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grisan

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Join date
13-Oct-2004
Last activity
31-Dec-2015
Posts
146

Post History

Post
#74688
Topic
.: The Zion DVD Project :. (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/74688/action/topic#74688
Time
Originally posted by: Karyudo
Yeah, my strategy from the beginning (a long time ago now...) was to find and acquire the best possible source first, and then work on making it look as good as it could with as little post-processing after that. So I've done a bit of LD collecting as a result. I have the DC, several copies of 'Faces', the Japanese 'Collector's Set', and a few different PAL sets. Not to mention the SE LDs from both the US and Japan. Oh, and some DVB broadcasts and suchlike. I doubt anyone has a much more complete collection of junk than I have...


Nice, but I think I can rival your collection. I have the DC, Faces, Japanese Collectors Edition, the US 1985? OT Special Widescreen Edition, US Special Edition, Uk Special Edition, UK OT Pre-THX Set, German Pre-THX Set, german THX set and german Special Edition Set. I think the only european Versions I am missing are from france. I still wish I had more japanese versions, but these are extremely hard to get here in europe.
I also have the offical SE VCDs, some asian bootleg DVDs and VCDs, 5 or 6 fanmade DVD-Sets and last but not least about 30 VHS sets (mostly PAL), including the USS Executor Box, the US THX Widescreen tapes and some rare german collector editions.
So you are not the only crazy collector on this board :-).

btw. I am also working on a PAL version, and probably a NTSC versions made from my PAL source. Your screenshots are really nice, I wish I still had my Pioneer 515, but It broke down and now I only have an average sony 440 PAL only player. Which PAL version was your source?

Greetings
Grisan


Post
#74287
Topic
Star Wars OT ANH - PAL Laserdisc transfer (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/74287/action/topic#74287
Time
Originally posted by: Wer-Al_Zwowe
It's great to read about all those plans to create a PAL dvd from laserdisc source. I'm planning to do the same.

I recently bought the French laserdisc of the trilogy with subtitles in the black bar. I am planning to record it with my dvd recorder in the highest quality mode. Then I'll resize and color correct it on my pc. And I'll encode it with CCE. It will be an anamorphic dvd with Dutch, English and French subtitles.

Does anybody have any advise, about filters to use?


Hello,

I don't know if first recording with a DVD-recorder and then resizing to anamorphic and rencoding is a good idea. The picture of a DVD-recorder is often quite soft (at least on the few disc I saw that were made with a Phillips DVD recorder in standard quality).

Cropping, resizing, color correction, noise filtering etc. are quite easy to accomplish with Avisynth or VirtualDubMod. VirtualDubMod is easier to use, but I think Avisynth is more powerful and flexible. VirtualDubMod can also import Vobfiles, so you might want to give it a try.
If you have a fast connection I would really like to get a copy of your audio ac3 stream, perhaps you can contact me.

Greetings
Grisan
Post
#73799
Topic
Star Wars OT ANH - PAL Laserdisc transfer (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/73799/action/topic#73799
Time
Originally posted by: Moth3r
Hi folks!

Having just found this thread, I'm kicking myself for not having found it sooner.

But I was also quite thrilled to find out that there other people who are thinking exactly the same as me!

You see, although I have DrGonzo's versions, I too want to have the original trilogy in PAL format (I live in the UK) for 2 reasons:
- better picture definition (because PAL has an increased resolution)
- no "motion judder" from 3:2 pulldown (see the scene in Jedi where the rebel fleet is preparing for the attack on the Death Star; some of the fast horizontal movement looks awful to my eyes)

I decided a while ago that my VHS versions wouldn't give me the quality I wanted, so I bought a 2nd hand CLD-D925, and I've also managed to get LDs of Empire and Jedi (in French - the versions with the original soundtrack on eBay go way too expensive for me). I've probably been bidding against one of you lot for A New Hope! The VHS versions I have are the THX ones (from 1995?) and have the same artwork as the LDs, so I would think that the audio will be compatible.

I know a fair bit about analogue capture (I actually contributed in a very small part to the guide you will find at Doom9.org) so I'm looking forward to doing this.

Here's my "plan of action":
- Set up correct contrast and brightness on the PC monitor using screengrabs from the THX optimiser included on my Indiana Jones DVDs.
- Now run the same disc on a DVD player connected via s-video to the capture card - use the options in the drivers to make sure that the analogue capture is optimal quality.
- Make a capture of my VHS tapes, for the analogue Dolby Surround English audio only, but keeping the video for frame-by-frame reference for synching later on.
- Cap the laserdiscs - I have a digital input that could record the digital stereo French soundtrack.
- Process the video with AVISynth, clean with minimal temporal/spatial noise filtering (probably PixieDust), then do a Lanczos resize to make it anamorphic without blurring the edges too much.
- Encode the video using CCE 3 or 4-pass VBR (this will tie up my poor old XP2700+ for some time!)
- Encode the audio streams to AC-3 (making sure the Dolby Surround flag is set for the English track - unlike DrGonzo's version). Also for A New Hope I may be able to find the original mono soundtrack off a VHS tape somewhere - this would be an interesting addition if I can manage to sync it, for those who have never heard the "close the blast door" line and other differences.
- Do the subtitles in English (for Jabba/Greedo) and French (Jabba/Greedo and the opening scrawl)
- I wasn't going to bother with menus or extras because those sorts of thing are not IMO as important.

