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The Puggo Edition - webpage and screenshots (Super 8 transfers - Released)

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 (Edited)

Unleashing… The Puggo Edition.

What is it? Well, Boba Feta was kind enough to loan me his 4-volume super-8 movie shorts of SW and ESB (yep, the films themselves), so that I could take a crack at tele-cinny-ing (heh) them myself. Well, I’ve finished capturing the SW frames, and both films’ sound. I still have a lot of work to do - synching the sound, and capturing ESB. But I do have some screen shots so y’all can see how it’s going.

Like Boba warned on his webpage - it ain’t the X0, it ain’t even the GOUT, the OOT, the GOOT, the HOOT, gol durn it ain’t even a crappy old VHS copy. But it is a different and cool-in-its-own-way slice of original Star Wars footage. There are even a couple of minor tidbits you won’t find on any of the other OOTs … I won’t spoil the surprises in store for the future - stay tuned!

I’ve created a webpage for the project, and also for the unveiling of - PUGGO HIMSELF - he’s Jar Jar’s Yoda, as you know:

www.hardbat.com/puggo/home.html

Enjoy, let me know what you think. I promise a steady stream of half-baked, barely-worth-mentioning updates, as well as more screen shots, video clips, and technical descriptions of how I am achieving this monumental dip in quality. Ah well, I do think it will be fun for other die-hard SW fans to see both Boba’s Super-8 Project and the Puggo Edition of the same films.

Scott
(with thanks to Boba Feta)

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

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Glad to see that after the talk about needing this, someone is taking this on and transfering the super 8 films to DVD. Looks good and good luck, Puggo!
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I just uploaded a short (7 sec) .avi clip.
It's 20Mb, raw uncompressed frames.
No sound-sync yet, so it's silent.
No pulldown done, so the speed is too fast.

DON'T just click and try to stream it. Right click, download, and play in your favorite media player.
Should give you an idea of what I'm capturing.

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

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Wow, that sure is some fine work right there. It certainly puts my efforts to shame.

“I love Darth Editous and I’m not ashamed to admit it.” ~ADigitalMan

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Very cool, looks great. I enjoyed the alternate Super8 takes in Building Empire, be nice to see/hear them in better quality.
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These look great!! I'm very excited about this! Great work puggo!
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Looks awesome.

I love how you really get that "old-school" feel.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v167/bgiffen/bigbluerig.jpg
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Originally posted by: BigBlueRig
Looks awesome.
I love how you really get that "old-school" feel.


Nothing I did, that's just the way they look!
Will post technical details after I finish the audio, the pulldown, and synch.

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

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I have a question, looking ahead to when this is finished...

Presumably when I'm done, I'll make this available the same way the other projects are being distributed - something called "torrents" or the alt.binaries.whatever, or through Boba or Richter... actually I have no idea how it works, never having downloaded any of the SW preservation efforts out there yet.

Well, when that time comes, the completed version will have undergone a video "pulldown", where certain frames are either duplicated, or additional interpolated frames added to make the final speed correct. Will there be interest in the raw frame captures, for anyone else interested in making their own pulldown/assembly? That would be raw .avi files, but not horrendously huge... probably about 15Gb total (split into 4 files).

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

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Pulldown's way easier than that: just make your AVI 23.976 fps, encode to DVD-spec MPEG-2 at that framerate, and then insert the pulldown flags (23.976 fps to 29.97 fps) with 'pulldown.exe' or some other flag-adding tool. Done!

If you're sending raw copies to people, I'd like to see the X0 Project get one before pretty much anyone else. I'd love to have one, but it'd be sorta useless in my hands...
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Isn't Super 8's frame rate 18 fps? How would one go about best getting this framerate on DVD progressively? Is that possible? Forgive me. I've never worked with real film. I know someone who just got some Super 8 footage telecined at mymovietransfer.com, it looked good but was interlaced because he chose the output to miniDV tape option. Someone educate me please...

You can go about your business. Move along, move along.

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/4962/nowplayingbannermasterzc2.jpg
The Story of Star Wars
The Adventures Of Luke Skywalker

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Originally posted by: Karyudo
Pulldown's way easier than that: just make your AVI 23.976 fps, encode to DVD-spec MPEG-2 at that framerate, and then insert the pulldown flags (23.976 fps to 29.97 fps) with 'pulldown.exe' or some other flag-adding tool. Done!
That's actually a very good idea. I need to verify the fps of the film (believe it or not, I haven't bothered to determine it yet... capture is at 6fps and at that speed you can't really tell). Presuming it's 24, my software (Vegas and TMPGE) should be able to do it... I don't think I'd even need pulldown.exe. Hmm, what do I do if it's 18fps? Also, Boba remarked that on his transfer, the audio sounds "too fast", so we were mulling over the possibility of doing an irregular pulldown to correct that (rather than trying to adjust the pitch, due to possible artifacts). Doing it your way, on the other hand, could make it easier to stuff the whole thing onto one DVD with high bitrate and extras. I've never edited in 23.976 - this should be interesting.
If you're sending raw copies to people, I'd like to see the X0 Project get one before pretty much anyone else. I'd love to have one, but it'd be sorta useless in my hands...

I'll be happy to send them a copy. But honestly, the resolution on these films is so low that it would be utterly useless to them - unless they had a need for some esoteric information hidden in some lost frame. Or if they wanted to tack on the giant "THE END" for comic relief.

