Knightmessenger

User Group: Members
Join date: 1-Nov-2005
Last activity: 23-Oct-2017
Posts: 819
Web Site: http://www.youtube.com/user/Knightmessenger

Post History

Post: #294882
Topic: Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side (the TM edit) (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294882/action/topic#294882
Time: 9-Aug-2007 2:54 AM

The problem is, if to me they appear more digital rather than film, it clearly isn't more OT feeling for me. I've seen episode II so I will probably recognize most color alterations. I believe an example of a not so obvious one is the "Ani, is it really you" was slightly desaturated. Even if I wasn't familar with the film, I wouldn't want any scene that screamed: color alteration! I HATE films that make you go "Ooh look, the color is unnaturally adjusted. See everything's blue to show this scene is moody and depressing." Real subtle.

Lord of the Rings took me out of the movie on the first viewing with that crap. And even though I hadn't seen Empire and Jedi in full, I knew something just wasn't right the very first time when I watched the 2004 dvd's. I strongly feel color correction is a very difficult deal and that it is very easy to make something look far worse even though you think it looks so bold and great. I'm not really referring to Trooperman here. I frequently adjust color/contrast of digital photos I take and I'm now I look back at some "enhanced" photos and think "man I did that so wrong." I saved all the original images smartly. As the X0 project has shown, proper and accurate color correction are very hard and time consuming, you can't afford to gloss over it.

Post: #294879
Topic: Help Wanted: Original Jabba footage - HELP NEEDED
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294879/action/topic#294879
Time: 9-Aug-2007 2:05 AM

I thought Deleted Magic had as much of the original Jabba as was available, all in widescreen. Is there anything that he missed. I also have a dvd of the Special Edition bonus features. As I mentioned elsewhere, the main feature looks laserdisc sourced and is one entire video rather than split into segments like on the vhs tapes.

Post: #294822
Topic: Blade Runner 2, 4, and 5-disc sets in December
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294822/action/topic#294822
Time: 8-Aug-2007 3:17 AM

Aren't there some features that were listed on those fan made dvd's before the announcement in May '06. I don't see them listed in the upcoming set. A custom cover lists Future Shocks, On the Edge of Blade Runner, Hooray for Hollywood and Gongo soundtrack.

Post: #294821
Topic: Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side (the TM edit) (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294821/action/topic#294821
Time: 8-Aug-2007 2:53 AM

The new voice is a huge improvement. It still could be mixed in a little better, the "he is a she line" sounds great but then Obi Wan's "be extra careful" sounds like Obi Wan was talking on a comlink. The voice itself sounds very natural and that is the important thing.
But I must ask, did you alter the color in a lot of scenes. Because some of the clips on the youtube trailer looked more digital and less film like than the actual movie. The conveyer belt in the droid factory clip looked like it had all of the color and contrast of a cell phone picture. Or the 2004 special edition dvd's. I felt some of the night club scenes that were from episode II had too blatent of a golden hue.

Post: #294817
Topic: Star Wars film versions and best DVD sources
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294817/action/topic#294817
Time: 8-Aug-2007 2:13 AM

I have the SE bonus features on a fan created dvd. I'm pretty sure it was laserdisc sourced. In addition to the documentary that was also on the vhs tapes, there were also slideshows of concept art plus all three special edition trailers. The '04 bonus dvd only had one of the SE trailers. I thought the second release of the SE box set on vhs was designed to tie into the saga numbers since it must have come out the same time as the Phantom Menace on video. I only saw the Jedi tape and it had a starwars.com promo with duel of the fates playing with clips of the 4 released films. Was the episode II preview only on one of the tapes.

Post: #294261
Topic: Star Wars film versions and best DVD sources
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294261/action/topic#294261
Time: 1-Aug-2007 5:17 PM

The 1997 Special editions were only released twice on video. Once after the '97 theatrical run and then after Phantom Menace came out, The 2nd time was on laserdisc only in Japan I think. I'm pretty sure the releases are made from the same master so they should look the same.