So, a hell of a lot to do and I need to do some further reading on audio encoding, subtitles and DVD authoring (was going to make the chapter points the same as the LDs).

I'd be interested to hear any comments on my plan!


Hello Moth3r,

what you are doing is very similar to what I am in the middle of doing. I use my german PAL LDs as source but will include an addtional english track. I don't know if I will use the audio from my UK PAL Vhs or a converted version of the US NTSC audio from TR47 DVDs, because the DVD audio is better but harder to synch to my videostream. I willl also use the multiangle feature to switch between german and english openign crawl. My english subtitles are almost ready, but i still have to edit my german subtitles of the 2004 DVDs to fit my encode.
I also captured my LDs after calibrating my capture card with the THX Optimizer, and doing all the processing with avisynth. I use deen() for a spatial and temporal filtering. Resizing to anamorphic is also done with lancos resize. I encoded my version with CCE 3-pass encoding with an average bitrate of 4500Kbit. This gives excellent results and leaves enough space for 2 or 3 audio tracks (I am thinking of adding a commentary track). Encoding with Avisynth processed input takes about 16 hours on my Xp 1800+.
I also want to add some menus, but I am not good at designing, so I will probably do this some time later.
If you really find the original mono track on an old vhs I am really interested in getting it, from you.
Keep up the good work.

Greetings
Grisan
Post
#73150
Topic
Star Wars OT ANH - PAL Laserdisc transfer (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/73150/action/topic#73150
Time
Originally posted by: MeBeJedi
"I don't now if you read my previous post, but the audio track of the 1995 german THX LDs will cause some desynching problems because these LDs miss some frames compared with other OT releases (e.g. the definitive collection) . This might also be the case with these french LDs"

Don't worry. I can easily fix this in Vegas.


How exactly?

Post
#73146
Topic
Star Wars OT ANH - PAL Laserdisc transfer (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/73146/action/topic#73146
Time
Originally posted by: MeBeJedi
Z6PO, If at all possible, could I get you to send me a PCM copy of the french soundtrack? I'm also expecting a copy of the german soundtrack, and would like to have as many different versions as possible. Let me know.


What is the source of your german PCM track? I don't now if you read my previous post, but the audio track of the 1995 german THX LDs will cause some desynching problems because these LDs miss some frames compared with other OT releases (e.g. the definitive collection) . This might also be the case with these french LDs. I just checked several PAL vhs tapes of the 1995 THX release (german, UK, australian) and noticed that all versions are missing frames. Probably because all of them came from the same master. Maybe all 1995 THX PAL releases have this problem. Unfortunately I don't have an US Faces LD version or DVD-transfer available to check if there are missing frames too.
A good possibility to check this is at the Lia mindprobe scene. In the definitive edition (and 2004 DVD) Vader and the two other guys walking through the hallway and opening the door is 164 (after IVTC) frames long. In my PAL rip it has only 160 frames (and no, it is not because of dropped frames during capturing).
At other points in movie, there are also one or two frames missing.

Greetings
Grisan

Post
#73135
Topic
Star Wars OT ANH - PAL Laserdisc transfer (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/73135/action/topic#73135
Time
Hi,

In the last few days I have been trying to sync the audio track from TR47s DVD to my PAL video track. This was not very succesful, because the audio desyncs at several places during the movie. I found out that this happens because my german LDs seem to miss some frames in some scenes. I compared these scenes with footage from other SW versions.
My german OT LDs really miss frames that exist in every other OT version I checked (including older german LDs). Some of these scenes are frame-identical to the SE versions, but others not.
The Leia / Darth vader mindprobe scene is one example I found.
You can watch a sample clip here:

sample
in the beginning the german PAL LDs and NTSC LDs are in sync, but the hallway scene is 5 frames shorter than the NTSC version.
In the SEversion this scene has exactly the same number of frames, but the scene with the tie fighters flying to the death star is about a second longer.

There are other places in the movie with similar "frame loss" but this is the worst I found so far.
All this makes synching the audio to my video track very troublesome.

