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Laserman

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11-May-2004
Last activity
6-Sep-2007
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903

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Post
#115245
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/115245/action/topic#115245
Time
And it is a reluctant favour at that, so he won't be producing multiple copies or anything by any stretch of the imagine.
Anyhow, we have it sorted out.

What would be really helpful at the moment is if someone could find a service manual for a Pioneer CLD-2950, I'm having trouble tracking one down.

I'll be watching ANH on the 3.6m wide screen tonight (approx 12ft wide) to look for errors and dropouts and so forth, I might post a pic of the big screen image if anyone is interested...
Post
#115219
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/115219/action/topic#115219
Time
It's not a matter that he has the capture and needs to copy it onto multiple drives, it is that he is doing another capture for us as a favour, and anyone who has done their own capture knows how much hassle capturing from laserdisc in the first place is, especially uncompressed and multiple sides.
Anyway, we are sorting it out, no need for concern

On other matters, I am loading ANH back onto my drives tomorrow, so hopefully we will get some screenshots up not long after.

BTW, did anyone here go to C3?
Post
#114917
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/114917/action/topic#114917
Time
Thanks for the compare - the dvd version is obviously a lot cleaner, and has more details in some areas that I was unhappy with on my capture (like the white area on Leia's forearm).

But this is just the capture, no tweaking as yet, and while the DVD is way too saturated and way to red, the raw X0 capture will benefit from a colour grade, as it is off towards green on the original laserdisc. We can't put detail in that just isn't on the laserdisc, but we can get it looking better than the original laserdisc.
For example a quick sharpen, and a slight move away from green gives you a totally different feel to the picture:
http://www.mudgee.net/quickjob.jpg
Now it is over sharpened, and the colour is way off to the red end, a simple push in another direction and it will look completely different again, so you see what I mean - the raw capture is no indication of what the final result may be like.

I will have to take a look at the original film in this case to see where the colour really should be, and how sharp the image should be, as there are no obvious neutral points in the scene.
Post
#114842
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/114842/action/topic#114842
Time
Yeah, we were discussing the merits of resizing the entire film frame to fit inside the TV safe frame - a different thing, and something I already decided against.

But on the anamorphic side of things, I have to say...

Harsh but true Karyudo!

The point most people miss when discussing anamorphic vs letterbox is this.
If you have a widescreen TV or HDTV then your TV or DVD player has to try and zoom and rescale the letterbox image *in real time* using its internal electronics.
This leaves you at the mercy of whatever quick and dirty resizing algorithm your particular brand of TV/player uses.

The idea of us taking a letterboxed original and scaling it up to anamorphic is that we can do it using much better (and much slower) algorithms than your widescreen TV does. We don't need it to be realtime, so we can use the best processes available to do the scaling, even if they take an ice age to render.
There is no extra 'real' information in the resultant anamorphic transfer of course, but it will look a hell of a lot better on a widescreen TV, as it is no longer doing the zoom/upscale process with its 'on the fly' inbuilt scaler.

Obviously if you have a standard definition 4:3 display (i.e. an old telly) then a straight letterbox transfer is going to be the optimal solution for you.
Post
#114808
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/114808/action/topic#114808
Time
It's just my cropping for the stills.
As far as framing goes, the final images will have all the information that is on the laserdisc, some of the images on our site or captures shown here will vary greatly in framing, zoom level and so on.
This is because I am at this stage literally doing a braindump of experiments as I go along, these aren't final images by any stretch of the imagination.
Sometimes you might just get a small part of an image if that is what I am working on at the time.
That is also why the images are from Jedi this week, it is what happens to be on my drive at the moment. (I only have room for one film at a time).
So you will see square pictures, 16:9 pictures, chunks of pictures, full frame pictures and all sorts of things along the way. There is no official DVD compare shots from me, except in the tutorials for the purpose of education - someone else threw up the dvd image last time. (I don't have the NTSC DVDs, only the Australian PAL set.)

On the subject of missing information one thing to keep in mind is if you are watching DVDs on a TV, (unless you have adjusted you set to show a full frame) you will only be seeing the "safe frame" area, and will be missing a large amount of picture off the left and right of the screen.
At one stage I considered the idea of moving the entire picture into the safe frame of the screen, but the loss in resolution makes it an unpalatable option.

