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Puggo GRANDE - 16mm restoration (Released) — Page 5

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skyjedi2005 said:

Also the cropped sample does not to appear to be anamorphic or even play back at the right ntsc speed it almost sounds a bit sped up in some players.  Is this audio pitch shifting?

The film is scope, and all I did for the sample I posted was tell Vegas to change the aspect ratio.  After I do the real capture, I'm going to need some advice as to the best way to convert 4:3 scope into actual anamorphic.

As for the speed, all I did was guestimate the fps and do a crude pulldown, then synched the audio as best as I could.  There shouldn't be pitch shifting, because wherever I had to stretch or shrink the audio, I had the editor retain the pitch (that more often causes artifacts, but I didn't notice any here). When I do the final capture, I'll use the existing mono mix as reference.  Is it pitch-accurate?

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

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negative1 said:

the upscaling is being worked on too, and its making progress also..

 

you really need to see the video to get the full

impact...

 

later

-1

 

 on a slightly related note, there is more work being done on the upscaling,

check out the progress with shots, here:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Any-Suggestions-for-Better-Uprez-to-HD/topic/8971/

 

**NOTE : by the way, the whole GOUT chain and links are always in my signature..

later

-1

[no GOUT in CED?-> GOUT CED]

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Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:
The film is scope, and all I did for the sample I posted was tell Vegas to change the aspect ratio.  After I do the real capture, I'm going to need some advice as to the best way to convert 4:3 scope into actual anamorphic.

Out of interest, what does a frame from the raw capture look like? Are there no black bars at all (i.e. the actual capture is "more" anamorphic than 16:9)?

Either way, I can't see that the resizing is going to cause you any problems.

As for the speed, all I did was guestimate the fps and do a crude pulldown, then synched the audio as best as I could.  There shouldn't be pitch shifting, because wherever I had to stretch or shrink the audio, I had the editor retain the pitch (that more often causes artifacts, but I didn't notice any here). When I do the final capture, I'll use the existing mono mix as reference.  Is it pitch-accurate?

Yes, the mono mix is pitch accurate to NTSC-film speed (23.976 fps as opposed to 24 fps, but close enough).

Further analysis of the sample, while you're waiting for the gate mods:

As someone has already mentioned, there is a jump during the starfield pan-down after the crawl. Is this a section of missing film or a capture error?

I also noticed the blockade runner flying backwards for one frame!

Regarding what I said before about lowering the black level, it seems it's not as easy as a simple brightness adjustment. If you set it correctly for one scene, then compare other parts of the sample using this setting, frames with a high average luma level can still be too bright whereas darker sections actually end up with crunched blacks.

(I will get around to posting screenshots at some point...)

Obviously you won't want to go through the whole movie and adjust brightness and contrast on a scene-by-scene basis.  I'm wondering if our resident AviSynth scripting guru (g-force, you reading this?) could come up with something?

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Where can I download/watch the sample clip you made?

I've been to your site, and haven't see it...and I can't download the audio clip either. Me soo sad :(

Star Wars Episode XXX: Erica Strikes Back

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Davnes007 said:

Where can I download/watch the sample clip you made?

I've been to your site, and haven't see it...and I can't download the audio clip either. Me soo sad :(

Yeah, I felt obliged to take it down.  When it appeared on YouTube, I decided that I needed to be more judicious with it myself.

On another note, I received the enlarged gate today!!  Although, with the semester ramping up, it'll probably be late December before I can return to the project in full swing.  Xmas break starts Dec. 26, in earnest.

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

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excellent news..

glad to hear this is going forward.... i hope the new equipment works out ..

later

-1

[no GOUT in CED?-> GOUT CED]

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Puggo: I noticed this thread on Doom9 and thought you might find it interesting.

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Just thought I'd let everyone know that I've resumed work on the project.  Last night I installed the enlarged gate on the workprinter, and cleaned reel 1 in preparation for making a new capture.  I'll keep everyone posted as work proceeds...

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

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WOW! great news for the new year..

 

will be keep track of this closely...

later

-1

[no GOUT in CED?-> GOUT CED]

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Did lots of stuff the past two days:

- finished raw capture of reel #1.  Cleaning didn't provide any noticeable improvement, it's still got lots of scratches, splotches, and noise.

- did a temporary pulldown to 24fps so as to sync audio.  Synced the mono mix from the Swedish print - that took a few hours because of all the minor discrepancies in the two prints.