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

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Originally posted by: Puggo - Jar Jar's "Yoda"
Originally posted by: BigBlueRig
Looks awesome.
I love how you really get that "old-school" feel.


Nothing I did, that's just the way they look!
Will post technical details after I finish the audio, the pulldown, and synch.


Oh, I know that...I was just implying that I love how the Super 8 gives it that look that just sort of brings a smile to your face.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v167/bgiffen/bigbluerig.jpg
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I would assume that since the source material was 24 fps, transferring to Super8 would have to be 24 fps. Otherwise it would be jerky as hell. I think many (all?) Super8 cameras might have been 18 fps, though.

As for editing and making MPEG-2, I'd be very careful to find out beforehand exactly what Vegas does in order to make DVD-spec video. Does it internally render 29.97 fps, and encode as such, or will it pass true 23.976 fps and let TMPEGEnc add flags?

I'm more a video than audio guy, so my vote would be to subtly tweak the audio to match the frame-accurate video. I think you open a whole new can of worms by trying to sync audio and video by duplicating film frames. In my opinion, you'd be better off to take frame-length chunks of audio out here and there, to match the video.

Also, keep in mind that 24 fps is not 23.976 fps is (probably) not 23.98 fps -- those differences right there may be enough to make the audio drift!
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Both Super8 cameras and projectors often have a choice of 18 or 24 fps.

Please don't do an irregular pulldown. Please do what Karyudo said (encode at 23.976 fps). Please don't do what Karyudo said later (take frame-length chunks of audio out here and there).

24 fps is not 23.976 fps but 23.976 fps is 23.98 fps.
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Originally posted by: Puggo - Jar Jar's "Yoda"
That's actually a very good idea. I need to verify the fps of the film (believe it or not, I haven't bothered to determine it yet... capture is at 6fps and at that speed you can't really tell). Presuming it's 24, my software (Vegas and TMPGE) should be able to do it... I don't think I'd even need pulldown.exe. Hmm, what do I do if it's 18fps? Also, Boba remarked that on his transfer, the audio sounds "too fast", so we were mulling over the possibility of doing an irregular pulldown to correct that (rather than trying to adjust the pitch, due to possible artifacts). Doing it your way, on the other hand, could make it easier to stuff the whole thing onto one DVD with high bitrate and extras. I've never edited in 23.976 - this should be interesting.


No no Puggo, too slow sounding it was. To be honest I don't think my old film tech knew exactly what he was doing, while he adjusted the audio speed he didn't adjust the pitch making everyone sound like they were on valium.

“I love Darth Editous and I’m not ashamed to admit it.” ~ADigitalMan

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As for editing and making MPEG-2, I'd be very careful to find out beforehand exactly what Vegas does in order to make DVD-spec video. Does it internally render 29.97 fps, and encode as such, or will it pass true 23.976 fps and let TMPEGEnc add flags?
I don't do MPEG-2 encoding in Vegas. I just use Vegas for editing to .avi, and then use TMPGE for encoding to MPEG-2. My understanding is that I can edit in Vegas in 23.976, and have TMPGE add the pulldown flag. After reading this discussion, that is what I am going to try to do.
I'm more a video than audio guy, so my vote would be to subtly tweak the audio to match the frame-accurate video. I think you open a whole new can of worms by trying to sync audio and video by duplicating film frames. In my opinion, you'd be better off to take frame-length chunks of audio out here and there, to match the video.

If I do that for the DVD, I'll be sure and keep the non-chopped version for download if anyone wants to use the original soundtrack for anything.
Also, keep in mind that 24 fps is not 23.976 fps is (probably) not 23.98 fps -- those differences right there may be enough to make the audio drift!

Yeah, I'm not sure how best to handle that. Any suggestions?

Also, anyone have any suggestions on TMPGE settings? I have my set of parameters I like, but you folks might have some additional tricks you can suggest. I notice a lot of you use CCE (which I don't have) and some of you have MainConcept (which I have but don't like as much as TMPGE).

This is cool, I'm learning a lot.

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

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Originally posted by: THX
Please don't do what Karyudo said later (take frame-length chunks of audio out here and there).


I was thinking more about the ends of reels, etc., where there will inevitable differences in the number of frames. Don't worry: I wasn't advocating chopping audio out of musical cues, etc.!

Still, I'd rather have 1/24th of a second of near-silence missing, rather than some duplicated or blended frame inserted. Not ideal either way, but maybe better?

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Great to see this project moving ahead. I really can't wait to see and hear both the ESB reels! It's going to be great to finally have the dialogue differences along with the footage in a watchable form.

Creator of Star Wars Begins, Building Empire and Returning to Jedi
Follow me on twitter @jamieSWB. Please support me at - http://www.patreon.com/jamiebenning/

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Originally posted by: Karyudo
Pulldown's way easier than that: just make your AVI 23.976 fps, encode to DVD-spec MPEG-2 at that framerate, and then insert the pulldown flags (23.976 fps to 29.97 fps) with 'pulldown.exe' or some other flag-adding tool. Done!

Thanks for the advice. After some wrestling, I finally got this to work! I used the flag-adding tool in TMPGE. I also synched the sound for reel #1, and to my delight there was no audio drift after pulldown. The great thing about doing it this way, is that all four reels should fit on a DVD, even with average bitrate of 6000.

One down, three to go!

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