joed424 said:
tb versions?
They're DVB recordings off of some European channel. They're in PAL, but they're digital, which is rare for the '97 SE. They look pretty good. Around 4gigs per film.
It seems the '97 SE is the hardest to get out of all the versions, not sure why. I do have the TB versions of all three and can seed them for you if you get an account on the Spleen. Let me know.
althor1138 recently did a transfer of the SE '97 laserdiscs. They're only on usenet at the moment, but I'm sure someone will 'up them to the spleen at some point.. I hope.
Could someone post the 97 SE rips on the Spleen at some point, maybe? Don't have usenet access.
ElectricTriangle said:
Wikipedia says (and my memory somewhat confirms) that George Carlin also redubed series one and two.
That would mean there are three dubs for the first two series: George Carlin and the UK/US Ringo.
Carlin did redub Seasons 1 & 2 for the US, since Ringo Starr didn't do all of them. Michael Brandon also redubbed many Season 6 episodes but they were TV only, and I don't have them, so it will be somewhat incomplete (and his narrations are terrible anyways).
I might not be able to use Starr's US dubs because they're all on VHS tapes and I do have them all, but the sound isn't great because there are crackle sounds throughout some of the tapes, unless someone knows a good way to get rid of them?
<span style=“text-decoration: underline;”>BACKGROUND INFO</span>
For my next preservation, I’m working with a childhood classic and a personal favorite: Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends (now known as Thomas & Friends).
Thomas was adapted into a television show in 1984 by Britt Allcroft in conduction with Clearwater Features for ITV, as it was originally based off The Railway Series, a set of books by the Rev. W. Awdry. The show was to be shot on 35mm film at 25p (which would prove to be an issue later on) and aired in the UK only. With a former Beatle member, Ringo Starr, narrating the five minute stories, the show was a success.
In 1989, five years after Thomas’ debut in the UK, Allcroft brought the show into the US. The show had a new dub recorded by Ringo Starr to allow for American railway terminology to be used (most of which are ONLY available on VHS). After Starr’s departure from the show, the UK and US no longer shared the same narrator. For the UK, Michael Angelis took on the role as storyteller, and in the US, George Carlin became the new narrator. Throughout the years in the US, narrators came and went. From Carlin to Alec Baldwin to Michael Angelis (for six episodes) to Michael Brandon. The UK kept a consistent voice, unlike the US.
Season 1 to Season 7 was dubbed as the “Classic Series”. For the eighth season, the show was bought by HiT Entertainment and was rebooted.
<span style=“text-decoration: underline;”>GOAL</span>
Having grown up with the show, I’ve always preferred the US dub. Being that US releases of the show have always been inferior in video quality due to being sourced from dot-crawl ridden masters and being cropped to 4:3 (Series 6 and onwards), I’ve made it my goal to preserve the US dub with digital footage and proper aspect ratio footage.
*(courtesy of The Thomas Entertainment Station blog)
In the UK, each season is available completely on DVD, sourced from the 35mm film (as of 2012). For this preservation, I’ve taken the 576i footage and synced it up (and currently am still syncing up) to the US dub audio.
Being that the show was shot at 25p and the US dub is synced at the same frame rate, pulldown had to be applied to conform the footage to work with NTSC machines. In previous years, my conversions have been plagued by horizontal linear shaking. For this edition, I’ve learned a new method: upscale to 1080i. Through upscaling, little-to-no shaking is present.
Each season will have its own BD-25 and will be uploaded to the spleen, if anyone’s interested in having these.
As of today, only Seasons 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 are finished. 3, and 7 are still being synced and finished.
<span style=“text-decoration: underline;”>SOURCES</span>
**- VIDEO: **The Complete Series (1-7) UK DVDs
- AUDIO: Various US DVDs/VHS’/TV airings
<span style=“text-decoration: underline;”>THANKS TO:</span>
tug97, ttteepisodesus, Moosh, & SI3DFilms (non-OT members)
^ This, they make for much better source material.
It's true HD, not upscaled as you are implying. It looks bad because it's a 90s telecine, they were all pretty bad.
Just looked at the TB copy of ESB and saw it. I could imagine someone doing the telecine bleeding from their eyes from seeing the new color timing..
I haven't touched the mixes yet, because I know there are so many to deal with. Right now, I've got Dolby 5.1 Surround AC3 384-448-640kbps tracks for each film, minus the Theatrical HD version of the OT. Not sure if I want to include DTS as my Blu-ray authoring program doesn't support it.
I haven't seen the print yet, so I can't comment on quality, but I doubt it would look bad. I can definitely see the film print of ANH 97 being used. ;-)
Worked more on the prequel discs today and got both the HD DVD version and the theatrical LD rip of TPM on one dual-layer BD-r. It's looking pretty good thus far.
I'm using SD only for '97 SE (minus ANH). The theatrical versions will all be in HD.
