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Info: Original episode cuts of TV series...

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Okay, this may not be exactly a fan cut, but merely a restoration of the “This way it meant to be” version. Maybe some of you know the Mini-Series politics of Universal. They cut it all together in one big chunk and sell it on DVDs.
I find this very stupid, as it gets very hard to watch a series in one big chunk, for example “Das Boot” which has a running time around 5 hours. Originally, there have been 6 episodes á 50 minutes!

So, I will try to restore the original episodes from the DVDs. ATM, the following TV series will be edited by me:

  • Das Boot (obviously )
  • Battlestar Galactica Mini-Series
  • Traffic Mini-Series

I wouldn’t bother to post this here normaly, but there are some problems by doing this:
1. I do not know where the original episodes ended
2. I do not have the opening and ending credits

So, if anyone knows, at which timestamp the original episodes ended, please post them (together with the information if you referring to PAL or NTSC) or maybe a scene description if you don’t have exact time stamps aviable. Until now, I have found out this far:

Das Boot
Originally consisted of 6 episodes á 50 minutes. Sadly, in recent airings it was cut together into 3 episodes, so this was no help. Maybe someone of you owns the LD or VHS set and can tell me?

Battlestar Galactica Mini-Series
Was originally aired as 4 (not two as in later airings!) episodes. I have found out, where the 2 episode version has it’s cut point, but that’s not what I’m looking for, maybe someone of you remembers the original airing from 2003, or has taped it?

Traffic Mini-Series
Well, I do not know very much about the original airing, because I first saw it on DVD. However, I had the feeling it was intended to be 4-5 episodes. Any information would be much appreciated.

As to the opening and ending credits, if any of you has them, maybe you could send me a pm or email?

Last point:

I don’t know if I can release this versions. ATM I not really sure if it’s possible to restore it anyways

I’ve read the rules carefully, so I hope I’m not violating them…

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No, Galactica was aired as 2. The cut point was right after Adama sees Lee "die" on DRADIS. You can tell because the music abruptly stops at that point. There are AVIs of the original airing around somewhere, through bittorrent.
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Originally posted by: ChainsawAsh
No, Galactica was aired as 2. The cut point was right after Adama sees Lee "die" on DRADIS. You can tell because the music abruptly stops at that point. There are AVIs of the original airing around somewhere, through bittorrent.


Yep, I know those AVI (I'll propably use them for the credits).
So basicly, epguides is wrong?
BSG on EPGuides

If I'm really lucky, there is a chapter stop at this point, so I don't have to recode some of Episode 2.
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I always thought the abrupt cut on the BSG mini-series was quite bad. It was clearly meant to be one long film in the first place.
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Originally posted by: Jobel
I always thought the abrupt cut on the BSG mini-series was quite bad. It was clearly meant to be one long film in the first place.


I don't think so. But I don't think I'm able to translate the concept of "Spannungsbogen" into english, my skills are somewhat flawed

I've just realized, that this forum might be the wrong place to ask for cut-points of "Das Boot", it was propably never shown as TV series overseas... Anyways, I've asked in some german boards if they have info on this.
Das Boot will propably be the last project I will handle, because this will be to one I have the most work on. I'll try to maintain as much as can of the Superbit DVD, because of the superior picture- and soundquality. Unfortunately, my Mini-Series DVD is in PAL, so I have to DownSpeed to NTSC, but PAL has a higher resolution anyway, so there won't be much loss in quality. I'm not sure if I can remove the blue line defect, which is visible on the left side of the picture in the Mini-Series version.

On TV.com, there is a listing that says Traffic consists of three episodes. I've seen AVI files that are three part, maybe those can help me.
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Whow, that was fast:
I already obtained a version with intact credits at the beginning and the end. But it does not feature a recap.
Does anyone of you know if there was a recap at the beginning of episode 2 on the airings?
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Originally posted by: iRantanplan
Originally posted by: ChainsawAsh
No, Galactica was aired as 2. The cut point was right after Adama sees Lee "die" on DRADIS. You can tell because the music abruptly stops at that point. There are AVIs of the original airing around somewhere, through bittorrent.


Yep, I know those AVI (I'll propably use them for the credits).
So basicly, epguides is wrong?
BSG on EPGuides

If I'm really lucky, there is a chapter stop at this point, so I don't have to recode some of Episode 2.


Yeah, epguides is wrong - also note the airdates for parts "1&2" and "3&4." They were never shown as a four-parter ... how boring the first episode would have been; no one would have finished the miniseries.
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Well, I got the specs for the 3 episode version of "Das Boot". It's a start.
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Sooo, this morning at 4am, I was done with principal editing for the Battlestar Galactica miniseries
Just to give you an idea how I did it:
I first thought I would use FCP4.5 (I'm a mac user), but then thought, that it would be a waste to reencode everything just for two little scenes. What I used was MPEGStreamclip to cut and demux the VOBs (and the two AVIs from SciFi). It was a pain in the ass to do it that way, especially only being able to cut at keyframes, but I didn't have to recode a single frame from the DVD material
To convert the AVI from SciFi, I used the MainConcept Coder. Pretty fast and nice quality (also the resizer is better that the one from compressor).

The first episode was very easy, just a cut after the music silenced when Adama thinks Lee is dead (I had to use a few frames more, because the music cue is slightly longer on the DVD), then I hard cut to the end credits from the mini series DVD (I thought about a fade to black, but this way the impact is better IMHO).
Second episode was more complicated. Problem is, the SciFi version used an alternate take at the beginning (reversed angle). So I used two seconds or so from the SciFi version, cut to mini series DVD until the hangar scene when the credits started. Then DVD again in the scene when Baltar sees Six for the first time until the very end. Also I had to use a few seconds of the SciFi versions audio track, again because of the fact the music cue was a little bit to long on the DVD, but I did a upmix to 5.1, so everything stays at 5.1
However, I did not incorporate the audio commentary (I prefer watching the AK as a whole).

No colour correction yet, but video and sound stay in sync, so the next step will be colour matching and authoring it using DVD Studio Pro (maybe I will upload a three minute sample later if anybody is interested how it looks).
For colour correcting I have a question though:
The x0-project used AVISynth to set new white and black levels (link to article). Sadly, there is nothing that powerful on mac. Has anybody a suggestion how I could do that on a mac? AVIdemux offers some tools for colour correcting, but not an option to set new black/white levels....
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Here's the link by the way:
http://rapidshare.de/files/31910444/Video-Stream_1.mp4.html

MP4 can be viewed with VLC, mplayer, Quicktime alternative and of course Quicktime itself