Greetings
Grisan
Post
#73000
Topic
Star Wars OT ANH - PAL Laserdisc transfer (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/73000/action/topic#73000
Time
Originally posted by: Z6PO
Originally posted by: grisan

I know for sure that the 1995 THX LDs of SW OT were released in Germany and France


I've bought the french 1995 THX LDs off eBay in the past weeks. Two different releases exists: one with the french soundtrack, and a box set with the original english soundtrack and french subtitles. (I've bought both of them!)

I've bought a fairly decent player too (Pioneer CLD-D925), that I have just received this morning. So I checked the french subtilted english LDs... (drum roll) They have the english text crawl (and end credits), and the subtiltes are (always) in the bottom black bar!!! So there is an english PAL LD of the Star Wars Trilogy.


Thanks for the information. It seems I have to buy these french LDs too.
The CLD-925 is a really good player. My Sony LD player is only average, but I think the results I got with it are quite good.

Greetings
Grisan

Post
#72487
Topic
.: The Zion DVD Project :. (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/72487/action/topic#72487
Time
Very nice. Definately an improvement.
I am still not sastisfied with the color, brightness and contrast of my own rip although I test dozens of settings in the last days.
I also tested several noise reduction filters and found deen for avisynth to be the best. It smoothes the picture nicely and has little detail loss.

Here is an sample screenshot:

original
http://home.pages.at/grisan/original.png

noise Reduction with deen
http://home.pages.at/grisan/noise_red.png

difference beetween the shots:
http://home.pages.at/grisan/difference.png

Compare the first 2 pics in a zoomed view and you'll see the difference. It is even more visible in a video clip.

Greetings
Grisan
Post
#72271
Topic
Star Wars OT ANH - PAL Laserdisc transfer (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/72271/action/topic#72271
Time
Hi.

@ChainsawAsh
Don't worry, I never thought your post was rude, just (constructive critism).
The good thing about this forum is that I can get feedback from people that will notice details others (or myself) overlook.
Besides, your were right about the darkness and blue shift. The shot is fairly dark because I tried to make my test clip look similar to the original 2004 DVD.
These DVDs are also dark and have very vivid colors (decrypt it to hd, and load a vob in VirtualDubMod to see yourself, don't use a player such as PowerDVD because it will alter the image.)

I will probably cancel my attempts to use color correction because parameters that work well on one scene look terrible on another. It would be too much work. I will just change the saturation and brightness/contrast settings slightly.

The german audio track is very important part of my DVD-concept, because I want to to share this DVD with some friends who prefer german language in movies. Of course I can always author different DVDs once I have all video, audio and subtitle tracks ready.

My "dream Star Wars DVD" would be a good quality version with at least german and english audio, plus 1 or 2 commentary tracks, subtitles and the possibility to choose between original cut, special edition and 2004 DVD edition via multiangle. This of course is way too much for a single DVD-5, but could theoretically be done for DVD-9.

I also understand that you have no need for a PAL version.
Btw, what is the standard way of playing PAL discs on NTSC equipment?
If you play a NTSC disc on a PAL player it outputs PAL60 (or NTSC if you have multi-standard TV) or it drops frames (which looks horrible).

Greetings
Grisan


Post
#72111
Topic
Star Wars OT ANH - PAL Laserdisc transfer (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/72111/action/topic#72111
Time
Hi,

I updated my site with some screenshots and sample clips. These show the difference between my original encode and new encodes, with color correction and noise reduction filters applied.
In addition there are letterboxed 4:3 and anamorphic clips. In other threads there was a lot of discussion about the pros and cons of letterboxed and anamorphic encoding.
Now you can decide yourself if anamorphic encoding degrades picture quality or not.
Feel free to post your opinion.

Greetings
Grisan

btw:
if possible subtitles should aways be below the picture.
Post
#71853
Topic
Star Wars OT ANH - PAL Laserdisc transfer (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/71853/action/topic#71853
Time
Hi,

LDDB really ist quite incomplete. A while ago I registered there to add some info about my Laserdisc, but never did.
I know that english SW THX LDs are not listed there, and I always wondered if this can really be true. Laserdisc never was popular in Europe, but most PAL LDs were released in the UK afaik.
I know for sure that the 1995 THX LDs of SW OT were released in Germany and France (and Spain?) so I believed a UK version must exist, too. It seems I was wrong, because I never saw it at Ebay or read anywhere about it.

BTW:
There are 3 german Star Wars LD sets:
1993 Letterbox, CLV, non-THX (bad picture quality)
1995 Letterbox, CAV, THX
1997 Letterbox, CLV, THX
and I also have a single german Star Wars ANH LD from 1982!

I decided to use footage from my british PAL SE LDs for the openings and subtitled sequences, as suggested by some people. I just checked and captured these scenes. Quality is much better than the NTSC conversion, and the Greedo scene is also better because the subtitles are in the black letterbox bars and not in the picture. Even the Greedo shoots first issue is no problem because in the OT version you never actually see Han shoot (like in the SE), so I can simply cut this out.

