ilovewaterslides

So, i finally saw the HDTV version, and i have to say i'm a little bit disappointed.  It's not the version i was looking for, it's quite good but it's a shame compared to a BDrip that is the same size.

Sometimes, a screenshot is worth a thousand words

Here they are (resized for the web)

GoodHDTV: http://i681.photobucket.com/albums/vv176/milkytrv900/hdtvu1_zps25ec99ea.jpg

BadHDTV: http://i681.photobucket.com/albums/vv176/milkytrv900/hdtvc1_zps8102d479.jpg

GoodHDTV: http://i681.photobucket.com/albums/vv176/milkytrv900/hdtvu2_zps366dfb7a.jpg

BadHDTV: http://i681.photobucket.com/albums/vv176/milkytrv900/hdtvc2_zpsaafe6ba7.jpg

If you want to see them in full resolution, here's a link: 

http://www.sendspace.com/file/wfpyxy

I found these "GoodHDTV" screens a while ago. The link is on the first page of this topic. I don't know how to find these versions they look so perfect. This time they DO look better than the actual Blurays.

The Aluminum Falcon said:

Very, very, very interested. Shot you a PM. Plan to marry it with HDTV rip video (superior quality).

 Where the heck did you find the HDTV version?

Well, in fact it's the first version that was available in France and the quality is not the best but still pretty good. It was manufactured by Philips. Some years later Pioneer made a remastered edition of this LD. I heard the Pioneer looks amazing compared to the Philips first release.

Philips: http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/29337/082-892-1/Back-to-the-Future-(1985)

Pioneer: http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/28457/PLFFB-34231/Back-to-the-Future-(1985)

Plus, the cover of the Pioneer remastered edition is damn beautiful! I'll try to get my hands on one of these copies as soon as possible.

I don't know if that has something to do with how the colors look, but i recently bought this LD and it was in mint condition, the seller told me that he played the disc only once.

Here's the beginning of the first BTTF French Laserdisc:

https://vimeo.com/58301955   Password is: OriginalTrilogy

That's a real "80's film-look" haha.

Woaw marvins it looks pretty awesome!  If you are interested i finally have the french audio in PCM WAV.   The audio is from my 1992 VHS but to be honest it sounds better than the 1995 THX LD.  I don't know if you noticed on the 95 LD, the sounds and musics are much louder than the voices so you can hardly hear anything about what the characters are saying and that's pretty lame for a THX transfer...  anyway, my 92 audio sounds the same as the French GOUT with a higher bitrate.

I do have the French audio for the whole trilogy! Unfortunately i don't have the spanish one. :/   Anyway, if you are interested PM me.

Perfect! Thank you, marvins!!!

Alright thanks a lot marvins! :)  You should upload it on Vimeo so i can easily download it in full quality.

Alright,  marvins is doing an incredible job on this French preservation.  He is basically trying to make the french titles the more accurate to what they used to be in 1977? Still not sure if the titles were the same in the theaters in 1977 but anyway they are exactly like what we can see on the different analog sources available.

I'm working on a barely different project. My goal is to make the titles the more accurate to the original English titles. 

Here's my latest attempt:  https://vimeo.com/57764295  Password is:  OriginalTrilogy

Overall, my titles and my crawl are definitely not 100% accurate to the English titles but the result is quite good in my opinion.  My crawl is a bit too big and the font is different. The text position does not match the English text all the time but it's still not bad.  Finally, the "LucasFilm Limited" is different too since the original one was made by hand and mine was made with a simple font on Photoshop.  

I'm working with the Harmy Despecialized edition 1.0 (i hope it doesn't bother you at all Harmy.)  I've made some color corrections on it you can see that on my Vimeo sample above. 

I'm not planning to share the final version anywhere by the way except if some people are interested but i seriously doubt about it. ^^

The Greedo scene is hard subtitled in English on the Harmy V1.0 so i used the scene from my 2006 DVD instead and it looks quite decent.  I just finished the French subtitles (thanks to marvins for his VHS TV rip because the subtitles are great on this version.)

For the end credits i was wondering if i could use your version marvins? They do look quite impressive!  Of course i will put the nicknames of all the people that were useful for this project at the end of the movie.  :)

So, tell me what do you think about my opening titles/color corrections. I'd be glad to see what you guys have to say about it!

I'm definitely interested too! Go for it man! An MPEG2 source can be amazing if the bitrate is high enough.  So, if you have spare time and if that doesn't bother you to capture it, you should give it a try for sure.  ;)

frank678 said:

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.

 

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.

Thank you for all of this, marvins! This is literally pure gold!  Damn, the subtitles on the FOX edition are awful indeed. It looks like they used an automatic translator... 

To me, the Full Frame edition of BTTF looks better than every other DVD edition that you can find. The quality is amazing, there's less MPEG compression artifacts than the widescreen versions. The colors as well look fantastic.

