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Moth3r

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Join date
26-Oct-2004
Last activity
16-Jul-2017
Posts
4,892

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Post
#116091
Topic
Info: Quantity vs Quality Discussion on OT preservation projects
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/116091/action/topic#116091
Time
I tend to agree with none. For distribution, there's no point in encoding a cap from a VHS source to DVD res at 720x480 @ 8000kbps. It's a waste of bandwidth. CVD res of 352x480 @ 2500kbps is adequate and much more efficient, and has the added advantage that it is DVD compliant so can be moved to DVDR later if desired without re-encoding.

For archival purposes, i.e. keeping a digital master for preservation purposes, then I would suggest DV format which is lessy lossy than MPEG-2.
Post
#116032
Topic
.: Citizen's NTSC DVD / PAL DVD / XviD project :. (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/116032/action/topic#116032
Time
I downloaded the MPEG. The starfields look nice, better than any of the DVDs made from the NTSC laserdiscs.

Altough I haven't done ROTJ yet, I can make some general comparisons: altough your version has more picture noise and is less sharp, it looks more natural, i.e. perhaps I was a little heavy on the processing for my versions.

So - well done!

(That scene on Dr Gonzo's DVD is when I first realised how bad 3:2 pulldown can be in terms of motion judder).
Post
#115662
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/115662/action/topic#115662
Time
Originally posted by: Mavimao
Moth3r: PAL, in theory, is in many ways superior to NTSC. In fact, the only downside to it (IMO) is that films are sped up 4% from 24FPS to 25FPS which causes a pitch change (which I personally find annoying, but only when songs are being played). It'd be very easy to make an NTSC DVD with an anamorphic picture from the PAL laserdiscs.
Originally posted by: Mavimao
PAL has more resolution than NTSC...
More lines, yes. But if the initial telecine transfer was filtered to the same extent as the NTSC discs (filtering is done to remove flicker on interlaced displays) then the extra resolution does not necessarily imply extra detail. This is unknown #1.

Originally posted by: Mavimao
The first post in this thread was by Laserman and in it, he posted some pictures to show how clean the X0 NTSC signal was compared to the PAL (captured from a 925, which, according to him, is the best PAL player around). Just from those posts, you see that the NTSC, despite its flaws, has a much better picture. In this case, practicality outweighs theory.

Go see for yourself: http://www.mudgee.net/ot/
That PAL capture was done by Karyudo, not Laserman. I don't believe it's conclusive. The artefacts in the PAL screenshot are a result of the outdated comb filter inside the D925, which cannot be bypassed even when using the composite out. The 2950 may or may not use it's internal comb filter when using the composite out - no one has been able to answer that yet. If it doesn't, then capturing from the composite with a PDI deluxe that contains a modern motion adaptive comb filter could yield better results. This is unknown #2.

I know I keep harping on about this, and I'm sorry if I'm wrong (I'm no video expert) but I strongly believe it's something that should be explored. (See the comments in my project thread for V2.0).
Post
#115631
Topic
.: The X0 Project Discussion Thread :. (* unfinished project *)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/115631/action/topic#115631
Time
Originally posted by: Laserman... we know how to get the best capture we can, and what gear to use...
OK, there's a big question in my mind, which I believe you may have already researched.

The X0 is clearly the supreme player, but it can only play NTSC discs. There are some reports here that the PAL discs offer better quality, however I don't think this is a proven fact yet.

So which combination gives the best overall result:
X0 + DC/Faces discs (the supreme player with lesser quality (?) transfers), or
2950 + French/German discs (respectable player with better quality (?) transfers)
Post
#114534
Topic
.: Moth3r's PAL DVD project :.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/114534/action/topic#114534
Time
The main part of my filter chain looks like this:
1. DeScratch - to detect and blur out the occasional "line drop".
2. PixieDust - a combined spatial/temporal noise reduction filter with motion tracking.
3. LimitedSharpern - sharpens and resizes to anamorpic in one function.

