Xvid (torrent):
VCD (with Sci-Fi channel identifier):
PAL VHS (My capture):
Visit my *NEW* Star Wars on Video Collection site:
Xvid (torrent):
VCD (with Sci-Fi channel identifier):
PAL VHS (My capture):
Visit my *NEW* Star Wars on Video Collection site:
Xvid (torrent):
VCD (with Sci-Fi channel identifier):
PAL VHS (My capture):
Visit my *NEW* Star Wars on Video Collection site:
Video Collector said:
LexX said:
Was there a reason not using the official DVDs as video material, aren't they better?
It's a matter of time and convenience, really
At the moment I am only doing simple transfers of the VHS tapes, a preservation, if you like.
I agree that there are advantages to using the available DVD footage and mixing it with any missing parts found on the tapes. However, at this time I am not prepared to put in the work to do so. Anyone else is free to use this project as a springboard to do exactly that*.
*LexX, keeping this in PAL territory, would you care to give it a shot for inclusion in this release? Anyone? According to Wikipedia, the Ewoks DVD contains footage from episodes 2, 1, 3 and 9 (The Haunted Village) & eps 10, 5, 4 and 13 (Tales from the Endor woods). Knock yourself out.
I thought pittrek was using your captures and making these complete?
Sorry but I can't do these projects. :( My computer is 7 years old and wouldn't handle it and I have zero knowledge of any video editing, mainly because of my imcompatible PC I haven't even tried... So hopefully someone else can do it.
And in the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns.
I don't know if this has been brought up yet or not, but the series was released on VHS in the US too. My Hollywood Video used to carry it when I was a kid and I rented them just once (right around the time the Special Editions came out). I don't know if it was the "full" series, but it was definitely released.
Hi,
I am new to the forum and signed up after reading what you guys are talking about. I am trying to do a Droids and Ewoks restoration also... I do have all the episodes but I am missing good copies of the opening and ending credits for the just second season of Ewoks. After downloading the torrents available on line (which were ugly as hell with all the "digital artifacts" in them which you can see in the examples in this forum) and then buying a "complete" set which was available on an auction website (which were just as bad) I sent out on a hunt and found a guy who had video taped them back when they were on the scifi channel. These aren't the vcd copies. They are much, much cleaner, complete episodes with the openings, and recap lead- ins. They were expensive but definitely worth it in my opinion. I am in the process of cleaning them up even more using avisynth and reading cartoon restoration forums. I am converting them to progressive format instead of the interlace that is shown on video and will be much cleaner and smoother for LCD TVs and monitors. I can post a couple shots when I figure out how to do it on this forum. It takes a while for the restoration but I am very happy with the results. Ewoks on the other hand are a little bit more difficult there is an very, very slight image echo from frame to frame that is noticeable on rapid movement shots and I am driving myself crazy with my perfectionist mentality. Video Collector, we don't need to resort to the ugly AVI episodes to fill in the missing episodes just so you know, maybe we can work together to get this done. If we can clean the raw video footage from your PAL copies it could look really good. My goal is to be able to burn these on to blu ray for storage eventually when they are done.
Ringwraith.
Good of you to step forward, man.
It's wonderful that you have great sources for the episodes we're missing and that the recaps have surfaced. I take it your Sci-Fi channel tapings are NTSC? Do your Ewoks eps also come in good quality?
Are you saying you would like me to send you my raw captures for clean up? I am willing to do that, no problem, but...
It's just that Pittrek and I were so close to the finish line with this project. The captures are done, most of them very good, but they certainly can be improved upon.
I like what you're proposing, to clean-up in Avisynth (Somewhat sceptical about deinterlacing, it almost always leaves artifacts in motion. I remain cautiously optimistic, however). You mention storage on Blu-Ray, surely you're not uprezzing these to 1080p video as well?
But here's the thing, I have seen so many projects on this forum evaporate, because they aim too high. I am not saying what you're proposing is pie-in-the-sky, but there's over 15 hours of video to contend with here (Ewoks and Droids). Are you positive you can apply your process to all this within a reasonable time-frame? Your perfectionist mentality might just trip you up.
Pittrek will have a say in this as well, he would still be doing the authoring as this is HIS project first and foremost. I am just an external content provider. I know Pittrek was already going to assess the captures and decide wether to post-process them himself.
Listen, I'm not saying we're not going to be doing this with you, we just need to set realistic goals and a realistic timeframe. Is what we have now "good enough" or do we put everything on hold pending your involvement?
Your enthusiasm and hard work may just take this project up a notch :-)
Fritz.
Visit my *NEW* Star Wars on Video Collection site:
Great news about the "missing" episodes.
Btw, I checked my rentals this weekend. The intros have subtitled "Droids" in them so they wouldn't have been perfect anyways.
Also, the dubbed/broadcasted versions don't have lyrics in the theme, it's much better without them than the off-key vocals, LOL. That could be cool menu music if I could capture it. :(
And in the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns.
Here are the images Ringwraith sent me, along with corresponding captures from my tapes (Some are lossy JPGs, so let's disregard compression related issues for now):
Ringwraith:
PAL VHS:
Ringwraith:
PAL VHS:
It appears to me that the VHS tapes could benefit from some mild brightening, maybe some slight noiserduction (but NOT too much).
