Theater Performance Edition: Return of the Jedi betamax bootleg preservation (Released)

I’m creating a separate thread for this project just to make it easier to index and reference. The original info on this project comes from the Theater Performance Preservation thread (http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Theater-Performance-Preservations/topic/12161/) “originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Theater-Performance-Preservations/topic/12161/)”)

Image:
720x576 PAL format.
Bitrate: 4.56 Mbps (Average), 2-pass encoding

Audio:
Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dual Mono) 48000 Hz, 128 kbit/s

_When members of the OT forum contacted me regarding a similar tape I have of The Empire Strikes Back, I offered to make a DVD duplicate of Return of the Jedi as well.
_

_The Betamax tape that was used for this transfer is a dub of a tape doing the rounds in Qatar in 1983. At the time, there was no pre-recorded video industry in the country, so duplicates were traded openly.

The tape is a camcorded copy from a UK screening. While the a/v quality is abysmal, it can serve as reference for subtitle placement for fan reconstructions of the original, theatrical presentation. Note that there are several instances of scenes being truncated. These parts were missing from this recording. (Forum member None found an NTSC bootleg from the exact same source, which had the missing shots, but was missing the first parts of the scroll which ARE present on my version.)

The transfer from Beta to MPEG2 was done with a Betamax machine hooked up to a commercial DVD/HD recorder. From there, the raw capture was trimmed using VideoReDo.

I have made no attempt to clean up the picture. All I’ve done is crop out the noise on the edges and centered the image. Instead of resizing I opted to leave the image slightly windowboxed.

DVD-ROM folder includes cover art, disc art and images of the original tape.

Menu, cover and disc art in Photoshop.

Cover image from the Marvel Comics Adaption.

Pre-credit scroll made in Windows Movie Maker.

DVD authored using TMPEGEnc DVD Author.
_

The tape and Betamax machine:

Menu from the authored disc:

Screens:

Note the "Al Addan Video" overlay from the store where I bought the tape.

More:

Apologies for the bump…
 

If anyone has a working copy of this sweet project - or Video Collector’s Theater Performance Edition: Empire Strikes Back betamax bootleg preservation - could you please let me know via PM - thank you.

A few other similar ‘legacy projects’ from around the OT have been made available at the link below. If anyone has any links for other similar projects they’d like to share, please let me know via PM - thanks…

📍 A few available Original Trilogy Preservations - from a long time ago . . . .

puzosep said:

I have both ROTJ and ESB, but the main source of my problem is the crappy internet, which is that I can upload them anywhere, within a reasonable amount of time… (Old technology from the early 2000s. Oh well, it’s faster than 56kbps.)

Are Moth3r and the other PreANH vhs bootlegs also being searched for?? TPM from Hungary? MOKÉP-related stuff?

Where to store these?

Brilliant puzosep 👍

If you can upload them somewhere (like Mega or Gofile•io) let me know and I’ll copy and re-upload them to where I’m storing the other ‘legacy preservation projects’ on the OT listed in here: 📍 A few available Original Trilogy Preservations - from a long time ago . . . . 📍
 

I’ve got a copy of MagnoliaFan’s pre-ANH bootleg - yet will happily list and store any of the other similar projects too (including the TPM from Hungary etc)