As for anamorphic, I am defiantely going to do some animorphic tests once the archiving of the letterboxed laserdiscs is bedded down.
I understand that sometimes it is better to have resized the source to animorphic as well as is possible - as some displays mess up a letterbox source.
Post
#113937
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/113937/action/topic#113937
Time
My wife calls in the Ox-Oh project, and took great delight in editing one of my images to have the OXO stock cubes logo on it.
*sigh*

I think and say X-Zero, but it I say and think Double Oh Seven. Hmmmmm.
You may have noticed from some of my posts that I am dyslexic, so if I start calling it the 0X project, promise you guys won't beat me up.

People can call it what they like...

Well actually , they can call it anything except a 'Special Edition'
*shudder*
Post
#112944
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/112944/action/topic#112944
Time
Well, a TBC is really mainly required for VHS/SVHS and so on, most laserdisc players have a competent TBC (Time Base Corrector) built in.
I'm not sure what is available at the budget end of the spectrum. I remember building one when I was a kid (though it was a line TBC, that newfangled frame stuff didn't exist then)

A lot of TBCs out there can mess with the video in different ways, so it pays to do your research and decide what features you want.
A TBC won't fix problems recording into the tape, but it really makes it a lot easier to get a rock solid capture every time.
I'd go over to doom9 or somewhere similar and ask guys what they are using and why.
Post
#112924
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/112924/action/topic#112924
Time
On the whole CAV vs CLV thing, I think people have some real misconceptions about this stuff. Let me know if you guys want an in depth treatment, and I'll write one for the site, but some little points.
The quality difference is not all that great, part of the reason is that CLV is doing away with 'non-image' data, and so the reduction in space required on the disc, is not directly related to the quality reduction (i.e. taking up half the space does not equate to being half the quality).
CAV discs spin at a constant speed (RPM) , CLV changes the RPMs as the disc plays. On CAV discs you get one frame per rotation, on CLV discs between 1 and 3 frames (CAV is 1800RPM, which is 30 revs per second - NTSC is 30 fps, so that equates to 1 frame per revolution -that is why PAL and NTSC discs rotate at different speeds.PAL 25fps = 25 revs per second = 1500RPM)

CAV has a better average signal to noise ratio than CLV, around 2db better. CAV and CLV have the same SN ratio at the start of the disc, but CAV's s/n improves as you get towards the end of the disc where you get up to 2.6 times the amount of space for the pits and lands to take up.
Having to constantly change the RPMs on a big heavy disc is hard to do, so you do get TBC problems on CLV discs, especially if your player doesn't have a decent TBC built in. This manifests itself in colour problems and poor vertical edge stability. (Just like VHS - if you haven't got a TBC and you live in NTSC land, get one, you will be amazed how much better your VHS library will look.)
Other weirdnesses, errors on CAV encoded discs show up as a solid pixel or a horizontal line of pixels, CLV errors tend to have the pixels 'move' across the screen.

The main difference in consumer land is navigation - i.e. unless you have a LD player with a good digital frame store, you can't freeze frame or fast forward at multiple speeds, or jump to a frame etc.

In practice, on a good player, there is not a huge difference between CLV and CAV, often the transfer itself makes more of a difference, but with the same transfer, the CAV definately gives a better picture overall, but on some frames may be identical to the CLV version.
Post
#112909
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/112909/action/topic#112909
Time
Yanksno1,
I'd love to put a progress bar in place, but really you will have to read the articles and news, and make up your own mind how close to finished we are.
It is relatively early days yet, just marking up the timeline with any video errors, parts to recapture, gltiches to check (are they on the laserdisc or on the film or a problem with the capture etc.) means literally scrolling through the movie a frame at a time. A two hour movie has over one hundred and seventy thousand frames.
The problem with this project is that we want to get it right from the ground up, so a lot of time it means having to backtrack. Also, we want to document the whole process and share it with you all, so we are effectively doing a 'making of' at the same time. We spent most of the last few weeks writing articles, creating the images and so forth for that side of things.

The size of the files also makes it a lot of fun. By the time you have a lossless 80GB movie, and then six or seven versions of it on your drive because you want to check various issues, you end up having to constantly move things around, and nothing happens quickly because of the size of the files.

We have discovered more than I ever wanted t know about the nitty gritty of the various versions of the films - I've gotta say I was shocked by the colour cast issues on the official DVD, I wasn't expecting it to be quite so 'Revenge of the Smurf'.

