TServo2049

In terms of the color comparisons, it's important to remember that the color differences aren't necessarily due to fading. In the early to mid 80s, the film would not have been fading yet, at least not visibly. The color issues are more due to how the color was timed in the video transfer. Most of the pre-SE transfers of the trilogy (especially the first two) had a desaturated, low-contrast, overly bright look. (I think Jedi was always the closest, but even it looked too warm; compare the official video transfers to the clips in the 80s documentaries.)

A lot of 80s video transfers had that in common; I think it was so the image would read better on standard TV sets?

The THX transfers had a higher-contrast look (maybe too high - witness the clipped whites), but they were still desaturated and still not accurate to how the films looked in theaters.

The ITV transfer was not "properly" timed for home video; it was reminds me of TV film-chain, and it was likely transferred in-house, as the U.S. TV networks did before they started receiving ready-made video transfers from the studios.

That green-gray look is probably because the color was not adjusted too much in the video realm. Notice you can see color detail that's not in the home video releases.

Luke's skin color in the ITV frame may be closest out of the three to the theatrical prints - from what I can tell, skin tones in the original timing were more orange than pink, and Mark Hamill seems to have had a decent tan anyway.

There's nothing wrong with the speed of the audio. It probably seems slow to you because you are used to the PAL versions, which are sped up by 4% (from the original film speed of 24fps to 25fps).

In NTSC (that is, true interlaced NTSC), the conversion from 24fps to 29.97fps is accomplished by 3:2 pulldown, which doesn't result in any change to the actual speed or pitch - it basically creates extra frames between the actual film frames by means of interpolating and field-blending.

It's all about your frame of reference; since you've seen the PAL versions for so long, you're accustomed to the movie running 4% faster than it's supposed to.

The digital version of the '77 stereo sounds robust to me, and I've read at least one member who said that it sounded better than Belbucus' preservation of the analog. I'd listen to it just in case.

Also, a word about aspect ratio correction - as I said before, this is a raw telecine of an anamorphic print with no aspect ratio correction, so it is both squeezed by 50% (approx. 1.20:1) and cropped by the telecine operator to fit the 1.33:1 aspect ratio of the video realm. Thus, the image needs to be horizontally stretched 2x, to an aspect ratio of approx. 2.66:1. Unfortunately, VLC doesn't have such an option.

When you do finish v1.0, could you do an alternative 2x stretched version as well? It would have to be horizontally stretched to 1440x480 to preserve the full vertical resolution.

Good question. We don't really know the answer, given how Lucas has always talked down the condition of the existing materials as an excuse for why the OOT can't be released again.

For the first film, the same source was used for the Technidisc LD and all the THX transfers. It was apparently an interpositive of some kind found stored at an optical house in L.A.; if it was printed in 1977, who knows how much it's faded since the 90s?

However, on that note, the supposed "1985 IP" would have probably been printed on low-fade stock, which was introduced in 1982; contrary to some of the implications Lucasfilm has made, I am assuming that if said IP still exists, all the color would be intact.

I listened to the "final" version, and it has the correct Fox fanfare on it. Good job.

Ghostbusters was one of my first exposures to different cropping in different transfers. In the establishing shot of Weaver Hall, the old RCA/Columbia transfer cropped everything but the sign, while the 90s release cropped the sign out completely. In the 90s, the elevator shot was cropped through back-and-forth cutting between Ray/Egon and Venkman, but the original transfer actually showed that scene squeezed!

As we've pointed out, in the standard, non-time-compressed pre-THX transfer of ANH, when Luke says "They're sandpeople all right, I can see one of them now," said Tusken Raider is completely out of frame.

As I said in another thread, even though old P&S transfers of the trilogy generally have more resolution/detail than the old widescreen transfers, and even though I think the P&S laserdiscs should be preserved (including the PAL ones), make no mistake: I absolutely loathe P&S. To paraphrase the Joker, I'm glad it's dead (well, almost dead, at least).

Nien Nunb, Annie has aired on HDTV in widescreen in the past, I'm sure there must be an HD rip out there somewhere. If not, you can just import the UK DVD.

With the upcoming Broadway revival, I'm sure the film has a Blu-ray release in its future.

I suppose it could have used a different bulb, or different telecine calibration settings, or something like that. The problem with the mthr bootleg is that the chroma signal is corrupted from multiple generations of copying. If only we could find a higher-generation copy of *that* transfer...

UPDATE: I found that if you simply turn down the color saturation on the raw mthr bootleg, you can get a better idea of what the color balance is supposed to look like:

Still a little pink, but I will remind you, telecine machines were intended to get the best image on videotape, they would have used a different light source than a projector of the same time.

I didn't realize that transfer of Ghostbusters was released on VHS. I had the Family Collection clamshell and while it was P&S, it didn't have those awful strobing pans, at least not that I remember. (FYI, I first discovered that version when Comedy Central used to run the movie in the early 2000s.)

Maybe it was released on VHS around the time of the 15th anniversary DVD?

