Baobab Archiver

DJPitaB said:

Sure thing. I wish I knew about said magic software, but my repeated searching for such a thing leads me to believe it doesn’t (yet) exist. If anyone here can tell me different, I’m all ears!

Not sure if you’ve tried it, but tfm and tdecimate in avisynth do a good job. I recently used them for a 30fps progressive video that should have been 24fps (yes, I mean those exact numbers not 29.997 and 23.976).
Standard or adaptive IVTC didn’t work but tfm and tdecimate restored it to 24fps and to my eyes looks faultless.

Might be worth trying if you haven’t already.
If you would like the exact settings I used for tfm let me know - I might still have them!

In case it’s of use or relevance, there are easier ways of reversing PAL speed up in an audio file.
Admittedly it’s command line, but there are gui interfaces available.

Eac3to has a simple flag -slowdown which does it, so just add that to the end of the command line.

Example to convert a file called ep1.ac3 to a new file called ep1fixed.ac3 you would type:

eac3to ep1.ac3 ep1fixed.ac3 - slowdown

You can also add the required bitrate as a further option (e.g. -384 or -448). I’m not sure what the default is.

I use this for any PAL speedup reversal, although I won’t always go to AC3. You can just use filename ep1fixed.wav if it want uncompressed output, or if you get the required plug ins installed .dts .aac etc.

Hope that’s of help to someone.

Also, vobsub is a quick little program for changing frame rate of subs (i.e. Removing PAL speed up)

I might be able to do it. I enjoy the Fast Show but haven’t seen it in years, so not sure what I’m looking for.
However if the episode turns out to have what is needed, drop me a PM and I’ll see what I can do.

P. S. As these are a way off yet, you might need to prompt me nearer the time, as I can’t set them to record yet!

Glad to help 😃
It’s one of those projects that interests me, but I have so many others on the go I’m glad someone else is taking the helm (no pun intended) and working on it!

As far as sharing goes, you would need to share via PM only. There are hosting sites you can use, but I believe sharing links in public messages would be against site rules.

OK, here are some sample images from my DS9 capture:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1W9A_exZvWXeF6OjYvUyQLBnSIINBcbgQ?usp=sharing

All I have done is run a field correction pass (using tfm in Avisynth).
The images are then saved at max quality jpg, to reduce the chance of the image further degrading.

I’m not sure if these will be a better source or not, but worth a look.

@Animaxx - I’ll upload the full unaltered capture file overnight and share with you via PM tomorrow.

No problem. I’m working from home at the moment, so will just set it to record when I’m in a couple of meetings.
It’ll probably produce about a 5gb file, which I’ll upload without any post processing.
One thing the hauppauge software does seem to do on occasions is swap the field order,so you may need to do something to deal with that.
Thanks for the guide by the way - very informative.

OK I’ll see if I can get it done tomorrow

OK I’ve checked the broadcast today and there is some good news:

1. The onscreen logo is in the black bar on the left, so aside from a few seconds where it “morphs” at the start, the presentation is logo free.

2. The panning shots seem smooth both on the filmed sequences and the space sequences, although a know they can vary. I would imagine a straight slow down to 23.976 would work out OK.

Now the downside - the image is still quite soft (not that I’d expect much else given it’s an upscale) and it would mean a LOT more work if you were to use it as a source instead of the DVDs.

I can capture an episode for test purposes but it won’t be a lossless capture. I have a Hauppauge HD-PVR2 which is not bad but does show a deterioration in image quality when you look for it.

Here is a photo I took from the TV (which is even worse as a test case really as my TV isn’t brilliant anyway!)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19ldYiwVG8Nf73k3OPh7dcKVWmTSAhBX9/view?usp=drivesdk

Let me know if you want me to do a test capture (I don’t mind either way) but ideally if you’re going for this as a source for the project, you (we) should try to find someone who can do a direct capture of the broadcast stream.

Tried the 4k version and it’s very impressive! Well done.
The only minor quibble is that the scrolling text is a bit stuttery, but I’m guessing it’s just not possible to get it smooth and maintain the “correct” framerate.
The FX sequences though - wow.

I’ll check my Sky recording tomorrow and report back. The only slight concern is that I think it’s an episode from around season 4. As has been mentioned by Artan42, the latter episodes are visually superior in the first place. What that means is that in order to make a fair comparison, you may have to test your approach on the same episode as I am capturing. Let’s not jump the gun though, and wait to see what I manage to get first!

Also I was wondering if you’d be happy to share what software etc you are using to do this?

There’s an episode of DS9 on the SciFi HD channel here tomorrow, so I’ll record it to my PVR and see what it’s like. First thing I’ll check is channel logos. I’m hoping they’ll be in the vertical black bars…

I’ll certianly have a check for you and report back. I have means of capturing an HD broadcast, but not a direct capture, so it would lose some quality. However for the purpose of getting a basic idea if it’s worth exploring I could get a capture if it’s still being broadcast.
There are most likely other forum members who could do a direct capture of the broadcast stream with the right setup.
I’ll report back once I’ve looked into it tomorrow.

