Moth3r

Yes, it was Laserman who came up with the GOUT acronym. I certainly support having some form of memorial in recognition of his contributions to this site.

I do have a real name for him, but it's pretty common. After some searching I believe I've found the website for his brother, who has also worked in visual effects.

Trying to think of suitable words to make contact, without sounding like a stalker...

Jambe Davdar said:

Thanks for your messages of support.

I've just checked my DVD copy of SWB. I have several generations and it seems that all but the one I sent out to you guys is fine as far as sync is concerned.

Ouch.

When life calms down a little I will go back and rectify.

You could make an alternative audio track available to download, with DIY fixing instructions, rather then sending out more discs.

In fact I think Ady does this with every DVD he releases... ;-)

Not nearly as scary as the photo that appeared on your buzzlegoose interview.

Sorry to hear about your recent difficulties, JD. However the FHM interview sounds interesting, how did that come about?

Jambe Davdar said:

Moth3r said:

I forgot to mention - I noticed the audio (the movie audio) went slightly out-of-sync in places. Did anyone else notice this or was it just me? 

Are you talking about the PAL DVD version?

Yes, the PAL DVD. It's only slight but noticeable; I think it started to drift halfway through. Like Ady, I thought it was my player to begin with, but I tested it on the PC and that was out as well.

Also, what's the deal with everyone's faces appearing on their avatars? Maybe I'll do the same.

Check out the rogue's gallery here:
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Putting-a-face-to-the-name/topic/12543/

I assume it's NTSC, since the final output resolution is 720 x 480.

No need to compare the waveform, just listen to the first few bars of the Star Wars theme. Try also comparing the PAL GOUT and you'll hear the speed up immediately.

hairy_hen said:

If there is a Dynamic Range Compression setting in the encoder, I'd recommend disabling it,

I think this is what the "Compression Preset: None" is for.

However, I'm not sure about the 90 degree phase shift setting.  This probably also is intended for optimal downmixing, but I don't know what effect if any it has on normal 5.1 playback.

You need to leave the 90° phase shift enabled - this is to ensure that the 5.1 can be downmixed into 2-channel Dolby Surround.

I have the Dolby Digital Professional Encoding Guidelines, a PDF downloaded from Dolby Lab's website, which has useful information and good explanations for this stuff.

I would also recommend you disable the three filters in the pre-processing tab. They are designed to make the source easier to compress and, in theory, they shouldn't have any audible effect. However your source has already been compressed to AC3 once, and I don't think that running it through these filters again will have any benefit.

LeeThorogood said:

 

Moth3r said:
hairy_hen's post about pitch correction vs. simple speedup made me wonder. I discovered that the 1995 UK VHS releases had pitch-corrected audio. The "coffret" laserdisc set has English audio; is this the same corrected audio track in digital form?

I can't remember whether the French audio on the individual LD releases had speed up or not. Never really paid much attention to the French track.

The GOUT Region 2 PAL discs have sped-up audio.

How could I find out if the Coffret audio has been pitch corrected or not?

 

Those people with "perfect pitch" can tell just by listening to the sped-up PAL version that the title music is in the wrong key.

However us "mere mortals" - unless we're accustomed to the NTSC speed - normally need another reference. The difference in pitch is easy to hear if you compare it side by side to the music at the correct speed, for example from a soundtrack CD or an NTSC version of the audio.

I forgot to mention - I noticed the audio (the movie audio) went slightly out-of-sync in places. Did anyone else notice this or was it just me? 

hairy_hen's post about pitch correction vs. simple speedup made me wonder. I discovered that the 1995 UK VHS releases had pitch-corrected audio. The "coffret" laserdisc set has English audio; is this the same corrected audio track in digital form?

I can't remember whether the French audio on the individual LD releases had speed up or not. Never really paid much attention to the French track.

The GOUT Region 2 PAL discs have sped-up audio.

No; 5.1 audio could only be put on NTSC laserdiscs.

The PAL laserdiscs of the SE have 2.0 Dolby Surround audio.

Edit: @Lee, yes that's the option you want to use.

Just reload the page (or shift+refresh, depending on the browser you're using).

You're younger than I imagined.

I'm curious to know if SmoothCurve() would be of any use. With a bit of number crunching, you could generate Y, U and V curves to adjust the GOUT colouring to match a different reference. The big question then is what would these curves do to the rest of the film?

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Putting-a-face-to-the-name/topic/12543/

So I thought I'd take a closer look at the old WOW! montage, originally created for the THX WOW laserdisc and later included (in anamorphic widescreen) on the THX Ultimate Demo Disc (previously discussed here).

Check out this comparison for starters:

^ WOW!

