Damn. There’s a section in episode four of the French DVDs which has pixelated frames (about 1 in 14 frames). Thankfully it’s a repetitive scene so I can drop it in from another episode. Unfortunately I’d already upscaled it, so I’ll have to re-do it overnight tonight and keep an eye out for it in future episodes.
Just to keep you posted with how things are going, I’ve got the first four episodes pieced together.
Each episode has a short segment missing in the middle on the French DVDs, I’m guessing where the advert break would have been. I’m deciding what to do on an episode by episode basis with this. On episode one for example, I used a short segment of the UK DVD and copied another segment from the same episode. In episode four, I chopped a few frames out and edited the audio very slightly.
Over the weekend I tried various upscaling algorithms and I’ve settled on my favourite, so will progress with the rest of the episodes using that method. I also did a whole episode in 50fps at the original DVD resolution. The difference wasn’t hugely noticeable, but I might give it another try on an upscaled episode as the shorter upscaled clips I did previously looked really nice. That won’t happen until I’ve finished the whole series though.
In case you’re interested, a full episode takes about 9 hours to upscale to 720p using my preferred algorithm. I think increasing the frame rate took about 14 hours at the original resolution, and will take longer at 720p.
I’m hoping to get episode five done tomorrow and should have the first six done and upscaled by the weekend.
If anyone wants to see a full episode, either in the original resolution or upscaled, just let me know. In the meantime I’ll keep plodding on.
More ramblings…
As well as the drop shadow, I was also unhappy with the slight colour difference of the static frames. I realised this was because I’d saved the frame in the default jpg format instead of png in Adobe Premiere. I’ll be changing this over the weekend so hopefully that’ll finally be the end credits sorted and I can get back to piecing the episodes together.
Also, the new version of Topaz has a new algorithm for increasing frame rates. I had a quick play with this today. I think most people will think this is some kind of sacrilege, but some of the space ship scenes (particularly the X-Bomber sequence towards the end of the intro) look really nice at 100fps. The software seems to make a really nice job of interpolating the extra frames and the ship movement is really smooth. Anyway, fear not, I’m concentrating on 25fps for now, but I might stick a 100fps example on YouTube at some point.
I’ll shut up now.
I’ve redone the drop shadow for Episode 3 prior to upscaling overnight and will go back and amend the first couple of episodes and re-upscale over the weekend.
Looks fantastic. Was always a big fan of this show, and never realised how bad the UK DVD was until your comparison of other sources. With regards to the end credits, fonts look pretty good, I think the UK DVD shows a slightly heavier drop shadow, but not by much.
Looking forward to seeing more of this!
I know what you mean about the drop shadow - I’m tempted to go back and tweak it. Perhaps I should do it now before I get too far.
… off he trots to play with drop shadows
Episodes 1 & 2 are pieced together and upscaled to 720P. I’ve pieced Episode 3 together and will upscale overnight, and I should be able to Episode 4 done tomorrow.
What I didn’t realise previously (you can tell I’m new to the show) is that the ‘next episode’ clips don’t necessarily feature in the same format in the actual episode itself - there’s normally one or two shots that are from a different angle or just slightly different in some way. I’ve got around this as well as I could, sometimes substituting the clip for something very similar. Regardless, I’m really happy with how it’s going so far.
At the weekend I’m going to try upscaling the first couple of episodes using a different algorithm to keep more of the grain from the original to see how it looks on a large screen.
Side by side comparison of the end credits from the UK DVD and my re-hashed 720P upscale from the Japanese and French DVD releases.
1st attempt at the end credits. I had to replace one sequence altogether (Music by Paul Bliss) as I couldn’t work out which episode the clip came from. I also can’t find the very first clip so have left in the UK DVD frames for that.
*Edit - sorted out the first clip from the Japanese DVD.
Again it looks much darker on YouTube than the original clip.
