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11-May-2004
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6-Sep-2007
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Post
#149677
Topic
Info Wanted: has anyone tried a Star Wars Super 8mm to DVD preservation project?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/149677/action/topic#149677
Time
Originally posted by: ripa
I don't think a heavy color cast on film matters very much. You can quite easily correct colors in photo and video editors and since color resolution isn't as important as monochrome resolution, you probably won't notice the loss after the colors are corrected. Here's a good example of restoring some photo negatives from the 1970s: http://www.californiacoastline.org/dwbphotos.html

Also, there's probably film scanners that can automatically scan a large number of frames on the market at reasonable prices. All it needs is a mechanism to advance the film after completing one scan and software for saving the images automatically.


None of the standard film scanners scan more than about 36 frames, so unless you want to cut you film into little strips, that doesn't really work. As noted before, even if scanning and storing a frame every minute, that is 360 days of non stop work doing it for 8hrs a day. (i.e. and entire year). The only real way is with a proper telecine rig that can operate faster and somewhat unattended.

Colour restoration can be done, but it isn't as easy as with stills, the frame to frame variation causes problems and can look really weird as some colours are really lost, so you or the software is taking a punt as to the original colour. You can correct for colour cast, but a lot of information is actually lost when a film shifts off to red or green. You can get acceptable results, but nothing beats a print that isn't faded/shifted to begin with.

Post
#149670
Topic
Help Wanted: WWII style edit of ANH - I need a title for this!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/149670/action/topic#149670
Time
I know they say you can fit 10 hours of super duper quality video on there, but in reality it isn't the case - it is called 'marketing'
A 2hr movie takes up about 7.5GB of space on DVD, so yeah you could fit nearly 10 hours of compressed finished product on there, but that is the rub - finished product takes up a hell of a lot less space than work in progress.

The need for a heap of disc space is for a couple of reasons.

1) Even at standard DVD quality, the finished version of your movie will take up around 7GB of space.
When editing, you will need to have a hell of a lot more space available to you. You need your source footage stored at all time to be able to edit it - so lock out around 7-10GB for that. You need the same amount of space again to put out any edited version that you create, so even compressed there is now around 20GB gone. You also need room to save all your project files, work in progress and 'tests' where you might put out 5 or six different version s of a scene to see what works and what doesn't.
You need double that space again to be able to multipass encode it back to DVD, (around 15-20GB) so your 40GB hard disc is now full, and that is if you a) Work in a heavily compressed format, losing quality every time you touch it - b) Can somehow amazingly get the job done first go c) Save only one version of your project.

2) Most editing systems won't even allow you to edit MPEG2 video directly - this means that you have to uncompress it in some way to edit it - so it takes up a lot more space. If you compress it into something else to edit it, then the editing process is *painful*as your editing software gets very slow decompressing and recompressing every time you make a change - that is why those new MP4video cameras suck - just adding a fade is instant when using uncompressed video, but MP4 compressed video it takes up to 5-10minutes just to add a crossfade! Some systems do allow you to edit MPEG2 directly, but it isn't a lot of fun to work that way.

Basically to edit an entire movie, you will want about 5 times the space the film takes up, this is because you end up rendering out lots of different versions and having lots of saved projects, as you will often try something that doesn't quite work, or part of it works etc. and you keep comparing versions, keeping bits of one or another as you go, maybe going down a path for a week before reverting back to what you did originally etc. You will be astounded how much space you eat up in a short period of time.
I have just over a TB taken up with X0 files so far and am constantly having to remove stuff to get space to continue working.

The only analogy I can think of is that a finished novel might be 800 pages, but how many pages (digital or otherwise) do you think they went through to get to that end result?

Besides all of that, you can get at least a 160GB drive for thsame money, so why buy a 40GB one?

Post
#149666
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/149666/action/topic#149666
Time
Originally posted by: ripa
I was wondering if there are major physical differences between NTSC and PAL discs. Since the signal is encoded onto the disc, the player needn't do any actual signal coding/decoding, just read it off the disc and output it. .


This is really thee biggest misconception about laserdisc, that the video signal is somehow sitting on the disc in an easy to access (composite) format and is just opened and output with not much else going on. As mentioned in the previous post, what is actually on the laserdisc is very different. It is a heavily encoded FM signal that has no immediate correlation to composite video at all.
That is why a laserdisc player is so chock full of circuitry, and a big part of why they are so expensive and why they vary so much in playback quality. If it was as easy as just read signal and send it to the composite output, then the image quality from all players would be much the same - the huge differences in quality of output between laserdisc players is testament to the difficulty of decoding the signal cleanly and getting it to the outputs intact. They are a very different beast to any other sort of video player in existence.

