Info, & Help Wanted: Laserdisc closed caption preservation (help wanted)

There are more than a few films which have now had a barebones DVD release for which the LD had closed captions - the subtitle system that was limited to NTSC.

Now are those subtitles that important, you ask? Well, for the heard of hearing, and for non-native English speakers.
And, they can be pretty handy for films where the audio mix is a bit odd, such as Richard Lester’s “Return of the musketeers”. I found it a decent movie but hard to follow the dialogue. (The .srt on the 'net is no good.)

In truth, a few other movies are no masterpieces: “Jupiter’s Darling”, “Being human (1994)”. Somewhat better is “Parrot sketch not included” which also has some exclusive footage. These are the four I know of, but there may be more.

But the upside: Closed captions are relatively easy to capture and convert to srt… as long as the equipment is NTSC. Many capturing devices pass on the signal after which “cc extractor” (freeware) can take them out. (Will require some editing to bring it to 2x40.) Sadly I’m not in NTSC country… 😦

So my question: Does anyone happen to have these laserdiscs and a full NTSC setup?

With an extracted file, I could then do all the correcting, fitting to current copy etcetera.

Question/suggestion 2: If you are capturing a laserdisc or other source, and it has a subtitle stream AKA closed captioning that isn’t already available, then please include it.

(These LDs often (more often even) also had ‘matrixed’ 4 channel surround (stereo + center + rear mono) but it’s debatable if the quality of that is good enough to warrant capturing - it’s not as good as ‘discrete’ 5.1.)

Spiny Norman said:

(These LDs often (more often even) also had 'matrixed' 4 channel surround (stereo + center + rear mono) but it's debatable if the quality of that is good enough to warrant capturing - it's not as good as 'discrete' 5.1.)

Take a look here: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Restoration-tips-HD-matrix-surround/topic/17967

Norman, you would make my day if you capped a "Return of the Musketeers" LD!!

RU.08 said:

Norman, you would make my day if you capped a "Return of the Musketeers" LD!!

Well, there is a DVD. But I think that that is PAL, and the purist may want it in NTSC frame rate.

But I haven't got the equipment to capture it - that's where I need help myself.

Ah, well there are certainly members who can cap LD's (not me I'm afraid) - Althor for instance, his caps look really good! I believe (although I could be wrong) that he's based in the USA. Andrea's based in Italy, and probably either of them could name other members here who could be willing to capture some of your LDs and might be located nearer to you. I'd absolutely love to see that LD capped and released!

RU.08 said:

Ah, well there are certainly members who can cap LD's (not me I'm afraid) - Althor for instance, his caps look really good! I believe (although I could be wrong) that he's based in the USA. Andrea's based in Italy, and probably either of them could name other members here who could be willing to capture some of your LDs and might be located nearer to you. I'd absolutely love to see that LD capped and released!

As one small complication for my "CC" quest, this seems to be only really possible when working with fully NTSC equipment. In Europe NTSC is supported, but that's not quite the same. Apparently.

Ideally I would get some help from someone in the US who perhaps even already has this LD, because the postage is substantial. (It might even be cheaper to buy one on ebay inside the US and have that sent on.) I wouldn't for example pay $20 just to get subtitles for Being human (1994).

But 'ROTM' is a much better film. Out of curiosity, why are you interested to see an LD cap of it?

How long have you been into LD's? I live in a PAL country and I have a friend who had (probably still has) two LD players, with one specifically for NTSC discs - and that was back in the 90's! At one point he might have had 3 players, I can't remember now, he was an early adopter of DVD though (back when most DVDs didn't look that much better than LDs anyway!) I've never owned a LD player myself, but I can certainly tell you that enthusiasts import players, including the Japanese-only models. For instance, Andrea has a HLD-X9 which is a player released only in Japan.

Again though, I don't want to speak for other members, you could send a message to either Andrea or Althor with your location and ask if there are any members of the community in your country who can cap the LD's. I agree with you about postage - plus you run the risk of having your discs damaged - which is why I suggested you find out if there's anyone in your area who can help.

As for ROTM, I'm a Lester fan and his films are by far the best versions of the Three Musketeers/20 Years After story I've seen. It's very sad that one of the actors (Roy Kinnear) died while filming. I know there's a DVD, but there's no BD and I'm very interested in seeing how the LD looks. Myspleen would love it too!

It's great that he actually waited 15 years and then made the "20 years later" sequel.

Pity he didn't do the last installment but it would have been more difficult then to get the same cast together. (Actually I don't hate the Man in the Iron Mask film that came out in the late '90s. Clearly a different kind of film, but it can sort of be considered as the end of the saga. I don't like the new BBC series though - it's laughably simplistic.)

This is one LD that I don't own. But, to buy and ship an LD inside the US would cost around $18 total, or $16 with a bit of luck. (That's hard to beat. Where I live, postage has been steadily getting more expensive)

If we find a volunteer in the US who can do a good job, perhaps Althor, we could split the cost. (Did anyone ever actually capture the matrixed 4 channel sound? If not, I can live without it.)

Ah. All good, I'll pursue this disc. Carry on!

And I agree completely about his film-making with it, it was a worthy sequel to the originals!

RU.08 said:

Ah. All good, I'll pursue this disc. Carry on!

And I agree completely about his film-making with it, it was a worthy sequel to the originals!

Well, I made some enquiries on ebay and there's one for $18 and one that would be $16 if it had the same economy shipping (but the seller won't specify a price for that). I can miss a few dollars as long as it's not a one man show.

No reply yet from althor.

Hi. I'm currently on vacation until August. I live in Sweden but I have the capability to capture pal and ntsc laserdiscs at the moment. I'm not sure just yet about how to capture closed captioning but with Happy³'s ld-decode software I have full access to the vbi which is where that information is stored.  I believe I have found some software that can extract closed captions from the vbi into an srt file but I have yet to test it.  I'll be back from vacation around August and can try it then.

I'd be willing to capture some discs for special reasons such as it's not available or there's something super special about the laserdisc.  I have to say that my priority at this time is to preserve all of the Star Wars laserdiscs first though. 

Cheers Althor, hope you're enjoying the vacation!

Hm... While I am very grateful, I wonder if there's anyone in the US who wants to have a go if supplied with the disc? For the simple reason that that's the easiest way to arrange it.