spoRv

CapableMetal said:

I have captured the PAL laserdiscs for ANH and they have 1 frame missing from the 'standardised' figures on here, at the end in the victory celebration, I think. Inserting a null frame would solve it, although its so near the end of the film a 1 frame discrepancy should be unnoticeable.

Just for curiosity, stating that "Star Wars" begins at frame 711, what is the number of the missing frame?

The DVB broadcasts are certainly more detailed than any laserdisc releases, but that means that the DVNR smearing is more apparent. Of course, it can vary from version to version, but only with experimentation can we find a nice compromise ;)

Please follow my thoughts:

all of those DVB were broadcasted years ago, almost surely before 2004/5, because George "changed his mind again" and then after 2004/5 only the third version was available (also for broadcasting use). The compression techniques were not refined as today; also, the experience was shorter.

And, who can be sure that these DVB programs were recorded directly in digital domain? As satellite internal tuners were not so easy to find, probably who recorded them used a digital satellite receiver, and used a PC or a DVD recorder to capture the movies; in both cases, the original signal was digital, then converted in analog and then reconverted again from analog to digital by the PC or DVD recorder... I say so, because I did quite the same; I recorded an aerial DVB broadcast with my DVD recorder in 2005, which was connected by a SCART cable to the DVB receiver!

...add to this also signal interference (in the broadcast, antennas, cables etc.), original compression artifacts, wrong settings... and MPEG2 compression - all of those versions were released on DVD - with all its inherent problems.

So here you are the possible scenarios:

• the capture was made using an internal PC satellite tuner (or an HD connected to a digital satellite receiver, and then downloaded to PC); the DVD was made without recompression. Result: the quality is the same of the DVB broadcast; very good. Probability: very low.
• the capture was made using a DVD recorder (or a PC analog capture card) connected to a digital external receiver; the DVD was made without recompression. Result: the quality depends by analog DACs and ADCs, cables, DVD or PC capture settings; from good to poor. Probability: very high
• the capture was made using a DVD recorder (or a PC analog capture card) connected to a digital external receiver; the DVD was made WITH recompression. Result: the quality depends by analog DACs and ADCs, cables, DVD or PC capture AND compression settings; from medium to poor. Probability: medium

In the best case scenario, you have a perfect digital copy of the DVB broadcasting on DVD... still MPEG2 compressed!

Let's see together some interesting facts, according to myspleen torrent:

the ANH DVD, from GKar set, which is supposedly the best of the DVB broadcasting, has three soundtracks, one German DD 5.1, one English DD 5.1, and one English 2.0; as I have not the DVD myself, I have to guess how much space those soundtracks take.

ANH PAL GOUT is 116 minutes, 1997 SE should be 120 minutes; so this DVD AC3 soundtracks could be:

120 minutes x 60 seconds = 7200 seconds

• 448kbit/s soundtrack: 7200s x 448 kbps = 393MB
• 384kbit/s soundtrack: 7200s x 384 kbps = 337MB
• 256kbit/s soundtrack: 7200s x 256 kbps = 223MB
• 224kbit/s soundtrack: 7200s x 224 kbps = 197MB
• 192kbit/s soundtrack: 7200s x 192 kbps = 169MB

• The max space used by the soundtracks could be 3 x 393MB = 1179MB
• The space I think it used is 337MB + 337MB + 169MB = 843MB
• The min space used by the soundtracks could be 3 x 169MB = 507MB

A blank DVD+R/-R is 4700MB (I don't count space for menus) at the end, the space left for video, and its bitrate would be:

• 4700 - 1179 = 3521MB / 7200s = 4006kbps
• 4700 - 843 = 3857MB / 7200s = 4388kbps
• 4700 - 507 = 4193MB / 7200s = 4770kbps

that is good for a commercial DVD, but, in reality, the GKar ANH DVD iso is only 3800MB, so probably its video bitrate is

3800 - 843 = 2957MB / 7200s = 3366kbps (a bit more, as iso is slightly compressed)

and  think that GKar was recorded in 2001 or 2002, then there is the highest probability that is was NOT a direct digital recording... draw your own conclusion.

I don't say the laserdisc, as an analog medium, is better than digital; I state that, following my thought exposed before, and my brief experience with the OUT ruLes project, it *may* be better to start with uncompressed material taken directly from laserdisc captures, using good hardwares and sources, medianed and averaged, than using compressed, low bitrate material recorded who knows how. This is only my personal opinion, that's it.

I must add, just for the sake of completion, that I could use my Pioneer HLD-X9 to capture not only from one NTSC US boxset, but from two different copies of it! And I could use also another MUSE player! ...If only I have learned to do proper IVTC... (xx_)

I'd be interested in seeing some test captures of any SE sets you have, particularly in high-motion scenes so compare to what I have already. Any SE source, of course, needs some colour correction due to that horrendous pink tint on certain shots, particularly the Mos Eisley effects shots.

I have the UK PAL and US NTSC sets.

I have your same UK PAL and US NTSC sets (actually two of the last), plus the german and french PAL boxsets (the last one in english).

