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PS78: Pre-ANH Star Wars Bootleg VHS from 1978 ***"RAW" DVD RELEASED*** — Page 5

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frank678 said:

I tried to keep my hand off the vlc image adjust settings, I really did, but I could'nt help myself. This is very subtle tweak (no hue change) and makes the colour 'spread out' a little more on my monitor. Adding a bit more yellow to sand, hair, skin etc. However I'm fairly certain this is pretty needless i.e. the print behind this bootleg I think is probably as good as it gets possibly 100% correct and its only the 1978 capture which can't by its very nature display the whole of the 35mm range with one setting.

contrast 0.98, b 0.93, h 360, s 1.02, g 1.38, also sharpened 0.16

http://i46.tinypic.com/2ibkgoj.jpg

http://i48.tinypic.com/t8neb7.jpg

Can you rephrase this? I'm not too sure what you're trying to say here.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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the vlc media player has a bunch of sliders to adjust contrast, brightness etc., you can enter in the values manually via image adjust and the beauty of it is that you can toggle the image adjust settings on and off as you watch the film to see if you're improving the image across the whole film. Because all the settings inter-relate somehow (i don't know how) you can tease out the points where (you feel *its subjective*) the original film leans too heavy on contrast, or too heavy on saturation, so basically you keep shaving off an inch here or an inch here until you think the whole thing spreads out a bit better. If you want to you can input the numbers that work for me on my screen and see if they work for you. For me they just take out a touch of the heaviness of the red and contrast and allow a bit more mid rangey colour come out. The most obvious thing will be more yellow in the sand and stuff (if your monitor is displaying the same as mine). However, this might take away stuff like some really nice contrast in another scene that you might prefer to have. My settings are just to give a spin - no desciration of Star Wars intended honest! Since monitors vary its really better to make your own settings OR just leave the damn thing alone, which i sincerely am trying to do!! 
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even though a capture captures a print with a setting locked in - the sliders i guess are just adding plus 1 or minus 1 to that so you would be re-doing the capture in one sense. but its not a 'pure' re-do so this is where i guess the artifacts arise. the richer, deeper, more complex the source the more you can re-do it. but if the informations not there (i.e. lost colour) you can't plus or minus from it - you would have to paint it back in

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the modus operandi for all this should be trying to get back to what the original film looked like more or less in its pristine state. since that has been pretty difficult for the whole film (this bootleg can settle a lot of that I think once its cross-referenced) I was always aiming for better skin tone. If you think this is all a bit hokey look at russs15's recent mega post in Brooks thread and try to determine the correct skin for Luke. SEE WHAT I MEAN!!
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Frank, I get what you're saying. Personally, I found that setting the hue a couple notches to the left of the right edge helped the skin tones a tad.

Anyway, to get this back to the subject of the bootleg itself, one thing I noticed is how good the *sound* is. For non-hifi mono, it sounds excellent. If I use the equalizer in VLC, I can bring out a surprising amount of detail in the high and low frequencies. (Of course, turning up the treble also increases the hiss, but there *is* high-frequency information under that hiss.)

My point is that the sound quality is too good to be from a 16mm print. 16mm prints were in non-Dolby Academy mono, and thus had narrower frequency range and lower fidelity. The non-Swedish print used in Puggo Grande actually had a mono fold-down of the stereo mix, which Puggo replaced with the mono from the Swedish print. You can hear the mono fold-down of the stereo mix in the Catnap bootleg.

I compared the audio of Catnap and PS78, and Catnap sounds really tinny in comparison. That's what a mono-fold-down 16mm print sounded like. If PS78 were from a 16mm print, it would sound close to Catnap. In reality, PS78 sounds to be sourced from Dolby Stereo, and thus from a 35mm print.

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Good deduction - its better to have some solid information to fix it as a 35mm than guesswork. If you saved those EQ settings could you post them? You may have already switched them out for another film , maybe it can be described e.g. like a curve with a dip in the middle?

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I guess it was a dip in the middle. I know I put the highest frequency slider all the way up the top, then the next highest somewhat less, etc. I can't remember if I put the lowest frequency all the way up, but I definitely increased the bass sliders in a curve like the treble. I believe I left the midrange alone, since increasing it usually causes distortion.

Listen through headphones. I have the high-end $40 Sony earbuds with the iPod remote. They have the best dynamic range and richest bass of any headphones I've had.

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How's the following setup?

Panasonic AG-1980 Professional SVHS Recorder/Editor (used)*

Diamond ATI Theater HD 750 PCIE Tuner Card (new)**

*My TV/VCR technician told me that if the Panasonic AG-1980 works, then it works, so it being a used item shouldn't influence the quality of the capture.

**The negative reviews for the Diamond card have nothing to do with the hardware. They're the result of some shady rebate scam Diamond tried to pull. The hardware seems to be rated highly by the reviewers.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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If you buy a used AG-1980, try a out a couple tapes you can afford to lose in it first. I wore out my first machine back in the days of linear editing, and it could go berserk and eat a tape sometimes.

Where were you in '77?

