LeeThorogood

Adywan thanks for posting the comment about the audio sync its nice to know I did something right. ;) What did you think to the video quality considering the source was LaserDisc? Furthermore how does everyone else feel about authoring these as DL DVDs being too much?

I would be more then happy to have another bash at syncing the 5.1 audio and release an audio fix like what Adywan did for his theatrical TPM DVD if someone could point me in the direction of a good guide on how to sync the 5.1 audio properly. :)

Adywan thanks for checking out my release. :) dark_jedi is correct I used DarthEditous' AC3 rips from the NTSC LaserDiscs that Jetrell Fo supplied me with.

I'm sorry to hear that there are problems with the audio! To be honest audio is not really my thing I am much more of a video guy, it also doesn't help that I don't have a 5.1 set-up. I hope to get some Dolby certified 5.1 headphones in the future but for now its just not in the budget. :(

If I remember correctly the method I used to get these to sync, which is not perfect, well in fact its probably terrible and is not the one I would use knowing what I do now, was:

1. Open each AC3 file in Apple Compressor and export as a 5.1 LPCM audio only quicktime .mov using Compressor's built in retime function to go from 23.976 to 25fps duration, from what I read online Compressor's retime function is suppose to correct/compensate for the pitch shift.

2. In Final Cut Pro I had already edited together my LaserDisc captures (video & audio) so I knew the stereo (Dolby Surround) audio was in sync to the video.

3. To get the audio to sync I added 6 extra audio tracks to the timeline of each film, and imported the 5.1 LPCM .mov files I had created earlier.

4. As dark_jedi mentioned they didn't sync properly so I turned on the audio waveforms so I could see what I was doing and then using the centre channel of the 5.1 and the stereo from the LaserDiscs I lined up the start of the audio and then moved along to the end and adjusted the playback speed of the 5.1 audio in Final Cut Pro as necessary to get the ends to line up, I then scrubbed through checking the waveforms to make sure they didn't go wildly out of sync between start and finish.

5. Once I had done one audio segment I just repeated the process for the others as there was 3 for each film. With the 5.1 audio sync'd I removed the LD stereo audio from the timeline leaving just the 6 5.1 tracks in the order L,R,C,LFE,Ls,Rs

6. With the audio sync'd I sent the timelines to Compressor and used that to export the M2V and Dolby 5.1 AC3 files to author the DVDs.

The reason I never did an NTSC version of the '97SE LaserDiscs was because no matter what I did when I exported the M2V and AC3 files for NTSC the audio and video would not match up. :(

Some more comparison shots using the latest colour grade, this time they are screenshots that show the histogram and vector-scope as well as actual frame.

Chewtobacca said:

LeeThorogood said: 
I agree the ideal way to go would be colour correcting scene by scene, I've said this all along but at the same time I have my reasons for not doing it this way. :)

Lee, could you use a best fit setting for the film and tweak just the scenes where this setting results in undesired side effects e.g. the green on Artoo's stripes?  This way you could avoid having to correct the whole film scene-by-scene but still solve problems a best fit setting might cause.  Just a thought!

LexX said:

I think you can never get a satisfying result for the whole film with one settings. It needs color correction scene by scene.

Thanks for all the feedback! :D

I do wish everyone would make up their minds you ask for more contrast and I give you more contrast and then you complain the hallways are too bright geeze! :P

Only kidding, I have fixed the overly bright hallways, and I have pulled back on the saturation ever so slightly. R2D2 having a greenish/yellowish glow around his blue stripes seems to be an unintended side effect of a correction I have in place for the Death Star walls. As this is an overall correction rather than a scene by scene correction there is not a lot I can do about it.

Thanks Chewtobbacca :)

I rendered out a lossless AVI of the first VTS over night. Here are some comparison shots using this AVI and my latest colour grade. Sorry about the small size this is the default size color exports stills at.
















Let me know what you think :)

I think I have settled on using the following code to produce a frame size of 2048 x 1152.

########## anti-alias & upscale
NNEDI2(dh=true, field=0)
NNEDI2(dh=false,field=1)
NNEDI3(dh=true).TurnLeft
NNEDI3(dh=true)
NNEDI3(dh=true).TurnRight

########## resize to 16x9 AR, remove sides, add borders
Spline16Resize(2090,940).Crop(24,32,-18,-32,align=true).AddBorders(0,138,0,138)

G-Forces Stabilisation Script said:
########## anti-alias
NNEDI2(dh=true, field=0)
NNEDI2(dh=false,field=1)

Thanks for all the advice hairy_hen! :D I had always planned to optimise the way I did the up-scaling but for now just needed something quick that would allow me to run my colour tests. :)

dark_jedi I don't know how much you plan to mess with G-Forces script but if its any help I found the anti-aliasing section of the script isn't as effective if done after up-scaling but then as this section of the script increases the vertical resolution by 1.5 I guess it would make sense to incorporate it into the up-scaling process.

dark_jedi said:
The resize, crop, addborders, is your final DVD resolution, are you sure you place that code after that line, this should be before your final sizing, not after, at least they way I am thinking, I thought you want to blow up the image, do all your shit to it, then bring it all back down, if that line is after, then you are doing all your shit to it, bringing to DVD resolution, then blowing it up.

dark_jedi said:

LeeThorogood said:


it was suggested in another <a href="http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/GOUT-V3-Star-Wars-Trilogy-Info/post/477883/#TopicPost477883" target="_blank" title="originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/GOUT-V3-Star-Wars-Trilogy-Info/post/477883/#TopicPost477883">thread</a> that the end result might look better if I upscale the GOUT to 2x Anamorphic PAL resolution first then apply the colour grading after which I can scale back down to Anamorphic PAL resolution.

