Help: Looking for a Project Partner

I have many preservation projects in-the-works.

I’m looking for someone to bounce ideas off of and communicate with frequently. Ideally, he/she would have experience in color-correction and/or photo editing.

If you really want to work with my sorry ass, then post here or PM me.

What project would this be?

I have some experience with color correction and photo editing.

By experience, I mean being able to read a histogram and play around with the channel mixer. But I'm a quick study.

Count me interested.

You_Too said:

Oh you know that if I didn't have *insert large number here* projects going on and coming up, I would gladly have helped you! I hope you'll find some nice and helpful partner because I know you do have some great ideas.

Thanks!

I really wish we could have partnered-up, but I know you're busy with all of the projects you have going on with DJ.

Let's see what the futures holds. I'm still going to come to you for colortiming help! ;-)

NeverarGreat said:

What project would this be?

Too many! Haha. :-D

I have a growing list of preservations I plan on tackling.

Here's a list of my equipment:

Panasonic AG-1980 S-VHS Player

Panasonic LX-900 Laserdisc Player

Panasonic DMR-ES10 DVD Recorder (used for "passthrough" filtering only)

Hauppauge 610 USB-Live2 Capture Card

A growing collection of comb filters and other specialized gear

Here are the StarWars-related Laserdiscs I own:

1986 A New Hope Japanese Special Collection [SF148-1196]
1987 The Empire Strikes Back Japanese Special Collection [SF148-1242]
1987 Return of the Jedi Japanese Special Collection [SF148-1343]

1993/94 A New Hope Technidisc Special Widescreen Edition [1130-85]
1993/94 The Empire Strikes Back Technidisc Special Widescreen Edition [1425-85]
1993/94 Return of the Jedi Technidisc Special Widescreen Edition [1478-85]

1985 A New Hope Standard Play P&S [1130-84]
1985 From Star Wars to Jedi: The Making of a Saga (Japanese-only release) [70011-78]
2000 Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (Japanese-only release) [PILF-2830]

^Will be continued in a second post that I plan to write in a little while.

There are some other non-preservation projects I'm interested in tackling as well.

GOUT Shot-change Indices
I'd like to give back to the community a bit with a list of the [begin, end] GOUT shot-change indices. Most of this can be automated with an Avisynth script I wrote, but it'd have to be verified by human eyes.

A GOUT Release
I'd like to shot-by-shot recolor GOUT to resemble the home video releases of the 1980s; in particular, the 1985 Standard Play P&S LD. The aforementioned release is probably the most accurate "official" home video release, but exhibits some 1980s home video release flaws in the colortiming. Regardless, it seems to be what most people remember best. I'd shoot for an anamorphic DVD release of this. We can cleanup many of GOUT's non-DVNR flaws along the way, too.

Star Wars: Recobbled
An alternative to the project detailed above. I'd like to assemble the best pre-2004 sources for each shot (including unchanged shots from the 97SE) and make a better-than-GOUT DVD release of the trilogy.

Here are the StarWars-related VHS tapes I own:

(Everything not marked with a * is sealed.)

1978 PS78 Star Wars Bootleg*

1982 A New Hope Video Rental Library*

1990/92 A New Hope P&S "Your children and your children's children"
1990/92 The Empire Strikes Back P&S "Your children and your children's children"
1990/92 Return of the Jedi P&S "Your children and your children's children"

1992 A New Hope Special Letterbox Collector's Edition
1992 The Empire Strikes Back Special Letterbox Collector's Edition
1992 Return of the Jedi Special Letterbox Collector's Edition
1992 From Star Wars to Jedi: The Making of a Saga Special Letterbox Collector's Edition

1995 A New Hope THX P&S "Faces"
1995 The Empire Strikes Back THX P&S "Faces"
1995 Return of the Jedi THX P&S "Faces"

1995 A New Hope THX Letterbox "Faces"
1995 The Empire Strikes Back THX Letterbox "Faces"
1995 Return of the Jedi THX Letterbox "Faces"

Wow. I don't think that me and my single 1995 VHS of Empire will be much help to you. Though if you sent me screenshots and such I would happily look over them, I'm guessing you want someone with the sources to check against.

Good luck with your search and projects, they look interesting!

NeverarGreat said:

Wow. I don't think that me and my single 1995 VHS of Empire will be much help to you. Though if you sent me screenshots and such I would happily look over them, I'm guessing you want someone with the sources to check against.