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SilverWook said:

If you buy a used AG-1980, try a out a couple tapes you can afford to lose in it first. I wore out my first machine back in the days of linear editing, and it could go berserk and eat a tape sometimes.

Oh, definitely. I'll throw a few crappy films I have on VHS in first. I wouldn't think of risking this thing. Don't worry :-)

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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TServo2049 said:

If you can afford it, I say go for it. :)

Done! Both should arrive soon.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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Also, go online and learn how to clean the heads.  It is a delicate operation and you have to be careful or you can damage them.  But if the heads are dirty it affects the quality of the capture.  And don't use one of those clearning tapes -  with some research, you can learn to clean them properly.

"Close the blast doors!"
Puggo’s website | Rescuing Star Wars

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The AG-1980 is supposed to have a built in head cleaner though. At least the early models were advertised as having it. My second generation model has some minor design differences from the one I bought in 1997.

There's also the "play a brand new blank tape all the way to the end" trick I learned in college. Unless someone has been putting greasy nasty rental tapes in the machine, the heads usually don't have major problems.

Where were you in '77?

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The ATi Theater HD 750 chipset is supposed to be pretty good. Its 3D comb filter is mentioned over in this thread on Doom9.

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Moth3r said:

The ATi Theater HD 750 chipset is supposed to be pretty good. Its 3D comb filter is mentioned over in this thread on Doom9.

Awesome! I decided to go with the portable USB version. (I know it'll be slower and I'm fine with that.) Being USB rather than PCI-Express x1 shouldn't reduce the capture quality, as it's the same chip.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

Also, go online and learn how to clean the heads.  It is a delicate operation and you have to be careful or you can damage them.  But if the heads are dirty it affects the quality of the capture.  And don't use one of those clearning tapes -  with some research, you can learn to clean them properly.

I think I'll take it to my VCR tech* first, at least in preparation for this one capture, as it's my most important one.

*He's very experienced; that is, he has an EE degree and has been doing TV/VCR repair since 1974.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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Assuming that everything works OK: how many captures should I take with this new setup? Should I do something like an average-of-five or something crazier like five TooT()s followed by an average of those five?

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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This is the still Mike Verta posted of a star wars print being projected with a 70s bulb,

http://i46.tinypic.com/10f84e9.jpg

PS78

http://i50.tinypic.com/23u6893.jpg

PS78 with a merged gold overlay to replicate the effect of the 70s bulb

http://i45.tinypic.com/2up69zn.jpg

What I'm trying to determine is is the Pre ANH bootleg different from PS78 colourwise because it was captured with a different bulb. Also is the cinematography of star wars dependent on this 70s bulb completing it/pushing it over the edge (i.e. the colours are muted and then the 70s bulb makes them shine , so it is not dynamic in contrast but still dynamic in colour). This is speculation - input/correction invited.

edit/add: or do some telecines just produce a slight hue change?

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I suppose it could have used a different bulb, or different telecine calibration settings, or something like that. The problem with the mthr bootleg is that the chroma signal is corrupted from multiple generations of copying. If only we could find a higher-generation copy of *that* transfer...

UPDATE: I found that if you simply turn down the color saturation on the raw mthr bootleg, you can get a better idea of what the color balance is supposed to look like:

Still a little pink, but I will remind you, telecine machines were intended to get the best image on videotape, they would have used a different light source than a projector of the same time.

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TServo2049 said:

I suppose it could have used a different bulb, or different telecine calibration settings, or something like that. The problem with the mthr bootleg is that the chroma signal is corrupted from multiple generations of copying. If only we could find a higher-generation copy of *that* transfer...

yep even though mthr worked miracles with it i still find it unwatchable - its like someone spilled pink blamanche over the mona lisa. The PS78 is the easiest on the eye by far, and for me helps fill in the gaps of the ib technicolor screening.

edit: i never tried that!

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AntcuFaalb said:

Assuming that everything works OK: how many captures should I take with this new setup? Should I do something like an average-of-five or something crazier like five TooT()s followed by an average of those five?

You will definitely want to experiment with the 1980's built in TBC and the noise reduction.

Where were you in '77?

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Lots of useful information and opinions online about using the 1980.  There aren't really that many settings; it's pretty easy to use.  The good thing about the 1980 is that it is pretty conservative with its noise reduction. So you don't have to feel guilty about using some of its features.

Yes there are built-in head cleaners, but I opened it up and saw them - they didn't really impress me.   I find it hard to believe that they would actually clean the heads.  Personally, I'm so used to cleaning video heads myself that I feel more comfortable doing it than having someone else (or a machine) do it.  I guess it's because I work with all those old reel-to-reel formats that come from the "sticky-shed" era where you have to bake tapes and clean the heads even just halfway through a tape.  It's really not that hard if you're a careful, detail-oriented type of person.  Don't use Q-tips.

"Close the blast doors!"
Puggo’s website | Rescuing Star Wars

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Here are a second settings for playing the PS78 taking TServo2049s advice to shift the hue,

contrast 0.85, b 0.94, h 351, s 0.98, g 1.22

Using the above and setting the aspect ratio to get to widescreen and fitting to screen I believe this is the most consistently accurate colour version of the original star wars available to watch on the internet.