"White Magic 0.2" or, how to enhance LD captures and live happy ;-)

I managed to improve the "white magic" script and now, after days of though tests, it surely looks better than the very first version... let's call it "white magic 0.2" version, OK? It must be refined, but I think the most part of the work is done - I hope so, at least...

Comparison picture - screenshot taken from the test clip: left "white magic 0.2" from Spanish PAL LD, right GOUT PAL DVD enhanced with G-Force script and bilinear resized to match the "white magic 0.2" clip.

I decided to choose this image because is the same of only one the X0Project released - one of the worst scenes found in the GOUT, according to many OT fans.

What do you think? Download the test clips and see them in motion - it's definitively better than still images.

GOUT PAL DVD enhanced with the G-Force script and bilinear resized to match the "white magic 0.2":

https://rapidshare.com/files/3588910278/nolegs_GOUT_G-Force.avi

Spanish THX PAL LD captured and treated with "white magic 0.2" at 60% strenght (more is too sharp for my taste):

https://rapidshare.com/files/1842014530/nolegs_PAL_ES_white_magic_2_60-40.avi

Comparison clip side-by-side:

https://rapidshare.com/files/350774968/nolegs_GOUT_G-Force___WhiteMagic_comparison.avi

Clips info: video 1920x810 (HD 2.35:1) AVC 8000kbps, audio uncompressed PCM 44.1KHz stereo.

Sorry if the comparison clip is not perfect - is not that easy to match two halves taken from different masters!

Waiting for your comments, as usual.

Wow.

^ Compared to Arnie.d's JSC

Going by those screen-caps it looks way too oversharpened and with clipped white levels even worse than on the GOUT-transfer. The detail seems pretty damn good though.

The clipped white levels in the GOUT is also one of the reasons they look horrible, maybe the PAL LD's share that same flaw.

An example of what I'm talking about...

JSC (V8) - this one is a little too dull but you get the idea

GOUT - lost detail on the droid

The clipped white levels in the GOUT is almost as bad as the crushed black levels in the '04 DVD, it would be nice to somehow merge the luma from the JSC with the chroma from the THX LD's/GOUT.

Nice example Msycamore.  Every time I see examples like that I feel just that little bit more annoyed at old georgie and all the guys at Lucas Film.

Orinoco_Womble said:

Nice example Msycamore.  Every time I see examples like that I feel just that little bit more annoyed at old georgie and all the guys at Lucas Film.

Yeah, the fact that they haven't yet released the trilogy in decent quality no matter in what shitty resolution makes you really mad, every single release have had its own set of little problems.

A few other examples of the horribly blown out whites in the THX-masters:

JSC (V8)

GOUT

JSC (d_j)

GOUT

As mentioned earlier, the JSC isn't perfect either but you can definitely see the problem with the white level in these examples, something I think is often overlooked when it comes to these THX transfers, it's also one of the reasons they look so flat and colorless.

Hi, thanks for your comments.

The reason of the too high white level could be one of the following:

• the PAL LD master 
• the wrong capture levels
• the white magic script itself
• the "amount" of white magic (test is 60%)

I suspect that could be also the sum of more than one factor - infact, I made the test using one of the first captures I made with the levels not properly adjusted, as far as I could remember...

For the oversharpening: it must be the third and/or the fourth option.

But, as I'm on vacation and away from my PC for the next two weeks, I can't check by myself, but someone like Moth3r could say if the first option could be true or not. Anyway, my brain is "working" on possible solutions, also if in "abstract mode"...

BTW, if you think this is only a version 0.2 of the script, it's not too bad, isn't true? There is surely space for improvements!

It's not bad at all _,,,^..^,,,_ , I just thought I would bring this issue up as I think your screen-caps show a lot of promise, unfortunately I suspect that the clipped white is a flaw in the PAL - master as well, but I could be wrong of course. Somehow I'm not able to download your samples?! :(

So what exactly is this script you call white magic?

Yes, the clipped whites are also a problem on the PAL THX laserdiscs - there's no possible way to recover this detail.

Although personally I don't think it's that big a problem, certainly nowhere near as bad as the crushed blacks on the '04 DVD.

Moth3r said:

Although personally I don't think it's that big a problem, certainly nowhere near as bad as the crushed blacks on the '04 DVD.

Yeah, it may have been overkill of me to put it that way, also the '04 transfers even manage to have both clipped whites and crushed blacks in them. ;) But still, it's an unfortunate problem that the JSC don't have.

@Msycamore:

to download the clip, copy the URL and paste into your browser's address bar, then press the FREE-DOWNLOAD button on the bottom of the page - you have to wait 5 minutes before the download starts...

The script named "white magic" is a collection of some of the better avisynth scripts I found on the web, put together to restore the video captured from noisy sources (LD and especially VHS) - I'm still working on it, infact is just 0.2 version.

Moth3r, as usual, has all the answers, and pointed out that the PAL LD master has the clipped whites... when I'll be home again, I'll try to recover (part of) the signal lost... maybe it's just impossible, but I'll try anyway.

Back to the JSC, AFAIK it has the "shrinkin' problem", that is not present on the SWE, isn't true? If so, I could manage to capture the SWE trilogy with my Pioneer HLD-X9 and improve the quality with my "white magic"... the only problem is, between my dozen SW OUT LDs I have NOT the SWE!!!

If someone would sell the SWE LD trilogy, or could be interested in a swap, or just want to borrow it to capture, let me know via PM!

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

Back to the JSC, AFAIK it has the "shrinkin' problem", that is not present on the SWE, isn't true? If so, I could manage to capture the SWE trilogy with my Pioneer HLD-X9 and improve the quality with my "white magic"... the only problem is, between my dozen SW OUT LDs I have NOT the SWE!!! 

No, you got that wrong. It is the Special Widescreen Edition of ANH that has the "shrinkin' ratio problem", not the Japanese Special Collection.

But, the Special Widescreen Edition was released in a different pressing by Technidisc in '93 from a different master which we were talking about here: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Smear-free-93/topic/12190/

@msycamore

yes, you are right, I confused the versions... you know, I have a dozen LD trilogies and I can't remember all the features they have, figure out to remember other versions' features... I wanted to intend that the Technidisc SWE have no "shrinking" problem as early pressing of the same edition... I studied a lot last night (I'm on vacation, away from my own computer, but still mumbling about the project) and it seems that this Technidisc SWE and the JSC originated from different telecine dubbing... not sure about it, I read the forum until late night and don't remember exactly what has what and what has not... I know, I need a vacation, the problem is I AM on vacation right now :-)

See you in the next topic!