Laserdisc capture workflow. — Page 3

Don't forget to use the reel length information to help with IVTC'ing and GOUT-sync'ing.

You'll know if you IVTC'd correctly or not if you can GOUT-sync reel-by-reel.

Also, keep in mind that the LD might be missing a few frames at the end of each IP reel.

I'm not interested in syncing to another release.  I just want a presentable digital copy of this release. If anybody wants to use the raw files I can try to make them available on a person to person basis though :).

althor1138 said:

I'm not interested in syncing to another release.  I just want a presentable digital copy of this release. If anybody wants to use the raw files I can try to make them available on a person to person basis though :).

I was only saying to use that information to help verify whether or not your IVTC was done correctly.

Ah. Gotcha now.

althor1138 said:

Here is a 10 minute clip of the beginning of side 1.  There's been no processing other than using toot and ivtc.

Thoughts?

 

PW = OT

I'd like to download to have a closer look, but the option isn't there for some reason.

you can try it now. I had it blocked but now it's not.

EDIT:  BTW, the clip is about as lossless as I could make it.  Vimeo has a 500mb limit and the 10 minute file ended up being around 400mb after compression with a 5mb average bitrate.  Also, you never know what happens during the online conversion process so it's definitely not a raw file.

I really wish I had access to two more sets of the JSC at this point.  I could do a toot between 3 sets for a total of 9 captures and probably eliminate all of the rot and dropouts.

EDIT:  Actually anybody that owns the set and wants to participate can send me their set and I'll send them back to you with your raw capture saved on a stick or something.

althor1138 said:

I really wish I had access to two more sets of the JSC at this point.  I could do a toot between 3 sets for a total of 9 captures and probably eliminate all of the rot and dropouts.

EDIT:  Actually anybody that owns the set and wants to participate can send me their set and I'll send them back to you with your raw capture saved on a stick or something.

Are you sure you're seeing actual drop-outs from laser-rot? The IP used for the JSC is infamously dirty.

When I think of laser rot I think of a small white streak.  Sometimes it can even be bigger and take up almost a whole line.

When I think of a dropout it's almost the same but is a solid line of pixels and kind of matches a color near to the dropout or is black.

When I think of dirt I think it can be almost any shape or size or color.

If this is true then there are very few dropouts in the capture but there is a little bit of rot.

althor1138 said:

When I think of laser rot I think of a small white streak.  Sometimes it can even be bigger and take up almost a whole line.

When I think of a dropout it's almost the same but is a solid line of pixels and kind of matches a color near to the dropout or is black.

When I think of dirt I think it can be almost any shape or size or color.

 

If this is true then there are very few dropouts in the capture but there is a little bit of rot.

These definitions are fine. One thing I will point out is that drop-outs and speckling are both caused by oxidation of the aluminum layer of the LD, a.k.a., laser rot. Whether you see a speckle or a drop-out depends on how well your player deals with the rot and how bad it is.

Can you try to quantify a "little bit" in this context? If you're willing to invest the time, then you can probably fix each instance of laser rot manually.

AntcuFaalb said:

...drop-outs and speckling are both caused by oxidation of the aluminum layer of the LD, a.k.a., laser rot. Whether you see a speckle or a drop-out depends on how well your player deals with the rot and how bad it is.

I would like to clarify that drop-outs on laserdisc could be present even in a brand new, fresh stamped laserdisc - and in this case is NOT caused by oxidation, but only by inclusion of foreign material (like dust particles) between the aluminum layer and the plastic that covers it.

Obviously, laser rot IS caused by oxidation of the aluminum layer, and so when a laserdisc develops laser rot, there are a lot of drop-outs (usually multicolor speckles or lines) and often also audio drop-outs (noise, absence of sound for tenths of seconds etc.). Usually, laser rot "advance" in time, and at the end the laserdisc (or, better the affected side) will not be playable anymore.

I want to point out another problem that could be misinterpreted as laserdisc drop-outs, but instead are film master drop-outs... I noticed them when I did laserdisc captures for the OUT project; infact, those that I first thought were laserdisc drop-outs, where in the same place, in the same frame for all the four editions (english, french, german, spanish)... I was lucky to own four different edition of the same movie to make comparisons, but if someone has only one movie (without the possibility of a comparison) , could think that those small black spots are laserdisc format fault, where infact they were in the master used for the movie... laserdisc is not guilty everytime!

Well, hope I was not too "nerdy"... (O-O,)

AntcuFaalb said:

Are you sure you're seeing actual drop-outs from laser-rot? The IP used for the JSC is infamously dirty.

It's not saying much but the JSC source is actually the most clean source they ever used for SW, despite the ugly glue job, if you want to see something dirty, see Technidisc source - hence severe DVNR: DC, FACES, GOUT.

I'm sure Moth3r or Mallwalker will chime in, but as I understand it, laser rot is mostly displayed as colored dots not white or black.

They are both pretty dirty as far as the source material goes.

Well, I'm almost finished with the IVTC for side 2.  I guess I should have asked earlier but what should I be doing with these comb frames at scenechanges?  I've found 2 or 3 so far.  What I've done so far is trim the field out at the last frame and then trim to the first frame of the new scene and begin the ivtc cadence again.  I'm going to start over on the IVTC anyway because Moth3r's method is far quicker than the way I was doing it so I'd like to properly address these comb frames when I go over it again.

BTW I'm up to around 15 or 16 cadence changes and I'm not even finished with side 2 yet.  It seems to me like these comb frames at scene changes indicate that they for some reason edited the video after the telecine and were just sloppy? In 2 cases it seems to me that they used an individual frame from an entirely different print or at least a different telecine of the same print with different settings.