I'm quite sure I could squeeze more details from these PAL laserdisc than the ones I used for OUT ruLes project, as they are newer and remastered. For the color correction, I'll try to do my best, but I'm sure I'll be here to ask for help once again!

New year, new captures! Just wait some days.

digitalfreaknyc said:

 

Again, IMDB is, many times, wrong. Just because it doesn't say DTS on that doesn't mean that there wasn't a DTS mix. The simple solution is to check the credits at the end of the movie to see if there's a DTS logo, no?

 

SilverWook said:

I meant what soundtrack would be heard? Evita does not have a DTS credit at the end...

So, it seems I must leave Evita with the §§§ ...

csd79 said:

It seem to have frozen grain/noise in it but interestingly it seem almost natural. I think with some more tweaking of the noise filter settings it could be perfect.

I'm testing a stronger noise filter, that seems marvelous - seen on static frames... I must test with moving images, but it is really promising.

Although I'm not a big fan of these LDs because of the color palette and the heavy cropping, but I really like the stable, non-shimmering starfields and the fact that it has less aliasing artifacts than the GOUT.

About color palette: I discovered that "pumping" a bit (10 or 15%) the saturation, withouth touching anithing else, the colors are really vibrant, compared to the actual version; but in some scenes, like the initial ones with white corridors, the white starts to be not white anymore... I think I will "pump" the saturation only on selected scenes...

Heavy cropping: this time I must disagree with you: yes, sometimes the image is more cropped than GOUT, but many times the contrary is true!

The DVNR smearing and aliasing problems of GOUT were notorius; this is the first reason I started my project!

Thank you for sharing, Andrea!

I hope you will do the rest of the trilogy! Nice project!

Thank you very much! I'm happy to hear someone who likes my project!

Normally I finish a work that I started, so the OUT ruLes will continue!

But I need more comments about ANYTHING, to improve the quality of the next episodes! Your comments are really appreciated.

And I'm thinking also, as I wrote into the 1997 SE thread, to make the SET ruLes, with DTS tracks...

Found another little problems (it wasn't my fault this time!); the french and spanish subitltes (and maybe the german ones) are not literal; I like best the literal subtitles, to not loose any word. If someone would like to adjust them...

Another thing: during the inspections of still frames, magnified 4x or 8x, I noted that the denoiser I used leaves much "grain", but during the normal playback it seems this is not a problem - to me, at least; what do you think?

Any feedback? Both positive and negative critics are welcome, really!

I'm afraid that AVCHD standard doesn't allow DTS... but I can make a simple .m2ts file - like the one I did for my project - with DTS; it will be not AVCHD compliant, but it will be playable on (almost) all modern computers. For AVCHD, I will convert this track to AC3 @640kbps (and will include the original AC3 track from laserdisc, too).

And the DTS soundtrack could (and would) be included into future DVD and BD editions...

The file format could be a .dts too, as I don't need to touch it anymore.

Could you confirm that your 1997 SE PAL capture is in sync from the first frame to the last with the DTS track? Or I must insert some missing frame somewhere?

But, at the end, the question is: should I start a "Special Edition Trilogy restored using Laserdisc editions"? Is there someone in 2013 that will be interested in that kind of project, still based on laserdisc captures, when there are many other projects around based on DVB digital recording? I think that laserdisc has still to show (to someone of) us its potential - OUT ruLes is a demonstration; also if not on par with the best digital editions on the market, nowadays with free software, it is possible to "squeeze" all the video information it has "hidden" into its analog pits, and after a bit (more than a bit, indeed...) of processing, the result is not that bad!

...you know what? I'll do it FOR ME! Because I'd like to do it, and to prove myself I CAN do it (again)! The "collateral damage" will be a public release... L(nùù)7

Anybody has the PAL French laserdisc audio - in french, cat. [609735] - in bit-perfect PCM to share? I have the french boxset, but the language is english... also, a spanish track in PCM captured from VHS HiFi will be highly appreciated...

@CapableMetal:

You are right; after the post #210 I realized that the DTS files were @24fps, so I converted it in post #212.

It will be great to have 6 separate WAV files, one for each channel, all of them for each movie, that start at frame 0 and continue for all the movie lenght, converted from 44100hz to 48048hz with the best frequency converter you have and THEN modified in the header to be 48000hz... in that case, I don't need the video sync!

< !-- My second attempt - always at sendspace - this time it's @23.976 -->

IF

{

someone with a DTS sound system could confirm that all this process works

(that can confirm the 1536kbps bitrate is standard for DVD/BD)

}

AND

{

(this DTS file works as a standard DTS format, its output through the SPDIF to the DTS amplifier actually works)

}

AND

{

(the channel positions are right)

< !-- my DTS file channel map is FL FR C LFE SL SR -->

}

AND

{

someone could be interested into a [SET ruLes] project - that will be more interesting, content-picture-sound wise than [OUT ruLes] because:

1. It has not a DVD/BD commercial release (and will never have)
2. The picture quality should be better than [OUT ruLes]
3. It could contain also the theatrical DTS tracks (AVCHD: AC3@640kbps)

}

THEN

RETURN (I'll do it!)