I'm not looking for sources to check against, actually. I just took the opportunity to list all the stuff I've acquired, lol. ^_^

I'm most interested in doing the "Star Wars: Recobbled" project I listed above. Another pair of eyes and a second opinion would go a long way with that one.

So for Recobbled, I assume you would use the GOUT as a starting point, then recolor it to match some previous laserdisc release or theatrical presentation, right? Now how would you get that to be better image quality than the GOUT unless you did image registration? Because I was under the impression that the only publicly available elements prior to 2004 were of lesser quality than the GOUT.

If image quality was the goal, why not just use the Blu-rays and do what Harmy is doing with Despecialized? I guess I'm just confused as to the ultimate goal of this project.

NeverarGreat said:

So for Recobbled, I assume you would use the GOUT as a starting point, then recolor it to match some previous laserdisc release or theatrical presentation, right? Now how would you get that to be better image quality than the GOUT unless you did image registration? Because I was under the impression that the only publicly available elements prior to 2004 were of lesser quality than the GOUT.

If image quality was the goal, why not just use the Blu-rays and do what Harmy is doing with Despecialized? I guess I'm just confused as to the ultimate goal of this project.

The primary source for Recobbled would be the best of the 97SE preservations. Excluding colortiming and framing differences, ~88.7% of the 97SE is completely untouched.

The 97SE preservations are higher quality than GOUT (very little DNR and EE; less dirt and grain), but are not so strikingly different that the transition from a 97SE shot to a GOUT shot would be noticeable.

That's the problem with using the '04 DVD or the '11 Blu-ray as a source. They're so high quality that you have to go full-Harmy for GOUT not to stand out. (Plus, I'm not interested in doing custom mattes, roto-scoping, etc.)

Harmy's project is great and I try to help out as much as I can with suggestions and seeding, but it's not for me. I may be speaking OTcom-heresy here, but I have to say that I don't like his colortiming. Also, I'm a dirty-little-purist and I can't stand that some elements from the SE (e.g., recomposited models, new wipes by Pacific Titles, etc.) are left in. I understand why he chose to keep those elements in and I agree that his decision to do so makes sense in the context of his project, but it still irks me. (No offense intended, Harmy! You do excellent work!)

So, in short: Recobbled would be an attempt to get the best quality version of the OOT on DVD using 100% original shots, no exceptions!

You realize you're going to have to pull from the GOUT for EVERY SINGLE WIPE in ANH and ESB, right? And most if not all of the model shots? That might get tedious/insane. At that point, you might as well watch the GOUT.

I'm not saying I'm not interested in the project, I'm just pointing out some considerations.

doubleofive said:

You realize you're going to have to pull from the GOUT for EVERY SINGLE WIPE in ANH and ESB, right? And most if not all of the model shots? That might get tedious/insane. At that point, you might as well watch the GOUT.

Yes, I do realize that. Thankfully, it only amounts to ~250 shots for A New Hope.

I completed IP reel #1 not too long ago and the assembly wasn't that bad.

The tedious part will be running MDeGrain1 on the GOUT portions to match-up with the quality of the 97SE shots. Looking for MDeGrain1 artifacts is not fun.

Also, I forgot to mention that if we encounter a situation where it's like:

Shot N: 97SE

Shot N+1: GOUT

Shot N+2: 97SE

Shot N+3: GOUT

...

Then we'll just go with GOUT for that entire portion.

g-force: I agree. I'm fairly certain that I'm insane... sometimes. Maybe.

I didn't realize that the DNR in the 97SE is worse than GOUT. If that's the case, then I'll scrap that entire project idea.

Anyway, I plan to start capturing when my LX-900s return from Duncan of http://www.laserdiscservice.com/. Any day now...

I need ya'll to keep me level-headed. ^_^

OK. Recobbled has been scrapped.

g-force: Have you seen the following? http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/New-colormatching-script/post/634651/#TopicPost634651

g-force said:

Sorry to be a downer.

Don't be sorry. You weren't a downer.

Thanks for the double-dose of reality. Recobbled was a bad idea.

Well that's one down.

What dream shall I inadvertently stamp out next?

Hmm...

...SoIDontThinkThere'sEnoughColorInformationInTheGOUTToRecolo

Sorry. The GOUT release sounds great. It will be challenging, but it may be possible.

:)