I appreciate all of the input about the rot/dropouts.  Maybe trying to average out several different sets will not yield better results.  I think I'll just leave it like it is.

I was thinking I would like to make a blu-ray out of this with a simple menu and encode the movie with as high a bitrate as possible.  If there is interest I can put it up for those who would want it when it's finished.  It would be pretty barebones.  Just a toot, an IVTC and possibly a levels/saturation tweak.

Can anybody recommend software/codecs/settings?

Darth Mallwalker said:

Peer review is good.
Anxious to know if you uncover any errors in my usenet-published script

althor1138 said:

Here is a 10 minute clip of the beginning of side 1.  There's been no processing other than using toot and ivtc.

Thoughts?

Is this one continuous capture or spliced together from separate files? Because there is a sudden change in the border on the right hand side at frame 3923-3924 (end of the overhead flyby shot). Maybe it's on the LD like that.

The bottom border jumps up and down by 1 pixel occasionally, too.

Don't know if it's your capture settings or the disc (or Vimeo), but it's all fairly washed out. Strange that you've actually got two levels of black - that of the black bars and that of the active image itself.

(frame 1089: 00:45.420)

If it was me, I'd set the black level to that of the active image, and increase the white level by a touch as well.

Colours are nice and saturated, though - possibly even over saturated. Little bit of dot crawl evident.

More thoughts to follow.

Moth3r said:

althor1138 said:

Here is a 10 minute clip of the beginning of side 1.  There's been no processing other than using toot and ivtc.

Thoughts?

Is this one continuous capture or spliced together from separate files? Because there is a sudden change in the border on the right hand side at frame 3923-3924 (end of the overhead flyby shot). Maybe it's on the LD like that.

The bottom border jumps up and down by 1 pixel occasionally, too.

It is one continuous capture.  It's a part of the Laserdisc as far as I can tell.  It does some pretty funky stuff. If you watch the borders they all move around once in awhile throughout the movie. I've also run into a few of these:

which manual IVTC fails to cope with.  I thought it was just a swap field issue at first but after correcting it manually I get this:

which makes me think this is a frame with misaligned fields or something.  I've found 5 so far.  I'm almost done with side 5 though so I think there won't be anymore.

There is also a few scenes where the last frame of a scene contains only half of the frame because the bottom field belongs in the first frame of the next scene.  I've been correcting these by cutting out the bottom field and doing a nnedi2(dh=true) so as to keep the frame in the film.

Don't know if it's your capture settings or the disc (or Vimeo), but it's all fairly washed out. Strange that you've actually got two levels of black - that of the black bars and that of the active image itself.

If it was me, I'd set the black level to that of the active image, and increase the white level by a touch as well.

Colours are nice and saturated, though - possibly even over saturated. Little bit of dot crawl evident.

More thoughts to follow.

I'd say the downside to the Theater750 card is that there aren't any settings really available other than denoising strength and comb filter adjustments. I was going to give your method of correcting captures a go as soon as my video essentials disc shows up.  If I can't get that to work I'll take your advice on the levels.

Seems you have a different mastering than Arnie.d's X9 cap

Darth Mallwalker said:

Seems you have a different mastering than Arnie.d's X9 cap

I believe you are correct with that assessment.  If I understand correctly, the mint marks would be different if it were a different pressing?  These are the marks from my LD's:

SF148-1196-A53-P    15I11008
SF148-1196-B59-P    15I11003
SF148-1196-C58-P    14I11106
SF148-1196-D57-P    14I11113
SF148-1196-E52-P    13I10113
DD-3A-B66-P             13I10167

These are the set of numbers somebody posted on LDDB:

SF148-1196-A51-P   9D290057
SF148-1196-B56-P   0D060323
SF148-1196-C54-P   0D070640
SF148-1196-D53-P   0D070755
SF148-1196-E51-P   0D041095
DD-3-B56-P              9D291066

Does that confirm that at least 2 separate pressings exist?

EDIT:  FWIW, the numbers for ESB and ROTJ also do not match the marks on LDDB

Lowered black level and increased contrast, colour saturation reduced slightly, cropped and resized:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/cyx4gp

Despite all the funky stuff going on, this looks quite nice (keep in mind this is a compressed version). 

Moth3r said:

Lowered black level and increased contrast, colour saturation reduced slightly, cropped and resized:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/cyx4gp

Despite all the funky stuff going on, this looks quite nice (keep in mind this is a compressed version). 

I think that does look really good. I'd like to do something like this and sync the audio and move on to ESB.  I'm trying to follow the "less is more" mantra so that I and anybody else interested in having this will have a "raw" version without temporal or spatial filtering messing up any small detail.

althor1138 said:

Moth3r said:

Lowered black level and increased contrast, colour saturation reduced slightly, cropped and resized:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/cyx4gp

Despite all the funky stuff going on, this looks quite nice (keep in mind this is a compressed version). 

I think that does look really good. I'd like to do something like this and sync the audio and move on to ESB.  I'm trying to follow the "less is more" mantra so that I and anybody else interested in having this will have a "raw" version without temporal or spatial filtering messing up any small detail.

Thank you for thinking like this.

I plan to do the same thing for my forthcoming captures.

Darth Mallwalker said:

Seems you have a different mastering than Arnie.d's X9 cap

Interesting...  I can understand that there was re-pressings made but you have to wonder why a new mastering took place of these releases. My JSC ESB proved to be a different mastering compared to Arnie.d's ESB cap as well.