Star Wars: Clone Wars [ Micro-Series ] - Original Episode Format / Restoration (RELEASED) — Page 3

I appreciate the thanks but all the credit goes to @GabinDayback who did the real work. Without their knowledge to start from I wouldn’t even know what was different.

Just for fun I’m experimenting with a few shots to see if I can improve them. It’s been fun analyzing how this show was put together.

For instance, I’ve been working on cleaning up this speeder shot, as it gets cut off early in the DVD version.

Chapter 9 - Opening Shot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV7bljJZA40

Very few “Next Time” and “Previously” on segments are available online from what I can find. The “Next Time” segments are literally 3 second teasers for the next episode while the “Previously” segments are a bit longer but easy to edit.

Chapter 9 Previously & Next Time HD Rebuild

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpeEHE4Lp0c

I did take a stab at a few missing segments which were replaced by wipes on the DVD Versions.

Chapter 8 Ending - Replaced with a wipe on DVD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzV4LRUd2og

Chpater 9 Ending - Replaced with a wipe on DVD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJSl9X54A50

While neither of these two tests are prefect, they are blink and you’ll miss them changes. Both shots are under 15 frames of content. It would still be nice to have them back at some point.

Chapter 9 - Replaced with a wipe on DVD

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

One more blink and you miss it shot. This is also the result of a wipe being added to the DVD version of this shot.

Like I said, I’ve just been playing around with these in my downtime. I just wanted to share what I’ve been playing with.

Noois!!! 👏 😄

I ran some of the low-quality Clone Wars video through Topaz Project Starlight to see how well it could clean things up. While it did improve sharpness and reduce some noise, the results were ultimately limited by the original footage; bad in = bad out. It’s a decent quick fix for minor enhancements, but don’t expect miracles if your source is garbage.

https://youtu.be/EtRCpDsWCbQ

Any suggestions on where to start looking at that stuff? I’m completely new to all of this.

Hi, i’m not a pro in this topic, but worked in Topaz on few shows, and i don’t think there is much you can do.
You can only slightly improve the footage, so garbage in -> slightly better garbage out.
If you try achieving too much, you will end up with artefacts and horrible abominations (been there, done that).

Use fine tune model, and slightly increase parameters until you see too much artifacts. Stop at that, and that’s the best outcome you can achieve.
I didn’t find anything better for now.

I’ll have a bit more free time coming up and thought it’d be fun to work on some of the intros and next week’s segments. Unfortunately, I haven’t had any luck finding those segments online. I know it’s a long shot but does anyone have a source or know where I might be able to track them down?

I just discovered some more missing footage on the DVD release of this. At the end of Chapter 24 and the beginning of Chapter 25 there was a wipe on the DVD which removed a small bit of footage from these Chapters.

https://youtu.be/30e0_hUjOG4

I made the above video to show what was cut off.

Hey everyone, happy weekend!

I’ve kind of gone down a road that’s turned this into a full on passion project. I’ve been reworking all these episodes to create 100% Broadcast Complete versions. Things are moving along pretty well, and I’ve got a solid timeline mapped out for most of the remaining work. Hoping to share some stuff with folks soon!

That said, I’ve hit a couple of snags and was hoping someone here might be able to help track down a few missing pieces of footage:

• Chapter 7: Missing the intro
• Chapter 10: Missing the outro
• Episodes 21–25: These don’t seem to have intros or outros in any of the copies I’ve come across. I’m not sure if they were ever broadcast with them, or if they’ve just gone missing over time.

If anyone happens to have copies of these segments, or knows for sure whether those episodes aired without intros/outros, I’d really appreciate the info.

I’ve been using Topaz Starlight for my upscaling needs and it works pretty well after a few rounds of uploads. I’m stuck using the free version for now, so I have to wait for my credits to refresh before I can knock out a few more pieces of footage. If anyone wants to help out, let me know, it’s not much (less than 1 1/2 minutes total), but I’m limited by the 12 second per clip upload cap on the free version. Also, if you’ve got other upscaling ideas or tools you swear by, I’m all ears.

Thanks in advance for any leads, advice, or insight — and as always, thanks for being such an awesome community!

Thanks to the invaluable efforts of my “partner in crime - Mackey256”, a cool UPDATE for the project is IN THE WORKS. 😎

Stay tuned, folks.😁

UPDATED RELEASE:

The missing broadcast-exclusive shots from Chapter 2 and Chapter 18 have been meticulously cleaned, restored, and composited from multiple sources to match the visual standard of the official DVD releases—ensuring seamless reintegration and faithful presentation as originally intended.

CREDITS:

Mackey256 – Video/Picture Restoration: Reconstructing and matching missing footage to DVD quality through selective frame refinement and iterative slow-pass processing, ensuring optimal visual consistency and seamless integration.