About 8-10 or so years ago, Sony reissued a bunch of their catalog DVDs (Annie, Last Action Hero, Multiplicity, etc.) in full-frame only. All of them had similar HD-derived P&S jobs. They never reissued them in widescreen, and some of them still aren't available on Blu-ray in the States.

It's easy to forget crap like that was going on so recently. At least non-widescreen DVDs of 1.85:1 films were basically open-matte (unless it was an effects-heavy film like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, where every shot with FX was in VistaVision and had to be cropped). P&S-only discs of scope titles were unforgivable.

I am so grateful that HDTV and Blu-ray basically killed the P&S menace (though a couple rogue 2.35:1 catalog titles surface in budget-priced P&S-only discs from time to time - possibly because they don't *have* a widescreen transfer and are too cheap to make one).

Even I'm amazed at how complete this paradigm shift has been. When the 2004 SE DVDs came out, it was still the P&S versions that were being given the standard gold color scheme to match the packaging of the (widescreen-only) prequels. Someone who wasn't aware that there were two releases, or that the widescreen release was silver, would just pick up the P&S one (and I know people who have absolutely no issue with widescreen who did this). The 2004 SEs in P&S are probably the ultimate butchery of the trilogy, apart from the 2011 mess.

Going back to the "Faces" releases, not sure about any unique color issues. Can you recall examples of what you heard, Antcu?

(I will also say that the PAL P&S transfers had more clearly visible starfields than the NTSC ones, due to PAL's additional vertical resolution.)

1990osu said:

The interesting thing though, as I think about it, is that the 1993 DC was never in fullscreen.  Therefore, in order to strike the full-screen VHS tapes in 1995, they must have made use of a HD source from which the 1993 master was struck. 

Not necessarily. They more likely did a separate transfer for the pan-and-scan version.

AFAIK, in the 90s only Sony derived pan-and-scan versions from HD masters. And they looked positively awful. If it ever comes on again, catch the P&S version of Ghostbusters. It's literally headache-inducing, with very mechanical, linear, and soap-opera-like 60i pans over the 24fps image.

Vidiot on stevehoffman.tv said:

"Sony had their own HD facility in the early 1990s and was trying to do all their pan/scan jobs in an edit bay, using their own hand-built gear, and the results looked very "mechanical" and electronic, for lack of a better description. They eventually gave up and shut the facility down, but not before hundreds of titles were done that way."

If HD masters existed for the GOUT, they would have used them on those 2006 DVDs. The fact that the masters they did use were 480i is proof that those are all that ever existed.

The P&S versions were almost certainly different transfers, though they still have very heavy DVNR.

If you can afford it, I say go for it. :)

Yeah, companies would just reuse packaging and labels. (Remember when Disney would put Beta-sized labels on their VHS tapes?)

I once found a copy of My Fair Lady with the pre-1982 MGM/CBS packaging and labels (coincidentally, at the same library where I found the 1982 VHS of Star Wars), but when I played it, I got the second CBS/FOX logo.

I also have a mid-80s CBS/FOX copy of The Muppet Movie that came in a Magnetic Video box.

I also remember renting two copies of Sixteen Candles on two separate occasions which were almost indistinguishable, except one had the altered soundtrack and one had the original.

Anyway, how did you find out about that price code?

zombie84 said:

-2012: George Lucas is worth something like $4 Billion dollars. "It's too expensive to restore them! How would I earn a profit"

Reminder: the above figures add up to about something like the equivalent of... nearly $3 Billion dollars? Something in that range. A movie that has sold $3 billion worth of sales, in todays dollars. Yeah, there's no money there. It would be such a wasteful investment.

It's never been about money. That has always been one of George's flimsy excuses. The unavailability of the original versions is, was and always will be about George's ego.

Supposedly, Robert Harris offered to restore the film FOR FREE and still he was turned down. If George will not allow a restoration to go forward even if it doesn't cost him a dime, then it's clear that it's not about the costs at all. If someone offered to pay him $100 million if he would restore it, he would still refuse.

The correct fanfare/wrong logo combination is what I remember my '85 mix VHS having.

If the Japanese digital track has the correct fanfare, then I'm guessing that this is actually a different mastering of the '77 stereo than the 1130-84 and the early VHS/Beta releases. (Were any LD digital tracks just "upconverted" from analog masters? Or were they always sourced from brand new digital masters?)

msycamore linked to a YouTube clip of the original 1954 fanfare.

The one I posted is not a mystery - it was a new recording done in about 1981. The John Williams recording for ESB was never used outside of the Star Wars sequels/prequels. The version I linked to is the extended fanfare used on regular Fox releases in the 80s and up until 1994. Fox recorded a long version and a short version without the CinemaScope section (to replace the circa 1936 mono recording they were still using on most films).

I hate the 1981 recording of the long fanfare - the orchestra is weak and anemic compared to the 1954 version.

The original 1954 fanfare was on my old VHS, which was the 1985 remix. It was also on all the 1993-95 THX releases.