Citizen, I'm interested in this loss of detail you are seeing. The motion tracking in the filter should be reducing the amount of temporal filtering on areas of the screen in motion. Obviously there will always be some motion blur, as that is the nature of film. Could you perhaps post a shot of your 5x averaged video for comparison?
Post
#113770
Topic
.: Citizen's NTSC DVD / PAL DVD / XviD project :. (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/113770/action/topic#113770
Time
Whereas my version is red-shifted, your colour looks more natural (although maybe slightly yellow?)

There are also less "artefacts" at colour boundaries; I assume this is because the comb filter inside the Canopus is better than the 3-line digital comb filter in the D925.

My version is however a lot sharper, but I can't tell how much is real detail and how much is "perceived" sharpness.
Post
#113692
Topic
.: Moth3r's PAL DVD project :.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/113692/action/topic#113692
Time
Well spotted Garrett! I've just confirmed this is an issue with my disc. In answer to your questions s7en, no it wasn't intentional, and I would address it if I knew why it happened...

Let me explain for those you are wondering what we're talking about. In the picture setup menu of your DVD player, there are three picture options: 4:3 P&S, 4:3 L/B and 16:9.

The 16:9 option is for people who have widescreen TVs (or standard TVs with a 16:9 mode). With this setting, an anamorphic picture is sent to the TV unaltered.

In 4:3 L/B mode, when playing a DVD that contains video flagged as 16:9 anamorphic (which my DVD is, correctly AFAIK) then the player downsamples the picture and adds black bars top and bottom. You see the full widescreen image in a letterboxed format.

4:3 P&S mode is for those people who don't like black bars. The theory is, the video stream should contain vectors which tell the player which area of the full 16:9 image should be displayed; the image parts to the left and right of this area are not displayed and you end up with a fullscreen image. (Eugh!)
However, this theory is rarely implemented, if at all, on retail DVDs, because it's extra work to generate the P&S vectors, and because there are doubts over player compatibility. Normally if your player is set to 4:3 P&S, you get a 4:3 L/B image regardless.

On my DVD it's a different story. In 4:3 P&S mode, the player dutifully slices off the sides of the screen, and displays a sort-of fullscreen picture (there are still black bars because of the difference between 2.35:1 and 16:9). Since I never set any P&S vectors, the displayed area just constantly sits in the centre of the picture, which means that any important action near the edge of the screen is missed.

I don't think it's worth patching the current DVD; although what's being observed is unusual (and unintentional), it is really the correct behaviour. And if you have your player set to 4:3 P&S mode, then well, you deserve everything you get...

But for future releases, how do I get the behaviour observed on retail DVDs, that is, the picture is always presented as letterboxed?

There's a checkbox to create a pan&scan video stream in CCE, but I'm pretty sure I left it unchecked when I did the encoding. Maybe it has something to do with the authoring.
Post
#113453
Topic
.: Moth3r's PAL DVD project :.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/113453/action/topic#113453
Time
You may be able to create an NTFS partition on your existing drive without losing any data, and use a third party tool for Win98 to allow you to write to this partition, but you'll have to take advice from someone else more knowledgable than me.

I see Metallaxis has been getting some stick for uploading the DVD in this format - but it was me who suggested he do it this way. The usual convention for uploading DVDs is an IMG file packaged as a number of RAR files, a sample VOB to download first to check quality, an NFO file and an SFV file to check integrity of the RAR archive. Metallaxis had deleted his RAR files, but still had the original disc image as an IMG file.

IMG files in my opinion are much more suitable than a VIDEO_TS folder (as long as you are not running an outdated OS, that is). With DVDDecrypter installed, burning an IMG file is a simple 1-click process. You don't get jokers who burn the VIDEO_TS folder as a data DVD then wonder why the disc doesn't work in some standalone players. The disc you get is exactly the same as the disc I have here. It also means it's more difficult (not much) for someone to remove the "Not For Sale" warning I tacked on to the beginning of the disc.
Post
#113422
Topic
Info Wanted: a question concerning a 1992 vhs boxset of the trilogy
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/113422/action/topic#113422
Time
The info at davisdvd.com (where the picture is hotlinked from) says it is widescreen.