Can you show a sample of where you placed and how you placed this in g-force's script, this double or triple upscaling before filtering?

Hoorah! uploading has finally finished! :D I hope you all enjoy my two LaserDisc preservations! :)

It looks like Star Wars may take a little longer then I previously indicated. It's my fault I keep on playing and tweaking and I keep on finding ways to improve the results but of course every time I make a change it means re-rendering, re-encoding, re-authoring and re-watching the film which all takes time. ;)

I have just finished making a new round of tweaks to the colour grade which I think is about as good as its going to get. The contrast/saturation is much improved compared to the screenshots I posted. That said I am not done yet, it was suggested in another thread that the end result might look better if I upscale the GOUT to 2x Anamorphic PAL resolution first then apply the colour grading after which I can scale back down to Anamorphic PAL resolution.

I'll run some tests tomorrow and go from there. :)

dark_jedi said:

LeeThorogood said:

Great work on the upscaling dark_jedi! I know you are only playing around/testing things at the moment but I am curious if you know roughly how long it would take to upscale the whole film using the latest method? One last question on the latest sample is that still just the raw GOUT upscaled or have you now moved onto upscaling the V3?

it would take about 6 hours for 720p and about 10 hours for 1080p, times 3 obviously for all movies give or take an hour or two.

Great work on the upscaling dark_jedi! I know you are only playing around/testing things at the moment but I am curious if you know roughly how long it would take to upscale the whole film using the latest method? One last question on the latest sample is that still just the raw GOUT upscaled or have you now moved onto upscaling the V3?

I knew there must be some good reason why I never particularly liked the Jabba scenes in ROTJ! LOL

Isn't that Bucky O'Hare in the picture? LOL

So I was fiddling about while I was waiting for things to encode and what have you today and I thought I would share some of my findings. :)

First of all is saturation, now I know some here would have me boost this more then I already have, and believe me I would love to, however to keep everything broadcast legal as it were I can't not without crushing/clipping areas of high saturation i.e. the red light/LED behind Greedo in the Cantina. What I mean by crushing/clipping is that the red light would go from looking like a light bulb where you can see the glowing filament inside the main glass bulb to one big bright red mass with no detail to it.

Next is contrast, once again some here would have me boost this more then I already have, and once again I would love to, however the problem is that the GOUT has inconsistent blacks which can vary as much as 10 IRE between one scene and the next. An example of this would be if you were to adjust the black point on a waveform monitor in the scene where Vader and his pal walk down the Tantive hallway so that the bottom of the Luma wave is just touching the baseline (0 IRE for PAL) and then take the same setting and apply it to the "I find you're lack of faith disturbing" scene you would find the blacks in this second scene are being crushed with the bottom of the Luma wave at about -10 IRE. The white point on the other hand is fairly stable throughout but then this doesn't surprise me because the GOUT suffers from clipped whites. :(

Knowing this the way I see it there are two options, push things as far as you can until these secondary problems become apparent or push things to the desired levels and accept/put up with the secondary problems as a by product. Neither situation is ideal but thenI suppose you have to play the cards your dealt. ;)

I don't know if they ever release these kinds of figures but it would be interesting to know how many 'casual' fans buy one of the blu-ray sets, watch them, discover how fucked up they are and return them. After all these sets aren't exactly cheap.

I would have to laugh at LFL so hard if on the first day of release they see massively impressive sales as predicted, and some news outlets get a comment from LFL about how great the set is selling and it just shows how people aren't bothered about the theatrical versions yada yada yada and then a few days later the sets start to get returned on mass because people realise just how full of shit LFL and this set really are!

As a fan of the Original and 1997 SE versions of the OT I have no interest in a blu-ray version of the 2004 release which I actively dislike. If Lucas wants me to splash out on a blu-ray set of Star Wars then he needs to do a Star Wars Theatrical Edition Blu-Ray set containing the '77 '80 & '83 theatrical releases and the 1997 theatrical releases. If I had these I would be a very happy camper! :)

The Aluminum Falcon said:

Wow! That was fast, Lee! From your screenshots, this looks like an awesome project. Are you planning to upload to newsgroups?

Thanks Video Collector!

I should hopefully have Star Wars finished in a day or two, I am rendering out the final colour correction overnight tonight. :)

Nearly there now, THX ESB is up at a.b.sw that just leaves ROTJ which I hope to have up by the end of the week. :)

Cool idea dark_jedi I wish you the best of luck with this!

As for uprezing how about using a combination of the NNEDI2 command from G-Forces script and Spline 16 on your V3 lossless AVI? :)

Erikstormtrooper said:

Mike Verta is very private about everything he does. I doubt his work will ever see the light of day. The projects here that tried to coordinate with him suddenly went silent. 

"The standard definition restoration of Star Wars was indeed completed, long ago. I just never got around to updating the site." Thanks! So you have possibly the holy grail of Star Wars preservations, but it slipped your mind to mention it? I don't know Mike personally, but this is pretty insensitive.

The fact that he has the DVD version completed, but is sitting on it, is more depressing than if he'd never done it in the first place.