balsho

Its funny because the show Community had a "Glee" theme for their recent Christmas episode, and in it is a nod to the SWHS. The character Abed has tracked down the long lost "Inspector Spacetime Holiday Special"(a Doctor Who type show he loves) that he wants to watch with everyone for Christmas. "So critically reviled that after it aired the creator had his Knighthood revoked". They show a clip from it later and there's a hologram that plays music just like Jefferson Starship.

Just a reminder if you pick up the Zion version be sure to shoot the Rifftrax people some cash at their donate page if you've never bought the track from them before. Their work on it is particularly great.

They're all different is the problem. KCCI is very consistent, clean, and sort of feels like a "master copy", but it is quite dark and soft. WBBM has better contrast, levels, and detail, but more overall picture noise. Then there's WMAR that is somewhere in between. Its very good, still got the commercials, but its color is really off.

Yeah be sure to check out the early story treatment on SKot's site. While the finished Special is probably like 10% of what Lucas intended it to be, that treatment seems like 90%. Its definitely more of a true Star Wars vibe. A good pipe dream would be for Lucas to release the original and with it do a Clone Wars style animated version of the way it was supposed to be.

Yeah with the bit of denoising work that I did on my version of the Special last year I thought I had gotten the audio sounding pretty good especially for the cartoon, but this one is real clear. Its nice to finally have a version that skips a few generations of VHS.

Though when I play it off my bluray bonus disk for some strange reason it won't let you fastforward, rewind, or even just start over, only pause. So like the mandatory boarder another odd detail of an otherwise decent addition.

Yes thanks Aluminum Falcon for the true 4:3 version, that border is a real lame move. I don't see why they couldn't have had it full screen like the deleted scenes. I too was hoping for a nice fresh film transfer of the thing, but regardless its just nice to finally have it in decent shape. Though it only fuels my hunger for the whole special getting released.

I didn't know they went with the border thing during the extras. Kind of lame, but its still just good to finally have it.

Yeah I was just thinking last night that if the cartoon is going to be on there I hope they leave in the nutty original commercial. Anyone know if that border/frame seen in the picture is optional. I don't want to really complain too much cause its great to finally have the cartoon, but I'd want to watch it just in normal 4:3 status.

I'm a little late to the party here, but I had a fix for this particular doc and after searching through the discs I have, for those interested, its on OCP's Return of the Ewok dvd not Special Edition Hype. The ones on there sort of cover the same things but are the TV specials. The one on the Ewok disc is the official full 30 min version without subtitles, and not the broken up into the 3 parts. It must be from the LD because it doesn't seem like vhs. I'm glad its preserved because it is different from the Anatomy of a Dewback that will be on the blurays. Anyway just FYI, and the disc is still currently up on groups.

Yeah even if it is officially released at some point I'd have to make my own version with the commercials and commentaries added. It'd just be nice to have something other than 30+ year old home vhs recordings to work with for a change.

*Someone better secure the domain name originalholidayspecial.com

Yeah some are going pretty far with the rumblings thinking that the whole thing will be included. While that would be GREAT, I think thats a bit of a stretch. Hopefully at least the cartoon in good quality will be there. I wish they'd just bite the bullet already and get the whole thing officially released.

Yeah please if anyone can help seed those... The SL NTSC Miami editions of both BE and RTJ are pretty weak or near death atm.

I just finally was able to grab and check out Martin's new vid. He really did an amazing job preserving everything, from the ride to the tiniest random little details that you'd see waiting in line. It does make me sad watching it though knowing that its all gone now. I REALLY REALLY hope that like what was done for the Back to the Future ride they make an effort to officially preserve it and have it on the blueray or something. Just think if they did a nice hi-def scan of the 70mm ride footage with a good surround mix...swoon.

Yeah the editdroid ones are the best overall, but yeah they do have the permeant subs. The quality is so nice though that they've never been a problem for me. God I hope they just get some or most of these original making ofs on the bluerays. These and the MIA "Michel Parbot" one done for Empire thats only been teased about in other threads.

I was able to somewhat fix the audio at least of that Chewbacca glitch in the KCCI/WMAR version that I recently did. Its still not perfect but a little less distracting.

Yeah thats kind of the fine line with doing any enhancements to the picture of this thing, its late 70s video and it has to keep that feel or it doesn't look right anymore. That was one of the problems with the previous rifftrax version, it just didn't have the right movement anymore. Thats what I like about KCCI, it really moves like a soap opera and yeah while not the best thats just how it has to be.

My fault I seem to keep writing WMAR with the K for some reason.  Maybe its some sub-conscience pride thing because I do live on the west coast :)

Yeah while editing/syncing the MMM commentary, them being Australian, they mention that they remember it showing multiple times.  Its odd that it was shown and quickly shunned here but put out a few times over there.

I do wonder if there's some sort of master preserved or not.  In that recent Carrie Fisher interview she mentions that she made GL give her a copy, I wonder what it is from and how it looks.  Its kind of funny, she's the only one with a somewhat official copy.