A lot of NTSC players will in fact playback a PAL disc as if it was NTSC, but of course they process the signal as NTSC, so you just get a total mess in black and white, with no sync - nothing that is salvageable.

It is a cool idea, but one that won't fly - retrofitting a different laser assembly into an existing PAL player and improving its output circuitry is a more likely to succeed proposition.

Post
#149664
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/149664/action/topic#149664
Time
I thought I covered most of this before?
It is not just like doing a PAL - NTSC conversion in the digital realm. The fundamental differences between PAL and NTSC laserdiscs are many,and require lots of totally separate circuitry.

1) PAL laserdiscs spin at a totally different speed - 1500RPM vs 1800RPM for CAV, and different again for CLV. This alone is a big issue.
2) They are not store in composite format directly, it is an analogue system of infinitely variable width pits and lands, which represent an FM modulated signal made up of the Video and audio and timing information, flags and all manner of other information all jumbled up into the one 'signal'
3) The FM signal is split out very early in the player into its component parts via a demodulation chip - you are then left with each part in a 'proto' form that needs a hell of a lot more work before it becomes anything like video. All of the circuitry in the X0 is about taking that proto video and turning it into a crisp clean NTSC signal, it does a small truckload of processing to that original FM signal to try and recover the NTSC signal as best as possible - none of that circuitry is applicable to PAL except the output amplification stages.

So if you could reprogram the X0 to spin accurately at a different speed, and were happy to design a totally new PAL signal processing path, and then work that design into an extremely low noise design then maybe you could get something top work - but the results would most likely be worse than what you would get out of a standard PAL player.
A good part of the kilograms of bulk in the unit is the processing circutry and shielding to keep the signal paths clean - it is an incredible amount of work to try and add this level of processing circuitry without adding noise to the signal.
That is why standard home players give a picture full of video noise, it is incredibly expensive and difficult to recover the image *and* keep the signal clean.
You would be far better off taking an excellent PAL player like the 2950 or even the 925 and redesigning its circuitry to minimise noise than trying to turn the X0 into a PAL player.
I'm pretty sure I went onto more detail here on the boards in the past about how NTSC and PAL laserdisc players work, but if not I can post more info if anyone is interested.
Post
#149393
Topic
Info Wanted: has anyone tried a Star Wars Super 8mm to DVD preservation project?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/149393/action/topic#149393
Time
It is nearly impossible to find any of the 'selected scenes' releases on SUper8 that are now not pink or green due to the film stocks that were used, and the fact that almost none of them would have been stored in refridgeration.
If anyone does have any versions that still have their original colour, then they should let segaflip know - it would be great to see them get transferred.
Also keep in mind that the ones that are around tend to be the 17 or 20 minute 'highlights' versions of the film, not the full theatrical release.

Post
#149390
Topic
Help Wanted: WWII style edit of ANH - I need a title for this!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/149390/action/topic#149390
Time
Originally posted by: WESHALLPRESERVE
I just went to target and saw a 40 gig hardrive (portable!) for 180.99....I think thats what I'm going to get first.
I think I'm going to buy that DVD thing (the software that turns a CD burner into a DVD burner) if it turns out I can't burn DVD's with the computer I'm getting.
4) Load the VOB file into virtualdub, make it B&W using the inbuilt filters and save it back out in a format that Premiere (or your editor of choice) can read
Which format might that be?
!
OK, first up, don't buy that software, it isn't real, it is just divx software that compresses video so that you can fit it onto a CD, it doesn't make your CD burner into a DVD burner. A DVD burner costs about US$50 so it isn't a big investment anyway.
As for formats, the best one to use for editing is a lossless format like huffyuv or similar - which is also free (it will be .avi but uses a lossless codec)
But be aware, one movie alone will weigh in at around 80GB, hence the need for a bigger drive.

40 gig portable HD (it said it can save 10 hours of highquality video. Sound good to me...180.99 around)

You can get a 160GB drive for that money, so shop around, or you can get an external HD case and put whatever normal hard disc you want in it (you just bolt it in and connect the cable - a monkey could do it) for even less.
40GB will be nowhere near enough, you will want at least 160GB - preferably 200 or 250gb, the price difference isn't huge.


Oh! BTW at Target today, I saw a box of 3 dual-layer discs for 20.00...
Is it worth it, or should I just use single layer discs. I want to put extras on them, possibly trailers, and comparisons (jpg photos possibly)


Forget about buying DL discs yet, they will only get cheaper and you literally won't be ready to burn one for months and months yet - this stuff is not quick or easy to do. Save your money and buy them when you are finished.