I used althor1138's LD rip and reformated & encoded it to MPEG-2. It's SD, but it's an amazing looking transfer. All the prequels have been compiled, now it's time to move to the OT.
For the OT '97 SE, would people prefer LD rips or TB sourced material? Both have the terrible DVNR, so both won't look great, but TB is digital, but once again, it's MPEG-2 and 4gb, something I'm very weary of. DarkJedi made it look very good, but I doubt I could do the same with it. For ANH '97, I have a chance to use a film print, which I think I will end up doing, but ESB '97 and ROTJ '97 wouldn't be.
I, personally, would love to see screenshots of it. Maybe just take a few pictures of the TV screen?
How's the LD audio in comparison to the Blu-ray mix?
I'm just going by what my source wanted me to credit them as, but as far as I know, this 35mm scan of the OT is happening, and most likely, so is the '97 SE ANH print.
Does anyone think the "TB" TPM rip would be a good source? I'm hesitant as it's 4gb and MPEG-2. It's a 133 minute movie and that should not fit on a single layer DVD. I'm deciding between that and the laserdisc rip.
Does anyone have a rip from the Austrian airing? I'm guessing all that would need to be done is replace credits and crawl?
As for the 2011 editions, due to them being readily available in retail stores, I don't know if I would include them in the set, unless they were color corrected. I'm hesitant on the color correction because that's the way Lucas intended that particular version, despite it being completely off.
Plus, I would have to re-encode them in AVC with a max bitrate of 25mbps with 640kbps AC3 5.1 due to limitations of my Blu-ray authoring program, unless everyone is fine with those data rates.
So, here's just an ideal list for sources:
The Phantom Menace: Theatrical (Laserdisc OR Toppers?), DVD (1080p HDTV rip), 2011 (Blu-ray)
Attack of the Clones: DVD (1080p HDTV rip), 2011 (Blu-ray)
Revenge of the Sith: DVD (1080p HDTV rip), 2011 (Blu-ray)
A New Hope: Theatrical (Team -1), '97 (Laserdisc OR TVRip), 2004 (1080p TVRip), 2011 (Blu-ray)
The Empire Strikes Back: Theatrical (Team -1), '97 (Laserdisc OR TVRip), 2004 (1080p TVRip), 2011 (Blu-ray)
Return of the Jedi: Theatrical (Team -1), '97 (Laserdisc OR TVRip), 2004 (1080p TVRip), 2011 (Blu-ray)
Extras: Empire of Dreams (SD), The Birth of a Lightsaber (SD), From Star Wars to Jedi (SD), The Making of Star Wars (SD), Making of Episodes I-III (SD), Making of the '97 SE Feature (SD), Trailers (SD/HD), Definitive Collection Extras (SD), Deleted Scenes (SD/HD).
The question is whether to use HDTV rips or DVD rips of the 2004 editions of the OT. The HDTV rips look very good and would benefit from a better bitrate and encode than 480p MPEG-2. But, hey, I've got time to decide.
Years to go, but it'll be a nice looking collection once all is done.
While I try and think of a much more wittier title for this thread, read below:
<span style=“text-decoration: underline;”>BACKGROUND INFO</span>
When I bought the Star Wars Complete Saga Blu-ray, I was thrilled to have all the films in HD. However, being the completionist that I am, I was saddened (but not surprised) to see that Lucas & co. didn’t include both the '97 SE versions and the theatrical versions of the OT. I was also disheartened to see a lack of the same for the PT (minus the '97 SE). I like the changed made to TPM, but you can’t go your whole life without seeing the puppet Yoda.
This is my idea, what if there was a custom boxset that included Episodes I-VI with: Original theatrical presentation***** (HD for TPM, SD for OT), '97 Special Edition presentation (SD), and the 2011 Blu-ray versions, but color corrected. <span style=“line-height: 14.3999996185303px;”>Each version would probably need to be split onto it’s own disc, but would still be a nice set.</span>
There would also be a much better Special Features disc too. Take all of the features from the existing DVDs and the ones from the Blu-ray (screw the RC parodies) and make them much more accessible than how they were presented on the Blu-ray.
<span style=“text-decoration: line-through;”>I would like to use all SD sources for the theatrical presentations of the OT, maybe the GOUT discs? If permission was granted, maybe one of the HD reconstructions by Harmy or Team -1’s rips? Just wishful thinking here… As for the '97 SE versions, use either Laserdisc or the TV-rips. All SD.</span> In regards to mixes, let’s not discuss that just yet.
If anyone has any suggestions for sources, please let me know. I would love to see something like this happen in the coming years.