Hey all
Shamefully I had never even heard of Star Fleet / X-Bomber until a few weeks ago when I saw it mentioned by someone on Twitter. I’m puzzled as to why I never watched it growing up as I’d have been 11 or 12 when it was originally shown in the UK, and it would have been right up my street. Anyway, I’m here now and am obsessed!
I’ve recently been getting hold of as many shows on DVD from my childhood as possible, and trying to enhance them for viewing on today’s large screen TVs just for my own purposes. After watching the first episode of Star Fleet on YouTube I did a bit of investigation here and on the SFXB forums, and ordered both the UK and French DVD box sets. My intention is to use a combination of both to produce a 720p version of the series (in English) with the best image quality possible.
I’ve started by working on the intro and end credit sequences. I’ve pieced together the relevant clips from the French DVDs (plus the pilot episode for the last shot) to completely recreate the UK sequences. I’ve also replaced the logo at the start with a sharper version and have replaced the fonts - the fonts aren’t perfect but they’re as close as I could get.
I’ll use the French DVDs again for the main part of the episodes, filling in with segments from the UK release where required. For the ‘next episode’ bits at the end, again I’ll piece these together using the appropriate clips from the next episode on the French DVDs (I’m glad they’re only short!).
I only have the audio from the UK set so will use that unless someone can provide me with anything better.
Once each episode has been compiled I’ll run it through Topaz AI Video Enhance to bring it up to 720p and remove some of the grain. I’ve been really pleased with how Topaz has handled other shows so I’m hoping it’ll do a good job here too. I’ll also see how it looks in 1080p. There are numerous AI algorithms so I’ll test it on various settings.
I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes here as I know Bladez636 has been working on his own project for a long time, but if anyone wants to see the results I’ll happily share them here. The end results may not be as good as Bladez636’s version, but I figure it’ll at least be better than what we have currently.
To give you an example of what’s to come, I’ve uploaded an example of the intro to YouTube (https://youtu.be/MKaxGA3OUt8), which for some reason seems a little dark - if you want the original file to view it properly just let me know. Any feedback (positive or negative) will be gratefully received.
I’m hoping that once I’m happy with the intro and credits, I ought to be able to roll out a couple of episodes each week.
I’ve ripped the Disney+ version but can only do it in 1080p, which doesn’t look much (if any) different from the iTunes version. I also captured it using PlayOn’s cloud service which only gives it in 720p - the colours looked a little better but of course the resolution isn’t as good.
There’s been a 1080p fan-edit out there since last Christmas. The video is sourced from Amazon, the 5.1 audio and commentary track come from the old DVD release and the stereo audio from the LaserDisc is also included.
I meant just the extra song. Just wondered if it would be any better than what we have so far.
I’ve ripped the Disney+ version but can only do it in 1080p, which doesn’t look much (if any) different from the iTunes version. I also captured it using PlayOn’s cloud service which only gives it in 720p - the colours looked a little better but of course the resolution isn’t as good.
Wow man, that’s some dedication to getting it done right. 😄
Must have been quite tedious to look over all the frames and find the duplicates, re-capturing, repeat etc.!
I figured if I was going to do it I might as well make a decent job of it 😃
I now have my first 23.976fps version of the clip ready for insertion into the main movie. I don’t have the bluray (or a full bluray rip) to do it myself but am happy to send anyone a link to the clip so they can have a go.
I will still be doing another (potentially better) version of the clip but I’m struggling for time at the moment so it might not be ready for a while.
Let me know if you want the link to the first version.
So it turns out my first capture was actually better than the second. Out of curiosity I started going through the process of looking for duplicate frames in that one and was finding fewer right from the start, so I’m going to use that as the basis of the project.
After every 30 frames of analysis I’m checking to make sure I have 24 frames left once the duplicates have been removed, and if not I’m referencing it against capture 2 to locate the missing frame(s).
I’ve only done 15 seconds of the clip so far and have only had to locate 3 missing frames, which I’ve found successfully. If there are any frames missing from both captures I’ll do a third one to try to pick them up.
