Citizen

User Group: Members
Join date: 17-May-2005
Last activity: 15-Sep-2006
Posts: 455

Post History

Post: #117104
Topic: .: Citizen's NTSC DVD / PAL DVD / XviD project :. (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/117104/action/topic#117104
Time: 21-Jun-2005 11:16 AM

pupil, I know DV has high chroma compression but I am finding that it doesn't appear to be much of a problem. Usually when I'm capturing NTSC laserdiscs I've had to use VirtualDub's internal chromasmoother filter because of the blocky reds etc. but because I'm capturing the PAL set it doesn't seem to suffer as much, I've noticed that the colours on my NTSC definitive LDs are often slightly over-saturated compared to my German THX LDs. Here's a couple of R2 pics in anamorphic PAL:

http://www.haku.co.uk/pics/StarWarsLDtest8.jpg

http://www.haku.co.uk/pics/StarWarsLDtest9.jpg

Post: #116980
Topic: .: Citizen's NTSC DVD / PAL DVD / XviD project :. (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/116980/action/topic#116980
Time: 20-Jun-2005 11:55 PM

I don't have the French set yet so this is the cap from the German set, they didn't make a very good logo, when it shrinks into the distance the line around the outer-edge of the text stays the same thickness:

http://www.haku.co.uk/pics/StarWarsLDtest7.jpg

Post: #116932
Topic: .: Citizen's NTSC DVD / PAL DVD / XviD project :. (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/116932/action/topic#116932
Time: 20-Jun-2005 10:20 PM

No fades? excellent stuff, now I'll be able to make a no-cuts/bad edits trilogy

So far I'm only concentrating on the video, when I've completed the raw capture of a film with all the English titles restored etc. & side changes added in then I'll capture the definitive LD of the film to nab the audio from, the 28min test clip I did with ROTJ I used audio from Dr_Gonzo's and synched that up, I found that Dr_Gonzo's was 6 frames short for that 28min clip so had to scan through & double some frames to get things in sync.

I'm thinking of producing an NTSC set too, shouldn't be any trouble at all because once I've got a final raw capture of a film I can just alter the VirtualDub filters slightly to spit out an anamorphic NTSC picture instead of anamorphic PAL, plus it'll be just as clean because before the final resize the image is 1280x544 res.

Post: #116911
Topic: .: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/116911/action/topic#116911
Time: 20-Jun-2005 8:53 PM

Originally posted by: Laserman
We may end up all working on a project that we haven't even dreamed of yet.

Blu-ray trilogy ?

Post: #116731
Topic: Creating true "black bars"?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/116731/action/topic#116731
Time: 20-Jun-2005 6:30 AM

The grey bar outside the 16:9 area isn't bothering me too much as my main tv is 16:9 aspect ratio anyway, it's the perfectionist in me trying to find out why there are grey bars on a 4:3 display.

With a software DVD player on a PC screen there's zero problems, the area outside the 16:9 is as black as the encoded borders on a 2.35:1 image, so displaying it on the 1024x768 LCD screen in my projector all is peachy.

Post: #116728
Topic: .: Citizen's NTSC DVD / PAL DVD / XviD project :. (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/116728/action/topic#116728
Time: 20-Jun-2005 5:49 AM

It was only a passing thought of seeing if the French & German sets can be merged to reduce grain, I'm getting excellent results by capturing the video 5x & merging anyway, thanks for letting me know about them not quite aligning.

The slight difference in saturation & missing frames I'm not too concerned about as they can be compensated for, but one thing I am curious about is wether the side breaks are at the same points, it would be nice if they weren't because the German set fades in/out at the beginning/end and I'd like to not have to remove the 6 or so faded brightness frames during the side changes by using the scenes from the French set.

Post: #116727
Topic: Creating true "black bars"?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/116727/action/topic#116727
Time: 20-Jun-2005 5:44 AM

720x576 for me (PAL

), it's not the black bars on the encoded video I'm on about here, I know how to and have made anamorphic 2.35:1 DVDs before so that's not the issue here, it's the black borders the player generates outside of the image when squashing a 16:9 anamorphic picture to 4:3 that I'm on about not being as black as the encoded black borders on 2.35:1 DVDs.

BTW the black borders on the 2.35:1 DVDs I've encoded have always been RGB 000.

I'm going to do some testing later between 2.35:1 anamorphic DVDs I've made and commercial ones, using a 4:3 screen, a 16:9 screen in 4:3 mode, my main DVD player and my portable DVD player (it has video out).

Post: #116725
Topic: .: Moth3r's PAL DVD project :.
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/116725/action/topic#116725
Time: 20-Jun-2005 4:53 AM

None of the captured images on that site are displayed in their correct aspect ratio because they're all un-scaled caps of the video, Moth3rs looks particularly stretched because it's anamorphic PAL whilst the official/Dr_Gonzo's/Zion's/Farsight's are anamorphic NTSC and the rest are letterboxed. Perhaps it should be pointed out on the comparison site which format the sources are from, PAL or NTSC.

