msycamore

The Aluminum Falcon said:

Yay! I'll download this film ASAP and I'll tell you my thoughts. Smear-free releases are quite intriguing and it sounds like you've done a lot with this.

Actually not much was done on it more than described, but the multi-cap median script did make a big difference in that it got rid of the random video noise/dropouts generated by the player. But I'm quite satisfied with the results.

Chewtobacca said:

Congratulations on releasing this, msycamore! :) Thanks for your consideration in respect of the audio mixes and the colors.

Thanks, I would've liked to darken the canyon with the Jawas and correcting a few color issues like the lightsaber and a few shots in the assault on the Death Star but I can understand the appreciation of just having a straight preservation of the LD as it is, so no problem.

I hope you're patient, my upload speed isn't that great. Oh, and thanks to Mallwalker for discovering this LD in the first place. Maybe I should've made a separate thread for this but I think this will do for the time being.

SilverWook said:

I ordered from yesasia back on June 21st, it was shipped on the 24th. I got the disc in the mail July 2nd. I did not pay for any premium shipping, either.

I'm on the West coast, so your shipping time may vary.

That's pretty fast delivery, the disc you ordered was still listed as in stock when I last checked, even though it isn't as I would get a notification from them when it happens. Pretty common of sale sites doing so but very irritating.

Many people I know who have done business with yesasia haven't had any problems with them.

I discovered that I had to get rid of these files to get HD-space in order to continue with THX, so this one are up on MySpleen now, look for "STAR WARS (Technidisc)".

As already seen in my samples it is pretty rough, the amount of dirt doesn't really bother me and I wanted this to be as unfiltered as possible anyway, but I wanted to at least apply anti-aliasing but doing so completely killed the starfields unfortunately, so I opted to go unfiltered. The other thing I don't like is the dotcrawl and rainbowing, (most of the rainbowing seems to have been introduced in the telecine stage) But again, I opted to go unfiltered except on the opening crawl and end titles as such filtering is rarely good enough to not hurting other parts of the image, motion blur, color smear and erasing fine detail. Maybe a better capture would've helped these things.

I didn't touch the colors by your requests, there is a yellow tint and the colors/contrast is a little wonky in a few scenes and on some composites/effects, but other than that I think it's pretty damn nice overall in its colors. Out of the three different widescreen transfers that was made of this film on NTSC Laserdisc, this is my preferred one.

Just the film presented on a dual layered DVD, no menus. It have hardcoded subs for Greedo and I synced the film frame wise to GOUT, (which means that I took out one frame which was absent on the GOUT) so that you easily can mux in your favorite mix if you would like to, this one have the 1985 home video digital remix with the added Threepio "tractor-beam line" which was first heard in the original Mono mix. I actually prefer the regular Stereo over this one, but I went with this one as this was the mix presented on this disc.

Enjoy.

zombie84 said:

That would be a nice Special Edition, but its not the OOT. I'd buy it, because it's very close, but I'd still be on Lucas' ass for the original, and I'd still be running savestarwars.com. Those matte lines and "defects" are important, thats the film. For me, the matte lines are as important as the rest of the effect--actually, the matte lines were the effect, the effect is the composite not the model on a blue screen; as soon as you take that away you have destroyed all historical integrity that special effect had. Same with wires, if you want to appreciate the film in its context and with its history, well they did things with wires and sometimes the wires showed a bit and they couldn't paint them out because they didn't have computers. Same with crew reflections, or a bad dub. Same with anything. Star Wars should just be Star Wars, a film that opened in May 1977, if you aren't seeing that, you aren't seeing Star Wars, you're seeing something else.

So yeah--Tasteful Special Edition. Cool! But it's not the film we are looking for.

Exactly, well put Zombie.

If you want recomposites, just watch the Special Editions or some fan-edits instead. If you don't want to see mattelines, well, then perhaps you don't actually like the special effects in Star Wars. Those are there for a reason, just like a bad delivery of a line of dialogue can exist or a good one for that matter. They are part of the film.

Yes, we had those seals as well but not all of them had them for some weird reason, also remember that some tapes had copy-protection. Anyway, I may get a copy of the Italian even though I not own a working player anymore, I actually still own a few tapes I would like to digitize so another one wouldn't hurt.

The Aluminum Falcon said:

LOL msycamore at that anecdote involving the rental tapes. You didn't happen to take anything valuable. Did you?

Well, I'm not proud of it, it was at a time before I started to value and appreciate buying the films I actually wanted. Young and stupid... I had a few gems but my collection of tapes along with my player are now gone, I sold everything about ten years ago.

SilverWook said:

Interesting that it exists. If it's the same as the broadcast, it would lend credence to it being the WB cut, or would it just plunge us into a deeper abyss of confusion? ;)

I think it is safe to say that the Italian cut are at least pretty damn close to what the WB-cut was in its editing, going by their very similar length.

SilverWook said:

As for "ex-rental" that Betamax copy from hell I have was a rental copy, and seems to have been lightly used. Either because it's a beta, or THX wasn't something people rented out a lot.