Post: #293406
Topic: The Thief and the Cobbler Super DVD (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/293406/action/topic#293406
Time: 25-Jul-2007 2:48 PM

How did you get the Calvert version in widescreen if it was only offered in pan & scan? And shouldn't the out of print R2 (is that the same as the Miramax one on the disc?) version along with the recobbled cut be in anamorphic widescreen?

Post: #292963
Topic: How to use HuffYUV
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/292963/action/topic#292963
Time: 20-Jul-2007 1:55 AM

That makes sense about the blend vs discard fields. I understand now. Is there anything I can do about the PDI captures at half size display to discard one field rather than blend them? I don't mean discard half the video for real, just when it's previewed at half size.
So for rendering a final avi, I just have to select the option "lossless huffyuv"? I'm not sure that will be selectable under "Render As" in Vegas. Won't I need to do something first?
About adjusting calibration levels. What should I look at on the screen to determine true black and white? Is there some kind of grayscale or color window because I don't remember seeing one? What do you mean by white not clipping?
And lastly, is there anything that can be done about the picture being shifted up (and having a slight bit at the top cut off) in the PDI captures?

Post: #292941
Topic: How to use HuffYUV
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/292941/action/topic#292941
Time: 19-Jul-2007 5:58 PM

Sorry. Anyways I got the cable I needed for audio. But now the audio and video don't match up. Not just unsynched, the audio and video are different lengths. Why is this and what can I do about it?
The main question was: What options do I have for rendering a Huffy file to a final avi? I would prefer to keep it lossless. But I don't want the rendered avi to be bigger than it needs to be?
For example, I took an mp3 audio file that was 7mb, trimmed 2 minutes, re-rendered it as lossless audio and it came out to be 57mb. Should I be worried about doing this with video, making a file bigger than what it originally was.

What can I do about the video image being shifted up in the PDI captures? And is it normal for the half size PDI images to be blurry while the DV frames look sharper? (This only appears at half size.)
DV

http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/3369/amatohalfdvqt4.png

[URL=http://imageshack.us][/URL]

PDI

http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/2847/amatohalfpdidu4.png

[URL=http://imageshack.us][/URL]

The other problem with the PDI captures from Hi8 video is that I think they're a little too bright. The Super Smash Bros. Melee examples posted earlier don't show such a brightness disparity, just improved color and contrast. I also think some of the white areas now have a slight pink tint.
DV

http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/9775/nicholasdvbu3.png

[URL=http://imageshack.us][/URL]

PDI

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/2476/nicholaspdivx1.png

[URL=http://imageshack.us][/URL]

I'm not sure what to adjust in the virtualdub capture settings. It seems the gain might be too bright on the PDI captures or should I worry about the brightness or gamma? Can you tell what settings should be adjusted or is there really nothing that can be done besides trial and error.

Post: #292755
Topic: Info Wanted: Harry Potter & Prisoner of Azkaban - extended version on ABC?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/292755/action/topic#292755
Time: 17-Jul-2007 2:11 PM

I thought Hagrid said something extra beyond the hidden deleted scene on the subway on the Philosopher's (Sorcerer's) Stone extended version. He was telling Harry about how he wanted a dragon for a pet and someone else on the train overheard and gave a strange glance. I could be wrong but I thought Hagrid then said in the ABC cut "Well, what are you looking at? to the woman."

Post: #292713
Topic: A New Direction For The Petition
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/292713/action/topic#292713
Time: 17-Jul-2007 1:00 AM

I think at this point it would actually help to have George Lucas make more changes to the films. That way, at least the color will have to be fixed and many people who fell in love with the first special edition will get upset at seeing the versions they grew up with discarded. I hope he adds even more stupid stuff to the films and alienates even more fans.
By the way what else has Lowry Digital worked on? I thought they did a great job with Cinderella (Disney) but I've seen comparisons (at dvd beaver) for the new Bond dvd's and I'm not that impressed. Even the ones that weren't foolishly cropped. It just looks like Lowry loves to add a blue tint to every film and when it has a lot of noise, just add an advanced blur to remove all grain and any sense of film texture as well.

