frank678

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hey photodroid,

here are a couple of things which you could use to judge how interesting and early on your version is. In the first death star scene early print versions had much more colour in them especially the blues of the walls and greens of the uniforms, later on this scene had become very grey.

likewise the end death star attack had some blue tints among the greys, which later became just plain grey.

but if you dont want to wind thru the tape to those parts just the very first shots of C3PO walking in the tantive ship corridor should give you an idea of what youve got. If C3PO looks very flat, dull and one dimensional in colour then its probably not going to be too exciting on the rest of the tape, but if he looks really reflective and really 3-D metallically (almost mirror like). Then you could be onto a winner! The more clear and mirror like he is the better. You could check that first minute or so, if you want to risk playing the tape at this stage. There is the chance playing and pausing it might degrade it. But its your tape, so its your call. If from what you can remember it was a really good version and youre not confident of how your video player is going to behave you could consider lending it to one of the guys on the forum who have got the real high end set ups going on. But the again you might want the satisfaction (and hassle) of capturing this yourself. Whatever it looks like though this sounds like it comes from a unique source and therefore potentially could have specific elements present ONLY on this version/tape... So guard and protect this tape with your life!!!!

NeverarGreat said:

It's all good.

The faces are the biggest problem with this project. In the reference material, they do look much brighter and more "alive", but it's a very tricky balance to get right. When Obi-wan says "The Force will be with you", his face looks splotchy and unwell, with pinks pushing out around his scalp. I've corrected that the best I could. If the skin tones are off, the whole movie looks dead, and if the background is only slightly tinted to the green/yellow/blue/red side, it looks like the movie is seriously ill. That's what happened with the 2004 DVD.

Totally agree. Its just so frustrating to me to see the Legacy stills, or the Senator screening media, or the 35mm project media, and then look at the Blu-Ray. As you said you've managed to get it half way to the Legacy stills and that is half the battle. I curse the day I ever saw that there was a technicolor print in the world and because of that I can't get to enjoy star wars fresh as a daisy :(

@You_Too, thanks for the link I will read this.

Before I got your post I was gonna post this>

I'm gonna try and put my fuzzy ideas into words when I look at Leias face in the senator screening and the colour of her make up on top of her skin tone and overall rosy glow. I think you must get that through very fine highlights/colour registers, to me these have been flattened through darkness and colour loss on the special edition so everything looks a bit flat and heavy

NeverarGreat said:

What type of radical changes?

My understanding is pretty limited but my sense of the state of things is the original negative of by the time they did the special edition had lost lots of its colour and so when they printed it it looked darker/heavier and all the colours looked redder. So blues would come out more purple and stuff like this. It seems to me more than rearranging the information that is there around, additional colour information has to be programmed back in somehow, either through colour matching from other sources or adding fresh new layers on top of old. Or the spoiled/darkened colours that are there rolled back (reprogrammed) to their unspoilt state. These are just my crazy ideas though. I don't know how to do them practically

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La Guerra de las Galaxias

Well I am encountering all sorts of problems with dropped frames and out of sync audio, which I may or may not get round to solving in time. In the meantime here is a clip from the Pan and Scan PAL Star Wars from the UK 1982 VHS. As russs15 talked about at the beginning of the thread there are lots of little differences in the telecine compared to the US 1982 VHS tape. If you play this clip next to retartedted's excellent preservation you should be able to see a couple of differences in shots (keeping in mind PAL runs faster). I have desaturated the colours in my transfer to tame the dreaded pink shift on the tape, so its looks pretty weak colourwise.

*video taken down*

retartedted said:

What is your capture process? You using VirtualDub?

Nope did try VirtualDub but it kept dropping frames and I couldnt solve what the issue was. I'm using a usb capture device and the program it came with. Might use VirtualDub down the line after I've tinkered some more.

ilovewaterslides said:

Well, that's pretty weird. In AVI DV uncompressed mode which is the most common codec used for capturing analog sources, it takes about 12GB for 60 minutes.

Yeah I think I'll re-investigate the settings/codecs. :)

russs15 said:

For a 29 year old source, that is very clear and crisp.

Yep, the uncompressed capture is more detailed as well, but unfortunately it works out at about 1GB for 1 minute. I'd love to get a preservation done of this with highest settings without the need for compression but its just too impractical a file size in one hit for my computer. It makes more sense to just stick the tape in the vcr.

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Preserving-German-Original-Trilogy/post/533801/#TopicPost533801

AntcuFaalb said:

 

Oh, I promise that it will get released sometime soon.

However, it won't be as good as it can be, due to the AGC-related problems.

:-(

Anyway, I find that PS78 is a bit too green-tinted for my taste.

True the green tint is distracting, and also other flaws, but purely as a historical record for a full-bodied print I reckon PS78 is king

AntcuFaalb said:

FWIW, these colors are very close to what's on PS78.

I disagree I think PS78 has a greater depth to the colours in it, once you pump them up a bit i see an appreciable difference, like say the rich blue in the paintwork on R2D2 / the reflective quality of the C3POs metal, the official telecines always flatten/simplify the colours by being over bright. (The PS78 is dark, but theres richness in the darkness)

I demand PS78 be released once more AntcuFaalb !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

stew181 said:

I agree - The colours look gorgeous on the Sony BDP-390 & HDTV, Any chance of an DVD-R copy?? :)

At the bottom of this ebay listing is an example of how passable it can look through a good set up:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/STAR-WARS-1st-1982-VHS-Rental-Library-INVESTMENT-QUALITY-081603-/271059459725

The clip looks good, nice clean look to skintones. Great work!

AntcuFaalb said:

frank678 said:

Any updates AntcuFaalb? Still eager to see the new improved PS78 :)

I'm pushing to have everything released by Christmas. :-)

Yay! Looking forward to it!