frank678

TServo2049 said:

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...

yep even though mthr worked miracles with it i still find it unwatchable - its like someone spilled pink blamanche over the mona lisa. The PS78 is the easiest on the eye by far, and for me helps fill in the gaps of the ib technicolor screening.

edit: i never tried that!

pre anh bootleg

This is the still Mike Verta posted of a star wars print being projected with a 70s bulb,

PS78

PS78 with a merged gold overlay to replicate the effect of the 70s bulb

What I'm trying to determine is is the Pre ANH bootleg different from PS78 colourwise because it was captured with a different bulb. Also is the cinematography of star wars dependent on this 70s bulb completing it/pushing it over the edge (i.e. the colours are muted and then the 70s bulb makes them shine , so it is not dynamic in contrast but still dynamic in colour). This is speculation - input/correction invited.

edit/add: or do some telecines just produce a slight hue change?

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Good deduction - its better to have some solid information to fix it as a 35mm than guesswork. If you saved those EQ settings could you post them? You may have already switched them out for another film , maybe it can be described e.g. like a curve with a dip in the middle?

even though a capture captures a print with a setting locked in - the sliders i guess are just adding plus 1 or minus 1 to that so you would be re-doing the capture in one sense. but its not a 'pure' re-do so this is where i guess the artifacts arise. the richer, deeper, more complex the source the more you can re-do it. but if the informations not there (i.e. lost colour) you can't plus or minus from it - you would have to paint it back in

I tried to keep my hand off the vlc image adjust settings, I really did, but I could'nt help myself. This is very subtle tweak (no hue change) and makes the colour 'spread out' a little more on my monitor. Adding a bit more yellow to sand, hair, skin etc. However I'm fairly certain this is pretty needless i.e. the print behind this bootleg I think is probably as good as it gets possibly 100% correct and its only the 1978 capture which can't by its very nature display the whole of the 35mm range with one setting.

contrast 0.98, b 0.93, h 360, s 1.02, g 1.38, also sharpened 0.16

Brooks said:

vimeo works, we'll see how long until they take it down.

 

Anyways, here's some clips from my vhs capture, let me know what you think :)

https://vimeo.com/44704021

 

this looks pretty damn good, nice and clean result for vhs - is this the tape that had never been played? which box set is it from?

russs15 said:

One last point I will make is that looking at Luke in the foreground on the 1984 Fullscreen version, the facial scars and hair is far clearer and sharper than every other comparison shot. Maybe there is something "better" about the 1984 version.

+1, maybe the sharpness effects the perception of the colours somehow

everytime you tease a frame -1 its impressive but also a little depressing - i want to see 24 of these a second dammit!!*

*provided no one gets in hot water as a result

russs15 said:

Hit me!! (the ITV broadcast was not on my HDD - hence the delay. It is now)

What film, format, year, shots do you need???

Apologies Brooks for temporarily hi-jacking your thread. I picked up the very first 1984 VHS of Empire in a charity shop it was an ex-rental and really crudded up but had really clean whites on Hoth before it got chewed up, I then picked up the 1989 version which plays fine but the Hoth scenes now seem a little pink tinted. I don't know whether I imagined this. So my query is there a degeneration of the print across those versions. Can you check your tapes (maybe compare a still of the scene where Lukes in recovery station with a white wall) and see if there is a difference in colour. The crux of the question is - is the 1984 pal vhs the whitest hoth ever??

edit: or have i just got o.c.d.?

russs15 said:

I have all my PAL VHS collection (Fullscreen, Widescreen, Executor Box Set) on an external HDD as well as about half of my "Star Wars collection" so I can check versions with a few mouse clicks......

i was trying to hold back asking you another real quick colour enquiry but when you say this its hard!

Brooks said:

I'll upload the little test I did to youtube tonight to see what you guys think, I'm wondering if it's worth keeping or not.

These stills look about 500% better than when I tried to do a capture of my 1992 vhs pal widescreen. It's worth keeping if this version is not available to you on a better or preferable format for the future.

I can't follow none's Holmesian focus. So a couple of my vague things - if you crank up sharpen in VLC its starts to look more like 35mm could it be the original 1978 capture was not as in focus as it could have been? As well as the flicker the motion seems a bit jerky and theres slight light trails on some of the ships - could this be a disparaty between the frame rate of film and the frame rate it was captured at in 1978? Some of this stuff might not be able to be remedied by a better vcr/capture card.

Also: this is still a really good preservation to have out there

Well I suggest youre going to want to redo it if you desire top class preservation! I really think this tape deserves it (historical importance and all that) but if you are going to go for a second attempt don't burn out on this - better to take your time and not get sick of it - just as long as you keep the tape inside a shoe box filled with cotton wool and sleep with one eye open and a gun - it shouldnt go anywhere - it must be a lucky tape anyway to have lasted 34 years.

I always associate 16mm with having a slight 'haze' over it because of its coarser grain like this:

A shot like this from the PS78 makes me think its 35mm because of the crisp detail of the rocks and the crispness of C3PO's copper colour, and the distortion of the transfer chain is making it 'soft' but not 'hazy', if that makes sense. Of course the 16mm would be a blow down of 35mm(?) so I have no reference for how that would look.

Well this has exceeded my expectations. I've only had chance to flip through it but the thing that really strikes me is the nice clean filmic texture it has and the deep and intact colours the print has (ignore whats been lost via the transfer for a second). It has the similar feel to the video clips of the ib technicolor screening, as if someone had pointed their camera at a projecting print in a really good state of repair.

I can't wait to look more closely at it but so far this looks like it is easily has the most consistent quality among bootlegs of an original print of SW.

Nice job AntcuFaalb, thanks for working on this and the incredible turnaround between announcing the find and sharing it with this forum.

AWESOME STUFF!

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