SO where are we at?
Well, if this was a feature project, I'd say that we were in pre-production right now.
Post
#112907
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/112907/action/topic#112907
Time
Moth3r,
The NTSC image on that other thread is massively oversharpened. If it is a straight capture then either his LD player or his capture system has a nasty sharpening filter applying itself, you only have to zoom in on 3PO, or anywhere really to see the sharpening artifacts. This image is chock full of false detail. (So it looks sharper, but actually hold less 'real' information that the softer PAL image. Sharpen the PAL image to the same extent, and it looks more detailed)

This is contributing in a big way to the edge jaggies.
Just grab that image, and the 'soften tool' in photoshop (the water drop) and run it over the green grid, and suddenly it looks a lot like the PAL version.
If you get the jaggies, then use a vblur (vertical blur) filter along with a matte to fix the problem areas, and/or turn off all sharpening.
The X0 capture isn't nearly as jaggie, I had a look at home last night, I'll post an image once I free up some disc space. it definately looks a lot better out of the X0, but slightly jaggier than the PAL image on a raw capture (but a lot less noisy).
Having said that, NTSC always struggles with lines just off the horizontal in particular - especially in high contrast areas like this grid.
It is a combination of the lower resolution and the lower bandwidth of NTSC vs PAL.
Post
#112692
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/112692/action/topic#112692
Time
We are generally talking NTSC-M on the site, as that is what the final output onto a DVD for North America would be, but I should have been more specific. PAL and NTSC-J both go from IRE0 to IRE 100 on the analogue scale, which kind of equates to 0,0,0 to 235,235,235 on the digital scale, whereas NTSC-M goes from IRE7.5 to IRE100 on the analogue scale, which kind of equates to 16,16,16 to 235,235,235 on the digital scale.
255,255,255 roughly equates to IRE 109 from memory, and is clamped back to IRE100 in most broadcast systems. anything about 235 is considered 'Super White'.
We will be getting into a detailed article on what to do about the IRE7.5 vs IRE 0 situation, and what really happens and where (i.e. inside the various codecs and editing systems) as it is not always what you expect, and you can end up with video stepped up to IRE7.5 more than once resulting in an awful picture.)

Being a PAL man myself, my personal version will defiantely be in PAL, and we will have a whole discussion of the different systems down the track.
Post
#112556
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/112556/action/topic#112556
Time
I'm baa-aack!

Wow, I've got to say, it is really great to be back here, I literally haven't logged on in months, but I *have* been busy (although probably not as busy as the rest of the guys on the team!)

As you old timers know, I left here mainly because it had ceased to be a fun place to be, but after spending the last few hours reading all the threads, that is obviously no longer the case. The support, and spirit here is fantastic again. It has the village feel that I truly love.
I definately wouldn't have made it back here, and the project would have been lost if not for all the hard work that the members of the X0 team have put in! (My wife is happy that the other guys are sharing the expenditure as well!)

Aaaanyway, I'll try and answer some of your questions about the X0 project, a lot of it is probably answered on the www.x0project.com site, so have a read there first.

Hoichi, no we are not there yet with the 'clean' master. You will see our progress on the site.
At the moment, we have an almost complete, much cleaner master than has existed outside of Lucasfilm, and it is in lossless compression, all 80GB of it!
There is still a heap of work to do, stabilising, analysing the colour, looking frame by frame for dropouts/glitches and so on. We have been in a massive research phase for the last few months, (especially after deciding HD was a must back in February), gathering sources, experimenting with the latest advances in upsampling/resizing, doing colour analysis, noise tests, timecoding all footage to a common base and more.

As I've said before, my personal aim is to get a 'better than original laserdisc' master together for projects to be based on. It takes a lot of time (because I'm anal), but now that we have a real team together, you will see progress.

Davidian, 235,235,235 is pure white as far as NTSC video legal colours go. You are right that 8bit RGB can represent 0 - 255, but many colour combinations fall outside the SMPTE C colour field and are considered illegal (and are clipped when broadcast).

To answer a whole bunch of other questions in a single waffle, personally I see the clean master as purely a first step: total restoration is my ultimate goal.
With access to a real print to compare against, I'd like to see a slew of versions - a purely archival 'purist' one that gets as close to the original as possible, (which means it must be in hidef) and keeps all of the flaws of the originals, if for nothing other than historical reasons - i.e. this is what a cutting edge film looked like in 1976.
I'd then like to have a de-gltiched version, with fixed sabres, fixed colours and fixed glitches (like the 'jump' where the whole frame moves when a lightsabre turns on). No new effects or anything, just the errors removed so I can watch it and get lost in it like I did when I was a kid. (as I said, just a personal thing)

As for the project itself, the clean master is a necessary first step before we can move on, and we are going to take you on the journey with us!
I've read that some people are abandoning their own projects... Don't!!
Making it is half the fun, and stuff you discover and share with others is really valuable, I've had more than a decade in the film industry, and I still discover stuff here that is simply amazing, and I've been blown away by what people have managed to do.
Also, we will as much as possible, be showing you step by step *in detail* one way of making your own version of the OT. You can follow along and try it yourself whether you are coming from Laserdisc, VHS, super8, so keep those versions coming, and thanks so much for all the feedback!