I have often heard that rental tapes were made in higher quality because of the wear and tear they had to endure, don't know if it is true or not but it seems logic to me, the cases and casettes were at least made sturdier. When I was young and stupid I often copied rental tapes for their supposed quality and opened up the casettes and swapped the tape with my copy before I returned it, don't tell anyone. ;)

I think most of this desire of a slightly tweaked version "BR-Final Cut style" comes from the way most people expected and wanted a Special Edition of SW to be. We who want the original films restored are not hard to please, quite the opposite, I don't know what this perception comes from, is it because we were unhappy about the re-release of the 1993 THX LD-transfers in 2006?

No, the guys who are impossible to please are the ones who continue to bitch about the various updates and what he doesn't update in every new SE-release, something that often gets confused with us who just want a true restoration of the originals. I don't care if he would replace Luke with a pink elephant in his next edit, just restore the original films.

You guys want the truth? You can't handle the truth! ;) Seriously though, it's not that I want this to be the case. Like I said earlier, I don't own this set myself, that's why I couldn't post some captures and tried describing it instead. I can try to get a capture of his disc and show you examples of it, but if you don't notice any problems, I guess everything is fine. Don't let my comments hinder you from enjoying your LD.

Yes, I linked to that tape earlier in the thread, I wouldn't call the price of 12 euro for an old VHS tape outrageous, I actually think the price is kinda low, you often paid the double back in the day and much more for some obscure rarities. I guess it depends on how much you desire this version. Heck I may pick it up myself just for the extended footage it contains.

Like Baronlando said, THX 1138, GRAFFITI, STAR WARS, EMPIRE and RAIDERS is just an incredible hot streak of films.

captainsolo said:

Do you remember any specific locations where you noticed this? I'll check my copy.

Yes, the canyon where Artoo get captured by the Jawas for example, if you look close on when the stormtroopers blowing up the door and starts shooting you will see some artifacts causing the lasers to become static and smear which appears on the broadcasts as well.

If you don't see it on yours, the only thing I can think of is that his player smeared it or that it is a variation in pressings. I absolutely can not see the reference quality everyone is talking about and that the only thing that bothers people are a pink tint in Mos Eisley, I see that pink tint right from the beginning aboard the blockade runner and it goes from pink to blue throughout the film along with a quite soft and blurry picture, Empire on the other hand looked pretty damn good as far as I can remember.

Gavin- said:

OH, IT'S *THIS* SABER AGAIN

Turned green in 2004. Corrected in 2011, that's good. But this is a lightsaber shot that needs completely remaking anyway due to the way it wobbles. There was no pole in the hilt for this shot -- because Luke switches it off without a jump cut -- so it was hand-drawn without a reference. The beam is also too thin comared to other shots in the scene.
IN NEED OF FIXING SINCE: 1977?
IGNORED CHANCES TO FIX: Oh boy

How ugly this shot may look to some, I just want to point it out that it was remade for the 1997 SE. The saber along with the remote and chess elements was digitally re-composited. The saber itself look quite different than the original, the blade was extended for example.

The original effect was quite impressive back in the day due to using so many elements in the same shot.

You can also add this weird one to your list: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/What-HASN-T-been-changed-on-Blu-ray-the-uncorrected-mistakes-of-Star-Wars/post/531809/#TopicPost531809

Gavin- said:

LUKE'S GHOST

This is an odd little thing that you might never have noticed. In the establishing shot of the Lars homestead courtyard on the morning that Luke has gone to chase after Artoo, you can see a semi-transparent still image of Luke in one of the doorways. Also, the Treadwelll droid jumps to the other side of the courtyard in the next shot when Uncle Owen enters.
IN NEED OF FIXING SINCE: ?
IGNORED CHANCES TO FIX: at least 2

Very interesting. One of the reasons many of you haven't noticed this before is that this error was introduced in '97, "Luke's ghost" never appeared in the original film. Maybe they got rid of it in post for the original film, and when going back to the negative for the '97SE this error got introduced? the "ghost" remain throughout the sequence, so the shot is clearly made up of one static frame. Hard to tell if this shot in the original film was made of a series of the same single frame though.

ThiefCobbler4ever said:

... and George even went the extra mile to recreate the original 1977 opening crawl (complete with the lower case "r" in "rebel".).

 It wasn't a recreation, it is the original 1977 opening you see on that disc.

dark_jedi said:

The Aluminum Falcon said:

dark_jedi said:

how cool would that be to have the UOT and the 97 SE as bonus BD's? well I am half way there.

Most definitely epic. I grew up with that version too and considering the work with the GOUT, this too will look excellent. By the way, did you see this? Msycamore said that there was smearing on the 97 LD too. As an owner of two '97 LD sets, I didn't see any on either of my copies... AFAIK, the '97 LD was reference quality as far as LDs go.

2 Sets? LOL why 2? and I am not going to call him a liar, because he in fact is one of those I mention about having a HUGE boner for LD's LOL, man does he LOVE his laserdiscs, but I have not seen this either, I will take a look again, maybe his LD has laser rot or something.

