JawsTDS

I’ve had the pleasure of using a trial of SNELL Alchemist On Demand to recently convert some SD Interlaced PAL material to NTSC SD Interlaced. The conversion looked great – almost zero ghosting, something that Sony Vegas is incapable of doing.

Being that Snell products are incredibly expensive, it begs the question to if there is a close Windows-based conversion software or Avisynth script?

When I convert 50i to 60i in Sony Vegas, I get lots of ghosting and strange artifacts (i.e. horizontal line shaking). When using Snell’s product, it looks like there is some form of motion compensation/interpolation used to deinterlaced it and create new frames.

I also do not want to slowdown (impossible as it’s interlaced) nor discard any fields.

Surely the same methods are possible on (much) cheaper software or free tools like Avisynth? Anyone know a way?

Here’s a link to a 50i file if anyone wants to give it a go.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1-W6ByLSZVKZ1U3NzZFZmdHN0U

This isn’t a changer per se, but the volume on the TFA Blu-ray is quite low, compared to any other commercial release I’ve purchased. Had to crank my receiver up a few more notches after previews ended.

THE FORCE AWAKENS Trailer Preservation

Based on various other users preserving the theatrical trailers for the PT, OT, SEOT, etc – I have utilized 2k DCP rips of the TWO teasers and the ONE theatrical trailer seen in US/UK cinemas.

The DCP rips contained FLAC 5.1 Russian Audio/Text. Subsequently, the audio was replaced with AC-3 5.1 English audio sourced from the HD-NET trailer rips (Teaser One & Two only). The 5.1 audio for the Theatrical Trailer was sourced from the DCP rip; only this trailer had FLAC 5.1 English audio.

I converted the 2k rips from MKV to MP4 via Handbrake using HQ settings (fine tuned for Film Grain) and brought the files into Sony Vegas Pro 12. From there, the audio was synced up and any Russian text was replaced with footage from the iTunes HQ MOV rips.

You can PM me for download links. If this is allowed on the Spleen, please let me know and I will put them there as well.

Technical Specifications (1080p) [FINISHED]:

  FORMAT:   M2TS (Blu-ray Compatible)
    SIZE:   Varies 
   VIDEO:   1920x1080p MPEG-2 24 fps @ 30 mbps
   AUDIO:   TRACK 1) 5.1 @ 448 kbps [English]

Technical Specifications (2k) [UNFINISHED]:

  FORMAT:   TBD
    SIZE:   TBD
   VIDEO:   2048x1080 AVC 24 fps
   AUDIO:   TRACK 1) 5.1 @ 448 kbps [English]

MPEG-2 OVER AVC
Being that Sony Vegas’ AVC codec only supports 20mbps one pass renders, I utilized the rather outdated MPEG-2 Blu-ray codec with a max-bitrate of 30mbps, double pass render. If anyone can point me in the direction of a better encoder, please let me know.

SCREENSHOTS
http://imgur.com/a/LEwQb

I’m late to the game; I did see it opening night, and five subsequent times but I stayed offline to try and make my own opinion of what I saw.

My first “nitpick” during opening night was that the Star Wars theme sounded different. Of course, this is due to another orchestra taking over for the LSO. I was also surprised, yet not surprised, that they used the SE “A long time ago…” style and font. Additionally, Abrams broke the traditional “wide ending shot” rule, which was offsetting at first. Aaaaand I was disappointed that the iconic shot of Ren igniting his lightsabre was cut out. The off-screen version was very lame.

Besides those technical bits, it was truly something. I laughed, I cried (mainly during the opening crawl – how embarrassing!), I cheered. Being the first STAR WARS film I have even seen in theaters, I have never experienced anything like this before. I wish I could relive the opening night again. The crowd was so into it, especially when the Falcon was shown. I recall everyone going nuts over Leia and 3PO, rather than Han and Chewie – odd. Overall, it’s a competent film that has one-to-many callbacks for comfort, but has paved the way for something brilliant.

I walked out not digging it, came back loving it.

7/10 – not perfect, but is better than ROTJ, in my opinion.

bbhaltz said:

Thanks for the reply, I managed to preview the partially downloaded TB of ESB just to see how it fares in picture quality. I must say it looks pretty good already, definitely watchable. Would love to see what Team Blu could achieve with this source.

Would anyone be able reseed the TB Special Editions on myspleen?

I have the TB versions but I can tell you that the rip for ROTJ is terrible, and looks almost like VHS, so you can't get much out of it.

Many thanks for this effort. Huge TUGS fan.

You shifted from too blue to too green, at least from what I can see.

DrDre said:

I have corrected frame 8228. I think this is what it's supposed to look like without a green shift:

 That looks so much better! Always thought the Tech print was too green for my taste.

JayArgonaut said:

Sky Movies are showing all six films every weekend. They're very likely being shown in their original aspect ratio, unlike the cropped ITV broadcasts. If you're in the UK or Europe and have access to Sky, it might be worth a look. 

Have you felt a disturbance in the Force? Never fear - it's simply the return of ?Sky Movies Star Wars. Every weekend from Saturday 8 August, Sky Movies Greats will become Sky Movies Star Wars, a channel dedicated to all things Star Wars including movie marathons, features and specials. 