Post
#99006
Topic
“Re-Making Magic DVD” (My Little Project on the CD-ROM “Making Magic”)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/99006/action/topic#99006
Time
Sounds cool, and will be worth a look for everyone that can't get it to run.
In general, with a lot of old software you may need to put a shortcut on the desktop and set the 'compatability' where you can effectively tell XP to run the software as if it was running under Windows 95. This often gets 'broken' software to work.

The beauty is we can finally run the CD-Rom on the telly now!
Post
#97970
Topic
Letterboxed Widescreen vs. Anamorphic Widescreen Discussion
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/97970/action/topic#97970
Time
You know what, a professionally scaled image does look better than the source.
If any of you live near a really high end AV store, go check out a terranex scaler. We ran laserdisc through a terranex and the results are absolutely mindblowing.

Also, if you have a fixed panel display, (like plasma, LCD, projectors and so on) having an image scaled professionally to a 1:1 pixel match for your display looks much much much better than the job the crummy internal scaler in your fixed pixel display does.

If you took the time to do it offline with the latest technology and then play *that* rsult back - you wet your pants.

Now the argument goes that you can't get back information that isn't there in the first place, but sometimes you can.
If you have a sine wave that has been samples at a low bitrate, you get a blocky representation of a sine wave. If it was audio, it won't sound like the original.

If you take that blocky sinewave, and convert it to splines projected through it, and sample that at a really high bitrate you will end up with a smooth exact match for the original sine wave and it will sound just like the original.

With video it is a lot harder, but some new algorithms presented at Siggraph last year do an absolutely amazing job, and if you have a HD device, a pro scaled image definately looks a LOT better than feeding it 480i or 480P from your DVD player (unless you own a terranex)
Post
#97960
Topic
Video Editing: Where Do I Start?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/97960/action/topic#97960
Time
If you have no money, then get a cheap PC and then download and instal ubuntu linux (it is very easy and automated and doesn't fill you HD with crap you don't need) from here: http://www.ubuntulinux.org/

then get cinelerra from here:
http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3
also free.

Virtual dub from doom9.org (You can run it under windows or under linux using WINE..here http://www.winehq.com/) or
http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/ which is a virtual clone of virtualdub for linux.
both are free

You can use GIMP for stills editing, it is much like photoshop and is entirely free and is installed by ubuntu automagically.

Don't be scared. Ubuntu looks a lot like Windows except doesn't crash. I have literally NEVER had Ubuntu or Debian crash, and I have been using debian for 10 years - not one system crash - ever.

So no more excuses people about the money required to get into this stuff, ALL of the above is 100% free and doesn't need a beastmaster PC to run.
Post
#97803
Topic
StarWarsLegacy.com - The Official Thread
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/97803/action/topic#97803
Time
Even if you had a complete print, and got it scanned at full rez, that is around one hundred and 80 thousand frames (180,000 frames) that need to be captured one frame at a time (it's automated, but still one at a time), and a cineon 10bit cinemascope frame at full resolution is about 40+MB in size, so around 7000 gigabytes of storage for the film. (or if you come in at low rez, around 1500 GB for the film).
The you have to fix the damn thing.

No surviving prints have the correct colour anymore, and we aren't likely to get access to the three strip masters anytime soon.
So even if you went to the massive effort, did a wetgate or infrared transfer. and then a two way anamorphic adjustment, you would be left with a massive cleanup operation, colour adjustments and so on.
Not the sort of thing one person is likely to do and then release to the masses for free only to get their arse chewed off by lucasfilm at the end of it.

You gotta remember that most prints of ANH are now over 25 years old, and have been through lord knows how many projectors. All the ones on Eastman stock are now a happy shade of pink to boot.

So no, I can't imagine you will be seeing a direct film transfer available anytime soon from an individual. It would take a dedicated team with a lot of money,time, resources and Death Star sized balls.