Full Frame DVD:

http://i681.photobucket.com/albums/vv176/milkytrv900/vlcsnap-2013-01-04-19h49m30s201_zps02faa95c.png

1.85:1 Blu-Ray:

http://i681.photobucket.com/albums/vv176/milkytrv900/vlcsnap-2013-01-04-19h50m41s244_zpsaa0fb64e.png

Finally! I have it, i noticed two problems with the French audio track. The voices are sometimes too low it's hard to understand what they are saying. And the audio goes out of sync at the end. Beside these two problems, your preservation is really well done and looks very good. Nice job! ;)

What an amazing job you did there! 

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

If hearing the music from the cantine when Luke and Ben are walking is an indication of auto gain compressor, I'm sorry to say that all (apart the english) soundtracks are affected... there could be a "cure"?

It may be a bad mix done by the studios... if it is, there's no way to change it unfortunately.  Will see, if it's not disturbing while watching the movie i think we can deal with it.  

 

I think to use BeHappy; but I don't know how to configure the Timestretch... first, from 25 to 23.976, and it's OK; then I have three Rate Controls:

1. Rate, Tempo and no Pitch correction
2. Pitch changed preserving Tempo
3. Tempo changed, Pitch correction

 

I think I must use 1) for english, french and spanish tracks, and 2) for german and italian. Am I right?

 

You should use the (1) for EN, FR & SP tracks and (3) for GR & IT tracks. Well... it could be the opposite. It depends of the software algorithm... i'll try to use the software then i'll tell you.

Alright, so:  

English audio = correct pitch

French audio = correct pitch

German audio = pitch speeded up

Italian audio = pitch speeded up

Spanish audio = correct pitch

If you want, you can send me the full audios, i'll change them to 23,976 fps with the right pitch for each one. ;)

About your audio capture, i was wondering if you used any auto gain compressor?  How did you record these 5 different audios from your LDs? Because on some of them i can hear some volume variations and it seems it's due to an auto gain compressor who reduces every sounds that are too loud and creates a strange mix on the audio track. 

Here's a little example where you can hear all the differences, it's in French but i guess it's not a problem. In this scene the best part to notice the auto gain compressor effect is when Luke and Ben are walking you can still hear the music from the cantina. Also, when Han is speaking there are some other volume variations. Pretty bad effect.

Thanks a lot, marvins!  Great job. ;)

Indeed, the Greedo scene is VERY dark. We can barely see something...

the THX edition is better, but the subtitles are a little strange, they're not exactly the same as the original ones.

I've noticed that the THX edition is presented with the typical 4% speed up, but they changed the tempo only, the original pitch is preserved. 

The 1st edition is speeded up by using the classical way (tempo+pitch).

Alright....  hopefully the guy who won this bidding is a member of OT.com and will give us the nicest transfer ever.  It's impressive how a 30 year old VHS can actually look better than some DVDs out there.

You're welcome!

About the soundtracks bits, i'd like to hear the main titles, to me it's the best part to determinate if the pitch is the right one or not. 

I'll use my edit software "Vegas Pro" and my NTSC GOUT audio to make sure that your 25fps audio will run exactly at 23,976fps. This software is amazingly precise for this kind of work, you can trust me i've done that tons of times before, so i can give it a try.

My software can also stretch the soundtrack without changing the pitch, so if one of your soundtrack is right pitched i won't have any problem either.

Woaw! These screenshots i can see on the first page do look amazing!  First time i see this kind of quality on a VHS rip.  This preservation seems to be really interesting.

HELP NEEDED!

The main goal of the project is to obtain a 23.976fps version - the most similar to theatrical release, but for that I NEED someone who knows perfectly the SW soundtrack and who help me. How? Just listening some audio clips from the different PAL tracks (could be only music, just tell me which part is needed) to determine if that track has the right pitch or not!

Alright, i can do that pretty easily. I PM'd you.

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

I'm not converting simple stereo files, but Dolby Surround encoded stereo files... I could also convert them to stereo AC3, but as AC3 is not perfect as someone still say ("don't worry, a simple stereo track, Dolby Surround encoded, at 192kbps will be THE SAME as the PCM tracks..." - sure... as I am Napoleon the Emperor, and I'm NOT him!) so I prefer a better 5.1 AC3 @448kbps than a simpler stereo @192kbps... 

 If you're interested, i can convert any uncompressed WAV stereo file to AC3 with a bitrate of 640kbps  48kHz - 16bit.  

It's the maximum bitrate that AC3 codec can handle.

But i can convert it to 224, 384, or 448kbps if you prefer.

Woaw, it seems like you're doing an incredible job, sir! I've seen the screenshots and the video files... i definitely can't wait to see the final version! The fact you are getting other languages is just awesome! I'm searching for the French audio with an higher bitrate than 192 Kbps for a long time. 

Thanks dude! 

marvins said:

Weren't the first old VHS release of Star Wars in France fullscreen version ? I think so.

Well, i just checked and you are right, the two first VHS editions are in fullscreen indeed. That's interesting, it's quite unusual to find pan&scan versions in France. 

I will post the Greedo scene from my LD, I must just ripp it. Yes, I have a flat image of the end french credits because I'm redoing it. I will post it, but because it's a widescreen version of the movie, it's difficult to read all the little characters.

Thanks a lot, good luck with your work! :)