The new gate is a big improvement, pun intented.  To answer Mothr's question, the entire frame is full of image - no bars at all, barely even a border between frames.  So even with the new gate, this is a real bear to capture.  I have some little yellow corners that I'll have to fix in post, that were unavaoidable.

White a black levels will be rough, as before.  I tried to lean slightly more to the black, but there's just not enough contrast to avoid greyish whites and blacks.

It's still not the gout, and may never be, but it's a heck of a lot more fun!

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

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Example of what Avisynth can do to restore 8mm film:
http://www.vimeo.com/2823934

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 (Edited)

That really is not suprising seeing how it was shot on kodachrome and not eastman safety pre lpp which is the worst.

Kodachrome: A reversal (direct positive) process. 1936 to present. Never used for 35mm movies, only 16mm and 8mm. Virtually fade proof. Most commonly used for amateur films for direct projection. I haven't seen any release prints made on Kodachrome since the 1970’s. Identified by being completely black around the perforations, with white (or similar light color) markings. Print stock comes in 2 types, ordinary Kodachrome, marked "Kodachrome Safety", which has a brownish (sulfite) soundtrack, and "Eastman Rev Color Safety Film", which has a grey silver soundtrack, similar to Technicolor. Kodachrome is high in contrast, and the contrast increases in printing, causing the shadows to be quite dark.  For longevity of color, this is the next best thing to Technicolor.  There are reports of the first production of Kodachrome having fading problems, but this was fixed around 1938.

Found this on some film site.

Not sure if avisynth can restore those old 8mm star wars films, when the color on almost every one has red shift, and starting to look pinkish.  Some supposedly had more stable color than others, only if kept in a cool and dry environment.  Almost none of them sold on ebay were stored properly.

On the 8mm film forum someone claimed that the Ken Films Part 2 of Star Wars he had was non faded, but seeing as he converted his refrigerator/freezer to store the film using dissicant gel packs to avoid moisture ruining the film inside its container.  If that film was stored in someones garage for twenty years and not stored properly you would definitely see red shift.  Since he bought it from derran film services they properly store the films they sell.  And accordingly i don't know if this is true but the 4 reel Derann Print of Star Wars was printed on polyester film.  Supposedly unfaded though i never have personally seen a print of this fine 8mm scope version of the film.

If anybody ever wants to do transfers of the trailers the 16mm and 8mm variants being more rare and hard to come by now than the 35mm, it is hard to find them not severly faded.  The only trailer i ever saw for star wars that was unfaded was the 1976 teaser, and it was the rare printed I.B. Technicolor.   All the eastman prints from the national screen service are severly faded.  I kid you knot, a guy is selling a 35mm nss copy now for 250 dollars and it has red shift,lol.  The only thing is unlike most it has no scratches or projector weave.  Because it probably was never used even though the roll was opened.  Maybe used only once.

The 2 trailers i own, i have not checked in a while but empire strikes back 1982 re-release trailer i have had severe red shift and only 60% of its color left.  Still kinda cool though it has a clip of luke and vaders duel in cloud city.

The Return of the Jedi Trailer from 1983 i own leads me to believe it is LPP without looking at its markings because it is unfaded and only has minor scratches.  I can't find star wars or empire strikes back trailers that are not severly faded.  Has anyone on these boards ever come across any?

The trailer i wish i owned was the revenge of the jedi scope teaser trailer that has luke with the blue saber on the skiff above the pitt of carkoon, and like a few frames of the sandstorm deleted scene.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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Moth3r said:

Example of what Avisynth can do to restore 8mm film:
http://www.vimeo.com/2823934

 

Wow, that IS nice.  I wonder how the 8mm Puggo edition would look that way?  Or was it already restored in such a way before it was released?

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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Moth3r said:

Example of what Avisynth can do to restore 8mm film:
http://www.vimeo.com/2823934

Very impressive.  It's hard for me to comment without knowing more details.  The motion stabilization is easy, and I'm assuming that some of the sharpness is a byproduct of his clever use of an anamorphic lens, followed by resizing.  Color quality is probably because the color was good to begin with.  There is a very good film-specific color-correction avisynth filter called CMYK that I am using for the Puggo Grande - it's doing wonders on the red shift (which most home movie super-8 film doesn't exhibit).  The motion smoothness doesn't surprise me, it's easily achieved with the Workprinter, deshake, and judicious deinterlacing.

