginalTrilogy.com; some info & answers + FAQs - includes info on how to search for projects and threads on the OT•com

A Project Index for Star Wars Preservations (Harmy’s Despecialized & 4K77/80/83 etc) : A Project Index for Star Wars Fan Edits (adywan & Hal 9000 etc)

… and take your time to look around this site before posting - to get a feel for this place. Don’t just lazily make yet another thread asking for projects.