Post: #292411
Topic: How to use HuffYUV
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/292411/action/topic#292411
Time: 12-Jul-2007 4:56 PM

Oh my God, I can't believe it. I just realized that I already had one of those mini phone plugs lying around near my computer. It's from Radio Shack but I have no idea when or why I have one. Just looking at the picture posted earlier of the cable, somehow it hit me that it looked similar to some of the extra cables lying around my basement that I seemingly had no use for. But now I can test it out without worrying about having to return something if it doesn't work.
But that brings me to the next question. What do I do with the video afterward? What are my options for rendering it to a new file after I've edited a bunch of clips in Vegas? Before, I would just make an avi file that would keep the video quality exactly the same, no further compression. For burning to dvd, I would use Sonic Mydvd. It has only one automatic write speed for dvd but it actually works out well. As I later realized, the auto write speed compresses the video so that about 4 times as much video can fit but it still looks really good. (Two 7 gb avi videos take up a little more than 3/4 the write space available for a single layer dvd in the program) I'm fine with that because it means I get to keep a video master on the computer that's identical in quality to the raw captures that make it up.

But I'm afraid rendering a losslessly Huffy compressed file to avi will actually make it bigger by not maintaining the lossless compression. I recently took an mp3 file that was 5 minutes and 6 mb, cut it down to 3.5 and re rendered it as a lossless wma. It didn't sound that great so I wanted to make sure I didn't decrease the quality further. The resulting file became an astounding 57 mb. How could it need more mb than the file originally was before? Screwing up audio like that is not too big a deal because it doesn't require anything close to the space needed for video. Am I right to be afraid of doing that with video? Are there any kind of lossless audio compression codecs out there, btw?

The other thing is I might be interested in a more advanced dvd burning software. (I've heard a lot of good things about Nero) Would other dvd software have auto compress write speeds available like Sonic does? If they don't I would have to learn how to use a lossy compression from the Vegas rendering. Something I've been hesitant to do. I know it's possible to throw away a lot of data and lose only a tiny bit of quality but I'm not sure how easy it would be for me to find such a setting. I tried mPEG 2 compression once on a short video segment and it made the video look like it was shot using the low light (not nightshot) mode on a video camera. I know mpeg 2 can look a lot better and is even used by professionals, but I have no idea what makes the difference.

I'm going to see if I can get audio now that I know I have the mini phone cable and now know where it's supposed to go. Thank you all so much for your help. I'm amazed that I've gotten this far as I have never considered myself good with anything on a computer.
EDIT: Turns out the mini cable will fit into a computer plug but the 2 in jacks are not the right size for RCA red and white audio cables.

Post: #292406
Topic: Info Wanted: Harry Potter & Prisoner of Azkaban - extended version on ABC?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/292406/action/topic#292406
Time: 12-Jul-2007 3:43 PM

Well I saw the Sir Cadogan scene inserted into the ABC family airing last Sunday. Since the great hall scene was not inserted, I assumed this was not the extended tv cut. Besides it said at the beginning the usual "This film has been modified to fit your screen and edited for time."

Post: #292373
Topic: Song Of The South - many projects, much info & discussion thread (Released)
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/292373/action/topic#292373
Time: 12-Jul-2007 12:16 AM

"Before I give up altogether on this project, let me ask:
Is a mostly good copy of this better than what we have already?"

I really hope you haven't given up, Doctor M. To answer your question, for me, ANY copy is better than what I have. Because I have
never seen the film apart from the 3 sing-a-long excerpts. (Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, Everybody has a Lauging Place, and How Do you Do)
So I don't care if it doesn't look that good. I just want a watchable NTSC version. It's sad really that it has been easier for me (and others) to get the Star Wars Holiday Special. (I'm not just talking about this site, I mean from anything.) In fact I'm starting to wonder if more people have seen the special than Song of the South.
I know there was also hope of adding a lot of extra features on a second disc but at this point I'd be happy with just the movie. If there was a burned dvd made, I'd be happy to take whatever is out there now.

