Editdroid's SW 1977 DVD (Mysterious 720p Anamorphic LD Preservation?) (Released) — Page 2

One thing I did notice that kind of bugged me is that in the scene where the stormtroopers are knocking on the doors in Mos Eisely the sound of the floating patrol droid is still heard in the background.

The DVD video was created using the 1993 non-anamorphic LaserDisc version upscaled to 720p to extract a 16:9 standard definition element.

To achieve this, the 4:3 master was rendered out frame by frame and into Photoshop where it was cropped to 16:9 and blown up to 720p. From there, the contrast of the low spatial frequencies (i.e., fine detail) was increased by 75%

zombie:  Any chance you can weigh in on all these audio/video questions?  Do you have any more information?

All I know is what is written there, since I don't know the Editdroid team personally.

Knightmessenger: I am guessing they used the LD because there are some advantages over the official DVD. For one, there is better mid-range detail compared to the GOUT. The GOUT may have used the master, but the GOUT is still a transfer with it's own qualities, which makes it an intermediary, just like the LD. Since the detail level is the same as the GOUT but the grain level is not, I am guessing the GOUT transfer was put through sharpening processing to make it look better, which is why the grain is so overly coarse. Because ED2 is not just a straight capture--they put it in photoshop to use sharpening filters/contrast manipulation to boost the detail by 75%. But I am guessing the GOUT used a similar process by the equivalent of 100%, except there is a threshhold where picture detail does not increase and you just keep making the grain more outlined. So in this sense, it seems Editdroid's decision to go with the LD was a wise one. Number two, I think the LD itself had stabilization applied to it, while the master which the GOUT is based on did not. So again, the LD is superior. If you say that the aliasing is on the GOUT as well, then there really is no reason to start with the GOUT. The notion that it is more detailed is eroneous, as long as you can pull the LD into photoshop and tinker a bit (and, I must assume, have a really good LD hardware to begin with--no clue as to what they used). I guess Editdroid suspected that the GOUT transfer itself wasn't as good as the LD, and he kind of is correct.

As to if he used the same techniques on the DVD instead: all he did was really tinker with some contrast to bring out fine detail. But there is only so much detail to recover. The GOUT reached the point where no more image detail was coming out and you kept revealing successive grain layers, so there is a distinct ceiling. Working from the GOUT as the starting point, instead of trying to get more detail you are just trying to hide detail (grain reduction), which is a main premise behind G-Force project. Plus the stabilization, which was the starting point of G-Force, which you avoid if you go to the LD. You only have aliasing, which apparently GOUT has too. It was a missed opportunity by Editdroid to not smooth out some of that though, not sure why he didn't.

Darth Editious: Why would the floating probe droid indicate it's the 1997 SE mix. He says he used the 2004 mix, which has the droid. Also he said 120,000+ frames, the + being key. I don't know, maybe he had some friends of his cover the image restoration, and so the description is off. Or maybe he just did it that way. Is there a particular reason why you can't uprez it first before you start manipulating it?

Also, Kurgan asked what this released is called. I don't know what the official title would be. I'm calling it Editdroid2, but I guess it is actually the third Editdroid disk of the film, but I believe the first two were the same transfer.

The disk file shows up as STAR_WARS_1977 and the menu titles it as Star Wars 1977 Theatrical Release, which may be the name it should be considered under (perhaps along with an "Editdroid" suffix or prefix).

Ooh, the plot thickens...

The mention of doing bulk frame work in photoshop and Moth3r's recent comment reminds me of this Zion thread:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Fun-with-Photoshop-Denoising-an-LD-capture/topic/10460/

The idea being if you had an LD capture and the GOUT could you 'blend' them together utilizing the best of both sources to produce something possibly greater.  Maybe that's what this version has done.  But again it's all speculation.

Moth3r said:

From closer examination of the screenshots, I believe this is actually another GOUT-sourced Custom DVD, and not a laserdisc capture at all.

 Why is that?

Also, if they had taken the GOUT and re-worked it, why wouldn't they just state that, as that would, on the surface, seem like a more sensible solution to most people?

Darth Editious: Why would the floating probe droid indicate it's the 1997 SE mix. He says he used the 2004 mix, which has the droid.

Also he said 120,000+ frames, the + being key.

Is there a particular reason why you can't uprez it first before you start manipulating it?

