spoRv

About subtitles: I didn't think about them... could you provide them, if they are on the BD and/or DVD? I could try to extract them from the laserdisc CC, but until now I have not find a working software that could take them from the captured video and save as text.

For the extra and commentary subtitles: my english is good, but I think I'll be not able to transcribe an entire commentary and extra features... here, an external help MUST BE provided!

If I'll release a BD25, I think to add the original PCM soudtrack (just converted from 44.1KHz to 48KHz); obviously, I will add the AC3 soundtrack too. For the commentary, maybe 448kbps DTS is not needed, as a lower bitrate will be enough, but I'm open to every suggestion.

About video bitrate, I usually use 7000 or 8000kbps for AVCHD, with pretty good results; for BD, I think 15000kbps will be enough for the movie and the alternative ending, less for the extras.

With my OUT and SET projects, I decided to release them as AVCHD (on DVD9) because the AVC (H.264) codec is better than MPEG2 at the same bitrate, and because with AVCHD format I could release a movie at 23.976fps instead of 29.97fps of NTSC DVD with its inherent problems.

The downside is that I have to upscale the image from SD to 720p, but the result is not that bad; consider, for example, that the vertical chroma resolution of NTSC 2.35:1 laserdisc is 272 lines, exactly the same of a 1280x720 2.35:1 AVCHD/BD... and, I must add, all the NTSC laserdisc with AR > 1.77:1 have the same vertical chroma resolution of a 720p movie with the same aspect ratio.

At the end, maybe an AVCHD of the movie on a DVD9 and an AVCHD of the extras on a DVD5 will be the best solution, and/or a BD25 with both movie and extras, with higher bitrate.

I must finish SW:ANH OUT 2.0 (almost ready) and SET 1.0 (in advanced progress) first, but if someone likes my OUT project (picture wise) AND is interested in "The Arrival" restoration, please post your comments here; if there is enough interest also in the laserdisc capture of the movie, let me know...

Last IMPORTANT thing: a french PAL laserdisc of "The Arrival" exists; if someone here has it, it could be possible to capture its french soundtrack and add it to the laserdisc restoration project.

Good job!

Is your method comparable or better than avisynth mergeluma/mergechroma?

AntcuFaalb said:

...drop-outs and speckling are both caused by oxidation of the aluminum layer of the LD, a.k.a., laser rot. Whether you see a speckle or a drop-out depends on how well your player deals with the rot and how bad it is.

I would like to clarify that drop-outs on laserdisc could be present even in a brand new, fresh stamped laserdisc - and in this case is NOT caused by oxidation, but only by inclusion of foreign material (like dust particles) between the aluminum layer and the plastic that covers it.

Obviously, laser rot IS caused by oxidation of the aluminum layer, and so when a laserdisc develops laser rot, there are a lot of drop-outs (usually multicolor speckles or lines) and often also audio drop-outs (noise, absence of sound for tenths of seconds etc.). Usually, laser rot "advance" in time, and at the end the laserdisc (or, better the affected side) will not be playable anymore.

I want to point out another problem that could be misinterpreted as laserdisc drop-outs, but instead are film master drop-outs... I noticed them when I did laserdisc captures for the OUT project; infact, those that I first thought were laserdisc drop-outs, where in the same place, in the same frame for all the four editions (english, french, german, spanish)... I was lucky to own four different edition of the same movie to make comparisons, but if someone has only one movie (without the possibility of a comparison) , could think that those small black spots are laserdisc format fault, where infact they were in the master used for the movie... laserdisc is not guilty everytime!

Well, hope I was not too "nerdy"... (O-O,)

Thanks!

The OUT 2.0 will be slightly better, both audio and video.

On the back cover of the french laserdisc, is not stated that the french soundtrack is Dolby Surround, but only stereo. But, as all the other PAL THX laserdiscs (and italian VHS, too) are Dolby Surround, maybe is not stated on the cover, but IT IS Dolby Surround encoded - sometimes is not stated to not pay royaltes to Dolby...

Well, in the OUT 2.0 the only audio conversions will be from 25fps PCM 1441kbps to 23.976 AC3 384kbps.

I'll wait for your subtitles.

poita said:

Which is the Pyramid LD?

This one.

improved features of Star Wars: A New Hope [OUT ruLes v. 2.0]

• color correction not needed - just a bit more saturation than OUT 1.0
• the new sharpen/denoise script is less aggressive than the old one
• a proper color matrix is used this time for the final release (TV.709)
• proper levels used; PC -> TV, from captures to release

• a re-recorded italian soundtrack - with proper hi-fi quality
• a synchronized french soundtrack near the end
• completely redone sountracks, 2.0 Dolby Surround encoded @384kbps
• Heiry_Hen 70mm 5.1 soundtrack @448kbps
• Belbucus Mono soundtrack @192kbps
• literal french subtitles
• 8 half-dark frames between reels change restored
• proper file size of the .m2ts file to fit a DL DVD

Right now I finished to test audio and video synchronization of OUT 2.0.

