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Star Wars Holiday Special - WHIO 1st Gen VHS Preservation (Released) — Page 2

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Well the quality is much better than I thought!

Could you please encode the second version with a much bigger bitrate? About 8MBps?

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pittrek said:

Well the quality is much better than I thought!

Could you please encode the second version with a much bigger bitrate? About 8MBps?

Version 2 will have a higher bitrate for both audio and video, though I'm still not sure what the best format to release it in would be. I'm leaning towards making it either a standard definition single layer Blu-ray or just a DVD-9. Which would everyone prefer?

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Feallan said:

DVD 9. BD is an overkill for a VHS rip.

You're right; the extras could just be put on a separate DVD-5.

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Or MKV?

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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Definitely one of the best off air copies I've seen to date.  The image is very sharp, stable and not overly-saturated.  If its not an original recording, its a very good 1st generation dub. Don't know a lot about the HR-S7100U but it seems to have done a pretty good job.  Does it have a time-based corrector built in?  Any chance of getting someone on the forum with a professional deck to squeeze out whatever quality is left for version 2?  I really enjoyed seeing the original opening again (Hulk & Wonderwoman)!  It certainly reminded me of the excitement I had watching this 35 years ago. I appreciate you posting this! 

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pufnstuf said:

Definitely one of the best off air copies I've seen to date.  The image is very sharp, stable and not overly-saturated.  If its not an original recording, its a very good 1st generation dub. Don't know a lot about the HR-S7100U but it seems to have done a pretty good job.  Does it have a time-based corrector built in?

The HR-7100U does not have a TBC, but I am trying to track down a decent condition Panasonic AG 1980 for a reasonable price.

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Tasjo, what is your price range for an AG-1980? It's getting harder to find one that hasn't been run into the ground as time goes by. And believe me, you don't want to end up with someone else's tape eater.

I can recommend the ebay seller I bought my last one from, and they service what they sell.

 

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Where were you in '77?

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Dear all,

I'm new on this forum but I've been constantly reading all the news, information and all the wonderfull stuffs that everyday appears about Star Wars, also the hard work on many many projects that have been born also here on this forum.

One of the topics that took my attention was this because the doubt about "What will be the best format to preserve an old VHS"

Let me just give a little introduction about me..
One of my hobbies is the audio & video restoration and this is something that i've been doing from a long time, based on some family & friends videos even with some old 80's cartoon and animes, also some other stuffs

I have the luck to count with some professional equipments (pro line NTSC VCR (AG-1980p) and pro line PAL VCR (the same as AG-1980 but the PAL vesion)) , laserdisc player (PAL and NSTC), betacam, u-matic, and super8 film equipment, also a external TBC and DNR.

Following you can find some examples of my work (in cooperation with another friend) that i've also uploaded to youtube:

- Anime: This "robotech" video, was made from the mixing, color correction, noise reduction and upscaling from 3 different japanese dvd sources..
Even when the japaneses videos came from a dvd source, the noise and pixelation was a big problem. After some work that was the result. The title "robotech" was created with 80 different images with "randome point noise" inside of it in order to create the "animated" effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiSwC0B8SsY


- Documentals: here you can find some "before and after" from a VHS source video. The stabilization, color corrrection, image noise reduction and audio improvement are part of our work.
Before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUargFCbVgc
After: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlU8GkV5AhI


- Super8: this is a more difficult stuff. the FILM (super8) is a very complex and slow work. the process starts cleaning the film reel and then taking HD picture form every frame, frame by frame. After that a main movie is generate at 18 FPS (original Super8 speed) and later with some avisynth knowledge, the color / chroma correction, stabilization, and manual frame cuts you can get some final and nice work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5RA-qt68a8


- VHS : here is a official Elektra records VHS that I transfered to AVI uncompressed passing through a TBC with a professional VCR, later some color and chroma correction, audio cleaning and improvement, an finally upscaling and stored in H264 to provide a nice quality video (check that the source is not PRO video, it looks more like a Home video with a home camera..). This is the "Live Shit" EPK and you can watch it in 1080 if you want.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=204BiTgScZM


Sadly youtube is not the best way to show you all these videos.. youtube includes a lot of pixelation and imperfections.. but you can understand with my comments what i try to say.

Now .. what is the purpose of this post?

If you want to keep those value stuffs alive, I want to offer my services (as a hobby!!) to make the restoration and to keep the videos with the quality that they deserve.

I've seen that many many VHS and betacam tapes that have been just "transfered to DVD" with some home-dvd-recorders, and the quality is alway not-good as expected. (most of those "dvd transfers" are nowadays practically un-watchable on big TV sets, with a lot of pixelation and noise)


Now focusing on this topic, I would recommend to transfer firstly the VHS (by using AG-1980p) to a UNCOMPRESSED AVI (that will cosume MANY space on  Hard Disc, but also for this purpouse I count with a RAID Hard disk arrange).
Then the stabilization, color correction, noise clean process are made over this large Uncompressed AVI (so no quality loss!) and finally, once all the previous procees is done, it can be compressed to h264 (with a bitarte over 15000 kb/s)  and LPCM (WAV) audio, and if you want it can be also upscaled to 1080p to be perfectly watched on a big TV set.... the most important WITHOUT the common pixelation from the limited bitrate offered on the DVD compression formats.

If you want.. I can do the whole job but for that I will need the VHS to transfer it, of course, I will have to get in contact with the owner to clarify the best to do this.


