SilverWook

The only real barometer is what they go for on ebay, (when one actually shows up) and the prices from one of the few LD vendors who specialize in selling them.

http://home.q03.itscom.net/nsa/PioneerHLD-X9.htm

This is the same fellow who sold me the Japanese THX-1138 laserdisc. I inquired about possibly getting my hands on an X0, and sticker shock ensued. ;)

As John Barry recently passed away, I was scared for a moment when I saw this thread!

One last transfer to complete things, (the U.S. disc on the LD-V4400) and I should finally be finished this weekend. I don't really like the way the 704 transfers look, but the more we have to work with the better.

I confess I'm burning out a bit from watching the movie so many times in a row, and really want to get back to preserving some other discs in my collection. (Not to mention the S-VHS tapes I have left to do!) Might start a thread about another preservation idea tonight

msycamore, could you PM your address to me again just to be on the safe side?

I also looked at the DC DVD again, and I think using everything from the WB/Kinney logo all the way through the opening credits is a good idea. The Buck Rogers clip looks way better, and the "Tragedy on Saturn" title card is actually readable before the fade out.

Baronlando said:

How is this different from these things that you could get for 2 bucks at the mall:

 

 

 

I loved these, especially the Star Trek ones. Oddly enough,  there never was a SW version until just a few years ago. Only came out in Japan though.

http://mytwoyenworth.blogspot.com/2007/05/cine-manga-magic-as-promised-heres.html

DTS discs of SW and ROTJ were loaned out to an old member of this forum several years ago, to be "experimented with" by an undisclosed third party and nothing ever came of it.

The discs were returned scratched up, much to the owner's dismay.

Marvel Comics did it first. ;)

Finishing up the U.S. LD capture on the 704 as we speak. (Same settings as before.) Side 2 was a bit tricky, as modern players start playing back from where the timecode tells them to. This also tends to chop off the famous Laserdisc logos that often open each side of older titles.

Older players start from the absolute beginning of a side, which gives you more seconds of "black" signal to start recording.

Side 2 comes up much faster on the U.S. disc, so there may be a split second of the player jumping back to the start of the chapter as I hit the record button. Kind of annoying, but nobody at Pioneer was anticipating backing up these things to digital media. ;)

I think the Japanese disc is going to be the bulk of whatever the end product will be though.

msycamore said:

Thanks for posting that, SilverWook. Haven't seen this in decades myself. :) Was there ever other ones made for the real Director's Cut? (very fitting title Btw) I've only seen this LUH-mylar, it would have been natural to make other variations, with the character of THX on it for example.

The auction also states it's an Advance poster, any ideas?

No idea. All I really could remember was the text touting this as being from the guy who made Star Wars.

Interesting it was re-rated PG when the 2004 reissue got a R. How times have changed!

Doing the 704 transfer of the Japanese LD tonight. VNR is turned off, and going through composite cables into the DVD recorder.

Just spotted this on Ebay, the poster for the real Director's Cut! Haven't seen this one in decades!

http://cgi.ebay.com/THX-1138-Advance-Foil-One-sheet-movie-poster-RARE-/220733580747?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3364bf25cb

Just out of curiosity, does he come with a a pair of unclenched hands?

My old Hasbro talking Vader probably isn't 100% accurate, but it's nice to pop the helmet off once in a while and see Sebastian Shaw under there, eyebrows intact. ;)

Kind of too bad Hasbro threw in the towel on their 12 inch line. They were finally redoing some characters better the second time around. Gumby Chewie lives on in my nightmares though.

I'm curious about the scenes some people claim to have seen added for tv.

Apparently when Lily first attempts to call for help from the secret lab, she ends up speaking with her Edith Ann character!

If only someone could figure out how to decode the theatrical DTS discs of the SE's that are floating around...

The laserdisc database will have such information.

http://www.lddb.com/

I actually encountered something similar during a trip to South America in the early '80's. All the U.S. tv shows were dubbed into Portuguese. Some cartoons I saw you could still hear the original voices very faintly.

My theory is that in some instances they don't have a clean music and effects track to work with, and the English voices are being filtered out.

I also discovered that Scrappy Doo is an annoying character in any language. ;)

The studios used to do all sorts of weird things to avoid even letterboxing opening/closing credits at times. Some films had their credits totally redone with video generated titles for example.