It will contain Heiry Hen's 70mm reconstructed soundtrack, and Belbucus mono soundtrack, plus the original five Dolby Surround soundtracks (english, french, german, spanish, italian).

After Marvins' subtitle fix will be finished, I'll release the OUT 2.0 .m2ts file; this time it will fit a DVD±R DL disc.

I'm thinking about making also a video preservation of "The Arrival" using the laserdisc(s) as source... as the DVD was non anamorphic, and the BD video quality was - as I read in several reviews - "not so good", to put it mildly...

For sure, the laserdisc image is not high definition, but, as I have just finished the video for OUT 2.0, I could say that sometimes "high definition ≠ high quality"...

I checked my laserdisc collection, and discovered that, apart the Special Edition, I have TWO copies of the NTSC widescreen edition of "The Arrival"... three is the magic number, when median is used to get a cleaner copy of a laserdisc (and any other analog video) capture; probably, the quality will be a little better than the DVD and BD, if I will use the Pioneer HLD-X9 as a laserdisc player; and, if it will be not true, at least the video quality will be on par with the extra features, in particular the alternative ending.

And, because until now I used only PAL sources for my restoration projects, it's time to understand how to make a proper inverse telecine process!

marvins said:

I have started to work on the subtitles. It's ok I will do it. At this time I have done 20% of the job.

Many thanks, marvins!

I'll wait for your subtitle to release the new OUT 2.0.

captainsolo said:

Those later 90's era DTS versions must be very nice, but it's still unknown as to how to transfer the stream off of the LD.

Thanks also to this forum, I learned to capture DTS soundtracks from laserdiscs... for now, I can capture the whole DTS audio only, without video, as if I try to capture audio AND video with VirtualDub, the DTS becomes totally unusable after some seconds... but this is still good, as the few seconds in sync at the beginning of each laserdisc side capture is useful to sync the DTS audio only track.

Those are only early tests; hope to start a restoration project with a DTS laserdisc title soon.

What about using MultiAVCHD for menus? It could author not only AVCHD, but BD and DVD too!

I have those two titles on LD:

Dirty Harry

Dirty Harry collection

The first has a Stereo Dolby Surround encoded and Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks, AND a mono soundtrack onto an analog channel... maybe this one could be the "lost" mono track, or simply a downmix from the DS or DD one?

Elmo Oxygen said:

Are you still up to do this preservation? If not, send it to me and I'll do it. I have an LD player, capturing hardware, and menu design capabilities.

Now I'm really involved into my SW projects!

As soon as they will be released - hope before the end of this month - I could think about it; I have good LD players, good capture card, but poor menu design capabilities - truth is that my free time is all devoted to SW project, and I have no time to dedicate to/I'm too lazy to learn how to make good DVD/AVCHD/BD menus... (^^,)

May you help me with the SW menus?

This file is in sync with the OUT; please use it instead the one you got.

SENDSPACE

Many thanks in advance!

*** *** ***

Latest news:

OUT 2.0 video is processing right now. Then it will be sync'd with improved/fixed and new audio soundtracks, and subtitles. It will be ready in about a week for release.

Marvins, thanks anyway!

Do you need the subtitle file?

Well, now I know who to call for the SET french subtitles... (^^,)

I'd like to obtain the literal transcribe of the french dialogues - what they say is exactly what is in the subtitles.

If you would like to help me, I'll wait before releasing the OUT 2.0, to add your transcribed subtitles to it.

g-force said:

I can't see past the compression artifacts.

you are right, the compression is high, but these clips were here just to show the color correction to someone who have problem to download heavy clips... usually I tend to stay around 7000/8000kbps with AVC compression.

As promised, here you are five test clips; they are 50/50 comparison clips, on the left unprocessed, on the right sharpened, denoised, color corrected; no audio; compressed with AVC @1400kbps to retain enough quality but small size:

SENDSPACE DIRECTORY

Sorry, no Youtube as it blocked them almost immediately after upload. But this time the clips are "light" (from about 10MB each) so everyone could download them.

Feedbacks wanted, as it's time to stop the video conversion and go on to the

AUDIO PART

We (me and another forum member who decided to help me) are working out to include both DTS theatrical soundtrack and laserdisc AC3 soundtrack; it's not easy as I thought before! Hope to find the right solution soon; stay tuned for updates.

analog said:

One of the things I've always hated with MPEG2 direct transfers is color shift. Especially during Tatooine scenes. There are some cases where the color shifting in some versions is just out of hand - pink, to green, to red, to the tan/gold-like color of what it should be. I guess some MPEG encoders just can't handle some colors very well.

