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The Cowclops Transfers (a.k.a. the PCM audio DVD's, Row47 set) Info and Feedback Thread (Released) — Page 13

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I agree with your analysis of "sounds good" and "continuity" when applied to companies and brands. However, I feel this is a different situation. Cowclops is not a real brand or a company. He's an individual, and as such surely has the expectation that his name be attached to his work if he so chooses. I don't discount the contribution TR47 has made to promulgating the original transfer Cowclops did, but if I were Cowclops and now came up with a better transfer and asked that my name be attached, I'd be quite insulted that somebody was arguing to keep my name off simply because some other name "sounds good" and "maintains continuity." I still feel that in this context, those are weak and lazy reasons.
I am not arguing to keep Cowclops' name off. I am arguing against keeping TR47's name off. I could have been more clear in my initial post but from the tone of what I was replying to, it sounded like the association with the name TR47 was to be completely erased. Something like "Cowclops/TR47 v2" or whatever would be fine. It will help ensure that people understand what exactly this set is (not everyone looking for the O-OT reads this forum); after all, there is no transfer that is known by the name of "Cowclops [v1]". On top of that; objectively speaking; this second set is a collaboration between Cowclops and TR47.
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Oh god, can we please stop this annoying topic of what to call what? I'm sure that no matter what name we call it, we'll all still be able to make sense out of what the hell they're trying to say.

But back on topic. Cowclops, if you could send us some updated comparison pics, that would be really awesome. I'm really interested in seeing how much you've improved this version from your last.

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

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Hey, if it weren't for some negative feedback on my part early on, we'd still be calling the EditDroid set "Mysterious Mysteries," quite against the wishes of the creators.

MaximRecoil has good, strong reasons why TR47 should be included as part of the name. I think he's right that both Cowclops and TR47 should be mentioned. Something like "TR47 presents Cowclops v.2" or "TR47 v.2 powered by Cowclops" or whatever. It's bound to be a bit clunky, but what can you do?

Thrashing out the details now, before the set is released, is far better than the alternatives. As long as Cowclops is given his due, MaximRecoil is right to be further thinking of 'branding' and continuity.
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Except that I already said what I think it should be called. Its obviously "The Cowclops Set" and it was obviously sponsored by TR47, so throw both of those tidbits on the box somewhere and its all set.
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Cowclops really gets the last word, but that doesn't stop me from dropping my $.02.

What you all need to realize is that there are a multitiude of transfers out now. They all have their own names that most people didn't know until they knew it was the version they wanted.

Once CC v2 is out the old "TR47" one is pretty much going to fall by the way side. As long as people know that the edition to own is CC v2, it won't matter that it ever had any association with the previous TR47/CC v1. This is a stupid arguement.

Dr. M

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Both Cowclops and TR47 are involved in the creation of this set. Both agree they should both be credited. End of story.
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Originally posted by: Doctor M
Cowclops really gets the last word, but that doesn't stop me from dropping my $.02.

What you all need to realize is that there are a multitiude of transfers out now. They all have their own names that most people didn't know until they knew it was the version they wanted.

Once CC v2 is out the old "TR47" one is pretty much going to fall by the way side. As long as people know that the edition to own is CC v2, it won't matter that it ever had any association with the previous TR47/CC v1. This is a stupid arguement.


AGREED

“My skill are no longer as Mad as the once were” RiK

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How about we forget what it is called and see some screenshots instead! I'm really keen to see how much better this transfer looks, it is done on some really nice gear.
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Sure thing.. here's some for you. Please keep in mind that your setup may look different-I tried to find scenes that illustrate contrast/color/brightness levels. I made a shot of the red grate in ESB to show that the red-shifting no longer occurs. There may be some slight cropping on the sides due to the image editing. Enjoy!

http://img106.echo.cx/img106/676/anh6aj.jpg
http://img243.echo.cx/img243/2007/esb5fh.jpg
http://img243.echo.cx/img243/8463/rotj4yl.jpg
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These look better than the previously released screenshot, was that from an early stage before filtering or something?

Dr. M

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I promise to come back here with a witty, complimentary post as soon as I can remove my jaw from the floor....

Talk amongst yourselves...
"I don't know where we're goin, but we're makin good time!"
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Ahh, luvverly.
Great to see some shots, thanks for posting a good sized sampling.
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Dr. M, no, all he has is the DVDs I already sent him, so it is the final version thats been done since January. Only thing extra I've done between then and now is the menus, but the video has already been compressed.
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Cowclops - any chance I can get a set directly from you to help get these out?

I of course would make a donation if you so requested

“My skill are no longer as Mad as the once were” RiK

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I do have a few members that have offered to send me copies and I would like to make sure that I can pay this forward and get sets to some of the other key players here on the forums.