Rats. I had a sneaking suspicion this might happen.

I guess it was a dip in the middle. I know I put the highest frequency slider all the way up the top, then the next highest somewhat less, etc. I can't remember if I put the lowest frequency all the way up, but I definitely increased the bass sliders in a curve like the treble. I believe I left the midrange alone, since increasing it usually causes distortion.

Listen through headphones. I have the high-end $40 Sony earbuds with the iPod remote. They have the best dynamic range and richest bass of any headphones I've had.

Frank, I get what you're saying. Personally, I found that setting the hue a couple notches to the left of the right edge helped the skin tones a tad.

Anyway, to get this back to the subject of the bootleg itself, one thing I noticed is how good the *sound* is. For non-hifi mono, it sounds excellent. If I use the equalizer in VLC, I can bring out a surprising amount of detail in the high and low frequencies. (Of course, turning up the treble also increases the hiss, but there *is* high-frequency information under that hiss.)

My point is that the sound quality is too good to be from a 16mm print. 16mm prints were in non-Dolby Academy mono, and thus had narrower frequency range and lower fidelity. The non-Swedish print used in Puggo Grande actually had a mono fold-down of the stereo mix, which Puggo replaced with the mono from the Swedish print. You can hear the mono fold-down of the stereo mix in the Catnap bootleg.

I compared the audio of Catnap and PS78, and Catnap sounds really tinny in comparison. That's what a mono-fold-down 16mm print sounded like. If PS78 were from a 16mm print, it would sound close to Catnap. In reality, PS78 sounds to be sourced from Dolby Stereo, and thus from a 35mm print.

Actually, *this* is the Fox fanfare that showed up on the early VHS/Beta releases: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH77XBlvMo0

If there is an incorrect fanfare on any releases with the '77 stereo mix, I am assuming it's this one.

I think I already explained this, but here it is again: From the looks of it, the frame lines of the live-action footage and the optical passes were not identical, and the bright edges from one of the elements (possibly the positive matte pass, the one with a black matte on white) were burned into the composites.

On most optical-composite frames you've shown us, it's just a white outline. However, in some of the shots with backlit elements, it's a glow, suggesting light seepage from the backlight pass. Perhaps the black area of the Kodalith didn't go all the way to the frame edge, and the light spilled around the edges. Again, in the optical compositing this would have been "burned in" to the image along with the lightsaber blade or lightning or whatever. This happens in the lightsaber training, and when the Jawas knock out R2 with their electrical weapon.

Normally, this stuff around the edges would not be seen since it's right at the frame line. However, you can see the glowing edge garbage in the saber training scenes in the Japanese Special Collection transfer (since it seems to have the most vertical picture info, at least in some parts), and you can see a weird blue blob in the bottom left corner of one of the shots of R2 and the lightning in multiple versions, including the GOUT.

AntcuFaalb said:

So are you saying that the adjusted image is consistent with what you were talking about?

Exactly. Either this is a 16mm that was already vertically cropped, or a 35mm print vertically cropped by the telecine operator.

Not sure how we'd be able to tell which it is. I will say that the two English anamorphic 16mm transfers I've seen - Puggo Grande, and the bootleg that Catnap found - had a lot of dirt and damage in common. For example, the pan-down to Tatooine had a lot of emulsion damage (shows up as green blobs) and a couple of bad splices.

I was surprised that this kind of damage would be printed in from the previous generation, but unless the Puggo Grande print is the exact same print transferred in the "Catnap bootleg" many years earlier, it seems that at least one run of 16mm prints came from a rather beat-up source.

When I see this bootleg, I'll probably be able to provide more insight.

There's another explanation for why it would be cropped on the top and bottom, other than being 16mm-sourced. On film, before the 2x anamorphic stretch, Panavision actually has an aspect ratio of about 1.20:1, not 1.33:1. If it's from a 35mm print, then since it was transferred straight from the print without any anamorphic adjustment, it would have been vertically cropped by about 10% in order to fill the screen.

The adjusted pic bears this out, it has an AR of about 2.63:1.

If only the bootlegger had had the foresight to do a pillarboxed transfer...oh well. I'm just amazed we have a bootleg of this high a generation.

I'm at a loss for words. This is amazing. I'd long pondered whether any bootlegs existed that were fully squeezed. This answers my question.

The colors look excellent, and it's not a deteriorated multi-gen dub. I can't wait to see this - and I would love to eventually see an AG-1980 preservation of it, if at all possible.

Once we get to see your initial transfer, we'll be able to determine if it's 35mm, and which sound mix it is. (If it's 16mm, a good amount of picture will be chopped off at the bottom.)

Sounds good to me.

By X0/X9, I meant raw uncompressed AVI video into the computer, HuffYUV or whatever it's called. Like the X9 captures that were 8 gigs to a CAV side. All DVD recorders compress the video to whatever recording speed you set, right?

I'm sure your stuff looks great. I was just thinking...