EDIT TO ADD: You will almost definitely have audio sync issues with ad breaks here too. Question is whether the source is superior and if so, sufficiently superior to make the extra effort worthwhile 😃

Great project!
I’ve got some crudely converted Voyager episodes on my PC, which I got from my UK DVDs - I slowed them down to 23.976fps and deinterlaced using Avisynth filters. Seems to play back better than the DVDs did, and corrects the pitch at the same time.

The only question I have is, whether there would be any benefit in looking for alternative sources? I’m not sure if it is now, but I know some UK channels were broadcasting the show in 1080i50. Obviously it’s an upscale, but might be a cleaner image to work from than the DVD… If you’re interested I’ll check to see if there are any broadcasting at the moment.

Sounds interesting!
Looking forward to seeing what you’ve managed to do with it.

Mexican Slayride now up in the usual place.
This was a tricky restoration and I’m not 100% happy with it, but will have to do unless a better source turns up.

Now to crack on with more of HD versions of the pre-credits teasers from season 3. Soul destroying but worth it in the end (well for me at least!)

Ah so you’ve used a “clean” version of the song and overlayed it into the standard mix.
Very clever! Didn’t think to do that. It helps that it was just removed rather than replaced I guess. Believe it or not it was a fair bit of work to get it as good as I did. It didn’t even run at the right speed, so I had to play around with the percentage speed change in Audacity until I got it spot on. Oddly, the same happened with Beverly Hills Assault, but that needed to be speed adjusted in the opposite direction!

I often wonder if there are any bits missing other than just the music when they play around with the tracks. I could be wrong but I think BA’s suit doesn’t make a tearing sound in the newer cut in Beverly Hills Assault, whereas it does in the original with the “dedicated follower of fashion” track.

Little update…

I finally found some time to hook up my VCR to the Hauppauge HD-PVR2. I also passed it through my Panasonic DVD Recorder as I have been informed that doing that helps with image stabilisation (that may not be true though!)

Result is that what appeared to be a macrovision block (the DVD Recorder refused to record it) has now been overcome as it recorded fine to my PC.
The quality (for VHS) is surprisingly good.

Not sure when I’ll have time to do the full episode edit, as it will be quite time consuming to get the best overall quality, but it WILL be coming at some point 😃

As always, if anyone has higher quality sources for the missing parts, please let me know!

Thanks

Cup A’ Joe restoration now available in the usual place.

That will be it for a while, but I may share all the reconstructed teasers from the remainder of Season 3 once they’re finished. This maybe a while as they are quite time consuming (and I may run out of motivation before I’m done!). Currently completed an additional 3 so plenty more to go…!

As always, I’m still on the look out for higher quality sources of the edited episodes , so if you have recordings please do get in touch.

Interesting!

Thanks for explaining.

Dek Rollins said:

The BD audio doesn’t have major changes like The Wrong Trousers, but it sounds like it might be a different mix. For example, when Wallace is drawing the ship with him and Gromit inside, Wallace is mumbling to himself in the BD track, but he isn’t making any sounds on the DVD that I can hear.

Can, I ask what was different in the DVD Audio of “A Grand Day Out?” compared to the Bluray Audio?

Dek Rollins said:

A Grand Day Out is now up, speed corrected to 25fps, with speed/pitch corrected DVD audio and Blu-ray commentary. 3.27GB MKV.

I may do A Close Shave as well, but if I do I’ve decided to leave it in SD because of the cropped Blu-ray.

Worth checking the organ site if this project is of interest to you…

The Mexican Slayride DVD finally arrived today, but sadly it’s just a straight repress of the disc in the season set. It wasn’t looking hopeful when I saw the copyright date on the box was 2008 (after the season sets were released).
Not sure there’s any other likely source that’s DVD quality or greater, so I’ll try to get around the Macrovision on the VHS and do my best with that as a source.

Yes I’d love to hear the commentaries too.
I’m not sure if that set (Special Edition?) has two parters or movie length episodes but the newer versions of the original set have the movie length.
Incidentally, I just noticed in your spleen description that you had issues with the audio length. That could be due to using a UK DVD as the source as it will be playing slightly faster due to PAL speed up. Not sure if that’s what it is but thought I’d mention it just in case!

lorang said:

Baobab Archiver you may want to check Spleen for my latest upload of the restored Range Rider feature length special restored in HD as originally broadcast including restored intro in HD

Thanks for the heads up. Just so you know, later pressings of the Blu-ray had the two partners presented as movie length. You could also send away the 2 parter discs and they’d send the corrected discs in the post. Still no pre-credits sequence on this episode though.
You may find that there were scenes cut in the 2 parter too, as they often did that to bring the individual episodes down to a certain length.
I’m downloading now and will try to seed for a bit.

Incidentally, I haven’t yet received that DVD I won. It should’ve arrived a few days ago, so I’ve had to chase up with the seller. Hopefully it hasn’t got lost in the post somewhere 😦

Thanks. It hasn’t got long left, but no bids. Rather than asking the seller to check whem there’s limited time remaining, I’ve put a conservative bid on, so let’s see what happens.

Yep I was planning on using that method for recording any broadcasts that turned out to be uncut.
It’s a good device though, and even retains the 5.1 from a broadcast if it’s there. I’ve recently been using it to capture the broadcasts of Doctor Who. In recent years I’ve been recording all the original broadcasts, in case there are any cuts to the DVD / Bluray releases.