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

Recorded from WHIO Dayton, Ohio, this is an original first generation recording of the Star Wars Holiday Special on VHS. The tape was purchased from an ebay seller in Dayton, Ohio, who I believe may have been the original owner.

The recording has many rough edits at the commercial breaks, but is otherwise complete. The picture is sharp, color is not over saturated and is not overly dark.

Version 1 info:

• 4.7 GB DVD-5 with no extras, menus, or alternate audio tracks.
• Transferred using a JVC HR-S7100U S-VHS VCR and a Philips  DVDR 3390 DVD recorder with LSI chipset.
• Rough edits patched and station IDs removed using KCCI, WCBS and the Vidtronics master (Note: Version 2 will NOT have the station IDs removed).
• No sharpening filters or saturation filters applied as they are not necessary.

I plan to eventually do a Version 2 using a hauppauge USB-Live2 capture device once I acquire a Panasonic AG-1980.

Version 2 goals:

• DVD-9 (possibly SD BD-25 to include both a raw and restored version of the capture) with menus, an early version of the animated segment with deleted “commercial” (have), archival commentary track (working on it), French audio track (have, but looking for better quality), and Spanish audio track.

I have a very slow upload speed so sharing it by torrent is out of the question for now, but if anyone is willing to upload this to myspleen or usenet PM me.

Nice! Post some caps.

Also, it's nice to watch HS with those 35 year old commercials. Why did you cut them out? :(

I'm not too familiar with most of the other documented off-air recordings, but this one looks-a pretty-pretty sweet!

I didn't know TDK was making VHS tape back then. It was my preferred brand in the 80's for it's durability though.

Is this the first 1st gen recording to come to light? The screencaps look pretty good!

It definitely does have a slight edge over KCCI in terms of sharpness and doesn't suffer from the horrible over saturated reds of most copies of WMAR.

I'd really like to include the commercials in version 2, but the commercials from WMAR need serious color correction to blend with the actual show. Here is a comparison of the only commercial besides the Kenner commercial that was left.

WHIO on the left, WMAR on the right:

I compared this with KCCI, IMO your version looks better.

This looks like this is our best source now. Nice job, sir.

Perhaps this will be the year I finally watch the Holiday Special?

Looks good! Has anyone compared this to Zion's WBBM version? 

g-force said:

What the foooook is this? The holy grail? It appears to be in my book. I would LOVE a copy, Tasjo!

-G

Feallan has offed to upload it to Myspleen, so it should be available sometime in the next few weeks.

pufnstuf said:

Out of curiosity, the "CBS Special Presentation" introduction... What preceded the actual start of the program?  Looks like a nice quality source. 

It starts with a Wonder Woman/Incredible Hulk slide and an announcer saying that "Because of the following special programming Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk will not be seen this evening".

"Version 2 goals:
... French audio track (have, but looking for better quality), and Spanish audio track."

That would be really cool. I've only ever heard it in English.

Anyway, this looks quite nice! It's fun when new, cleaner versions of the Holiday Special, Droids, Ewoks, etc... come out.

Looking good!  Too bad the original taper edited out most of the commercials...but otherwise this is the best source we've seen in a long time.

I think most people would prefer the version with the station ID intact, as it gives some context to the original recording.  Plus, it's only on-screen for a very short time.

--SKot

SKot said:

I think most people would prefer the version with the station ID intact, as it gives some context to the original recording.  Plus, it's only on-screen for a very short time.

Version 2 will definitely have the station IDs left intact. The goal of version 1 was to provide a clean, generic source that could be used for other projects.

It's on Myspleen. But if you want fast download, you must wait until tomorrow.

If anyone notices any major glitches or errors let me know so I can try to fix them in version 2. Hopefully the AG 1980 can fix most of the minor video problems.