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Info Wanted: Which GOUT? My comparison of the DE, US GOUT, UK GOUT and DVD/BR

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 (Edited)

This topic probably already exists, but I’m doing the work independent of whatever may have been discussed before.

I have compared the UK GOUT to the DVD, HD Broadcast of the DVD version, and the Blu-ray many times over the past two years. This time around I have specifically compared the UK GOUT, US GOUT, and Definitive Edition LD preservation (the mystery one I have that was reverse pull-down to 23.976 fps that I have thought was TR-47). I’m working on the the sound mix to go with my GOUT upscale/color correction. I’m first creating a master GOUT track so I will have a complete audio track to fill in any gaps in the other audio mixes. The UK GOUT has to be stretched and as a result has many artifacts and distortions. So the best source for the complete audio is the US GOUT… sort of.

What I’ve found is that the US GOUT is missing some frames. Three is what I have come up with. The UK GOUT is missing 1 frame. This is compared to the DE LD. Now, my copy of that is missing even more frames, but in different places. So when I put the three together, I get 1 fame missing from the US GOUT at the and of ANH Reel 5. Nothing missing from either in TESB. 2 frames missing from pretty random places in US GOUT of ROTJ (toward the begining of reel 3 and toward the end of reel 5) and the last frame of reel 5 in the UK GOUT.

The other thing I found is that all three versions are letterboxed differently. That means the UK GOUT is not just a converted version of the US GOUT, but a completely different version. And neither of them match the DE letterboxing so the letter boxing was added. All this reinforced my decision to use the UK GOUT as the source. The other thing I have had issues with is the US GOUT was not holding steady in Sony Vegas (I am using the VOB files straight from a rip of the disc - no change in compression - so this is about as straight from the source as I can get it). I never could get TESB to align but I also never could find any missing frames. The audio held consistent.

My conclusion is in relation to GOUT syncing the various versions of the OT (LDs, 35 mm, etc). To do it right, we need to pull all the frames. Due to the first few frames of Reel 6 in ROTJ US GOUT having some signs of corruption, I had to compare that section to the HD broadcast of the DVD where I found that ideed one frame of the UK GOUT and 1 frame of the DE were missing (last frame of reel 5 and first frame of reel 6 respectively).

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I just had the most annoying experience with the US TESB GOUT audio. I’m trying to sync the LD 80 and 83 tracks to it and it just isn’t working. I found one place where the GOUT audio is missing a short segment (about half a frame in length) and that helped line them up more, but there is something wrong that primarily affect reel 3, but also 2 and 4 to a lesser extent. Nothing lines up nicely. I went with the UK TESB GOUT and everything synced up without any problems. It matches the faces audio and the 1980 audio. Also, nothing is missing. But I have listened to it many many times as I’ve worked on the color correction and when the audio is expanded to 23.976 fps, a lot of flaws appear. Still, it runs along with the film just fine and was kind when I was trying to sync the audio. I think I am going to go the same route for ANH and ROTJ. I’m not using the GOUT audio in my project anyway so the sound quality is less important than getting it synced right and the ANH GOUT is missing 1 frame (picture and audio) and ROTJ GOUT is missing 2 frames (picture and Audio). Though the UK ROTJ GOUT is missing one frame, that is still better than 2.