Spaced Ranger

Excellent! I hope you'll post samples (stills) along with details of the capture process, equipment, etc. It would be awesome to compare the various procedures for their outcomes (for those of us who would like to eventually do such tasks). In fact, posting a raw capture screenshot compared to the finished capture process would be very helpful, too.

Posting the same shots (and additional examples) of other posters would greatly help in that regard. Perhaps the DVDBeaver review 2001: A Space Odyssey (with multiple releases highlighted including, of course, the Blu-ray) ..
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReview/2001.htm
.. might suggest particular screenshots to demonstrate the strengths of the 2001:ASO Criterion Collection laserdisc.

Now you, too, can Serve And Protect ... Omm.  "Buy now and be happy."

"1/6 scale THX-1138 Motorcycle Custom Android Police Bike Rare Movie"
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-6-scale-THX-1138-Motorcycle-Custom-Android-Police-Bike-Rare-Movie-/131343791813

csd79 said:

AviSynth ... 5-capture median, manual IVTC, rainbow & dot crawl reduction, depan, partial spot removal, noise reduction, upscaling, additional chroma denoising on selected shots AfterEffects ... color tweaks, manual dirt removal on opening credits, Kinney logo

BTW, I was wondering if you'd go into more detail on the AviSynth plug-ins used -- which ones or combinations w/ settings for each fix-up type ... that sort of thing.

There doesn't seem to be any independent sharpen. Because of the de-noising and upscaling, I would think sharpening would restore any crispness lost during those fix-ups, as well as from the LD source. My wondering was because I made that HSL reconstruction mentioned earlier (which injects DVD resolution) and found that mild sharpening brought the laserdisc image noticeably closer to the DVD. Of course, I'm using a dubious-quality paint program function. But there are AviSynth sharpeners that work without introducing such new, obvious artifacts. LimitedSharpen() is a well regarded one.

                    DVD (anamorphic expanded)                                  LD (H-S) + DVD (L) = H-S-L recombination

             LD restoration (anamorphic expanded)                                            LD w/ sharpening

IRE should stand for It Ruins Everything, because even the "pros" don't know what to do with it:

at http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/201765-IRE-settings/page3
lordsmurf said:

I was recording a show this weekend, and the IRE of the cable broadcast changed THREE TIMES within the hour long block of programming. About every 2nd commercial break, it would return with a new value. These were VERY VISIBLE changes too, not slight ones you'd need a meter for.

.

Anyway, about those picture ratios ...

I was trying an HSL test (laserdisc's color Hue & Saturation with DVD's resolution Lightness) when I noticed that something was missed, which AntcuFaalb had come across with his US laserdisc captures in the other thread:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/THX-1138-preservations-Italian-Cut-available-see-1st-post/post/718431/#TopicPost718431

The short story is ... another Lucasfilm problem. Their DVD release picture-area image had been stretched by 8 scanlines -- as confirmed by a 16mm print and the US laserdisc!

                                   DVD anamorphic screen-cap -- with 8-scanline reduction overlapped

The original picture area is 720x368 after trimming away the 2 gone-grey top & bottom scanlines. But the image itself had been vertically stretched by 8 scanlines. It is actually (photographically) 720x360, as shown by the overlap.

How does this size up with the JP laserdisc project? The eyes are used as natural targets for aligning the DVD & LD frames. (I left the DVD reduction area blank and colored the DVD black-bars for a more-obvious overlap demonstration.)

               DVD anamorphic screen-cap resize -- with LD anamorphic up-rez transparently overlapped

Aside from the JP LD's different cropping, the project's image is too tall at 704x362 (not including the top & bottom black-bar segments with the 2 gone-grey scanlines).

At this finished point of the project, the actual picture image must be reduced to 704x349 to match. (It probably will be slightly different during project reconstruction. Also, for this type of release, there is no need for black-bars and they probably shouldn't be included at all.)

                    DVD anamorphic screen-cap resize -- with LD anamorphic up-rez resize overlapped

In this system, I mainly use Media Player Classic - Home Cinema, but it's an earlier version that runs on this older OS. On the few occasions when MPC-HC fails, VideoLAN's VLC media player (also an earlier version) does the job.

No need to worry ... both players displayed the video properly sized. But I was surprised to see MPC-HC's "save image" of the file's original elongated form, sans borders (standard DVD anamorphic is 720x480, with the borders). I thought you may have made needless resizings. However, I did miss the mention of "upscaling" in the description, which mislead me in what I thought you did. Technically, then, this is not a preservation. Rather, it's a restoration from a laserdisc. That was the confusal factor. Sorry.  :)

And, yeah, that whole IRE thing tends to be more theoretical with me not doing much in the way of mastering. So I took a quick refresher course:

"IRE settings"
http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/201765-IRE-settings

So how does NTSC-Japan's IRE 0-100 (0-235) fit into this laserdisc capture for NTSC-US IRE 7.5-100 (16-235)? In the capture or post-processing?