Bear with me as this is clearly going to take a while, but hopefully we’ll end up with a really nice version.
Edit: 33 seconds of the clip checked and I have 791 individual frames - all present and correct so far. I probably won’t have time to do any more until tomorrow.
Edit: 66 seconds checked and I’m one frame missing, but I know exactly where it should be so I’ll re-capture that section over and over until I get it.
Edit: 100 seconds checked and now I’m three frames missing. I still know exactly where those frames should be so I’m quite happy that I’ll find them on a subsequent capture.
I hope these updates aren’t too boring/annoying, I just thought some of you might like to know how it’s going.
Edit: I’ve finished the frame by frame check of both captures, and by my reckoning I’m missing just four frames. I’m now going to do another couple of captures of the middle section of the clip where the missing frames are in the hope that they’ll get picked up.
There might be some frames from the first capture attempt as well. If they look individual enough compared to the frames from the second capture, you might want to look into the possibility of adding them in at the corresponding points.
Yeah, I’d considered that. Perhaps I’ll capture it over and over again until I fill all the gaps. There’s plenty of time until Christmas so I might as well make a decent job of it.
I’m now going through the process of deleting duplicate frames to bring the frame rate down to 23.97, however I’m finding a slightly higher number of duplicates than I expected - 7 or 8 per 30 instead of 6, so I’m going to have to stick some of them back in and hope for the best.
Edit: I’ve currently removed 300 duplicate frames, but by my calculations I should have only removed 268.
Edit: One minute of the clip done. 404 frames removed, so current frame rate is 23.26fps. 42 frames to add back in.
I just run such files through Blender and render them as still images, deleting every 5th frame on average as I meticulously check for duplicate frames.
Thanks for the advice - I’m on it.
Despite a decent quality capture, there’s a pan judder problem which might come from a difference in frame rates. The iTunes extras are playing at 23.97fps but my capture device captures at 30fps. That will also cause issues when incorporating it into the main movie, which will again be at 23.97fps. So basically there’ll be some judder from the original capture, then it’ll be worsened by changing the frame rate a second time.
Unfortunately there’s no option to change the frame rate on the capture device, which is a shame as it would probably fix the problem 😦
Clip re-captured this morning - new link sent to anyone who has previously requested it.
YouTube link for anyone who wants to see the clip but isn’t bothered about a download.
It works!!! I’ve had a trial run this evening and the new device bypasses the HDCP and records brilliantly. I’m now playing around with the bitrate to see what difference it makes.
EDIT:
I’ve just captured it in the highest bitrate the device will allow and it’s looking really good. I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to incorporate it into the rest of the film so I’m now uploading the file to enable anyone who has more time than me to have a go at it. Message me if you want a link to the file.
There’s hope (again).
I’ve just ordered a new video capture device which apparently bypasses HDCP, so I’m hoping to capture the iTunes extras through that, then incorporate it into the main movie.
The device should arrive on Monday so I’m hoping to have a go at it before next weekend.
Fingers crossed.
Ok, so now I just feel stupid. I didn’t realise the iTunes extras are not actually downloadable. Also because of the DRM protection you can’t play it and capture using screen recording software. Sigh. For a little while I was confident of getting this done, but now I’m back to square one. Gutted.
Sorry for being late to the party on this. I’ve spent the evening reading up on everything and would like to have a go at sorting this.
I started by trying to upscale Deviantnick’s excellent clip from YouTube using Compressor. I only did it up to 720P with surprisingly decent results. But who wants 720 when we could have 1080?
So I then moved on to iTunes. I think by using some kind of DRM removal software I could get an editable version of both the main movie and the iTunes extras (When Love Is Gone), and integrate one into t’other. Has anyone already bought the film from iTunes as I was wondering if there is any overlap at the start and end of the song with the main movie? I’d rather not buy the software and the movie if it’s still going to leave us with a gap in HD footage.