Visit my *NEW* Star Wars on Video Collection site:
I actually prefer yours. Certainly it could use a tiny bit of brightening, but his look too bright. Then again, this is coming from someone who's never watched the show - so take this with a grain of salt if you remember otherwise.
A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em
I just noticed that 3PO looks slimmer on the PAL tapes (first comparison). Wonder which is correct? Actually, R2 looks more correct in the "fat" version.
Ringwraith, did you crop of any noisy edges and expand to fill the frame? (The black edges on my caps are part of the original image). Is this common on VHS? Or did they just slightly windowbox the transfers to combat overscan?
Visit my *NEW* Star Wars on Video Collection site:
bkev said:
I actually prefer yours. Certainly it could use a tiny bit of brightening, but his look too bright. Then again, this is coming from someone who's never watched the show - so take this with a grain of salt if you remember otherwise.
Bkev, what Ringwraith is proposing is to apply his clean-up process to MY captures. Those were just examples of what he's accomplished with the Sci'Fi channel airings.
Visit my *NEW* Star Wars on Video Collection site:
I am good with whatever you guys want to do. Mine are in NTSC and i didn't change the contrast on them. They were from the guy I got them from. We can see about putting them in 1080p but I don't know how to do that or how long that would take. I didn't realize you guys had a deadline in which you wanted this done but we can certainly see what the time frame would take. Just let me know what I can do to add to this.
bkev said:
I actually prefer yours. Certainly it could use a tiny bit of brightening, but his look too bright.
Agreed.
And in the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns.
I did crop a little off the edges and I change the frame size to 640x480 so they could be played on the ipod but the White Witch episode was burned back on to a DVD then played so it could be on tv.. it turned out nice. Although, anything compared to those torrents are nice. :) And I agree with you guys the first run on it, yeah it is a little too bright and was thinking about tweaking the contrast to bringing it down since i just figured out how to do that. Its kind of funny how we all jump from.... oh the only thing that is available are those ugly torrents to ..no no I like this copy over this one.
ringwraith1973 said:
We can see about putting them in 1080p but I don't know how to do that or how long that would take. I didn't realize you guys had a deadline in which you wanted this done but we can certainly see what the time frame would take. Just let me know what I can do to add to this.
Let me be clear, I think upscaling these to 1080p would be a bad idea, very bad idea. The only reason I asked you about it is you mentioned storing on Blu-Ray. I can see no advantage to upscaling anything to 1080p (or i), ever.
Regarding the timeframe. Projects like these never have a deadline, but everyone would like to have them available yesterday, know what I mean? If your process ads 6 months to a year (those projects that peetered out ususally suffer this), then we may just settle for "good enough".
Like I said, when people aim too high (adywan excluded) they usually find themselves losing interest in a project long before they're able to finish. So What I'm asking is, are you in for the long haul? I'm not prejudging you here, only you yourself know how much work this would entail and if you're capable of seeing it through. Be honest with yourself and with the forum members. The last thing we want is to be left hanging.
Fritz
Visit my *NEW* Star Wars on Video Collection site:
Oh no trust me, I want these done and I want them done right regardless I finish things. I was looking personally at storing them on blu-ray just because i have that capability and to save space... like you said these are going to take several, several DVDs where i could probably get this on 1 or 2 blu rays.
Ring, reagerdless of going forward with your clean-up or not, would you be willing to send me the files for the episodes we're missing?
"Coby and the Starhunters" from Droids
"The three lessons" from Ewoks season 1
"Prow Beaten/Baga's rival" from Ewoks season 2.
As well as the opening credits from Droids and any recaps you may have from both series?
Visit my *NEW* Star Wars on Video Collection site:
Video Collector said:
Here are the images Ringwraith sent me, along with corresponding captures from my tapes (Some are lossy JPGs, so let's disregard compression related issues for now):
Ringwraith:
PAL VHS:
Ringwraith:
PAL VHS:
It appears to me that the VHS tapes could benefit from some mild brightening, maybe some slight noiserduction (but NOT too much).
OK a few comments to the screenshots.
The Ringwraith pics look too bright, but the "VideoCollector" pics are too dark :-) Finding the perfect balance will be a tough task.
Anyway the PAL VHS captures seem to be slightly "squeezed", I wonder how will they look when you crop the black bars and stretch it to full PAL resolution (720x576 instead of 704x576)
Still the Ringwraith captures will probably nead some logo filtering, or what is that little "UFO" in the bottom right corner of the second picture ?