*****IIRC, AOTC and ROTS had minimal changes, optional discs?
<span style=“text-decoration: underline;”>THE SOURCES</span>
The Phantom Menace: Theatrical SD (Laserdisc - althor1138), DVD HD (1080p HDTV rip), 2011 (Blu-ray)
Attack of the Clones: DVD HD (1080p HDTV rip), 2011 HD (Blu-ray)
Revenge of the Sith: DVD HD (1080p HDTV rip), 2011 HD [Theatrical?] (Blu-ray)
A New Hope: Theatrical HD (Laserman), '97 (Laserman, Laserdisc OR TVRip), 2004 HD (1080p HDTV rip), 2011 HD (Blu-ray)
The Empire Strikes Back: <span style=“line-height: 14.3999996185303px;”>Theatrical HD (Laserman), '97 (Laserdisc OR TVRip), 2004 HD (1080p HDTV rip), 2011 HD (Blu-ray)</span>
<span style=“line-height: 14.3999996185303px;”>Return of the Jedi: </span><span style=“line-height: 14.3999996185303px;”>Theatrical HD (Laserman), '97 (Laserdisc OR TVRip), 2004 HD (1080p HDTV rip), 2011 HD (Blu-ray)</span>
<span style=“line-height: 14.3999996185303px;”><span style=“line-height: 14.3999996185303px;”>Extras</span><span style=“line-height: 14.3999996185303px;”>: Empire of Dreams (SD), The Birth of a Lightsaber (SD), From Star Wars to Jedi (SD), The Making of Star Wars (SD), Making of Episodes I-III (SD), Making of the '97 SE Feature (SD), Trailers (SD/HD), Definitive Collection Extras (SD), Deleted Scenes (SD/HD).</span></span>
I would love to see this. Shame about the cropping though, but as long as it's not as waxy as the Blu-ray, I'll take it.
althor1138 said:
Ok I did some reading and I think this is what you are after:
mpeg2source("palclip.d2v")
bob(height=480)
bicubicresize(720,480)
changefps(60000,1001)
separatefields()
selectevery(4,0,3) #use selectevery(4,1,2) for odd field first.
Weave()
This is just copied from the wiki.
EDIT: Just tested this and it seems to do exactly what you want. I fed it a pal clip and out popped a 30i clip with the exact same playing time.
Tried that, it does the strange horizontal linear shaking that every other program does. Maybe I'm asking too much? I've just seen professional DVDs of this show with stable video.
Yup, every single one of them. If you didn't see the link above, it shows the PAL footage (also synced with the US dubs from the US DVDs). The footage contains both progressive footage and interlaced footage.
This era of show can't be slowed down or sped up due to certain interlaced segments edited within the episode.
I need a direct conversion from 25 -> 30, while remaining interlaced. No speedup, only pulldown. The show was never intended to have its speed altered. The plethora of companies that have released the show on VHS/DVD from the late 80s till now have always used pulldown. It's a confusing scenario, but they got it done flawlessly somehow.
Here's a link that contains both progressive and interlaced material from the show, from the PAL DVD: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1-W6ByLSZVKV01jNThMN3J5YVU/view?usp=sharing
althor1138 said:
Here's a way in avisynth.
video=mpeg2source("clip.d2v")
audio=audio file goes here
audiodub(video,audio)
tfm()
assumefps("ntsc_film",sync_audio=true)
spline64resize(720,480)
limiter()
This will give you a 23.976 fps output. You would then use the encoder to implement a pulldown flag. This will probably show up as progressive on most modern hardware.
EDIT: This is the basic method I'm using to backup all of my seinfeld pal discs to ntsc btw.
I don't want a 23.976 output though. The show as shot in 25fps, and slowing it down would cause sync errors with the narration (synced at 25fps). I'm looking for 30i solutions, if at all possible.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
For my next preservation project, I'm working with a childhood classic: Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. Thomas was shot on 35mm from 1984-2003 in 25fps, being that the production was based out of London. Once the third season began, the editor John L. Wright started to speed up footage for certain shots and would output the episodes in 25i for TV airings. This went on until 2008, when they switched to strictly progressive shooting for their new animation technique and have kept with it.
When Thomas was brought over to the US, Anchor Bay took up distribution. Their releases contained pulldown, but were plagued with dot crawl. Anchor Bay also only had access to lower end analog masters, unlike the UK that were given much better masters of the episodes.
Thomas hit DVD in the UK with multiple complete season releases. The DVDs are great quality, but in PAL/25i. The US has only one complete season release (dated back to 2004).
THE GOAL
Basically, I'm looking to convert the PAL DVD files to NTSC 30i so I can play it on all players in my household (many don't support 50hz material). I had dropped the file in Vegas and put it in an NTSC project. While I achieved my goal, the video has lots of horizontal linear shaking, especially when text was on the screen. There was no judder or any other problem, just the linear shaking.
I had also tried rendering it without any resampling, but when the interlaced footage appeared, it was very jittery.
I've seen many companies able to convert 25i material to 30i with no shaking, only ghosting due to pulldown, which is inevitable at this point, how did they do it? Is it even possible?