I have a really old Laserdisc of The Black Hole that is squeezed for the entire film! (Ernest Borgnine was never so thin!) You can actually unsqueeze this and it looks good on a 16:9 television, although still cropped a bit.

Of course later there were the "squeeze" LD's that mostly came out in Japan, that gave your lonely 1990's widescreen set something interesting to do. If only there was a squeeze LD of THX in existence.

This listing on the LDDB is bit unusual. It's supposed to be the tv cut, has an isolated score track, and letterboxed to 1:85.

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/27928/K88L-5036/Halloween-%281978%29

1981 seems a little early for widescreen LD's, even in Japan.

I don't have the Indy DVD's, but it sounds like Spielberg and company have changed their tune about TOD since the original making of doc aired on PBS around 1984. He certainly had no qualms about it being darker at the time!

About the only thing he was squeamish about back then was the sacraficial victim being lowered into the lava. ILM's puppet stunt double writhed in agony a little too well in the dailies, and Steven had them obscure most of the effect with added flames.

It's sad that documentary will probably never see an official video release.

Sorry for any confusion. I'd have to dig out the Criterion to check, but I'm pretty sure it's only has the tv footage as extensions, it's still the R rated version when it goes back to letterbox.

This site claims the tv cut was released accidentally on video cassette in 1989 and 1990.

http://www.angelfire.com/film/jc-halloween/distribution-halloween.html

If a new video master of the film has been done, the chances are good it could end up part of Warner's made on demand DVD program eventually.

Isn't the Anchor Bay extended edition the tv cut in widescreen?

The Aluminum Falcon said:

I'm pretty sure that someone here has a TV version of The Thing. It's a pretty well known TV edit. The TV edit for Halloween was released on laserdisc if I remember correctly, and the new scenes were reinserted in the Extended Edition DVD. Although, I'm not sure about the others; however, someone may have a copy.

The tv cut was on the Criterion Laserdisc. Sort of. The full frame tv scenes were included on the CAV version, the theatrical cut proper being letterboxed.

Criterion only had access to a tv broadcast master tape. The actual extended film footage was thought to be lost at the time, IIRC.

You literally had to program your LD player to play those scenes where they go into the film, and repeat the process for each side! I did it at least once back in the day. Darn kids and their seamless branching DVD's have it so easy today. ;)

What I recall about the tv cut of The Thing is the really superfluous narration by Donald Moffat, (or a sound alike?) and the scene tacked onto the ending. (Which destroys any ambiguity about whether they've stopped the alien or not.) Is the scene Starlog magazine once printed a photo of reinstated? Kurt Russel's character was playing an electronic chess game, (in reality a dressed up Apple II) and having a conversation with a blow up doll.

I'm surprised Carpenter didn't ask to have his name removed from this version the way David Lynch invoked an alias for the extended tv cut of Dune. A preservation would be nice either way.

There are a few standards. They have to put a disclaimer in front of a movie if it's been colorized, pan and scanned, time compressed or altered in any other way. (IIRC, we have have the lobbying efforts of guys like Martin Scorsese to thank for that.) So, being upfront about what version of a film you're getting isn't as unreasonable as it sounds.

Problem is, Lucas is really the only one pulling this particular shell game.

Leonardo seems to be hanging out at the bridge of death these days. ;)

I tried a 704 transfer this weekend with the VNR full blast, and it was like the GOUT, only with bald people. Once I saw the scenes that really suffered with it on, I tried turning it down in increments, and still saw smearing and other unpleasant side effects.

Odd that the 704's VNR seems so detrimental now, as the noise reduction on my Panasonic AG-1980 is so darn useful with mildly noisy cable tv recordings I've made over the years. Maybe they are two different beasts under the hood, with regards to how they work.  Leaving the 704 settings "off" is the best option. With the idiosyncrasies all three players have at different parts of the discs, transfers from all of them will give us the best shot at a good looking final product.

erri_wan, "Activate quartz-controlled frequency synthesizer" sounds more natural to me, even if the Italian dubbers were pulling it out of thin air.  The closer to what's being said the better.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19001_17-images-that-will-ruin-your-childhood.html