.: LeeThorogood's PAL LaserDisc Preservation Project :. - '97 SE Finished '95 THX Finished - '97 SE Uploaded '95 THX Uploaded to the newsgroup — Page 6

I used HandBrake again to produce an H.264 encode of ESB overnight, so I am very much looking forward to watching that when I get home from work tonight!

DANG IT! The listing for the French 1995 LaserDisc box set I was watching just suddenly ended (1:45pm BST) and it wasn't a Buy It Now! :(

Hi Austin,

Thanks for the help :D but unfortunately they are NTSC and so probably use the 93' Definitive Collection master like the GOUT. :(

While I am here I may as well give you guys an update. ROTJ is now about 50% authored, I am hoping to get this finished off Wednesday evening, so once that's done all I will need to do is burn and test these and if everything is OK that will be my 1997 SE V2s complete.

If anyone is looking for artwork for these I have designed some CD Jewel Case inserts (which I need to tweak and update) and plan to do some CD labels as well to go with them.

Do I see Zod? </random>

VERY BIG UPDATE everyone! All three of the DVD images are now finished. The Verbatim DL DVDs I ordered from Amazon came yesterday so I have now burned all three DVD images.

Although I have not watched all three DVDs through fully, I have played all three in both my PC and our Samsung Blu-Ray player, skipping through watching various scenes, and generally testing menu functionality. What can I say other then WOW and COOL!

I am very pleased with how these have turned out and am happy to declare the DVLD 1997 SE V2 release finished! :D

I am planning to purchase newsgroup access when I have some spare cash and will upload these then. In the meantime if anyone wants me to mail out a set of DVDs to them then PM me for details.

VERY EXCITED about finishing these and just in time for my birthday on Sunday :D

LeeThorogood said:
On a side note I have been thinking about having a go at doing my own preservation of the 1995 French THX LaserDisc set with English audio and I was wondering if this is something people would be interested in?

 I would be very interested and happy if you do. :)

Who wants to hear some good news?

Firstly I won a set of the 1995 THX French LaserDiscs yesterday, unfortunately it wasn't the 'Coffret' box set I had been looking for which I understood to have English audio and French subtitles in the black bars but instead it was a set of the 3 individual releases which I understand have French audio and no subtitles. I have also won a set of the 1995 THX Widescreen VHS (English) to fill in any gaps.

Now as I don't speak or understand French, I will need to replace the French audio with English audio. To do this what I thought I would do is sync the video from the LaserDisc captures to the Video from the PAL GOUT DVDs which will also sync my LaserDisc captures to the GOUT English audio at the same time solving the audio problem. :D If anyone who is interested in this release has and can share the 5.1 audio from the US OUT LaserDiscs then I would be more then happy to sync the 5.1 audio to the GOUT 2.0 audio and use the 5.1 for the final release like I did for the 1997 SE.

Speaking of the 1997 SE, I am going to try to do an NTSC conversion of ANH towards the back end of this week, if this is successful then I will do ESB and ROTJ afterwards. Those of you who have requested a copy of this release, if you would rather wait for the NTSC release please let me know. :)

LeeThorogood said:

Who wants to hear some good news?

Firstly I won a set of the 1995 THX French LaserDiscs yesterday, unfortunately it wasn't the 'Coffret' box set I had been looking for which I understood to have English audio and French subtitles in the black bars but instead it was a set of the 3 individual releases which I understand have French audio and no subtitles.

Yes. This is the set I used in my old LD transfer.

I have also won a set of the 1995 THX Widescreen VHS (English) to fill in any gaps.

The "gaps" are in ANH, missing screenwipe at the end of side 1, and ROTJ, missing screenwipe at the end of side 3.

Now as I don't speak or understand French, I will need to replace the French audio with English audio. To do this what I thought I would do is sync the video from the LaserDisc captures to the Video from the PAL GOUT DVDs which will also sync my LaserDisc captures to the GOUT English audio at the same time solving the audio problem. :D

You may find that the LD video is shorter than the GOUT video - in which case you would have to trim the GOUT audio to match.

If anyone who is interested in this release has and can share the 5.1 audio from the US OUT LaserDiscs then I would be more then happy to sync the 5.1 audio to the GOUT 2.0 audio and use the 5.1 for the final release like I did for the 1997 SE.

The US OUT LDs did not have 5.1 audio.

Hi Moth3r

As usual your posts are informative and useful! :)

Many Thanks

For those of you who wanted an NTSC copy of my 1997 SE preservation. I am sorry to say I wont be able to provide it. I have spent the last week trying to do an NTSC version from my PAL masters but no matter what I tried the audio always seems to become unsync'd :( I am therefore throwing in the towel as far as the NTSC conversion goes, however I am more then happy for someone else to handle the conversion to NTSC. :)

So just to be clear this release is PAL ONLY unless someone does an NTSC conversion.

As for the 1995 PAL THX set, the VHS tapes have arrived and I have watched them through and they seem fine so I should be good to fill in the gaps with these. I have also been informed that the LaserDiscs have shipped, so they should hopefully be with me fairly soon. :D

Hi Murry

So pleased to hear you're happy with the release so far! I look forward to hearing how you found SW and ROTJ. :D

As for the French 1995 THX LaserDiscs, I have in my possession the individual French language release of the trilogy. Even better however is whats on its way to me, the French 1995 THX LaserDisc English language box-set. :D :D :D Once this arrives if I am happy with it the French language set will be up for sale and I will be ready to begin my transfer of this release.

I will post back when I have more news ;)

Hi Jetrell,

I managed to get the coffret set for a reasonable price. :)

To be honest I have not yet really taken a good look at the picture quality of the 1995 French THX release, partly because the audio is French, but also because I have been busy with other hobbies. I seriously needed a break after the '97 SE but I am now ready to get going again!

Once the coffret set arrives I will watch all 3 films through and report back on what I think of the picture quality. ;)

If its any help Jetrell I started from square one more times then I can remember now, and I had been working on my SE release for at least 4 months before I started this thread, even then I went back and started over a few more times before I finally perfected my work-flow and finished the V2 of the '97 SE. I just had to keep telling myself its just one long learning experience. :)

Jetrell Fo said:

...

Is the picture quality any better on this set than the other region releases?  I know I had read the the Japan pressing of the Faces set wasn't as good as the U.S. release which surprised me greatly considering.

The PAL laserdiscs are from a different master - you can see by the different framing (some shots are more zoomed in) and different colour grading (Tatooine's sand is a redder brown rather than yellow). The image is better in many respects - less dirt on the film, less aggressive DVNR, fewer jaggies and less gate weave.  

LeeThorogood said:

Even better however is whats on its way to me, the French 1995 THX LaserDisc English language box-set. :D :D :D

Great news! Looking forward to see what quality you can squeeze out from it. :)

Guess what just arrived!

That's right the French 1995 Coffret LaserDisc set! The audio is English or as the jacket says 'Version Originale' with French subtitles in the lower black bar. I've not got a lot of time as I need to get ready for work, but having a quick look at the 1st LD of ANH the picture quality looks good, about equal to my '97 SE LDs.

I have to say I am really pleased, this set is in exceptional physical condition, its like the whole thing is brand new!

Now then for some details of this preservation. I reckon it's going to take about 3 weeks to capture all 3 films and 5 capture average them. Then another week to edit the 4 sides and VHS footage where needed together, with a final week for authoring to DVD. So that's 5 weeks in total.

Unfortunately I am very busy this week so I probably wont be able to start until Monday. As always I will keep you all updated as I make progress. :)