STAR WARS - Special Widescreen Edition (Technidisc) (Released) — Page 11

The last frame of the hangar shot (PAL 144053) is present in first edition.
You said in Post_29 you deleted it.

How did 133160 get deleted?
How did 144053 not get deleted ?

Maybe they're two sides of the same coin?

Darth Mallwalker said:

The last frame of the hangar shot (PAL 144053) is present in first edition.
You said in Post_29 you deleted it.

How did 133160 get deleted?
How did 144053 not get deleted ?

Maybe they're two sides of the same coin?

Maybe a fuckwit was responsible for the first edition. :) Seriously though, what you discovered cannot just be a coincidence, how the heck I could delete the wrong frame and with such big gaps apart, I simply don't get but I guess that must be it, embarrassing. I would suggest you toss that edition in the trash anyway... kick it, hit it, crap on it or burn it. Such mistakes will not be repeated, that along with the poor white balance and my discovery of the wrong aspect ratio in parts of this LD makes doing a 2nd version even more worthwhile.

g-force, thanks for the suggestion! Will check it out.

Was able to get a capture of that color bar signal, and calibrated it by using the excellent method Moth3r came up with here: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Moth3rs-guide-to-LD-capture-colour-correction-using-AviSynth-emphasis-on-correction/topic/14582/

So here's a sample of the beginning of side 2 again, calibrated: http://www.sendspace.com/file/a0spf9 just so you can see for yourself what it looks like and what I'm working with.

I have since fine tuned the settings with a much needed gamma correction: http://www.sendspace.com/file/pwakx4

Think I will go with that setting for this particular reel, if you don't want to bother downloading the sample, this comparison will tell you what's been done:

calibrated:

DVD:

^^ the horror! see the incorrect aspect ratio as well. Alan Smithee was the guy responsible for this DVD.

previous sample:

latest sample:

Subtle but ultimately makes a big difference. You could definitely get a lot better results going scene-by-scene but with a source like this, I definitely won't. This shot of Luke is obviously something that can be improved upon as well but doing so will negatively affect other scenes, so I'm only trying to find a middle ground here.

g-force has been kind and made an awesome DeRainbowing script for this one, which is great because I can sort of live with the aliasing and dotcrawl but the chroma noise is what really hurt my eyes, obviously it also helps with the compression if you don't have shimmering noise all over the place. His DeRainbowing is hands down the best I've tested, only a slight desaturation on very fast moving objects such as laser bolts and blinking lights etc, so I will avoid using it on select scenes.

Here's how it looks in action: http://www.sendspace.com/file/l1u9o7

Thanks for the feedback guys! g-force's great DeRainbowing script makes a huge difference, the absence of burning faces also helps of course. It's unfortunate that the colors fluctuates so much in this transfer, the brightness, contrast and hues often shifts wildly as you may have noticed, sometimes the brightness or contrast actually change right in the middle of a scene, I'm wondering if this is only a case of a badly worn print that is starting to decay or if this is also the work of the telecine operator adjusting on the fly.

Was the script custom made for this film or would it work on any LD capture?

Very nice, msycamore. :) Getting the faces right when color correcting the Star Wars trilogy is always the hardest thing (dark_jedi and You_Too know all about that :) ). It's so hard to restore that accurate natural fair look with the sources available. Leia isn't too far off, but still red, Daine Jir, more reddish yet, but perhaps that can be adjusted a bit. :)

bkev said:

Was the script custom made for this film...

Yes, it doesn't work on Blues Brothers. ;) Joking aside, it should work good on other sources with similar chroma noise, tested it on my JSC ESB capture and it worked very good, as with all derainbowing and dotcrawl filtering it isn't bulletproof, there's even minor artifacting from it in the sample I just posted. g-force script is made to be applied after IVTC, most derainbowing/dotcrawl filtering are actually most effective or even needed before IVTC.

source  = last
sigma   = 40
filt    = source.FFT3dFilter(sigma=sigma,plane=4,bt=3)

idx1    = filt.MSuper(pel=2,sharp=1)
bw_vec1 = MAnalyse(idx1,isb=true, delta=1,overlap=4,plevel=0,dct=1,chroma=false)
fw_vec1 = MAnalyse(idx1,isb=false,delta=1,overlap=4,plevel=0,dct=1,chroma=false)
bw_vec2 = MAnalyse(idx1,isb=true, delta=2,overlap=4,plevel=0,dct=1,chroma=false)
fw_vec2 = MAnalyse(idx1,isb=false,delta=2,overlap=4,plevel=0,dct=1,chroma=false)

idx2    = source.MSuper(pel=2,sharp=1,levels=1)
pcorr   = source.MDegrain2(idx2,bw_vec2,bw_vec1,fw_vec1,fw_vec2,thSAD=800,thSCD1=150,thSCD2=75,plane=4)
corr1   = Median1(source,pcorr,filt,chroma="process")

idx3    = corr1.MSuper(pel=2,sharp=1,levels=1)
corr1.MDegrain2(idx2,bw_vec2,bw_vec1,fw_vec1,fw_vec2,thSAD=400,thSCD1=150,thSCD2=75,plane=4)

