Video Collector

Hi all.

After seeing RetardedTed’s magnificent release of the NTSC versions of the Droids, I figured now was the time to do a PAL set as well.

I’ve been sitting on these transfers for two years, along with the Ewoks transfers I provided for Pittrek’s Ewoks project. Pittrek is too busy to do a Droids set in the near future so I decided to just go ahead and author the discs myself.

These are warts-and-all transfers of the PAL VHS tapes, with one set of opening and closing credits per tape. The UK opening credits have a voice-over advertising the availability of other Droids tapes, so it differs somewhat from the US version. No clean-up or enhancements have been performed on the transfers other than cropping of the noisy edges.

I took the liberty of adding the “missing” Coby and the Starhunters episode to volume two (with a basic NTSC-to-PAL conversion) to complete the set.

The set comes with cover and disc art evoking the source tapes, and disc four has DVD-ROM extras with interviews and episode guides I scanned back in 2011.
 

Now, here’s the rub…

While everything is completed and ready to go, I need some kind souls to help make these things available to the community. Anyone who thinks they can aid me in this, please contact me via PM.
 

**May 14th Update: Discs are on their way to a kind soul who will make them available through the usual channels. I’ll update the thread once the deed is done.

Harmy said:

Maybe some flaw in the transferring process then? Because I will not believe for a second that the original color timing could have been this pink.

I tend to agree, and there is reason to believe the boosted colours are due to tape-to-tape dubbing back in the day. However, the pink had to be there in the first place for it to be emphasized like this.

I did not see this theatrically, but when I released the bootleg a few years ago, some forum members who did indicated it gelled with their memories of it. For what it's worth.

Harmy said:

Interesting, but the print shows clear signs of fading to pink.

It may not be actual fading. My telecine bootleg of a release print from 1982 shows much the same pink tint.

Here's a screen from the Hoth battle, and one where I overlaid my bootleg over the corresponding frame from the GOUT:

This transfer was made pre 1982 so fading would be unlikely, no? In fact, the entire transfer has very saturated colour throughout the whole film. No way to tell how accurate it is though.

Hi Ted.

I just wanted to congratulate you on getting it done and thank you for sharing.

Now, I'm one of the old fuddy-duddies who wants a old-fangled DVD to pop into my player. I thought you weren't doing one so I was happy to see you mention a full-blown DVD down the line.

I'd love to hear some specifics about the work you did. What were the sources for each episode, and what processes did you employ for clean-up etc. What did you use for The Great Heep in the end?

Again, great work and thank you so much for doing this.

Treadwell said:

I don't know if this would help, but I recorded the entire series off of Sci-Fi channel in the 90s...

If you have the "missing" Episode 9 "Coby and the Starhunters", we are always looking for new/better sources for that. We'll have to live with the Sci-Fi channel identifier in the lower right corner.

retartedted said:

I may just release the episodes I have finished (9 out of 14) on myspleen here soon if that is what everyone wants.  Better to have some than none right?

I second the suggestion of a partial release at this time.

I'm sure they will be received very well and that way you will get some feedback and praise for your efforts. You're planning to release just separate episodes anyway, right? Not complete DVDs?

I for one would be very grateful even for just the episodes you have.

benduwan said:

is there a german audio track?

I am pretty sure neither RetardedTed or Pittrek has plans for it.

I have the German releases, which could in theory provide an alternate soundtrack on an eventual PAL set from Pittrek. The problem is that the tapes are Macrovision enabled, so I can't capture them with my equipment.

Pittrek, I'm still hoping you would do a PAL set of the Droids episodes. I think the quality of your Ewoks set was excellent, blended frames or not.

As we have seen from the screen captures, the PAL transfers are different enough from the NTSC transfers to warrant a preservation of their own.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

jerlgrain said:

That is great news they are not in your original capture and steps 2 and 3. Any chance you may redo 4 and 5 in another fashion to see if they can be eliminated?

Not right now - too many other projects in the pipeline.  What I will do is watch out for it in ROTP, and if I am able to figure out what happened and how to avoid it, I'll go back and try it on PSB.

Your letterbox mask graphic may just be the culprit here. I have no idea how this works, but I gather you made the custom "letterbox" mask as some sort of graphics overlay. Is it possible your black mask graphic isn't 100% clean/empty inside?

I get this in Photoshop a lot, when pure white isn't pure white and it isn't possible to spot on my monitor. There may be differing levels of gray in the white as residue of sloppy image editing or cut'n paste. When I overlay something like that on top of an image, the result is similar to what I see on the screencaps, and only apparent with elevated brightness/contrast levels.

Excellent news! I was beginning to lose hope.

Congratulations.

Chomping at the bit to see this. Curious to see how it compares to my boot. Will it be available on the 'spleen soon?

AntcuFaalb said:

Harmy said:

The what?