Your enthusiasm is to be admired, but don't get too far down the track before you start - get a PC and a big hard disc and get the DVD ripped down to a small low rez version first that is small and easy to work with. Focus on getting the story to work, work out your dialogue etc. lonf before you start doing any real work or worrying about DL discs, or trailers or extras or buying equipmet or any of that stuff.
Go over to www.doom9.org and join the forums and do a lot of reading - I wouldn't post anything there other than an introduction until you have read and learned a bit more, but everything you need to know about video and editing is over there, so sart absorbing away.

You can get a student version of premiere and AE, but adobe has 30day free trials from memory, so download those and make sure you can get your head around them before you shell out your cash. Maybe grab the "Adobe Premier classroom in a book" from your local bookshop.
And good luck! It is a lot of fun and a lot of hard work but can be very rewarding.
Post
#149336
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/149336/action/topic#149336
Time
It is a preservation project first and foremost, so it will be preserved with all the original glitches intact whether people like 'em or not, so future generations can see what state of the art was back in '77.

But for my personal viewing pleasure, I will be making a glitch free version with all the little things that bug me fixed up so that I can watch it again without being thrown out of the movie when a glitch hits. So yeah, for mine it will be matte line fixes, garbage matte removal, sabre fixes, film jumps removed, tracked and stabilised where possible etc. etc.
Basically to get the movie how it would have been in 77 if they had endless time and money to finish it off, but certainly not with any special edition style additions.

But that is after the preservation is done and perfect, and is really just me.
Post
#148940
Topic
Help Wanted: WWII style edit of ANH - I need a title for this!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/148940/action/topic#148940
Time
As for a title, just make it a sequel...

World War 3 - This time it's Imperial

Seriously though, a title is hard - Galaxy Wars makes me think of all the money I put through that machine in the arcades, but then again, I'm old...


How about making it an alternate history type deal, with the Germans winning World war 2, and then taking over the galaxy from there?
You would need much more eloquent wording for the crawl than this but....


Defeating the allies in WWII, in victory Germany conquered the rest of the world.

Still hungry for Empire, the early V2 program evolved into immense war machines, and from these spaceships they colonised and ruled the galaxy.
With an iron fist, they maintained a relative peace for Millennia.
During this time, resistance to the evil empire remained.

It is now a period of civil war.

French rebels, striking from a hidden base have won their first victory against the evil German Empire. etc.




You could keep most of the rest of the crawl as is from that point onwards - no need to put a specific date on it.

Obviously my wording is hideous and long winded, but if you could come up with a way to keep most of the crawl intact, yet totally change the feel, that could be cool.

As for a real title - I really can't think of anything - Space Nazis Must Die?

Perhaps just keep the German title?

Post
#148938
Topic
Help Wanted: WWII style edit of ANH - I need a title for this!
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/148938/action/topic#148938
Time
If you are new to this then try and standardise on one video editing package,one post package and just learn it - otherwise you will end up going nuts playing around with 100 bits of software.

If you are running a PC then probably just use premiere and after effects as you won't outgrow them in a hurry, and there are plenty of plugins available for doing filmgrain, B&W effects etc.

Some advice that you can take or ignore

1) Rip it to B&W as a first step, it will save you a truckload of disc space - you can keep the original on disc if you want to tint it later etc.
2) Try and storyboard/script out your idea to get a rough feel for how it will work (you can do this while waiting for your gear)
3) Next do a really rough cut edit - don't add any effects in or play with stuff to much, just get your edit of the story down, and lay your subtitles in to see if the story works - stay in this stage till you get something that hums.
4) Only then start to dub in the audio, play with effects/transitions/fun stuff.

As for the process, you will need lots of hard disc space, make sure you format using NTFS and then an easy set of steps would probably be.

1) Download DVDShrink - it is free
2) Use it to reauthor the DVD disc to just rip the movie itself, leaving all the extras and stuff behind. It is a three click process - very easy, and rip it down to a single vob file by unticking the 'split' option.
3) Download virtualdubmod or virtualdub and avisynth - it is also free.
4) Load the VOB file into virtualdub, make it B&W using the inbuilt filters and save it back out in a format that Premiere (or your editor of choice) can read. You may want to add timecode at this point to make your life easier later on and save out a timecoded version to use as reference.
5) Start doing your edit

It is a fun idea, do you intend just having the German and French voices there for atmosphere but have the subtitles tell a totally different story?
Post
#148935
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/148935/action/topic#148935
Time
Just on the Mcintosh, it was a nice unit, very high build quality, but the composite output wasn't up to the standard of even the Pioneer S9. Had really nice audio though, and had AC3 output as standard.
They were selling in 1999 for just $1,500 new, and turn up on Audiogon/videogon from time to time at around the US$1000 mark. Like this one last year. http://audioweb.com/Ad/AdInfo.asp?adid=148842
Post
#148930
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/148930/action/topic#148930
Time
There is some news, anyone who has signed up for the newsletter wil be getting it very shortly - we have been working our arses off trying to get everything bedded down so the real work can begin. You wouldn't believe the amount of groundwork that has gone into this so far.