The ending sequence in Chapter 2 and the opening sequence in Chapter 18 were both assembled from multiple sources. I picked the best frames from each, then ran them through Topaz Project Starlight several times to AI upscale them to 1080p. In some cases, I slowed the footage down to 20% speed to give the software more time to process each frame.

After creating that upscaled 1080p footage, I went through again, selected the strongest frames, and ran the remaining ones that needed work back through Topaz Starlight, this time setting it to one second per frame to really let it work. In a perfect world, I’d give every frame that treatment, but the free version of Starlight limits us to 300 frames (12 seconds) per upload and only 3 uploads a week. That’s about 36 frames if you’re doing the full one second per frame method.

You might catch a hint of ghosting if you really scrub through it frame by frame, but during normal playback it holds up great as all the worst offenders have been fixed. In another year or two, the tech will probably make this kind of thing effortless, but for now, this is about as clean as it gets without paying to process this footage.

That said, I’m really happy with how both of these sequences turned out, and I can’t wait to share the rest of this project when it’s ready.

Here is a before/after example of what Topaz Project Starlight is doing to the footage from the first shot of Chapter 18.

And here’s a before/after example of why you let Topaz process a frame for a full second (24 frames) versus the three frames it was originally fed:

3 Frames (Slowed Down to 20% Processing Pass)

24 Frames (Final Processing Pass)

FINAL UPDATE:

Additional tweaks have been made to the previously missing/broadcast-exclusive opening shot for Chapter 18, ensuring it now fits seamlessly into the DVD visual presentation.

With this, the restoration project is officially complete. No further updates or adjustments will be made from my end.

If you own the “Star Wars: Clone Wars” DVD-discs of Volume I and Volume II, do not hesitate to PM me in order to obtain them in their original episodic format. For those of you who own the show and have been provided with the link for the previous release, the URL remains the same.

I WOULD LIKE TO TAKE A MOMENT TO EXPRESS MY HEARTFELT GRATITUDE TO ALL THE USERS WHO CONTRIBUTED THEIR SOURCES—YOUR SUPPORT WAS ESSENTIAL IN BRINGING THIS PROJECT TO ITS FULLEST POTENTIAL.

RESTORED THE MICRO-SERIES HAS BEEN.

Thank you so much for the kind words, Phase3, that really means a lot.

And huge congrats to GabinDayback on officially wrapping up this incredible restoration. It’s been amazing to watch this come together.

That said, I’m still quietly working on my own version of the series. Mine’s aiming to be a 100% broadcast style cut, recreating how the episodes originally aired, complete with intros and outros where possible (aside from a couple of truly lost bits we just don’t have). I’m still refining a few tricky shots and making some last tweaks before it’s ready for prime time, but I’m hoping to have it finished in the next few weeks.

Also, I want to give a heartfelt thank you to GabinDayback not just for all the work he’s done, but for generously letting me use his restoration as a starting point and for sharing rare footage along the way, this project wouldn’t be where it is without his efforts. It honestly started as a curiosity in what had changed and grew in the process.

Really excited to share more with you all soon!

For now, here’s a finished shot from the Chapter 9 opening I’ve been working on. I’ll also be recording a behind-the-scenes breakdown soon to go over all the differences and show how a lot of this was put together.

https://youtu.be/PDgIJ18ZvAw

Man, that Chapter 9 intro looks amazing! Tempts me to update the project again. 😂

GabinDayback said:

Man, that Chapter 9 intro looks amazing! Tempts me to update the project again. 😂

Do it! 😃😃🍺

Thanks for this, amazing!

This is a series with strong memories for me when I watch it. Looking forward to seeing it as good as it’s going to look while matching what I remember watching back then.

It’s never easy to bring a passion project to a halt. Although I previously announced there would be no further updates, I’m pleased to share that new work is currently underway.

While Mackey256 continues his efforts to clean and restore the original broadcast video recordings of the show, I will be dedicating myself to remastering the sound and broadcast audio recordings—this time with a much higher level of professional precision. There’s even a chance the final result may surpass the audio quality found on the official DVD release.

How is this possible? As it turns out, a former roommate of mine—who also happens to be a devoted fan of the show—is a professional sound engineer. He has kindly offered to assist me throughout the process by sharing expert insights, tips, and techniques.

In the meantime, please enjoy the current release of our version of the show. More updates will follow in due course.

Well that is super exciting news! I can’t wait to check it out when your done!

Work continues over here. I got some more footage back from Topaz Starlight and it’s looking good. Still a few things to upconvert before I call this project finished. Next weekend?

For those wondering about my process I made this quick video talking about the changes I’m making. Hopefully it helps someone with a similar project in the future. (Sorry it’s long)

https://youtu.be/yGyl9eoWi00