Info: POSSIBLY FOUND - Star Wars A New Hope Technicolor I.B. dye transfer print - random post on reddit — Page 7

Hey, I'm happy if anyone does it. It is a *huge* amount of work to do, so if someone wants to do it, then I'm all for it. I have already bitten the bullet and done the 4K upgrade (who needs a car anyway).

I'm pretty sure his rig is based on an optical printer, which would mean a very slow process (as in 100s of hours). Has he scanned any complete features, or just trailers?

SilverWook said:

They never learn, do they? Seems like an awful waste to destroy a perfectly good print. Do the studios require proof of destruction?

Now I'm having visions of some crazy person concealing old film prints in their house, like a scene out of Fahrenheit 451. Or maybe it's just someone I know...

Has anyone else seen the restoration documentary on the Gone With the Wind 4 disc dvd edition?

They talked about how even technicolor prints could turn out differently and that sometimes people would get excited about finding a technicolor print from a middle of nowhere theater. And it turned out to be one that was a bad printing so they sent it somewhere not important.

I'm pretty sure that was also the documentary that mentioned how for the 60's rerelease, the studio wanted it to be in stereo because that was all "new" and "better." And they wanted whatever source of the mono mix tossed.

However, somebody kept the print hidden and tucked away knowing it would be worth saving and it would have been very hard to present the original audio mix on dvd if that source had no longer existed.

I would suggest not naming any person in a thread that might do a high res scan and make it available for fans to use for restorations and to share publicly. Keep that sort of talk for private conversation. :)

poita: Nice to hear about the 4k upgrade, that would provide more than enough detail for a print scan. And thanks for the dedication required to make that happen. :)

Yes, even if one finds someone to scan a print, it is never good to put their name out there. I am setup only for people who have permission to scan prints, and there are still some super8 and 16mm film makers out there who want their own work scanned and I do that mostly.

Misregistered IB prints are not much fun to watch on a projector, but if scanned right the underlying layers can be re-aligned on the computer with really good results.

When you make a print, you can time it however you like, so an IB print isn't always a good representation of the original work, but as they don't fade noticeably if stored well and not screened too much, they are a good representation of how an IB print would have looked at the day it was projected. Whereas most other stocks will be quite different 30+ years on.

Additionally Thunderball looks different on every transfer. The vintage Tech print I saw 5 years ago was beautiful.

Interesting color on this 8mm scope LPP print on ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Star-Wars-Super-8-SCOPE-very-Rare-Feature-Length-Film-LPP-/171058013702?pt=US_Film&hash=item27d3da2606

Then there's this listing for SW on video tape, but on an actual reel of video tape looks like 1/2 inch tape.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Star-Wars-Movie-on-Videotape-1-2-in-x-2400-ft-12-7mm-x-730m-2-Reels-/251290675877?pt=US_Movies_Other_Formats&hash=item3a82176aa5

Wonder what this could be?

It's probably some sort of broadcast master. I wonder if anyone actually has the tech to play it back.

Looks like EIAJ, the closest thing to home video format which had some popularity from about 1969 to 1976 when VHS supplanted it.  I digitized about 75 EIAJ tapes for commercial release a few years ago, and I have a nice late-era EIAJ deck.  My EIAJ transfers are better than every commercial house I know of - although I know one guy on the east coast who has a modified deck that produces slightly better transfers.

The only other similar format I know of is CV, but that's about 5 years earlier.  I also have a good CV deck.

If it is a larger format, I should be able to find someone who could transfer it.  I'm a member of an old-vtr's forum and there are people there I could probably cajole into helping.

If anyone here wins it, I'll have a look at it and digitize it if it is of interest.  But of course I suggest coordinating so y'all don't bid against each other.

Wrong thread for all of this really, but I am bidding on the tape version. The Super8 is the cineovision transfer which is only of interest for the mono soundtrack really.

The tape is most likely CV and probably recorded from a TV broadcast, but still could be interesting. It might be EAIJ Type 1, which could indicate a dupe from something else which would also be interesting. I have a CV deck, but not an EAIJ one, either way I'll pick it up if it doesn't go for much.

It is 1/2 inch, so as Puggo said, most lilkely one of the two.

The seller also has Thunderball, Close Encounters and Sinbad on the same tape format.

It is highly unlikely to be CV.  CV was popular in the late-60s until about 1972, by which time EIAJ had pretty much supplanted it.  The latest CV tape I have ever encountered was from 1971.  EIAJ had so many advantages over CV that most people who had CV switched to EIAJ.  It's hard for me to imagine anyone making a CV recording in 1977, but I have seen numerous EIAJ tapes from that time period.  And anyone who for whatever crazy reason was still using a CV deck in the mid-70s, would likely have made the jump straight to VHS by 1977.

I also have a good CV deck and a myriad of time base correctors.  Although in the highly unlikely event that this does turn out to be CV, and if it turns out to contain anything of interest, it would be advisable to try it on multiple CV decks.  CV doesn't have tracking control, so different machines play and record with different tracking alignment.  EIAJ allowed for tracking control.  (Also, later-era EIAJ decks had onboard dropout compensation and other features that greatly improved picture quality)

Hard to imagine, but manufacturers of CV decks didn't include tracking control because they hadn't envisioned people wanting to play back tapes on a different machine!

Are you sure you don't mean a 3/4" UMatic machine?

GUYS, we're going about this all wrong! I found this at Goodwill this weekend:



You just point the projector at one hole and a camcorder at the other and its TRANSFERRED! It's like magic!

;-)

Yeah we had 1" and 2" machines at the TV station I used to work at, as well as U-Matics.

You are probably right Pug, oddly all the tapes I have been given to transfer from the mid to late 70s have been CV tapes! I have only ever been given one EIAJ tape to do. I was basing my suppositions on my very small sample size.

I'm surprised it would be recorded on either format, Star Wars wasn't on TV until the end of 1982, and even then only on pay per view. CBS didn't ait it until 1984.

It will be interesting just to see a recording from the time, ads and all. Let's hope it is on EIAJ.

I have a CV2100 and an AV 3600. To get 'tracking control' we dicker with the drum entrance and out guides, it is clunky but it works!

Ouch!

BTW Silverwook, you have PM...