By widescreen they mean letterboxed w/s, I don't know of any retail VHS which are anamorphic w/s.

Anamorphic VHS is possible, e.g. if you record a 16:9 broadcast off digital cable/satellite TV, I think there's a widescreen signal in one of the video lines in the overscan area of the picture. One of my VCRs will even autoswitch a TV to 16:9 mode when playing back a recording of a 16:9 programme - a feature my DVD recorder is sadly lacking!
Post
#113052
Topic
STAR WARS: the alt.binaries.starwars thread
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/113052/action/topic#113052
Time
Originally posted by: Metallaxis
Unfortunatelly, in order to have good newsgroup service to get your job done, you have to pay for a newsgroup server.
Not necessarily; the usenet service provided by my ISP (ntl) is quite good. OK so retention times are lower than a premium paid service, and the high-traffic groups are not available, but it "gets the job done" for me!
Post
#113013
Topic
.: Moth3r's PAL DVD project :.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/113013/action/topic#113013
Time
OK, here's an update on TESB:

Rectified the colour saturation issue. I had used the same capture settings for each side, so I don't know how side 3 came to look so de-saturated but 1, 2 and 4 were OK. Anyway, I've checked frames containing red lights with a vectorscope tool to ensure a uniform level of saturation that doesn't clip. As before, I've left the hue dead centre. If you're used to the Dr Gonzo version you may feel like turning the colour up, but I'd suggest, if your display is properly calibrated, my version is a more accurate representation of how the laserdisc is supposed to look.

Watching the new encode, the video is as good as the ANH disc, generally it's lovely to watch - the halos and a bit of dot crawl are still there but not noticeable on my 28" w/s CRT TV. And this time there are no missing sections in the side changes!

I did notice some dropped lines that hadn't been caught by the filter. There's now a new version of DeScratch which means that I can tune the detection more accurately; after a bit more tweaking, I checked 5 frames known to have line drops and they've all been fixed.

Another issue I noticed; remember the blocks occaisionaly caused as a side effect of the noise reduction filter? (Look carefully at the ANH disc, in the smoke left behind after Greedo buys the farm.) I didn't hear of anyone noticing the blocks in ANH, but in one scene in TESB the effect is quite bad. So I've now added in a block-blurring filter, just over these few affected frames.

Here we go then for the final 48-hour processing/encoding session...
Post
#113009
Topic
Idea: Working & Releasing the Audiotracks separately?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/113009/action/topic#113009
Time
@Trooperman: I meant that I hadn't much experience with the OGM container format.

@Citizen: If you register a torrent to a particular tracker, the owners of that tracker would expect you to upload it to their site. Also, uploading the torrent file somewhere else is against the rules at most sites. Having said that, I remembered that Azureus has a tracker feature built in, so if you have a static IP there's nothing to stop you running a tracker on your own PC; the bandwidth overhead should only be minimal with just a few users. That might be an idea for distribution.
Post
#112814
Topic
Idea: Working & Releasing the Audiotracks separately?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/112814/action/topic#112814
Time
Originally posted by: R2D2
AVI-FILE (shall be compressed with zip/rar when released)
Good idea to have video included in the package, but there's no point in compressing it. The video will already be compressed with XviD or whatever, and audio doesn't compress well with the Rar or Zip algorithms. Why not compress the audio as lossless FLAC, then I believe you can mux with the video into the OGM container. Not that I've had much experience of using this format, but it's an idea.

I don't think this is the type of file that would be welcome on myspleen, you need to find someone kind enough (and with enough bandwidth) to run an FTP.