MPEG has some defects, but for sure the fact that Tatooine scenes color are messed up is not MPEG's fault... infact, the colors are almost the same on laserdisc... someone wrote about the fact is involved with the telecine conversion.

I just finished to process the video part - medianed, color corrected, sharpened, denoised, upscaled - now it's just a matter of converting the video to AVC or MPEG2.

I'll post some new clips soon; I will use YouTube too this time.

AntcuFaalb said:

Why not used a software translator on the English subtitle file and then fix the mistakes it makes by going through line-by-line?

The quality of online (and offline) translator is good but not perfect... Sometimes I used them, but everytime I have to correct a lot of mistakes. It will be a good help IF someone knows well the two languages involved, but still a lot of work is needed to adjust text... and, as my french knowledge is almost near to zero, it will be difficult to spot the right and wrong words and phrases, also because the french pronounce is not one of the easiest in the world - italian is easier (^^,) so the spoken words will be though not only to understand, but also to transcribe for non-french-speaking people (including me, of course...)

Add to this idiomatic phrases different for each language, and Star Wars french adaptations like names of persons, places, etc...  so, for a french speaking person, Star Wars fan could help me a lot more than an automatic translation...

But let the words speak... the next lines are the first from Star Wars crawl. Normal text is from the french subtitles - and on screen text - bold text is from the automatic translation made by Google translate from the english subtitles. Probably another automatic translation will be more precise on some phrases or words, but not in others, so I think that any automatic translation will be useless in this case. Note also that the accents are missing... french is full of accents! And, WHY google translates Death Star as Etoile Noire (Black Star)?!?

Il y a bien longtemps, dans une galaxie
lointaine, très lointaine....
Il ya longtemps, dans une galaxie lointaine,
loin ....

LA GUERRE DES ÉTOILES
STAR GUERRES

Épisode IV
Episode IV

Un nouvel espoir
Un nouvel espoir

C’est une époque de guerre civile.
Il s'agit d'une période de guerre civile.

À bord de vaisseaux spatiaux
opérant à partir d’une base cachée...
Vaisseaux rebelles, frappant de
une base secrète ...

les Rebelles ont remporté leur première
victoire sur le maléfique Empire Galactique.
... Ont remporté leur première victoire
contre l'Empire Galactique mal.

 Au cours de la bataille,
des espions Rebelles ont réussi à dérober...
Pendant la bataille, les espions rebelles
réussi à voler ...

les plans secrets de l’arme absolue
de l’Empire : L’ÉTOILE DE LA MORT...
Plans secrets ... à ultime de l'Empire
arme, l'Etoile Noire ...

une station spatiale blindée
dotée d’un armement assez puissant...
... Une station spatiale blindée
avec assez de puissance ...

pour annihiler une planète tout entière.
... De détruire une planète entière.

Poursuivie par les sbires sinistres
de l’Empire...
Poursuivi par l'Empire de
sinistres agents ...

la Princesse Leia file vers sa base
dans son vaisseau cosmique...
Princesse Leia ... courses à domicile
à bord de son vaisseau ...

porteuse des plans volés à l’ennemi
qui pourront sauver son peuple...
... Dépositaire des plans volés
qui peut sauver son peuple ...

et restaurer la liberté dans la galaxie....
... Et restaurer la liberté dans la galaxie ....

marvins said:

 What do you exactly want ?

I can help for the french subtitles.

I'd like to have literal subtitles - what the actors says in the movie, the subtitltes report exactly the speech word by word...

The subtitles I have are not literal... if you would like to help, you have to listen to the whole movie and correct the subtitles - an hard work, I've done it for the italian subtitles! Or, find a transcription of the french dialogue...

As I'm going to record the 1997 SE AC3 soundtrack from my laserdisc trilogy, I noted that, on the analog channel a mono soundtrack is present.

There are so many discussion about OT soundtracks, but so few about 1997 SE... I wonder if it's only a mono version of the stereo/Dolby Surround track, or a proper *different* mono soundtrack, originally especially mixed for those theaters without surround systems - I feel not the case, as in 1997 there were few theaters without surround sound... well, if the latter is true, it will worth a preservation!

Another thing: soon I'll begin the audio processing of SET; does someone knows if the german, the english UK and the english FR laserdisc soundtracks pitches are correct?

Sorry, your DVD recorder could only UPSCALE standard definition discs, but could not read a disc with more than standard resolution...

If you could afford it, my hint is to buy a cheap BD player, AVCHD compatible of course - or at least a very good used one!