What's more, the entire saga - including the phenomenal Clone Wars and Rebels animated series - will be available on demand until the end of September. It's the first time the complete saga has been available on demand, anywhere in the world. ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qQzmh5BkTA

 Is it more, or do the colors look like that of the '97 SE?

DrDre said:

Another nice property of the color matching algorithm, is that it does not require the reference to have the same quality as the source. Although it's not Star Wars, I thought it was nice to share this comparison. There has been a lot of debate about the color timing of the Raiders of the Lost Ark bluray, and some prefer the HDTV broadcast known as the WOWOW. Here's an example of color correcting the bluray using a screenshot of a 16 mm print of Raiders of the Lost Ark, that has most of it's colors intact.

Bluray:

WOWOW:

16 mm reference:

Bluray matched to 16 mm reference:

An interesting aspect of this color match, is that Indy has a more natural skin tone in the color corrected frame, than in either the bluray or the WOWOW. 

 Wow - that last picture looks just "right" compared to the others. Beautiful!

That Tech IB match looks amazing. I would love to see the Blu-ray matched to that, even with the changes. Would you ever consider releasing the Blu-ray rips matched to these sources for the basis for other projects?

That post was made 1 year ago..

swagmasta69 said:

I would love to see Luke talking to his Father. As well as seeing Obi-wan and Anakin together again.

As much as I hate the idea of Christiansen in the ST, I would love to see Luke talk to a force-ghost Anakin at some point. 

Crowd scene shots were done with the HD cameras and so was the blood test scene, apparently.

Source: http://forums.ilmfan.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=461

What I'm curious to know is when people will prefer to see it? I was considering the usual 7pm "sneak preview" on the 17th, but I want to see it with a crowd as well. Which does better - the day before or opening night?

dan76 said:

That's an awful poster, the layout would be ok but whats he got Han Solo doing there? He's shrunk, waving his gun around like an OAP. Oh, and its teal and orange. Great.

My sentiments exactly.

RU.08 said:

No interlacing shouldn't matter. Did you make sure to put converttoyv12() in your script? Many filters including chubbyrain2 and gradfun2db/mod are only compatible with YV12 and don't work even with YUV (which is the interleaved equivalent and often the colourspace supplied to Avisynth). If you want to keep 100% quality (i.e. the full luma quality) you could try doing this:

pointresize(width(),height()*2)
converttoyv12()chubbyrain2() #or gradfun2dbmod()
converttoyv16() #or converttoyuy2()pointresize(width(),height()/2)

Also, I suggest using AvsPmod instead of VDubMod which is obsolete now. For the credits if they're all black-and-wite you could just convert that section to greyscale using greyscale().

Finally got some decent results. Removed a good portion from what I can see. The next issue would be ridding the video of the haloing & more crosstalk. I understand that I'd lose detail, but I'm trying to make a better master. Any suggestions?

Here's an example of what I believe to be crosstalk?:

Here's a sample (YV12 AVI) of the clips with the most chroma crosstalk, can anyone give a basic script an attempt and see if it's salvageable?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1-W6ByLSZVKN19sQ29ReVBBdXM/view?usp=sharing

RU.08 said:

Did you try chubbyrain2?

 Tried. Won't let me open it in VdubMod. I keep getting: AviSynth Open Failure: Evaluate System Exception - Integer Divide by Zero. (ChubbyRain2.avsi, line 18)(L:\deband.avs, line 2).

Being that the video was deinterlaced from the original BetaCamSP tapes, would that make this process impossible?

Tried both of those, nothing's working so far. Any other options?

This was my result.. didn't do anything, just added those three stripes. Am I doing something wrong? Rendered out Sony YUV Codec from Vegas and then brought it into VirtualDubMod.

So, two years ago, I was given a license to distribute this '90s DTV shark film entitled: GREAT WHITE. I released the DVD one year ago, but am looking to fix up the 8bit YUV422 master file. It was shot on BetaCamSP at 60i and during the editing process, it was deinterlaced to 30p. It was then mastered onto both D2 and BetaCamSP. I was given the D2 master.

Off the bat, I’m dealing with stair-stepping, which I know cannot be really dealt with, but the biggest issue is the color banding artifacts present in the video. Examples below (Click Them):

I have the uncompressed YUV422 8bit file on my hard drive, so I do have an advantage for quality, but are there any tools that I can use to help make this video look any better and remove the banding?

JAWS

digitalfreaknyc said:

JawsTDS said:

I actually just recently discovered a German HDTV rip of the Theatrical Cut. While there is a logo embedded on the top left side of the image, it is still sufficient for use. Might be going back to the drawing board with this.

Do you have an HD capture?

 Yes. It's 720p and has a logo, but it's the best version out there.

Shot in Super35 then matted.

I actually just recently discovered a German HDTV rip of the Theatrical Cut. While there is a logo embedded on the top left side of the image, it is still sufficient for use. Might be going back to the drawing board with this.

Thanks, clutchins!

Here's my current PAL to NTSC conversion method, so please let me know if I'm doing this right.

MPEG-2 25i PAL -> Handbrake 50p BOB Deinterlacing MP4 -> MPEG-2 30i NTSC. Is there a better method? The show was filmed interlaced, so it cannot be slowed down.