Whoa ... looking forward to those screen-caps (include the color-bars, too)! 

.

@ Oldfan

And it isn't just the blue's (or teal's ... as there's some of that in this Blu-ray, too). There's even a trend to drop the brightness level -- apparently to raise color saturation (only that's not the way to do it). In short, they are just plain incompetent. And their bosses are incompetent for keeping them on. And the studio heads are incompetent for letting them run things.    Stanley, you were right! Come back!

.

@ althor1138

Would you do something independent from PDB? Or join his with something like an AntcuFaalb-style best-average multi-source AVS-script processing? And/or working towards an all-Criterion-laserdisc-versions preservation?

.

@ captainsolo

Speaking of prints, poita once mentioned that some prints come up now-and-again. I wonder if there are any 2001 film preservations going on? It'd be very interesting to see clips from that. 

From the sample, I noticed that the image looked a little soft-contrasted. When I checked, it showed a used range of 16-235 rather than the expected 0-255.

Shouldn't the capture and/or the final file have been the full range? I know the old analog broadcasting required 16-235 for safe NTSC transimission (although JP standards allowed 0-235 for their version of NTSC), but in digital media, shouldn't it have been 0-255?

.

Also, grabbing a screenshot (no aspect ratio compensation), I noticed it looked very "thin". Normally, a raw screenshot would come out looking a little "fat".

For a flat-widescreen frame like this one, the picture area itself should've come out 720x316 (as it does on a remaining US/JP screenshot from the other THX 1138 thread). The screenshot from your sample is 704x384. When I test-resized it to 720x316, it looked proper again. Is there a resizing issue here?

Thanks for the work & posting! Nice sample clip!
(My old-version MPC-HC player didn't like the FLAC audio. VLC played it fine, though.)

I looked around the other THX 1138 thread to find the multiple laserdisc-versions compare caps (US, UK, JP):

THX 1138 preservations (Italian Cut available, see 1st post)
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/THX-1138-preservations-Italian-Cut-available-see-1st-post/topic/11741/

Most of those pictures have disappeared as a result of Imageshack's recent site revamp.

I did find a page that still had some compares ..
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/THX-1138-preservations-Italian-Cut-available-see-1st-post/topic/11741/page/31/
.. but those were showing crop-differences (US & JP as a single capture as they were cropped that same).

As I remember, the JP brightness/contrast differed slightly from the other two.

TV's Frink said:

... I thought that the way I did it here made it more obvious that Obi was listening to the song rather than it being part of the soundtrack.

 Oooooo, I love it!

To make it sound like he's listening to it, tinnify the music outside the craft and go from soft to louder as the ship approaches us. Then, give it full spectrum inside the craft until Obi-Wan cranks it normal to LOUD -- yes, that's him reaching out & dialing up the vibes! Now, loud tinnified music outside the craft, going softer as the ship moves away from us.

That should work with the movie music playing all the while (or with a slight drop during the song).

TV's Frink said:

... a fitting song for when Obi leaves the Clones in his fighter to go find Grevious.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pryJYyzoSpA ??

Just wanted to chime in ...

I made a quick survey of eBay. Neither of the two Criterion sets have a mention on the box, but color bars is listed on a CAV insert as being in the last track (fuzzy text but the blobs look right). I couldn't find an auction that listed or showed an insert for the CLV. Best to inquire where not sure.

Of course, when doing the 2001 restoration from the Blu-ray, I'd vote for the CAV as the color-base. Since a laserdisc will be captured, anyway, to assist in a restoration, all the extras of the CAV would make for the better side-result of a laserdisc preservation.  Good idea? 

Thanks for that confirmation -- and good to know about Criterion laserdiscs in general. I'm fairly new to the whole laserdisc thing but the more I hang around here, the more I see that old-technology laserdisc is indispensable!

And videotape, too!
To wit, this "New Year's Eve" TCM broadcast of 2001: A Space Odyssey, or HAL does it again:

TCM Comments on "2001: A Space Odyssey" in 2001
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGfjOZ9FRj4

According to ..

 The Big Picture: 2001 on Video (http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/brown2.html) from the O.P.:

"If you're a 2001 fan lucky enough to have a laser disc player, there are six disc versions the best of which come remarkably close to the theatrical experience. These versions are:
...