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Theater-Performance-Preservations/post/458975/#TopicPost458975

It's "dark and oversaturated", but it may yield some important clues.

Harmy. If you think you might have use for a copy of this, drop me a PM. I owe you, we all do :-)

Harmy said:

Dude, maybe it's just me, but that post feels like a very polite executive giving orders to an employee.

It's not just you.

It's like he's giving you permission to do this, and should be thankful he caught your "mistakes".

I'm sure it's not intentional, but...

Having just seen the above-mentioned Star Wars Holiday Special Bonus Disc, I must say it was excellent. Created by a member of this very forum who wants to remain anonymous for now, this needs to be seen by everyone.

Here's an excerpt from the read-me file:

Star Wars Holiday Special: BONUS



A collection of as many materials related to the Star Wars Holiday Special as
possible... that can still be jammed into a single-layer DVD.

All materials were collected from the Internet, with a major focus on YouTube.
Nothing is original to this disc.

    Media Coverage   Reports in the major media
    Features         Videos dealing with the special as a whole
    Interviews       Interviews with cast members and a writer
    Animation        Including and related to the animated segment
    Special Stuff    Bits and pieces directly related to the Special
    Not-So-Special   Other stuff that's only tangentially related

Total length of all materials: 153 minutes

*** DVD_ROM ***

A folder on the disc presents a collection of materials related to the SWHS.

Documents are either .JPG files or stored as .CBZ archives.

The archives can  be unzipped -- they are only renamed .ZIP files -- or opened
with a comic reader that uses .CBR / .CBZ.

Nerdgasm!

Just watched the DVD5 version. While the shift in resolution on the GOUT scenes were perceptible in the 720p MKV, on the SD DVD the switch was seamless!

Excellent work Harmy. My hat is off to you.

Olev said:

Yes, TPB is definitely broken, mkvextract fails on it too.

Yup. I downloaded from TPB also, and the MKV fails at 24%

Now DL'ing from the 'Spleen.

Hi all.

Not poster art per se, but could come in useful for some of you:

A guy has posted thousands (!) of screengrabs from the Blu-rays here:

http://www.xblackrockx.com/starwars/index.html

Check it out.

@vacuum

There are several different "preservations" of the '97 laserdiscs available if you look through the threads. Start by looking at Lee Thorogood's thread here: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/LeeThorogoods-PAL-LaserDisc-Preservation-Project-97-SE-Finished-95-THX-Finished-97-SE-Uploaded-95-THX-Uploaded-to-the-newsgroup/topic/11824/

In the future, you would do well to keep in mind that you are on a specialist forum here, and that you should take the time to make any such request

a)specific (VHS, Laserdisc, PAL, NTSC, Japanese release, US release, etc.) Do the research first, THEN ask.

and

b)courteous

Keep those things in mind and you'll see that this is a forum with a VERY resourceful group of people who will be only too happy to help. Like I always say, a little Please, and a Thanks go a long way.

Kind regards,

Fritz

Hmmm...

Seems I should get around to scanning my German and French laserdiscs soon :-)

RockMax said:

Hey everyone! I'm new here. I just picked up both trilogy's on bluray from Amazon and I need to make new covers for them. Video Collector's is the best I've seen so far, I PM'd him but he hasn't been online in a little while.

Does anyone else have his covers they can PM or email me? I'd appreciate it.

 

Thanks for the help! :)

Hi everyone. I'm never away from the OT forums more than a couple of days, but sometimes I forget to check my PMs. (There isn't one from RockMax in my inbox, incidentally. PM me again and I'll set you up.)

I would just like to state, for the record, that I ask everyone NOT to share my covers, in whole or in part, without my prior consent. No sharing by PMs or email, no uploading to Photobucket, no uploading to cover sites, no torrenting as part of a "cover collection". No exceptions. I have to trust that the people I give these to will employ them for personal use ONLY.

I want to keep the proliferation of these covers under control, to avoid someone uploading them to a cover site under their own name and gain credit/payment for them. I'm happy to share them with all the members here, but ask that the source files and the location of the download links only be disclosed by me personally. If you are asked to share my covers, please direct that person to me and I'll take care of it.

Your continued understanding and patience in this is appreciated, and will ensure my future cover work is shared freely with this forum's members.

Fritz

Trooperman said:

"Ewoks and the Marauders of Endor"?  What on earth is that? 

 

That, my friend, is the catchy title they gave Battle for Endor in Australia/New Zealand.

DarthEnder.

May I just congratulate you on an excellent job with this disc. I never knew there was that much stuff available on the Star Tours. Kudos for putting it all together so exhaustively and entertainingly.

pittrek said:

The image can't be displayed for the moment!

Please go to www.gifbin.com to see it.

Fixed.

Darth.

Just because it's quiet in here , that doesn't mean there isn't interest in what you're doing.

I'm betting most people are like me and just lurking about. I for one appreciate your efforts. Keep up the good work.

Fritz