*A note about images: These are not 100% faithful to the clarity and sharpness of the actual product, however they represent a decent point of illustration.*

Moth3r said:

From closer examination of the screenshots, I believe this is actually another GOUT-sourced Custom DVD, and not a laserdisc capture at all.

zombie84 said:

Moth3r said:

From closer examination of the screenshots, I believe this is actually another GOUT-sourced Custom DVD, and not a laserdisc capture at all.

 Why is that?

Also, if they had taken the GOUT and re-worked it, why wouldn't they just state that, as that would, on the surface, seem like a more sensible solution to most people?

The screenshots are framed exactly as the NTSC GOUT DVD although upscaled to 16:9, and they show the exact same amount of picture information.

The known LDs (faces and DC) have slightly less picture information left and right and slightly more up and down compared to the GOUT.

Maybe the term "LD source" or "LaserDisc version" have been somewhat confused by LFL GOUT 'DVD' release as they used the old 1993 master that was in fact only intended for LD and VHS releases.

ED2 top, GOUT bottom

ED2 top, GOUT bottom

Well there you go - PAL GOUT is cropped. I was about to say that this "ED2" looked suspiciously like a modestly upscaled, level corrected (0.8ish), slightly sharpened GOUT, but the cropping threw me off.

DE

I think there might very well be more advanced video processing involved than that, but it's difficult to speculate with just these screenshots and without having seen it in motion.

The source really seems to be the NTSC GOUT DVD though.

I think Moth3r is right--the relative level of detail and the colour balance is strongly reminding me of the GOUT, albeit tweaked a bit.  Every laserdisc capture I've ever seen (except for possibly the blackmagic'd X0) has looked substantially softer than the GOUT, and that this should be so much closer is indicative of its true origin.  And Darth Editous raises a good point that rendering this out frame by frame in Photoshop would be an insanely roundabout way of going about the image processing.

The picture quality achieved here, however it was really accomplished and by whom, is clearly rather good, but let's not make it out to be more than it is.  I think similar results could be achieved through further AviSynth scripting, and with the addition of anti-aliasing it could potentially be superior still.

Darth Editious: You misunderstand me--the technical description with bold titles in the first post is taken from the DVD itself. It is onscreen text when you go to "extras". This describes capturing from an LD. I can't confirm any of this, I'm just reporting what the DVD says. This is my only source of information, aside from what my friend told me.

Also: "The vertical cropping, at least on the first couple of screenshots, is wider than the GOUT - or the PAL GOUT, at least." So are you saying this release has more picture area than the GOUT? The PAL GOUT is cropped compared to the NTSC keep in mind. Also, as for the screenshots, yes they are taken from the DVD but the characteristics always change for scrutinizing the shots when you capture--in actuality, the black levels are not quite so dark, there is a bit better mid-range detail (for example, the second star destroyer shot has the stars much more visible compared to the cap), and the caps seem a hair softer as well. I captured using VirtualDub and pasted them into photoshop where I created a JPEG, so its not 100% exact what the images look like, but its close enough.

However, back on topic, even if this is from the GOUT, it has clearly been re-worked in some manner. The coloring is slightly different, first off, the gate weave is more or less gone, and the grain has been reduced a bit. In addition, the contrast and black levels are a bit different, with more burned out highlights but more mid-range detail. And Editdroid burned in the subs using a recreated font. So it's clearly been heavily tweaked in post if this is the case. Moth3R is right about the framing, but I'm not sure this is the case in every shot--the rebel trooper shot, for instance, looks the same as the Cowclops framing. But the Leia shot clearly matches the GOUT with its extra space on the right where you see most of the stormtrooper's eye. Is it possible that some shots are GOUT? The opening shot/crawl clearly is. Could this be why Editdroid was only working with 120,000(+) frames, insetad of 200,000+ or whatever the proper amount would be? I'm hesitant to believe its 100% the GOUT simply because the DVD explicitly details using the LD as a base because it was felt to be the best available version, and has all sorts of details about using photoshop to upscale, extract detail, etc. Again, the technical description of the transfer's creation is not mine, it is taken from the DVD itself.

As far as I can see the framing in the rebel shot also seems to match the NTSC GOUT.

Also keep in mind, if you're comparing the ED2 with the PAL GOUT, the NTSC GOUT is slightly sharper and more detailed than the PAL version and as already mentioned differently cropped.

ED2 top, GOUT bottom

Darth Editious: You misunderstand me--the technical description with bold titles in the first post is taken from the DVD itself. It is onscreen text when you go to "extras".