^ GOUT

Two things are very clear: 1) the GOUT image is so desaturated it looks almost greyscale, and 2) the GOUT white levels are severely clipped - compare the overhead lights and the corresponding blob on the luma graph to the right.

More to come when I get a chance.

brash_stryker said:

So...where are all the chicks?

There are no chicks on teh innernets.

Instead they use something called teh facebook, apparently.

Finally managed to finish off watching this a few days ago.

(I typed that, then went looking and found this post of mine from 4 years ago - history repeating itself!)

I have to say that SWB is a fantasticallyy compelling watch. I think the reason that it has attracted so much more internet attention than BE and RtJ is that there is just so much more rare behind-the-scenes stuff out there for the original Star Wars. (What other film could spark a debate about the voice of a character who only appears in 2 scenes?)

I think your choice of commentaries is faultless. I'm normally indifferent to audio commentaries on DVD and rarely listen to them, but I loved the audio clips on SWB. Mark Hamill's stuff about mating ladybugs and comparing himself to a plump juicy raisin is wonderful, and - as he says - "that's the sort of thing you don't normally hear about in a making-of documentary".

It's also intersting to hear the respect that the cast had for Alec Guinness, and Guinness's admiration of George Lucas. After constantly reading Lucas-bashing posts on this site, it's refreshing to hear his early speeches about his struggle to get the film made, and to find yourself actually liking the guy.

If you ever consider doing a V3, there are a couple of improvements I would suggest:
 - I found that the speech balloons on the Chief Bast scene move around too much to be legible
 - it sounds like you used a lower-quality recording of the mono mix, instead of the restored version I sent you way back at the start of the project (maybe you lost it in the hard drive crash? I'll gladly send it you again).

One final question...
What do we have to do to convince you to take on that Raiders project you hinted at? ;-)

The "Other Fan Projects" is meant to cover projects such as de-specializing efforts, fan-made documentaries and miscellaneous stuff like split-screen DVDs. I've never been 100% happy with the forum titles and descriptions, so feel free to come up with some suitable text.

The fan edit discussion forum comes first because back in 2007, after the petition had fulfilled its purpose, that's the way the site looked to be heading (check out Jay's 2007 news item on the front page). I agree that the focus has now shifted back to the originals, although adywan brings in a lot of traffic to the fan edit forum. I'm not sure if the listing order is particularly significant, and with people being used to the current order, there is potential cause of confusion if they are moved around now.

The forum for fan edits of films other than Star Wars is relatively quieter these days, probably because of fanedit.org.

muddyknees2000 said:

If I started out looking like myself in here, does that mean I should change my avatar to someone I'm not? ;)

You could try taking your hat off and looking at the camera.

adywan said:

doubleofive said:

 

I don't know if I'm less scared of him now that I think he's closer to my age, or more scared. He's certainly less scary than whatever old leprous guy he had a while ago.

I think he's even scarier now i know what he really looks like....

A few days ago I clicked to a site that had interviewed Jambe Davdar about Star Wars Begins. If we're talking scary, you should check out that photo...

Harmy said:

doubleofive said:

Harmy said:

I'm not sure whether that's a compliment or an insult, so I choose to take it as a compliment ;-D

I just like that picture, though it is a bit out of date, I've got a bit of a beard situation going on now :-)

I'm not really a badass at all though, smartass, maybe, but not a badass :-D

Compliment, definitely. It may be the cigarette, or the sideburns. You look like you could kick my ass.

He he, I'm probably the most peaceful person I know :-) I've never been in a fight in my life, I always talked myself out of it :-)

For some reason I always thought that was John Lennon (without the glasses) in your avatar.

^ Bingowings     ^ Troy from Benidorm

doubleofive said:

 

Sluggo said:

BloodnoseThePirate said:

So, ... how long are we supposed to leave our avatars like this?

I think I'm switching back next week.

But this is fun while this lasts.

A week sounds good.

 

Longer, I reckon, since it took me a while to find a picture of me looking suitably old and grumpy.

Then we should vote on the next avatar "theme". 

I lol'd at "ouch".

But then I thought, WTF is this thread doing in General Star Wars Discussion? ;-)

Uncompressed = no compression, huge files.

Lagarith = lossless compression, identical in quality, but smaller files (guessing around 60-80GB).

zombie84 said:

Puggo speaks the truth. No one is going to return anything. How many of us did in 2004? Anyone at all? And we are about as extremist as there is.

In 2006:

Laserman said:

I bought the PAL GOUT of ANH, and after taking a look at it posted it to George along with a letter stating my disappointment at how the PAL territories have been treated with this release. (Didn't mention the whole laserdisc thing, just that a PAL upscale from an NTSC master was an unaccetably cheap way to treat fans when a PAL master existed.)

(Although, he did apparently order the NTSC release later.)