Sorry for this long post... but I just let you know that I can contribute with my knowledge and also the equipments.

Thanks to you all.

Bellower

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Indeed, there are a few of us with AG-1980s here on the forum.  So if you get stuck, I'm sure there are people here that can do a nice transfer.  Believe me, using a better deck makes a noticeable difference in quality.  Judging by what you have already gotten out of the SWHS tape, running it through a better deck is likely to make it clearly the best quality version yet found.

Incidentally, the AG-1980 isn't exactly a "pro" deck.  But my read of the situation is that when VHS was the home video format, people weren't imagining a market for decks that maximize getting the most out of digitizing damaged, old, or inferior tapes.  So, after the fact, people have gone back and figured out which decks seem to produce the best results for that application.  The AG-1980 is one of those decks, even though it sits rather in-between the pro and the consumer genres.  The "pro" market was more concerned with producing the best tapes, or maximizing the quality of dubbing pristine tapes, and as such may not do as good a job as the AG-1980 or the JVC-96xx series when digitizing less-than-perfect tapes.

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

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The AG-1980 was firmly in the "prosumer" category. (As was most S-VHS gear.) All the industrial decks I ever used didn't have internal TBC's, as the typical studio setup would likely have an external unit. How such a feature laden deck with such good specs came out at the original price point is a mystery to me. (The decks I used in college probably cost three times more.) I used mine as a home editing system for years.

The 1980 has a lesser known cousin, the AG-5710, which has the same specs except for the addition of an RS-232 port on the back. It can sometimes be found for less.

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Where were you in '77?

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SilverWook said:

Tasjo, what is your price range for an AG-1980? It's getting harder to find one that hasn't been run into the ground as time goes by. And believe me, you don't want to end up with someone else's tape eater.

I can recommend the ebay seller I bought my last one from, and they service what they sell.

 

My price range is around the $200-250, but I may just have to bite the bullet and pay a little more for one that is guaranteed to work. 90% of the ones I have seen listed have mostly been trashed and I definitely don't want to end up with someone else's tape eater.

Bellower said:

If you want.. I can do the whole job but for that I will need the VHS to transfer it, of course, I will have to get in contact with the owner to clarify the best to do this.


Sorry for this long post... but I just let you know that I can contribute with my knowledge and also the equipments.

Thanks to you all.

Bellower

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

Indeed, there are a few of us with AG-1980s here on the forum.  So if you get stuck, I'm sure there are people here that can do a nice transfer.  Believe me, using a better deck makes a noticeable difference in quality.  Judging by what you have already gotten out of the SWHS tape, running it through a better deck is likely to make it clearly the best quality version yet found.

Thanks for the offers everyone, but I have a lot of other tapes that need to be transferred, so at this point I think it would be best if try to track down my own. But if all else fails I will definitely consider letting one of you transfer it the best way possible.

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The V1 is already the best version of HS. Can't wait to see V2.

Also, IMO it would be best to include WMAR commercials, even if they'd stand out a little.

Fanrestore - Fan Restoration Forum: https://fanrestore.com

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I looked at the comparison and it looks like Zion's has more detail, even though it seems like the sharpening filter was used a bit too liberally. 

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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If you get an AG-1980, do some research and learn how to properly clean the heads.  Don't use a head cleaning tape, do it correctly and with the right kind of swabs.  It's actually not that hard, but you do have to be careful.  Cleaning the heads can also make a noticeable difference in the quality of the capture.

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

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I've received an AG 1980 and work on Version 2 should begin within the next few weeks.

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Looks like it's in pretty good shape too. The LED display can get cloudy with age, at least those made in the 90's. Panasonic kept making these a long time.

Dare I say nice rack? ;)

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Where were you in '77?

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Gorgeous.

If it somehow made its way to Usenet, I'm sure there would be many grateful. Or at least one. And I'm hoping I'm not alone.

“Before the Dark Times. Before the Prequels.”

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digitalfreaknyc said:

Is this the same source (before he sold it)?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oicjDieAyJs

Also, in an effort to not derail this thread, is there another to discuss VHS decks?

Looks to be from the same broadcast, but the WHIO has better colour and less distorted sound. The YouTube clip is definitely a generation or two further away from the one Tasjo has provided us with.

Visit my *NEW* Star Wars on Video Collection site:

http://www.swonvideo.com

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Video Collector said:



digitalfreaknyc said:

Is this the same source (before he sold it)?
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oicjDieAyJs" target="_blank" title="www.youtube.com/watch?v=oicjDieAyJs">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oicjDieAyJs</a>

Also, in an effort to not derail this thread, is there another to discuss VHS decks?


Looks to be from the same broadcast, but the WHIO has better colour and less distorted sound. The YouTube clip is definitely a generation or two further away from the one Tasjo has provided us with.


Well, of course it's the same broadcast. There was only one. :)

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MattMahdi said:

Gorgeous.

If it somehow made its way to Usenet, I'm sure there would be many grateful. Or at least one. And I'm hoping I'm not alone.

And that's not even the half of it.

Subtle details I've never even seen before --- there's an outer ring on the archway when the circus people step onto the game platform!

And the house now feels like a decent set, a la the Ralph McQuarrie diagrams on the SWHS site, instead of the blurred background it's been before.

Thank you, both to Tasjo and to the person who posted it on a.b.sw. I can't believe what I'm seeing.

“Before the Dark Times. Before the Prequels.”