Fritz, did you chose the correct frames for the comparison ? I'm asking because if you check the first set, the "beam" on the first picture ends much earlier than on the second picture. I wonder if you actually used a different frame or if the PAL and NTSC sources are "positioned" differently ?
ringwraith1973 said:
Hi,
I am new to the forum and signed up after reading what you guys are talking about. I am trying to do a Droids and Ewoks restoration also... I do have all the episodes but I am missing good copies of the opening and ending credits for the just second season of Ewoks. After downloading the torrents available on line (which were ugly as hell with all the "digital artifacts" in them which you can see in the examples in this forum) and then buying a "complete" set which was available on an auction website (which were just as bad) I sent out on a hunt and found a guy who had video taped them back when they were on the scifi channel. These aren't the vcd copies. They are much, much cleaner, complete episodes with the openings, and recap lead- ins. They were expensive but definitely worth it in my opinion. I am in the process of cleaning them up even more using avisynth and reading cartoon restoration forums. I am converting them to progressive format instead of the interlace that is shown on video and will be much cleaner and smoother for LCD TVs and monitors. I can post a couple shots when I figure out how to do it on this forum. It takes a while for the restoration but I am very happy with the results. Ewoks on the other hand are a little bit more difficult there is an very, very slight image echo from frame to frame that is noticeable on rapid movement shots and I am driving myself crazy with my perfectionist mentality. Video Collector, we don't need to resort to the ugly AVI episodes to fill in the missing episodes just so you know, maybe we can work together to get this done. If we can clean the raw video footage from your PAL copies it could look really good. My goal is to be able to burn these on to blu ray for storage eventually when they are done.
Welcome to the forum. Your versions would be a great source for the missing elements, if you join us and don't mind to be a member of the team :-)
Can I ask you what are you using for the cleanup ? I planned to use NeatVideo if necessary.
Also I'm not sure if it's a good idea to deinterlace 80's TV material, what do you people think ? I used to deinterlace EVERYTHING but many "video fanatics" hate me for it :-)
Video Collector said:
ringwraith1973 said:
We can see about putting them in 1080p but I don't know how to do that or how long that would take. I didn't realize you guys had a deadline in which you wanted this done but we can certainly see what the time frame would take. Just let me know what I can do to add to this.
Let me be clear, I think upscaling these to 1080p would be a bad idea, very bad idea. The only reason I asked you about it is you mentioned storing on Blu-Ray. I can see no advantage to upscaling anything to 1080p (or i), ever.
Regarding the timeframe. Projects like these never have a deadline, but everyone would like to have them available yesterday, know what I mean? If your process ads 6 months to a year (those projects that peetered out ususally suffer this), then we may just settle for "good enough".
Like I said, when people aim too high (adywan excluded) they usually find themselves losing interest in a project long before they're able to finish. So What I'm asking is, are you in for the long haul? I'm not prejudging you here, only you yourself know how much work this would entail and if you're capable of seeing it through. Be honest with yourself and with the forum members. The last thing we want is to be left hanging.
Fritz
I have to agree with Fritz. Remember, you are starting with a VHS source. I don't believe that upscaling the image will produce a "watchable" video
pittrek said:OK a few comments to the screenshots.
The Ringwraith pics look too bright, but the "VideoCollector" pics are too dark :-) Finding the perfect balance will be a tough task.
Anyway the PAL VHS captures seem to be slightly "squeezed", I wonder how will they look when you crop the black bars and stretch it to full PAL resolution (720x576 instead of 704x576)
Still the Ringwraith captures will probably nead some logo filtering, or what is that little "UFO" in the bottom right corner of the second picture ?
Fritz, did you chose the correct frames for the comparison ? I'm asking because if you check the first set, the "beam" on the first picture ends much earlier than on the second picture. I wonder if you actually used a different frame or if the PAL and NTSC sources are "positioned" differently ?
I believe the frames are spot-on. I couldn't find any other that matched better. I think maybe Ringwraith's noise reduction has taken a bite out of the laserblast?
The UFO is the old "planet" logo from the Sci-Fi channel, where these episodes were taped from.
Pittrek, my good man, I leave any post-processing of my captures to you. You may crop them and resize them as you will. :-). I too think they may look more correct when expanded to full PAL resolution. See, that's why I just want to be an external content provider on this project. Stuff like that, fiddling around with it, will take you forever. Ha ha.
Let's just give Ringwraith a sample of our captures to work his magic on, eh? He'll go to work and report his results back here, agreed?
Visit my *NEW* Star Wars on Video Collection site:
Pittrek,
I am not using deinterlacing I am doing an inverse telecine which can be achieved with Avinsynth. I played with deinterlacing a couple times and it left a "step effect" on curves, it irritated me to no end so I have been researching how to get rid of that effect. These cartoons were originally shot in 23.97 fps (frames per second) .. NTSC adds dummy frames for American tv at 29.97 fps and PAL adds dummy frames to 25 fps... if you don't at least deinterlace them (which i don't recommend now) though you will see a "comb" effect on monitors if you ever watch them on a computer screen...tvs compensate and re-interlace them. Doing an inverse telecine restores the frames back to the way the animators did them at 23.97 fps...yes I have learned alot over the last month just because of me wanting to get it right.
Here's a before/after Ringwraith sent me:
Sci-Fi airing:
Ringwraith's frame:
My PAL DVD frame (with videotape glitch :-):
Actually, my Droids tape had some rolling damage in this section, maybe a good idea to replace portions with another source?
Visit my *NEW* Star Wars on Video Collection site:
Yes, combination of various (colour-corrected) sources seems to be the correct idea.
BTW I just found the original comic books, both Droids and Ewoks :-)