If the caps were scaled so they're displayed at the correct aspect ratio on a PC screen they'd lose detail through the scaling process, making it more difficult to compare clarity between the sets so direct captures are displayed.

Post: #116594
Topic: .: Citizen's NTSC DVD / PAL DVD / XviD project :. (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/116594/action/topic#116594
Time: 19-Jun-2005 4:11 PM

Ok, I won bidding on a French THX laserdisc set

I'm still continuing to capture ANH a side at a time (merging the 5 captures to get a cleaner picture) so when I get the French set I can put in the English text scenes (opening logo/craw & alien subtitles). Half wondering if footage from the French set can be merged with the German set to reduce grain even further or if that's overkill

Post: #116541
Topic: Creating true "black bars"?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/116541/action/topic#116541
Time: 19-Jun-2005 9:17 AM

On a black bars related topic, I've noticed that playing a DVD I made that's anamorphic 2.35:1 on a 4:3 screen so the player squishes the picture, the black bars above and below are grey and black (!) the grey area is outside the 16:9 image (the area the player doesn't use while squashing the anamorphic picture) whilst the black area is inside the 16:9 image (the encoded black bars).

Anyone got any clues as to why? commercial 2.35:1 DVDs don't appear to exhibit the same grey bars behavior.

Post: #116247
Topic: Info: "My god, it's full of stars!" - who stole the starfield in the Definitive Collection?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/116247/action/topic#116247
Time: 17-Jun-2005 7:55 PM

Ok the follow-on film of Kubrik's masterpiece

It's not just the starfield thing it's the detail different and the colour/brightness, things that are going to be crucial if I have to replace the German THX LD scenes of Jabba talking (the subtitles are over the picture instead of in the border) with scenes from the definitive LDs, so the French set it is as it's mastered from the same source as the German set (you see the same burn marks in near the beginning of ANH when you first see C-3PO an R2-D2).

I wonder if the side changes of the French set are at the same time(s) as the German set...

*looks around to see what he can make a quick penny on eBay with*

Post: #116239
Topic: Info: "My god, it's full of stars!" - who stole the starfield in the Definitive Collection?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/116239/action/topic#116239
Time: 17-Jun-2005 7:24 PM

That's a shame about the NTSC LDs, I don't have either of those programs to make my own starfield so it looks like my project is partially on hold until I can get the French LDs. Anyone selling or lending?

Post: #116230
Topic: Info: "My god, it's full of stars!" - who stole the starfield in the Definitive Collection?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/116230/action/topic#116230
Time: 17-Jun-2005 6:34 PM — Edited 2-Jul-2020 12:20 PM

In reference to the French & German THX LD sets, quoting the famous Kubrik films; “My god, it’s full of stars!”

Who stole the starfield in the definitive collection? the intro title & crawl is almost devoid of stars compared to the French & German THX LDs, because of that I don’t feel I can use the footage from there to replace the German titles on my German set, damn

Post: #116199
Topic: .: Citizen's NTSC DVD / PAL DVD / XviD project :. (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/116199/action/topic#116199
Time: 17-Jun-2005 4:42 PM

Thanks

the slightly more grainy but more natural image is what I've been aiming for

I've discovered I can merge the 5 captured avis of a single side into a 7gb huffy file, repeat for the other 3 sides so then I'll have a 'core' capture avi to work with to then encode to XviD & DVD, which is great as this makes things a lot more easier because I thought I might have to encode the final outputs a half hour (side) at a time because of space constraints.

Just testing capturing the intro from my definitive set to then colour/brightness/contrast match to the German THX set to replace the German titles, a few things that I've noticed are the framing of the two sets, the German set is zoomed in slightly more during the opening shot, also how detailed and not-overly bright the German THX set is compared to the definitive set, lastly the definitive set seems to have less temporal smoothing applied to it than the German THX set.
But overall I prefer the higher detail level of the German THX set to the definitive set, just a shame it's almost totally in German and have to use definitive set clips, thinking about getting the French THX set for the original English titles & subtitles... ! (as if I haven't already spent enough money getting to where I am now)

Post: #115935
Topic: Ink saver covers?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/115935/action/topic#115935
Time: 17-Jun-2005 1:22 AM

I'm not quite sure what you mean by Amarays being cheap and too average? the proper Amaray brand cases aren't cheap by any means, a box of 100 double-Amaray cases to hold 2 discs cost me £50, I could have gotten 100 2-disc cheap cases for 1/4 the price but they're (IMHO) 1/4 the quality.

With my set I'll probably just end up using 3 double-Amarays and make a cardboard case for them, each case would hold the PAL DVD with extras and the XviD DVD version, save having two complete sets of cases.

That's a crazy but kinda neat idea you have there with the label thing, laserdiscs have the same small label near the center like vinyl does, have a look at these pictures of a laserdisc a stupid eBay seller sent badly packed by airmail: CrackedLaserdiscSide1.jpg CrackedLaserdiscSide2.jpg (the git wouldn't even offer a refund and I haven't managed to get another copy yet

)

Post: #115879
Topic: Tools to edit
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/115879/action/topic#115879
Time: 17-Jun-2005 12:57 AM

I concurr, I'm going to be outputting my laserdisc captures to 2 different formats, DVD & XviD, not poxy 700mb single CD sized avis but ones that'll individually fill a single layer DVD-R, up the quality settings etc. in XviD and the resulting filesize will increase.