I've been concentrating on the 'jaggies' issue over the last few weeks, while part of it is the low resolution - it mostly turns out to be a problem with field movement during the telecine process as far as I can tell, upscaling the video to a point where we can do sub-pixel horizontal adjustment between the fields almost eliminates it completely once it is adjusted and scaled to anamorphic. Even when scaled back for letterbox the effect is greatly reduced.
The other thing I am now very happy with is the almost total lack of noise in the image - we are really only left with the film grain to contend with now that we have got our processes sorted - there is no real video noise to speak of, but this is definately not at the expense of detail.

Unfortunately I have been *very* sick of late, as well as moving house which has slowed us down a little, but there has been an explosion of activity and we are making real progress now.
Zion is busy converting all of what we have been doing into something more coherent than my ramblings to share with you all via the website and newsletter.

We are just proofreading it all now and resizig pics etc. so you will see some real news very shortly.
Post
#138915
Topic
.: Citizen's NTSC DVD / PAL DVD / XviD project :. (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/138915/action/topic#138915
Time
Originally posted by: Citizen
Thanks I'll check it out. The 10 dual layers I bought are Ridisc because I use their single layer ones and haven't have a problem with them, my problems burning the dual layers has been down to old software and dirt on the lens. I'd use Verbatim if I were rich, but no job means I have to be careful what I spend my money on.

I'm watching the dual layer NTSC disc on my 28" widescreen right now and you can really see where those extra bits went, the picture far outshines the single layer version DVDShrink did of it.


Well, that isn't really a fair comparison, DVDShrink transcodes rather than re-encodes, which works OK for making a 'barely dual layer' disc into a single layer one (e.g. compression at 85% of original size or so) but any more compression than that and it starts to fall apart.

To get a real compare of the dual vs single layer, you would need to encode to single layer in the first place - the results will be very different to taking a full DL disc and dvdshrinking it. At the least if the DL disc is the only 'master' you have, use something like DVDRebuilder with CCE and re-encode to single layer and you will get a better result on a 'full' DL disc being compressed down to SL and it isn't much harder to use than DVDShrink.

Post
#138910
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/138910/action/topic#138910
Time
Originally posted by: oojason
Strewth! Best find another team to win back the Ashes, mate


(sorry - could not resist)


Ahh, that's alright, it's in our constitution to let you blokes have it back once every 18 years or so

Seriously though, we were well and truly outplayed, haven't enjoyed a test series so much in ages - even if we did lose.
Post
#138688
Topic
.: Citizen's NTSC DVD / PAL DVD / XviD project :. (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/138688/action/topic#138688
Time
Yeah pretty much like VHS but a lot more stable, but you still are in the purely analogue domain with the picture, and even slight differences in the ouput components is enough to make it unusable. Even between the same models of players you can get a difference enough to cause a mess.
You can align it all, or adjust your players to get a match if you want to put the time in.
Post
#138455
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/138455/action/topic#138455
Time
Yeah, 172800 frames for a 2hr movie, so if you managed to manually scan 1 frame each and every minute and save it out to disk, and then move the film ready to scan the next frame, then it will only take 2880 hours to capture the entire movie in via a flatbed scanner or SLR with slide attachment, which is only 360 days if you did it for 8hrs a day every day. So you could knock it over in a year, and still get 5 days off.
Then all you would have to do is load each frame and register them (to negate any rotation or position movement because of how you laid it on the scanner) and then join them into a movie, and then start on dust and scratch removal etc.
So it just needs some time and dedication.
Post
#138305
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/138305/action/topic#138305
Time
It all depends on the film stock. A good, low grain Super8 film stock can deliver 720P without trouble if it is an anamorphic print. A good 16mm anamorphic print exceeds 1080P as long as it isn't on high speed stock, and both will have more colour than can be represented on DVD.

You would need to find a 'collectors print' that has only been shown a few dozen times or less. If it is on decent stock, then fading won't be much of an issue, but most of them are on Eastman stock and are nice and pink, or nice and green by now. Not to mention battered to hell.