"3 & 4. CAV and CLV Criterion disc sets. CAV is 6 sides, including "specials" the CLV is 3 sides without specials. These sets both use the same transfer, done in 1988 by the Voyager companies' legendary Maria Groumbos Palazzola. ... and Palazzola has written that he required 6 runs through with changes before he [Kubrick] would approve it. The transfer was "state of the art" for 1988, with good image detail, fairly low grain and good fidelity to Kubrick's detailed color scheme."

and ..

the LaserDisc Database entries for the "1989 CAV Criterion Collection #60 [CC1160L]" http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/00997/CC1160L/2001:-A-Space-Odyssey:-Special-Edition-%281968%29 and the "1990 CLV Criterion Collection #60A [CC1235L]" http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/03062/CC1235L/2001:-A-Space-Odyssey-%281968%29 ..

.. I'd say with confidence that they are the same, Kubrick-approved source.

OR ... to put it another way ... "Yes, that's a completely reliable figure."

That would be awesome!

For a preservation of the best-color 2001, the 3-disc Criterion Collection CAV Special Edition laserdisc

can be had from eBay between $10 and $20+ (with auction history also showing under $10 wins). A state-of-the-art AntcuFaalb-style capture would be most excellent! *nudge, nudge, hint, hint*  :)

If just for the Kubrick-approved palette, the 2-disc Criterion Collection CLV budget laserdisc 

should do and it can be had for under $10.

Note that either one might require the rudimentary compensation to get it up Taschen-released-sources quality, if it doesn't actually come off the laserdisc that way (assuming both come with colorbars). Then, it should be ready for use as the full movie's color guide.

Due to the Criterion laserdisc coming from a 35mm scope source (apparently there was no equipment to do the mastering from 65mm), the resulting LD image was narrower. Therefore, my test H-S-L-mxing approach results in no color to transfer at the very edges (noticeable on the red chair, a few posts back). Short of cropping the final result, those wider edges would require color-correcting the higher definition source anyway. So just do it all that way from the start.

I tried a test color-correction to confirm that the 2001 HD release (screenshot from the DVDBeaver review, linked previously) wasn't some unholy Lucas-Lowry space graffiti. Fortunately not, for my simple histogram R-G-B manipulations corrected the spectrum nicely:

That is so wow!

Fortunately, it doesn't look like "pinkish-cream" is in 2001's future.  :)  For if I had a small fortune needed to buy the now sold-out Taschen's The Making Of 2001: A Space Odyssey, then I'd grab this page (from a $1,000+ book of over 1,000 pages, that's only $1 a page -- a bargain of Jupiter proportions!) ..

.. as our crystal-clear 2001 rosetta stone! Ooooo ... the revelation!  :O

So then, taking the Stanley Kubrick approved Criterion laserdisc screenshot and simply bumping up the brightness & saturation (as might be done for the actual capture), we get what must finally be the closest yet to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey:

  non-compensated capture

  post-cap compensation

Thanks for that confirmation, captainsolo! As StarThoughts indicated, there's so much revisionism going on that it throws everything into question.

For example, that Kubrick-on-the-set photo shows a brighter and slightly pinkish-cream color to the shot. As an experiment, I tried a color-correction-match in that direction (strictly apart from the laserdisc palette). It's appealing to wonder about this:

Has anyone bought that exhaustive (just try carrying it) & budget-killer 2001 encyclopedic reference work? (Maybe that would help.)
A closer look at Taschen's deluxe book, The Making Of 2001: A Space Odyssey
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/kubrick/30844/a-closer-look-at-taschens-deluxe-book-the-making-of-2001-a-space-odyssey

Well ... mostly accurate.  :)

As laserdisc captures are analog, a good capture should maximize the spectrum or otherwise match the on-disc colorbars (if any). This clearly was not done for this cap. I had to "normalize" (stretch) the spectrum to it's full contrast range. It also looked like the colors were weak and needed strengthening. All that would be just a post-fix for a poor capture.

So the original screenshot ..

.. is a little soft due to it's compressed range. So the range is expanded using a paint program's Histogram function. Going by numbers guarantees that there will be no crush or blowout of the spectrum. The original spectrum's graph is shown in grey and the resultant correction is overlaid in red. It brings back full contract to the image:

I knew from seeing on-set color photos of this very set (sample below) that it must also need stronger color. In the Hue/Saturation/Lightness function, the Master saturation is increased. Even then, the reddish colors needed more. Fortunately, parts of the color spectrum can be boosted without affecting other parts -- RED is further boosted:

Keeping in mind that this is guesstimate-by-eye (the paint program lacks precision feedback), it's looking much better -- as the capture itself should've looked. Then is time for looking into what is lost in laserdisc translation (?) and whether further correction based on surviving sources is warranted.