Post: #292368
Topic: Info Wanted: Harry Potter & Prisoner of Azkaban - extended version on ABC?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/292368/action/topic#292368
Time: 11-Jul-2007 11:31 PM

What was extended about the Sir Cadogan scene? "Yeah, we'll call on you... if we need someone mental." line by Ron is in the theatrical film. Same thing with the bird running into the whomping willow, both those "deleted scenes" on disc 2 already are in the film, aren't they?
They could have put the Ron and Hermione telling Harry about Hogsmead scene in or did that require some effect to be added which wasn't?

Post: #292125
Topic: Adobe Premiere Elements: Should I get it?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/292125/action/topic#292125
Time: 8-Jul-2007 12:00 PM

I've worked with a version of Adobe Premier for video editing at school. It's similar to Sony Vegas which I have (ver 4) at home but I like Vegas a lot better. To do a cross fade with vegas, you don't need to hit a bunch of menu commands and then do it all over if you want to tweak the dissolve. Just drag one clip to overlap the other. It doesn't need to render to see the resulting effect. Much more flexible and easy to use, I even found Vegas to be easier and better than Final Cut Pro which I used at another university. Final Cut may have had more advanced features but I never got to find out as it was way too complicated just to open up the program and video files. I was surprised since I thought Mac was supposed to be more user friendly than Microsoft.
But I've heard a lot of great things about photoshop. I've never worked with it but I have used other photo editing programs before to crop, color correct and adjust brightness/ contrast.

Post: #292115
Topic: How to use HuffYUV
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/292115/action/topic#292115
Time: 8-Jul-2007 2:47 AM

That worked! I can now edit PDI captured video with HuffyUV lossless compression in Vegas. Thanks a lot! Now I just need to try one of those stereo jacks to see if it will work for audio. It took me a while to figure out how to get the best video because only after I had "none" for preview acceleration would it let me capture full size. I definitely see an improvement with the uncompressed over DV. I used some examples from Super Smash Brothers Melee.

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/89/peachdvwj8.png

[URL=http://imageshack.us][/URL]

The uncompressed PDI capture seems to be shifted up and left. This might result in lost information at the top and a thin black line at the bottom for the just about every other capture which won't be framed in by black. I know this won't be visible on a tv but I still want the images centered properly. Most of the stuff I capture (unlike this) is my own videos and I don't want anything cropped out during capture.

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/4952/peachpdiax9.png

[URL=http://imageshack.us][/URL]

Look at the green below Link's head. Is there a specific name for those lines on what should be solid color?

http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/6448/linkreeldvlf0.png

[URL=http://imageshack.us][/URL]

They don't appear in the PDI capture.

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/9172/linkreelpdiux4.png

[URL=http://imageshack.us][/URL]

classic mode trophy with description. (DV capture)

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/2858/trophy4dvch7.png

[URL=http://imageshack.us][/URL]

I'm not sure if the text looks better here. It seems unevenly bold.

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/4628/trophy4pdizm9.png

[URL=http://imageshack.us][/URL]

The other interesting thing is the PDI card will capture from my Nintendo 64. The DV box would not pick up anything from the console but strangely capture fine from gamecube. I have a feeling that the PDI will not give me a lot of trouble with dropped frames like I've had in the past. (a section of 37 dropped frames frequently has about 5 minutes of empty black space somehow inserted when I place it in the vegas timeline. It has been a serious pain to cut the blank space out and push the captured parts together)

Post: #291968
Topic: Better video quality?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/291968/action/topic#291968
Time: 5-Jul-2007 11:05 AM

What do you mean by Corepng being "slower?" Hopefully I'll get around to doing a test capture with "always suggest RGB format for output" checked soon. It was suggested in the other thread.

