Info: Droids and Ewoks, anybody ? — Page 8

Video Collector said:

retartedted said:

Video Collector, what are you guys using for the Coby episode?

The "missing" Ewoks and Droids episodes are all sourced from the On the run NTSC DVDs. They are markedly inferior to the PAL captures, but better than nothing. *shrug*

What are you using for Great Heep?

I will be using the PAL UK VHS, as there is really no better source.  There was a Mexican VHS released for the Great Heep but that is virtually impossible to find.

For Coby I actually have a recording of the original ABC airing with the original commercials.  The quality is about a 6/10 though.  But it could be a cool little bonus episode to include I guess.

Do you have the Ewoks 'On the Run' DVD set?  All I want off of that is the 'Ewoks and Droids Adventure Hour' Intro.  Kind of hard to spend 30 bucks just for that though.

MattMahdi said:

A less random question.

How faithful to the original broadcasts are the four Ewoks and Droids spliced-together "movies"?

The story-line is exactly 100% the same.

What was changed from the original airings to the DVD sets are:

• Original Cartoon openings with music theme removed, replaced with reused or new footage to make it feel like a movie opening as opposed to a tv opening.
• Music has been changed almost across the board throughout the episodes.
• New sound effects.
• Scenes in front of and after a commercial break and shortened to make it feel as if there was no cliffhanger during the commercial break.
• No title cards before episodes.
• Credits have been completely changed as well with different music.

Things that remained the same:

• Voice acting
• plot
• pacing/editing of the scenes not described above.

All of the changes really gives it the feel of a straight to video movie release, as opposed to TV episodes.

MattMahdi said:

retartedted said:

Do you have the Ewoks 'On the Run' DVD set?  All I want off of that is the 'Ewoks and Droids Adventure Hour' Intro.  Kind of hard to spend 30 bucks just for that though.

Interjection from a lurker: I'd never heard of the "On the Run" DVDs. Just found them via Google. Is it in any way a legitimate outfit?

I assume that the answer is NO, otherwise you folks wouldn't be doing all this work (which, from the samples, looks just amazing).

Just pondering...

The source for all 'OTR' episodes are the PAL tapes.  You can see the same frame blending on the episodes.  Not sure where they got their version of Coby but it is the best I have seen so far.

If you go back to post #95 in this thread you will see the logo there in the bottom right corner of literally every second of footage on their DVD set.  It will pretty much drive you insane trying to watch the episodes.

And I agree with Video Collector, both of the sets being produced will be superior to their set because of this reason alone.

Moth3r said:

retartedted said:

Here is an untouched example of the NTSC tape.  http://www.sendspace.com/file/nxlmqn

Do you know of any good methods for IVTC that don't make the footage choppy with Avisynth?  

The only good methods I have found have been Virtualdub filters, and I would rather get the majority of the load done with Avisynth if possible.

But if push comes to shove I guess I could just use Virtualdubs IVTC.

For some reason, AviSynth was reading the file as bottom field first, when it should be TFF. Insert a AssumeTff() command in your script before the IVTC, and the frame order is correct.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/f6ev2h

This is just a quick manual IVTC using DoubleWeave().Pulldown(0,2); automatic methods such as decomb or TIVTC would be more appropriate if there are any cadence changes in the video.

(I've applied a levels tweak as well, this is my preference but of course YMMV)

thanks!

Hi guys,

I have now received VideoCollector's captures and today I got from him also the intro and ending of Droids.

Now since I am able to work on this forever (does somebody still remember my Star Wars project from cca 2004 ? ) I think I need a serious deadline.

MY PLAN :

Droids version 1.0

DVD 1 - Droids episodes 1-4

DVD 2 - Droids episodes 5-9

DVD 3 - The Great Heap

DVD 4 - Droids episodes 10-13

all episodes re-created from best sources I currently have (E1-8 + E10-13 + Great Heap- Fritz' VHS capture, I will try to remove all frame blending and other problems, E9 NTSC "ontherunvideo.com")

Ewoks version 1.0

probably 7-8 DVDs consisting of what Fritz sent me

DEADLINE : September 2011 - I really want to have this one ready in the same time as the official BluRay boxset gets released

This "version 1.0" will appear on myspleen.

Version 2.0

will be done using best available source for  every episode (ringwraith & retardeded - I'm looking in your way :-) )

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS ?

For me the most important thing will be to set the deadline. ANY deadline. Because as I wrote originally, we could end up doing this project forever :-)

So, what do you think ?

Well I have some good news and bad news about my set.

Bad news: I am starting over from scratch.

Good news: The reason for this is because I just got a JVC HR-S9600.  Generally considered to be one of the best VCRs ever made.  Even the guy that runs digitalfaq.com uses it as his own personal VCR.

I just got it today and have run some test captures and they look GREAT! I think it is about as good as these NTSC tapes are going to look.

I hope to start flying through these episodes now ASAP.

pittrek, I will try and just get my stuff out there as the NTSC set.  My sources will be...

1-8 = Japanese video + UK audio

9 = Original recording from ABC in 1985 with original commercials (quality 5/10).

10-13 = Japanese video + UK audio

Great Heep = UK PAL tape all the way.  I may need to use your guys recordings for this if they turn out great.

I have no real plans for Ewoks right now.

Here is a sample from the intro if anyone wants to check it out.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/6o8l2j

RetardedEd - is this your raw capture or have you done some noise reduction already ? Also I haven't noticed any blended frames, good good good good good :-)

I am very excited about these projects.  This is a dream come true for Star Wars completionists.  Thanks for your efforts, and I look forward to this.

pittrek said:

RetardedEd - is this your raw capture or have you done some noise reduction already ? Also I haven't noticed any blended frames, good good good good good :-)

This is what has been done to that sample...

IVTC

Crop/Resize

Slight levels adjustment to increase brightness only

Light de-noising.

So it is more or less what my final product will look like.

Retardeded - I love your sample. To be honest, I like it so much, that I would recommend a new strategy. What would you say, if I would leave Droids completely to you (I can provide you with a PAL -> NTSC conversion of Fritz's Great Heap capture) and I will concentrate on Ewoks, what would you say ?

pittrek said:

Retardeded - I love your sample. To be honest, I like it so much, that I would recommend a new strategy. What would you say, if I would leave Droids completely to you (I can provide you with a PAL -> NTSC conversion of Fritz's Great Heap capture) and I will concentrate on Ewoks, what would you say ?

That works for me as it was more or less what I was already planning on :)

It would be a wise use of resources too as then you could focus on Ewoks while I worry about Droids.  Both being large undertakings.  And this would get the complete sets released faster.

If you could get me a copy of your 'The Great Heep' that would be awesome! You could convert it or just leave it as PAL and get it to me and I can worry about the blended frames later. I would probably rather get it untouched just in case we find a better way to do it down the road.  And it is easy to just send each other Avisynth scripts and whatnot.