I also converted the PCM audio from TR47 DVD to PAL with Besweet. It should be no problem to sync it to my videotrack.

Greetings
Grisan
Post
#71819
Topic
Star Wars OT ANH - PAL Laserdisc transfer (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/71819/action/topic#71819
Time
Hi,

thanks for all the answers and suggestions.

@oojason
My standalone (and regionfree) DVD Player and tv are NTSC compatible. I am doing this because IMHO PAL is the superior format, not because I can't watch NTSC discs.
The only disadvantage of PAL is the speedup from 24 to 25 fps, but to me this isn't really noticable while watching a movie.

@skywalka
Good for you (and Australia). ;-)

@Laserschwert
I will try some of the filters you suggested and post the results on my site. I will contact you when I am finished with DVDs.

@DanielB
The VHS audio track was the easiest to get and use for my first draft DVD. I am still trying to get english OT PAL THX LDs, but up till now I never saw them on Ebay.
Using the audio track from TR47 DVDs is a good idea and I will try this. I know Besweet has an option to change audio to match a certain framerate. I hope this works well and the quality is good. Another possibility is to cut the new scenes out of an SE audio track to match the OT version. This way I could make real 5.1 tracks, although this might be a lot of work (and I have never done this before). But I probably stick with Prologic encoded 2.0 tracks anyway.
Another good idea is to use footage from Special Edition LDs. I also have these british PAL SE LDs, so indeed I could use some scenes from these discs. Unfortunately this is no option for the Greedo scene.
Dual audio is something I will definitly do, because these DVDs are primarily intended for myself and some (german) friends.
In my opinion using a LPCM stream is actually much worse than using 2 ac3 audio tracks.
Anamorphic is no must, but I still think it gives better quality on 16:9 tvs and no noticable quality loss on 4:3 tvs.


I spend quite some time creating the DVD menus (especially the root menu), so please tell me what think abou these.

Greetings,
Grisan

Post
#71722
Topic
Star Wars OT ANH - PAL Laserdisc transfer (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/71722/action/topic#71722
Time
Yes, this is possible. If you have an IVTC-ed Movie you can easily convert it to PAL by playing the frames with 25 fps instead of 24 (23,976) fps.
You still have to do some frame resizing to match PAL - DVD resolution (Full D1 720x576 or 704x576). Usually this should be avoided because NTSC (720x480) only has 83% of PAL resolution.
Because of the higher resolution, an original PAL source is much better than any NTSC to PAL conversion could be.
A PAL to NTSC conversion would be more reasonable, because PAL is not telecined and can easily encoded as NTSC. The picture is also probably a bit sharper than a NTSC transfer because of PALs higher res.

But I actually did this kind of NTSC-tp-PAL conversion for my current DVD version.
I do not have an english PAL-LD to capture the opening text (and Greedo scene) for my DVD, so I used the scenes from Dr.Gonzos DVD (which already was ivtc-ed to 23,976 fps and anamorpic) and converted it to PAL by resizing and fps changing. Of course the quality is worse than a direct PAL LD - capture would be, but it is still better than VHS.

Greetings
Grisan
Post
#71651
Topic
Star Wars OT ANH - PAL Laserdisc transfer (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/71651/action/topic#71651
Time

Hi,

I am doing yet another Laserdisc to DVD transfer. Only difference is that I will make PAL versions.
AFAIK only NTSC transfers exist, so I thougt it is time for a PAL version. I have several german Star Wars PAL LDs and started working on this Project a few weeks ago.
I just finished my first draft ANH DVD and would really like to get some opinions from you.
I created a (pathetic) little website wich some info, screenshots, and movie samples.
My Star Wars PAL DVD Project

DVD features:
16:9 anamorphic PAL version
dual language (english, german) in video track (opening text, alien subtitle sequences) and audio
animated menus

Sources were my german PAL THX CAV-Laserdiscs from 1995 (german version of the “Faces” US-Set), and the british USS Executor VHS Set (english audiotrack only).

Greetings,
Grisan

 

Mod Edit: a working link to Grisan’s Star Wars PAL DVD Project can be found below:-

https://web.archive.org/web/20041027075218/http://www.scifi.pages.at/swpaldvd/index.html

Post
#70952
Topic
The OT Cover Repository
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/70952/action/topic#70952
Time
Hi,

I uploaded all of my Star Wars DVD Covers to this site:
Star Wars DVD Covers

All covers have been recompressed using Irfanview (quality set to 60-70 %) to fit the filesize limit of 900Kb. All files are still 300 dpi hires without much visible quality loss.
There are 435 covers (220 MB) online. Most of the covers are from this message board or Blaksvn's Collection available via Bittorrent from Myspleen.net. There are also several "new" sets.

Tell me what you think.


Greetings
Grisan