I use huffy & mjpeg compression when I want lossless (huffy) or near-lossless (mjpeg) compression that encodes & decodes fast, there's also the MSU lossless codec that compresses even better than huffy but at a significant speed cost.

Post: #115667
Topic: .: Citizen's NTSC DVD / PAL DVD / XviD project :. (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/115667/action/topic#115667
Time: 16-Jun-2005 11:34 AM

I'm on my 6th revision of the final set of filters I'm going to use to cleanup the captured LD footage and things are I think looking very good, here's a 1 minute test clip from ROTJ encoded to DVD level & PC XviD, I've not used any filters that do temporal smoothing to the captured footage at all:

Citizen-rev6-test.avi - 23.6mb, XviD, 23.976fps, 1024x436 res which is designed for viewing on a 1024x768 res screen.
Citizen-rev6-test.mpg -23.2mb, anamorphic 25fps PAL, mpeg2, AC3 audio.

Both clips are slightly more compressed than the final outputs because of webspace constraints, the avi XviD setting are normal with constant picture quality at 90%, the final version is 99%. The mpeg is VBR 3000kbps whilst the final will be VBR 4800kbps if I go single-layer or near 9000kbps if I go dual layer to add extras in and upmix the audio to 5.1

If anyone downloads the clips I'd appreciate any comments (good or bad) on them.

Post: #115642
Topic: Ink saver covers?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/115642/action/topic#115642
Time: 16-Jun-2005 10:15 AM

Has anyone tried making what I think's called "digipack" cases to hold their trilogy in? the cardboard fold-out cases like they did with Back To The Future, Lord of the Rings extended versions etc. or does everyone just stick with good old Amaray cases?

Post: #114980
Topic: .: Moth3r's PAL DVD project :.
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/114980/action/topic#114980
Time: 14-Jun-2005 10:33 AM

In the UK it's something like ~25kb/s upload for a 512kb, 1mbit or 2mbit line. I'm on a 2mbit line that's throttled to 1mbit speeds (that's all I'm paying for) but most of the time I get less than 512kb download rates :\

Post: #114976
Topic: STAR WARS: The Torrents thread
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/114976/action/topic#114976
Time: 14-Jun-2005 10:23 AM

Whoops!

From the myspleen.net whois listing:

Creation date: 14 Jun 2004 01:38:36
Expiration date: 14 Jun 2005 01:38:36

Post: #114955
Topic: .: Moth3r's PAL DVD project :.
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/114955/action/topic#114955
Time: 14-Jun-2005 8:53 AM

I'm seeding too, slow upload here too, not because of the output bandwidth but because nobody seems to be downloading from me, the output speed keeps varying and dropping to nothing.

Post: #114633
Topic: .: Moth3r's PAL DVD project :.
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/114633/action/topic#114633
Time: 13-Jun-2005 1:51 PM

Aha, thanks for putting that up, I've now altered my filters slightly to fix the brightness level so it doesn't white-out and included the warpsharp filter (never thought I'd actually need it) and my snapshot results now are virtually identical to yours except I'm not adding any temporal smoothing.

Post: #114570
Topic: .: Moth3r's PAL DVD project :.
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/114570/action/topic#114570
Time: 13-Jun-2005 9:04 AM

Oops, fixed now (after 10 tries to upload the damn file).

Post: #114561
Topic: .: Moth3r's PAL DVD project :.
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/114561/action/topic#114561
Time: 13-Jun-2005 7:43 AM

skyman8081, we're both working with PAL laserdisc sources, Moth3r has the French THX set whilst I have the German THX set.

Post: #114560
Topic: .: Moth3r's PAL DVD project :.
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/114560/action/topic#114560
Time: 13-Jun-2005 7:41 AM

I've just done a comparison clip between your version and my currently-working-on version, I've had to RAR it up into separate files to upload because I always have trouble FTP'ing large files (connection usually dies when it gets far into the transfer, needed to re-upload 6 of the pieces)
It's a 20mb anamorphic PAL mpeg2 clip spread across 15 RAR files, encoded 9-pass at 2000kbps because any higher and the filesize would be massive and this level of compression is enough to show the difference between the clips.

01.rar 02.rar 03.rar 04.rar 05.rar 06.rar 07.rar 08.rar 09.rar 10.rar 11.rar 12.rar 13.rar 14.rar 15.rar

The first clip is mine and the 2nd is yours, looking at the same clip back to back from our two sources/cleanup methods, each has temporal smoothing because the source laserdiscs do, but on top of that it seems like mine has a near constant level of picture noise throughout the clip whilst yours lessens during static moments and gets worse during motion.
I'm trying to avoid using filters that do any temporal smoothing at all with the intention that the picture grain stays level throughout the film(s), because I prefer a slightly grainy 'natural' image to one that looks like it's been squeezed through a bunch of filters trying to make the picture look good at the expense of detail during motion.