Median1(corr1,last,filt,chroma="process")

MergeLuma(last,source)

#######################################################################################

Function Median1(clip input_1, clip input_2, clip input_3, string "chroma")
{# median of 3 clips from Helpers.avs by G-force

chroma = Default(chroma,"process") #default is "process". Alternates: "copy first" or "copy second"

Interleave(input_1,input_2,input_3)
chroma == "process" ? Clense(reduceflicker=false) : Clense(reduceflicker=false,grey=true)
SelectEvery(3,1)
chroma == "copy first" ? last.MergeChroma(input_1) : chroma == "copy second" ? last.MergeChroma(input_2) : last
Return(last)
}

Dunedain said:

Very nice, msycamore. :) Getting the faces right when color correcting the Star Wars trilogy is always the hardest thing (dark_jedi and You_Too know all about that :) ). It's so hard to restore that accurate natural fair look with the sources available. Leia isn't too far off, but still red, Daine Jir, more reddish yet, but perhaps that can be adjusted a bit. :)

Thanks! Haven't seen their accomplishments but yes the skintones are of course the most crucial part when color correcting, there are several reasons why my first upload ended up looking like it did, uncalibrated monitor, lack of care and in a way of getting it over with so that I could continue with THX 1138 which I still after all this time haven't finished. :( But the positive response I got with this one even though the DVD looked like shit (IMO) makes me want to do a much improved one, especially when I know how much better it can look.

Didn't know who the hell Daine Jir was but now I know after some google search, you learn something new everyday :) I guess every stormtrooper in the film have a name these days as well... I agree that the colors in the sample are far from perfect but I don't go scene-by-scene, instead just reel-by-reel to find a middle ground. The reasons for the screencaps are only to show the excellent derainbowing by g-force, not the colors as they varies quite much, had I taken a screenshot from a second later or earlier it would perhaps look too green or to yellow, that's why screenshots doesn't work so good with this source. I'm glad you like the improvements though. :)

Just an example of the variations in levels I mentioned earlier... the same settings that I used on the previous video sample:

^^ brightness and contrast looks quite ok, we cut to Han and back to Leia and boom the levels are changed:

^^ the colors are actually much better here, but the brightness and gamma is way off. This happens quite often in this telecine, sometimes even in the middle of a scene. This makes setting a correct white and black point quite difficult sometimes.

Darth Mallwalker, when you have time for it, could you please check this scene on your copy:

Will try to find the numbers for you, curious if it is a mastering defect present in all copies of this LD. Thanks. 

Dunedain said:

Leia isn't too far off, but still red, Daine Jir, more reddish yet, but perhaps that can be adjusted a bit. :)

Sorry, when I re-read your comment again, who to say you based your opinion on my screenshots, if anyone have suggestions on how to make improvements, please mention them, that's one of the purposes of posting samples after all.

Yes.
149737
149738
continuing until 149771/149772.
Look like Easter eggs

Yeah, I was referring to the screen shots and skin tones in them. :) And we do indeed tend to learn something new about Star Wars all the time, such as how Commander Daine Jir is a distinguished officer in the Imperial army. :)

Darth Mallwalker said:

Yes.
149737
149738
continuing until 149771/149772.
Look like Easter eggs

Thanks for checking! Not good, I was hoping it would be something unique to my copy.

Can anyone re-upload the AVP cover art for this?  The original host is long gone....

dave88 said:

I noticed you really pushed the bitrate with this :thumbsup:. There's barely even any room for audio. After viewing multiple times comparing different audio with it, I think I'll fill that meager space with (1) Belbucus Mono @160 and (2) Schorman13's Digital '77 stereo @320. (that might push it, but it should be OK huh?)

edit: nope, it won't even fit on the disc. I ended up just using Belbucus Mono @320 I'm warming up to it as my favorite way to watch SW.

Yeah, I encoded it with a quite high video bitrate as I thought the noisy transfer demanded it, IIRC the audio was at 256kbps. So, watch out if you're going higher than that.

dave88 said:

The only thing that really jumps out at me is the ending credits look a little crappy?

If you try this and the color is a tad "loud" that's what the knobs on your TV are for :)

Love it, thanks again man

You're welcome. Lack of a good comb filter is the reason for most of its shortcomings, and it didn't exactly help that I screwed up on the contrast and saturation settings. A corrected and much improved version has already been done, the credits look better on it. I've just not gotten around uploading it yet, will try to do that sometime later this week.

Darth Nyriox said:

Can anyone re-upload the AVP cover art for this? The original host is long gone....

Sorry, I can't. Lost the stuff in a HDD crash.