Consider the older ADVC100. Most of them have an undocumented feature that enables you to bypass macrovision copy protection.
retartedted said:
So Jedi next, right? :)
Holy Ewok, one thing at a time!
notadroid said:
Has anyone tried getting prints of the films?
For 16mm/8mm, see the links in my .sig, and related threads in the preservation section.
For 35mm/70mm, that's complicated.
The Aluminum Falcon said:
Are you thinking of artificially adding noise to the stereo to make it sound like it actually came with the print?
No. I only would do that sort of thing if I were patching a missing chunk to fill a gap in the print soundtrack. But I will definitely keep the film soundtrack... I'm guessing that having the original audible thumps that coincide with film wobbles could make it the preferred option for many viewers!
Erikstormtrooper said:
Can you tell us more about the alternate audio track?
Jaxxon's idea. Since there was never a mono mix for ESB, there probably isn't anything inherently special about the optical audio track on the 16mm film (although I certainly will include it anyways). He suggested grabbing a stereo track from a CAV ESB laserdisc.
Leonardo said:
"Puggo Wars : The Slobber Strikes Back!"
"George Strikes Out" was tempting :)
Video Collector said:
Puggo! A big thank you to Jaxxon and yourself for doing this. (I'll bet Jaxxon has a Jedi print also, right? I wouldn't be surprised.)
Already got a line on a couple of Jedi prints.
The way you handle the aspect ratio is not "cheating" by any means. I believe the results will be much better if you adjust the aspect ratio in software, rather than introducing another optical step into the transfer process. Better to let your camera capture the frame unsqueezed, which will leave you with more resolution to work with later.
Well, I consider it cheating because in theory the best approach would be to use a scope lens, and capture the complete image in full widescreen resolution. Unfortunately, camcorders don't do that.
My assumption is that this print is also cropped at the bottom?
I haven't checked that yet, but yes it is a safe assumption.
I fully understand not going to HD for this, but would you please consider making a DVD9 version available? I'm sure many forum members would gladly forward some blanks.
That I would consider. Speaking of which, I never tried making a full bitrate version of the PG to see if that would make a difference... it wouldn't be hard to test. I'll have to get back to you on that.
Nobody is going to return the set because it's messed up. The people out there crazy enough to buy it are also the people who, if they even see anything that seems wrong, will assume that the the movies must always have been that way. Only a tiny percentage of people (yet) even know there is an issue. I have a friend who works at Skywalker Sound, and when I asked him his opinion about Lucas not releasing the OOT, he honestly wasn't even aware of the topic.
That’s right, this thread is for discussion of my telecine transfer of a 16mm widescreen (“scope”) print of the Empire Strikes Back. Unless someone comes up with a better name, I plan to call this edition “Puggo Strikes Back”. I have already started work on it this past weekend. As was the case for the Puggo Grande, I expect this to take a while to finish – at least a few months. But I will post regular updates and screencaps here and on my website as work proceeds.
I have added a PSB page to my website (see link in my .sig). There isn’t much on it yet.
The print I am currently transferring was provided by Jaxxon, the same individual who provided the prints used for the Puggo Grande and for the Stjarnornas Krig. I’ll leave it up to him if he still wishes to remain anonymous.
The quality of this print is excellent - better than the prints used for the PG. Color on all three reels is <span style=“text-decoration: underline;”>superb</span>. There are some scratches at the beginnings and the ends of each reel, but the middles are pretty clean. Reel three will require some slight repair at the very start. The print is marked “1980”, and appears genuine to me.
As was the case for the PG, I will be using a WorkPrinter-16 to transfer the video. For those of you unfamiliar with the PG or the Workprinter, it is a very clever machine manufactured by Roger Evans of MovieStuff (www.moviestuff.tv), that enables frame-by-frame capture. It is a slow process, though, as the Workprinter runs at about 6fps, or about one quarter speed. I cheat on the scope, adjusting the aspect ratio in post and then setting the anamorphic flag to fake scope projection (same as I did for the PG). I also will use the pulldown flag rather than doing pulldown in post. The final product will be SD, DVD-5. I am still using the Sony TRV900 camera that I used for the PG.
No I can’t afford to do an HD capture. And no, pointing an HD camera at the WorkPrinter doesn’t work.