Video Collector that one sounds like WMAR to me with the reddish tint that you say it has, thats kind of the main flaw of WMAR.  Maybe its a mix of sources like the first Rifftrax dvd is, that one is still a mystery to me.  Its also doesn't have any ids, but the commercials are obviously edited in.

I've only ever seen that one "Frizzies" bit floating around the web.  It would be fun to have them all but it sounds like if the whole WCBS version isn't that great in quality WMAR still is the go to version as far as the commercials are concerned.  Its funny I noticed while working on this version of mine that the Rifftrax guys even reference Fighting the Frizzies, even though they did their riff to WMAR.  All the original Frizzies bits and the South Park recreation would be yet another great extra to have on some super edition someday.

Video Collector said:

balsho said:

Yeah that's why I asked earlier if there's a full WMAR dvd still out there. 

I have one, if you're still interested.

I also have DVDs of the KCMO and CBS.

 

Could anyone hook me up with a KCCI?

Thanks,

Fritz

Thanks but someone already was nice enough to get it to me.  Is the "CBS" one the one with all the frizzies talk?  Is it the same commercials as WMAR, but just with different bumpers or something?  I was tempted to throw in a frizzies bit somewhere in this one that I've been working on, but it just seemed wrong to deviate from the broadcast too much. 

I have KCCI. PM me if you'd like to work something out.

Thanks Zion.  You reminded me that sometime after I had initially checked for any bitrate issues I replaced the WMAR SW commercial with a better version that I already had, and that seems to be the culprit.  So it looks like a dvd can be done and shared if anyone wants it.  Still with my limited mac software I can only do 2 tracks and no chapters or menus.

Henry was already going to attempt some enhancements on some segments that I sent him, but I haven't heard back from him.  Once I can get this out there I think the more people trying to make it look its best the better.

Well I've finished my own hybrid of KCCI/WMAR, and I'm REALLY happy with the way I got everything edited together and sounding.  The sources I used for both the special and the commercials were from previous dvds of each, and because I was able to do all editing without any re-encoding both of their qualities haven't been altered at all.  I worked on all the edit spots to make everything flow as smooth as possible, and also I tried to let the Special breath a little more so that the commercials don't get in the way like they sometimes did during the broadcast.

Using denoising software I was able to eliminate quite a bit of the inherent tape hiss from the soundtracks making everything clearer than before.  And with Protools I tried to smooth out as many audio problems as I could and generally make things flow together as one.  It is still VHS though in the end.  I've found that with all this it can be cranked up quite a bit louder than before, whether thats a good thing or not I don't know...

Except for a small drop in quality with the commercials I think that it makes for a really clean version of the broadcast made up of all the best elements availible.

Here's the catch though.  After all this work I've hit a wall with my system, and I can't get the thing to author as a dvd with more than one audio track.  I worked on and synced 4 tracks, the cleaned up original, the rifftrax, the MMM commentary, and the IHNRADIO commentary, but with my mac I just can't do this on a dvd.  All I was able to do for now is put everything through tsmuxer and make a single TS file and its working great off my PS3 drive.

I had planned all along to share this, but I'm not sure if its worth it now in just TS form.  Anyone with better resources maybe want to take it from here and make a proper dvd of it?  Even better I really think that with the right picture enhancing, which I also can't do, this could be the best version yet.  Even with its slight brightness/contrast problems to me KCCI is the most clean, consistent and stable of all the versions.  Its the closest to a master I think we got and it just seems to have the feel that video from 1978 should have.

Let me know what you all think?

It looks like KCCI to me, but I could be wrong.  With the issues that KCCI does have I'm always shocked at how the cartoon itself is in such great shape.  And if I'm right it goes to show that with the right work, like henry seems to have done, it could really look amazing.

Yeah putting the Rifftrax info/link is pretty much the best you can do in this situation.  I guess I just don't trust enough to see people throwing some money their way if they get it this way.  I too have paid for all my riffs and have listened to almost all of them.  This one in my opinion is really above all others and they should get paid for it.  I mean I liked the special before, but with the riff its really elevated to greatness.  Especially after having to sit and edit with it for a long time listening to a lot of their jokes over and over and still finding myself laughing uncontrollably.

Yeah Zion, kudos for your release.  Love the presentation, I wish I could do fancy menus :(  And I like what you were able to do with the contrast/sharpening etc.  Alas, I just have an affinity for the KCCI version.

I meant the other 2 that are free to download, MMM and Holonet Radio.  With Rifftrax I feel bad, and I can only hope that anyone that hasn't paid for it will do the right thing at their donation page.  This one I do consider a little different from their other releases.  The Special isn't commercially available and the video that they used was a not so great youtube version of not the best copy out there.  My main goal is to make it fit with KCCI, what I consider to be the best version.

Come to think of it though no matter how I spin it I still do feel kind of shitty.  I may just keep it to myself, or leave it rifftraxless if I release it.

I've sampled both of these commentaries a bit, while definitely not on the level of Rifftrax, they do seem like some fun.  If there's maybe some spare room on the disc, I may just try to throw them on the version I'm working on.  I hope the two groups wouldn't mind.