Thus far, this fix is probably very close to what Kubrick approved for use in the Criterion Collection laserdisc. It's palette is certainly more in line with the on-set (over-exposed) photo than any "blue-bathed" DVD or HD release:

I know. Analyzing all this third party info is worthy of Sherlock (the newest incarnation -- thank you, BBC, for my new hero!). But all this thread's outside links (and informed, Internet Kubrick-discussions in general) demonstrate Kubrick's meticulous dedication to his (original & finished) visions, and pragmatism only when they were outside of his control (studios, theaters). And this last, authoritative Kubrick Questions Finally Answered (previously linked) definitively settles the "aspect ratio" question ... as well as surrounding issues, regarding Kubrick himself.

So, now, a 2001 preservation needs the director's original color. It also needs the highest resolution presentable on our useful formats (DVD, HD). I excitedly made this H-S-L  test, combining the Hue and Saturation of the Criterion laserdisc image and the Lightness of the 2001-released DVD image (from the DVDBeaver 2001 comparative review, previously linked), just to see what it might look like. (That DVD-version image was used before discovering Kubrick's involvement with it was a false or exaggerated report.) It was an easy matter to use the paint program functions of Split HSL get the break-downs and Combine HSL to put together the desired parts, to accomplish this task:

Oooo, pretty! But more important ... finally accurate.

Finally I was able to get a screenshot of the legendary Criterion CAV 3-disc Laserdisc set (1989) ..

.. that was reported by LaserDisc Database as "This transfer was supervised and corrected by Stanley Kubrick himself" (verifiable on eBay when it's contents statement-sheet is shown close-up for reading). Note that this Criterion Collection release was made when MGM controlled the rights to 2001.

A few years later, MGM released the CAV 3-disc 25th Anniversary Laserdisc set (1993). I'm still looking to get a screenshot of that one, but it was described as being from the original 65mm film, via film-to-tape, with shot-by-shot color correction (to "fix" problems like too dim to be seen stars, and brightness variations) but not in complete accord with Kubrick's color scheme.

[missing 1993 LD screenshot]

More years later, MGM released a DVD in 1998 that I expect was from that same transfer & correction of the 25th Anniversary LD. That laserdisc should then look like this DVD:

It's only close to the Kubrick-supervised release, but much closer  than the later Warner releases when they obtained the movie rights.  (See DVDBeaver's 2001 comparative review for lots of these screenshots.) The latest hi-def releases do better by cutting back on the blue-light bath (next screenshot), but are still far from the one on which Kubrick actually worked.

I earlier found a statement on Amazon-UK, quoting a (professional) reviewer, that Kubrick worked on a new transfer for the Warner DVD year-2001 release of 2001: A Space Odyssey ..

I think this color palette is cause for complete dismissal of that assertion. Further, an interview of technical assistant Leon Vitali, someone who actually worked on the 2001 release of the Stanley Kubrick Collection DVDs, states that Kubrick's involvement was only at the very early planning stage -- just before his untimely death.
Kubrick Questions Finally Answered
http://www.dvdtalk.com/leonvitaliinterview.html

Short of actual, nonfaded 1960's 70mm film, a confident conclusion is that the Criterion Collection laserdisc release is the only (consumer) release with the true look of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Just a quick update here:
I fixed a few broken links & pictures on pages 2 & 3.
For those who would like to try the 3D modeling program for Cinerama & 3D environment effects, trueSpace is still available in released-as-freeware from other legitimate, software download sites. I linked to the well known Major Geeks but there are lots more carrying the software's end-of-life versions.

Been shopping at "Crazy Eddie" then? 
YouTube: Crazy Eddie Christmas in August

BTW, is the DPS-575 a major-desired improvement over the DPS-290? Or will the 290 do in low-budget situations?

SilverWook said:

The only way to get there is a beach road ... Hard to be incognito lugging a camera tripod.

 Just stay on the Wookie Path and no one will give you a 2nd glance ..

.

.

AntcuFaalb said:

.. I plan to upload the raw soon.

... able to calibrate the color bars I captured from GGV1069 with the Runco LJR-II perfectly.

I've had the temporal alignment done ...

 Awesome news! Can hardly wait.   

Have you tried looking at an online map (MapQuest, Yahoo Maps, etc.) with satellite-photo views? That might be able to narrow down the position.

Of course, unless the original site is now luxury condos, you may still have a very distinctive (and solid?) terrain outline to make a match.

There was an interview/remembrance of Lucas using a telephoto lens to shoot across the studio lot for the white limbo interior sequences. I'd expect he'd use the same lens (???mm) for this shot (no extra rental charge).

Thanks for that announcement poita! This is amazing:

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What more to say except ...

SilverWook said:

... finding the exact spot THX climbs up into the sunset 44 years later, is anyone's guess.

Easy. Just look for that big hole in the ground right near the sunset ...

And GPS it before Lucas changes that, too!

.

@ AntcuFaalb

I'm guessing things must be busy, but any progress on the laserdisc capture/assembly (or is it "stand by scope one")?