You seem to have a pretty huge boner for LD's yourself seeing that you still haven't stopped working with them and appear in every Laserdisc thread in this forum. :) Going by this forums history and all your wonderful preservations you seem to be the biggest sucker for LD ever with your huge collection. Maybe my boner is bigger than yours but I'm afraid I don't even come close to your level of interest in laserdisc.

dark_jedi said:

I just checked my LD of the 97 SE ANH, I went to the scene where there was real bad Ben smear(on the HD Broadcasts) and my LD shows none of this, so who knows, he must have a different version than us.

Maybe I have bionic vision or something. ;) I don't own that set myself but ANH had DVNR applied, the motion smear is not as bad as on the broadcasts, but why working with laserdiscs. :)

zombie84 said:

Could someone be so kind as read over my update on this and see if I have made any mistakes?

http://www.savestarwars.com/news.html

"They also went through the trouble of adding a reflection to the window of a cloud city matte. It's a bit hard to see at this size but if you open any of these pics in a new window you will get the full size."

"Of course, when we cut to inside the entire window is gone. This has still not been corrected."

I believe this minor thing is incorrect, I can't recall you're seeing the interior from an angle inside to notice if there's an window or not, SE or in the original film, am I missing something or did you refer to the later shots inconsistencies with added windows to original sets? Great summary btw.

Fantastic to finally hear a guy like him speak this honestly about these matters, I love you Phil Tippet! :)

ChainsawAsh said:

Is there a way we can get this captured with a higher-end LD player/capture card?

Not trying to belittle your efforts, msycamore, but the higher quality we can have this in, the better.

This is unfortunately the best I can do at the moment. This particular laserdisc isn't something impossible to get a hold of either if you had a higher-end player, it's up on e-bay every day.

dark_jedi said:

I agree with CA, I looked at 1 of your samples, it doesn't look, i don't know, to bad on the PC, but it surely will not look good an a large screen HDTV.

I don't think any laserdisc transfer will, that's why I saved my old CRT-tube when upgrading, it's nice to have when I feel the urge to watch standard-def or play retro games. But it do take up some valuable space. ;)

Asaki said:

After watching these a ton more times, I must say, I like them a lot more than I expected to. It is a bit softer than the JSC, but somehow it feels...different. More of a natural softness whereas the softness in the JSC feels more distorted (maybe due to the color smearing?). 

I think this LD is in fact a little softer than the JSC, but player and capturing device combined with what filtering is used when authoring these discs is also a big factor. IMO it is a little too soft, but the risk of adding some sharpening is that you just create a fake sense of detail in some cases and the dot-crawl/noise will also be more visible.

I finally got AfterEffects installed on my computer, now I'll see if my shitty computer can handle it...

The Aluminum Falcon said:

Oh sorry by rudimentary '04 style bootleg; I meant that I would be happy even with a quality similar to the low quality transfers that used to appear on eBay; however, obviously, this is much better and the fact you did a 5-cap median and IVTC'ing is nothing sort of amazing for me. It's great that this laserdisc could be preserved.

To do 5 captures wasn't any problem for me as I let the buddy of mine do it. He wasn't happy about it ;) but I felt it was needed to get rid of the extreme level of noise on this LD, and the IVTC-process was incredibly easy on this one compared to THX.

When looking on those samples again, I think a little sharpening could make it look a little better, it is very soft. I don't know when I will upload it as of yet, it needs subtitles for Greedo which will not really be a problem for me, but I need to tweak my script due to the cropping in this transfer. I'm glad you guys are liking the samples.

Asaki said:

I'm confused, though. I've heard some mention that this "smear free 93" is not just Ep IV, but all three films? Confirm/deny?

The LD I have captured is just the corrected ANH, there are Technidisc-pressings of the other films in the trilogy as well, how they fare in comparison to the other SWE LD's I don't know.

The Aluminum Falcon said:

 

This definitely has a certain nostalgia to it and I would have just a capture, IVTC'ed if you have time. This release has never been transferred and it would be fantastic to see even a rudimentary '04 bootleg style transfer of it; if your samples are any indication, this will be well-received.

It's already IVTC'd, basically just encoding left if I decided to just upload it as it is. I'm not sure I get what you mean by a "rudimentary '04 bootleg style transfer"?

lurker77 said:

I love the white levels.

This disc has a very "real" look to it, IMO.

Yeah, I agree. Some details are blown out in this transfer as well, (see garage lights) but for the most part the levels aren't clipped and look very nice. The levels in my samples can of course be improved and aren't final.

The transfer do have an overall yellow tint and a few other issues like in the screen-caps I posted and the Laserdisc itself have unfortunately some of the worst rainbowing I have seen on any of my Laserdiscs, if you try to filter that out in avisynth you often end up with desaturated colors in my experience, small objects like blinking lights and lasers gets desaturated or completely colorless. I've seen it in other SW-transfers. Apparently it is most effective to apply such a filter before you IVTC but I have never seen it done completely succesfully without destroying other parts of the picture. So, I'm leaning towards just leaving it as it is. IVTC'd and resized from a 5-cap median.