I am using a different projector to grab the audio than I did for the PG… this time an ELMO 16CL (for the PG I used an Eiki). Synching the sound with the workprinter capture is always painstaking, as the slightest variations in speed on the elmo make it lose sync quickly. It has to be stretched and shrunk by hand scene by scene.
Jaxxon and I have discussed the possibility of providing an alternate stereo audio track.
Here is what I have done so far:
As with the Puggo Grande, I expect to make two or three passes through each reel at various exposure settings, and combine scenes from various takes depending on which settings look the best from which takes. It is a tedious process because the Workprinter is SO slow. The multiple passes are necessary because film has a wider frequency range than video, so one setting rarely works across an entire reel.
As always, I will warn everyone that captures like this will be loaded with scratches, dirt, grunge, dropouts, lint, wobbles, dust, furballs, speckles, heavy grain, lousy cropping, and assorted mouse droppings. It cannot compete even with a stabilized GOUT, much less a despecialized HD multi-layer blu-ray megadisc. However, much to my surprise, some of you honestly seemed to enjoy watching the Puggo Grande, and early indications are that this edition will be noticeably better. For one thing, this looks like it will have deep, rich color saturation throughout… which will make it a whole lot more fun for me to work on! No wrestling with red-shift – yay!!
Er, that's not really related to the question either. The OP was describing a bug in the Vegas timeline that shows up sometimes when rendering. Lagarith is a codec... the bug described would occur regardless of the codec used.
Pagz said:
It seems that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, as when I render out my video files I'm often finding frames that I cut reappearing in the final video. It's like the render is inserting the single frame after a cut before moving on to the next scene.
That happens to me sometimes too, and I don't know why. But I have found that if I zoom in to the cut, and move frame by frame across it, I see such bugs in the preview window and can fix them before rendering. I have made it a habit to do that on everything I do in Vegas before rendering. The easiest way I've found to fix it is to move the next clip up to another track and then one frame to the left, to "cover up" the errant frame.
There's another bug I have encountered with Vegas that only comes up rarely, but it is extremely annoying when it happens.... sometimes when I resize or trim a clip, it completely messes up the rest of the clip by replacing some of the frames with duplicates of nearby frames. The result is the video becoming very jerky. I haven't found a fix for that one... usually I have to delete the clip and reinsert it. I could see it happening if I stretch a clip, but it shouldn't happen just from trimming or resizing.
Vegas also renders some title font sizes very poorly... I'm guessing they probably fixed that one in a later version (I need to upgrade).
red5-626 said:
Here is what we need
35/16mm 24fps film digitizer flashscan 2k HD telecine
http://cgi.ebay.com/35-16mm-24fps-film-digitizer-flashscan-2k-HD-telecine-/270624097095?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f02740347
Any one have $17,000.00
Yeah, check out the guy's feedback.
zombie84 said:
There is no non-GOUT original crawl, except the virtual Editdroid one that pales in comparison.
And the Puggo Grande, if I understand your statement correctly (and which also pales in comparison).
Re: the cinescope 8mm... is anyone here planning to bid on it?
There is a difference between releasing something on a DVD, and showing it on saturday morning cartoons.
Something will.
Thanks!!!
A comment and a question:
Actually, that does look different than the ones I did. The digests I did weren't scope. If nobody bids on it, I might.
Aak, of course it was:
"The force is dead. Long Live the midichlorians."
Best post at the bottom of the poll:
"The force is dead. Love live the midichlorians."
Strange as it may sound, I actually could see myself buying only the prequels. Why? Because it pains me to spend more money on yet another screwed-up version of the OT when I can get a more original version online. And, although the PT is laughably bad, if I wanted a copy I might opt for the blu-ray just for the effects. As far as the PT being screwed up and revised too, I don't really care about that. If Lucas wants to mess with the PT, I'm not sure I'd notice.
The irony is, if I really bought it for this reason, Lucas will just conclude that I bought it because I prefer it (statistically, I mean).
I'd start with DarkJedi's stabilized GOUT.
The Aluminum Falcon said:
*spits out drink* WAIT?! When did you announce this? A partner to the Puggo Grande would be so awesome! Long live, ESB Grande!
Did I say that? Oops, sorry :)
Hey, what happened to vbangle?