Post: #291875
Topic: Better video quality?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/291875/action/topic#291875
Time: 3-Jul-2007 8:46 PM

Taolar, the problems you describe sound similar to what happened when I tried to open up video captured in virtual dub using HuffyUV. It displayed and captured fine in vdub, the video files played fine when opened in windows media player but when I opened them in Vegas version 4, it came out all garbled (all frames throughout). I posted an example on page 2 of the thread I started about using HuffyUV.
http://www.originaltrilogy.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=12&threadid=7640&STARTPAGE=2
I don't want to hijack the thread but may I ask if this is similar to what you have experienced?

As for the original poster, I sounds like Zion and Taolar both have good solutions.

Post: #291873
Topic: How to use HuffYUV
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/291873/action/topic#291873
Time: 3-Jul-2007 8:17 PM

No, just Vegas. Virtualdub is where it's captured and that shows up fine. It also plays fine in windows media player. Do you think it would be because I don't have an recent enough version (I have 4) that would be compatible or could there be some kind of firmware upgrade I could get?

Post: #291688
Topic: How to use HuffYUV
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/291688/action/topic#291688
Time: 30-Jun-2007 11:27 PM

Every frame was messed up. And the version that I downloaded and installed matches Moth3r except it's 2.1.1. .1 with one extra 1. I do not belive I installed any other codecs except what was linked to previously in this thread. Should I have?

Post: #291056
Topic: Info Wanted: Fullscreen versions of James Cameron's movies?
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/291056/action/topic#291056
Time: 23-Jun-2007 2:19 PM

Can directors really stop full screen releases of their movies on dvd if they want? I thought it was decided by the studio home video dept. I mean why would Paramount release all three Indiana Jones movies in pan & scan? Why would George Lucas who is so insistant on having his "original vision" allow his Star Wars films to have the sides whacked off each of their 3 dvd releases?
Those films lose about half the picture in full screen since they can't be unmatted. And I thought Spielberg tried to prevent Raiders from being released full screen for the orginal vhs and betamax release way back in the 80's, before widescreen vhs or laserdisc existed. Yet Titanic was shot so that it could be also shown in 4x3 and still look good and Paramount only releases that in widescreen on dvd. Does that make any sense?

Post: #291054
Topic: How to use HuffYUV
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/291054/action/topic#291054
Time: 23-Jun-2007 1:55 PM

Uggg, I really don't know. How can I check? The version I installed came with a lot of unecessary program accessories.

Post: #290973
Topic: Looking for good inexpensive turntable
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/290973/action/topic#290973
Time: 22-Jun-2007 2:28 AM

I've also been interested in obtaining a turntable. I've seen a few in independent stores and I'm wondering are there any standards or features that I should look for? Any way of telling which one will play better other than using the "you get what you pay for adage" as a guideline.
Is there any way to capture a record to computer with any turntable or do you have to use one of those newer ones that is built in to hook up to a computer or cd recorder?

Post: #290972
Topic: How to use HuffYUV
Link: https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/290972/action/topic#290972
Time: 22-Jun-2007 2:10 AM

Ok, I still have not tried out the phone cable for audio because, well I've been busy. I've been using the DV capture box in the meantime. Besides, what good will getting the PDI captures with sound do me if they come out all garbled when I try to edit them in Vegas? See below.

Here's a screenshot using the Pyro DV capture box.

http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/3481/dvsvideobe6.png

[URL=http://imageshack.us][/URL]

I tried to import the video clip captured in virtualdub using the PDI card. It didn't have audio but I was just interested in seeing whether there was a noticeable improvement over DV compression. Unfortunately it was impossible to determine.

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/9784/virtualhuffydm1.png

[URL=http://imageshack.us][/URL]

It was actually pretty hard to try to find the matching frame. It took me a while before I realized that in addition to being garbled, the PDI capture also appeared upside down, but that's easy to flip back in Vegas. Does anyone know why it displayed so screwed up in Vegas (I have 4.0)? The avi played fine and right-side up in windows media player. Only when displayed in vegas did it have this problem.