But what I can't quite explain is how he has achieved such a degree of sharpening without artifacts.  I'd have to see the entire films at full size... most of his clips don't have much motion.  If they really look that good full size on a TV screen, then that would be a remarkable achievement, even in 16mm film.  Unless it just looks that good when it's small, or the artifacts are on the other segments of the clips :)  There are a TON of sharpening tools available for avisynth, and I've experimented with most of them.  Maybe he experimented more than I did :)

I might be able to make the Puggo Grande look that good at that size, but I wonder if it would be at a cost of it looking worse on a big TV.  Although I'm reserving a healthy dose of skepticism, I've bookmarked the page and will see if I can dig up any more details.  Thanks for the link.

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

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Moth3r said:

I saw the link on the Doom9 forum; more details, and the script he used, can be found here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=144271

Awesome, that really gives me some stuff to chew on.  Thanks!!!!

It appears that using the anamorphic lens isn't the only trick he is using at the projector end... he is also capturing with higher gamma than would otherwise be natural, to get more of the dynamic color range (which he then corrects in software). That is contrary to what I had learned, but I can understand the theory behind it and it obviously is producing superb results with regards to the final color.

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

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Progress report...

I spoke with Roger at moviestuff about the difficulty I had aligning the camera with the new, enlarged gate, and the resulting discoloration at the corners.  He suggested that I experiment with removing the main lens and positioning it closer to the projector.  I did that - it required quite a bit of fooling with it, and then drilling some new screw holes in the mounting board - and it worked very well.

As a result, I recaptured reel 1.  I'm more comfortable now with this new capture, the image is solid and consistent across the entire frame out to all four corners.  So there is now no need to mess around with trying to fix the corners in post.

Besides, that's time better spent playing with videoFred's avisynth script that Mothr turned me on to!  I downloaded MVtools, and the magic script, and am anxious to see if it's for real.  Heck, if it really works I could even run the original Puggo edition through it, since it's still frame-by-frame.

The old sound sync should still work fine.

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

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Time to go back and answer a couple of questions that were left dangling:

skyjedi2005 said:

Do you Think this was a Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope Print, and they just Spliced on the plain star wars crawl?

There are no splices in reel #1... at least not anywhere between the countdown leader and the desert scenes.

skyjedi2005 said:

Is the countdown Leader missing?  i have no idea where there would be missing film except at a reel change.  Do you think some of it was ate up in your friends projector?

The countdown leader is there, no splices.  However, it goes 10, 9, 5... (!)

skyjedi2005 said:

I mean the fox fanfare and cinemascope extension by alfred newman before the star wars theme is intact right? As well as the Lucasfilm and Fox Logos.

All intact and no splices.  Very scratchy, though.

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

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More progress report...

Last night I cleaned reel #3, and repaired about 5 feet of sprocket hole damage.  I then completed the raw capture of reel #3.  Despite the sprocket damage, I think reel 3 looks a little better than reel 1.  (I decided to capture reel #2 last, because it is in the worst shape).

Updated the timeline on the website.  I still haven't replaced the frame grabs with new ones since changing the gate.  Will try to do that later this week.

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

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 (Edited)

I went back and watched the video sample from before and i love it.  I can't wait to see this!

And that sample was before any cleaning or a new gate to capture the full anamorphic image.

Cannot wait to see the real star wars crawl from 1977 in good quality, and not a digital recreation.   People are still split on whether the gout was the real thing as seen in empire of dreams, though there has been no consensus on that.  Also the mono mix from a better source than the tv broadcast, is also much appreciated and welcomed.

One of the major things about this project and why it is so awesome is because it will be much better than the non anamorphic widescreen 1977 xvid moth3r posted years ago.  And like the zoomed in on the center frame pan and scan 77 fan dvd will have the mono mix, just not the low crap bitrate.

The first time i heard the mono mix was in a fan made dvd from Moth3r pal project.  The only other dvd i have with the mono mix is star wars by editdroid.  Nobody has ever put out a disc authored with the belbecus restored mono mix, because it now falls under this sites updated rules that it has to be a fanedit or a preservation of a vhs or laserdisc for the video.  And everybody wants to use the gout as their videotrack so they go to the help section of the site and make their own dvd.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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WOW! This is incredible. Man!

I have been so far out of Star Wars edits for so long this is sort of fun reading this stuff.

Remember, Highlander, you’ve both still got your full measure of life. Use it well, and your future will be glorious.

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WOW! This is incredible. Man!

I have been so far out of Star Wars edits for so long this is sort of fun reading this stuff.

Remember, Highlander, you’ve both still got your full measure of life. Use it well, and your future will be glorious.