SO, when I get this set I will be sending out about 10 copies to members here on the forum FREE of any charges...

THE CATCH... SOME of YOU will need broadband and be willing to help me seed these on the torrent networks (at least 5 with broadband)

PLEASE, do not PM or email me about this yet - I assure you I will post more details on this plan THE minute I get the DVD's!!!

Thanks for the support guys!!

“My skill are no longer as Mad as the once were” RiK

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Beautiful screencaps, well done CowClops, your work is so appreciated here, thankyou. I'm really looking forward to zion getting comparison caps on to his screenshots page. Blantantly these are better quality than the original TR47/CowClops version (the colours look REALLY nice here, with also the sharpness a little bit better), but I would be very interested to see how they compare to Moth3r's PAL versions, his caps from ANH, IMHO, are the best version out there right now. But at this early stage, I would say we have a new NTSC champion

I will be keeping a very close eye on MySpleen for Rikter's Torrent release! *excited*

www.bardothodol.net

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Thanks for the screencaps. No doubt this is the NTSC champ. Can't wait to see the menus.
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Wow, this is pretty impressive! To me, the quality is equal to Zion's first capture project before he joined the x0 project. Good job!

I know this is a little late, but I just got the Rowman revised DVDs of your first project in the mail yesterday (thanks youknowwho!) and I was very impressed with the quality on that version. For some reason the caps on these threads make it look much crappier than it does in practical viewings (i.e.: a CRT 4:3 television). I just wanted to give you props.

I also think it's great that people are dedicated to improve other people's past work in order to achieve as best a quality as possible. Anyway, enough ranting.

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

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TR47

I sent you an e-mail and a PM last week. I know your probably swamped with e-mails but I just wanted to make sure that you had received them.

HARMY RULES

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Cowclops, can you make a few screenshots of the avi, the low bitrate mpeg and the high bitrate mpeg for comparison? I think your screenshots look good but I'd say there a compression artifacts visible around sharp edges (bobafett's gun etc.) and in large blocks of the same color (sky etc.). Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate your efforts and I'm really looking forward to your set. I know you have said many times the quality doesn't go down with the low bitrate but I can't believe it and it's not what I experience when coding movies of my own. Even if quality goes down by only a few percent it might still be visible.
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.
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They don't look like bitrate issues to me in the images, more likely a result of chroma smoothing or similar processing to reduce noise. Going on the amount of detail present in those image, I highly, highly doubt that increasing the bitrate to go dual layer would make a single pixel's difference.

Also, remember these are jpeg images that were posted, so they have been through a blocking compression method - you would need to see them posted here in a different format to draw any conclusions.
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lol, for the record, don't bother asking me for screen shots from the original cap. I just can't keep 150GB of video on my hard drive. What I really have to say is, to judge what it looks like you REALLY REALLY have to use the hardware that LASERDISCS were intended for. Get a traditional 32" standard definition 4:3 set, hook up a regular 480i DVD player to it, and watch it on that. Also, turn down the brightness so you can JUST BARELY tell the difference between the DVD player's anamorphic border and the "actually encoded on the disc" black border. That will give you the proper black level.

As laserman was hinting at, chroma noise on ALL laserdisc players is pretty much garbage compared to what people are used to watching especially on DVD. The noise reduction I did was to make it easier to compress, not to stamp out all the noise. In motion, it makes perfectly still scenes smoother, but anything with a slight amount of movement will retain all the original noise. If you grab a single frame, it might look goofy, even if the entire sequence looks fine.

Its pretty much the nature of LDs vs "single frames of LD rips people are seeing." Most people on here are seeing screen caps from LDs that have had the noise reduced to non existant levels... but in the process you get some less-than-desirable smearing and a bit of a loss of detail compared to if you minimized the amount of noise reduction.

Basically, a strong noise reduction filter DOES make for better screen shots, but it doesn't show what the video really looks like in motion. No noise reduction makes it just about impossible to compress, which can make for ok sharpness but adds lots of artifacts and crap too. I just went one step better than "no" noise reduction by using a setup so weak, it only affects the most still scenes.

To sum it up... you'll know what I mean when you see it.
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Well put, for the same reason we have used no noise reduction at all on our X0 captures or still images at this stage, we are still working out wether any noise filtering is a good idea, and at what levels.
It cracks me up to see some of the stills posted around the place that have had so much noise filtering done that it borders on posterisation, and I can only imagine that their final moving pictures would look weird and overly soft.

What encoder are you using cowclops to get it onto DVD?

BTW, I love your logo and its history!
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OK. I'm confinced!!!
Fez: I am so excited about Star Whores.
Hyde: Fezzy, man, it's Star Wars.