< !-- end of code -->

< !-- your comments are welcome -->

Well, you know what? The world didn't end on 21st of december (or are we all LOST?!?) and I discovered a really really interesting thing: I actually DO own the "From Star Wars To Jedi" documentary on laserdisc!

Infact, it is included in the Japanese Collector's Set!

So, at the end, I could start a new project myself, without looking for another laserdisc!

...if someone could be still interested, obviously... (èé?)

You_Too,

I just thought about this option, but the "pyramid" set has no fixed aspect ratio, and it has few lines of resolution top and bottom, and less left and right... to match those two edition, first every scene has to be checked, then the "pyramid" should be cropped top and bottom (loosing few horizontal lines of resolution) and the THX laserdiscs captures should be cropped left and right (losing some vertical lines of resolution)... at this point, the picture is the smallest possible!

I tried some solutions on VirtualDub - as Spaced Ranger suggested - and found some setting are good, but still not perfect... I must find some time for more testing. If these (of more) settings could be right for the whole movie(s), then it can be possible to apply them only to pinkish scenes, and use the needed ones to replace the clipped-white/crusched-black ones.

It came also to my mind the idea of making a "pyramid" ruLes project... why not?

After discovering the fantastic world of myspleen, my creativity awakes suddenly and said "I want to do more..." (regarding my next project, "SET ruLes")... so, I downloaded the 1997 SE DTS audio tracks, and began to experiment with them...

The first, simple thing I've done, is this: I took the first ANH reel WAV PCM 44.1khz 16bit files - six discrete channels - then merged them into a single WAV PCM converted to 48khz 16bit, and finally reconverted them to DTS 5.1 48khz 16bit 1536kbps.

The result track seems almost the same of the original PCM WAVs (say, 99%?) accordit to the Audacity comparison "by eye" I made, apart a little volume reduction of the LFE (I think less than 2dB) due to the audio converter.

So, here you are the file -  sendspace (warning: 218MB); is there someone who'd like to test it on his DTS audio system, and tell me what does he think (especially if the channel positions are right - this is my main concern)?

The original file must be at 24fps, where the NTSC 1997 version should be at 23.976fps, so take it in account if you mux the track with your video... at the end of the reel, the audio would be desynchronized for 28 frames, a little bit than a second.

If this resulting file is right, I could use the DTS soundtrack for my next project... yes, I know that one of the [OUT ruLes] project statement said no digital source could be used, but, hey, rules are made to be broken! (^_^) and, by the way, those DTS tracks were meant to be used only in theaters, and not released for home use, so the rule is only half broken... well, the solution is ready: as this will be the [SET ruLes] project, the only thing I have to do is change that rule, is that simple... (!**3)

digitalfreaknyc said:

 

Actually, no. You should change evita.

*** shouldn't be next to it. And there's a problem with the BD, not the LD.

 

You are right, as *** was put wrongly there; according to this post - and to IMDB (see technical specs) the original soundtrack was Dolby Digital - so I changed the description and added §§§ original soundtrack was not DTS. Maybe the Xmas lunch was a little too heavy to think clearly... (#@@)

You_Too said:

This one sure looked great for being LD-sourced! At some points it looks like the vertical resolution is even better than the GOUT. Though like you've stated before, the blacks and whites are a bit clipped but I guess they were like that on the disc(s) too?

Unfortunately yes, the clipped whites and crushed blacks are on the PAL masters, so they are present on all the laserdisc editions used on OUT ruLes (and also onto the italian VHS, by the way...).

But the scenes involved are not too much; as I wrote before, I'm thinking about replace them with the "pyramid" edition, but I still have to find the way to color correct those scenes to look like the rest of the movie - I think colourlike avisynth plugin will do a decent job.

***

And now, the bad news (>_<)

First problem noted: the italian soundtrack sounds too much louder in respect to other languages... I thought I recorded it at a too high level, but that was not the case; infact, I leave the Panasonic videocassette recorder mix setting on, so the track is the result of the HIFI+mono VHS tracks! I just finished to capture and convert the right version - it will be included in the next release, but it is important only to whom is interested in the italian track, so... it's a minor bug (U_U!)

Second problem: frames from 135080 to 135087 are half darkened because in the french and english editions those frames were black, and I forgot to replace them... so the median&average script has averaged normal frames with black ones! I just corrected the error; as now the script have to average only two editions instead of four, these eight frames are a little bit lighter than the rest of the scene, but I preferred to leave this as is, because it's better to have a lighter scene one third of a second long, instead of the whole scene averaged between only two editions - and so with less quality. Also if this issue could be not considered as minor as the first, frankly I could not afford another four days conversion just for it (**O) - I'm waiting for eventual other bugs and then start a new conversion.

Waiting to discover the next mistake!

Thanks, I provided to edit the first post with your comments.

@Harmy: thanks!

As you are the author of the best Star Wars despecialized edition, I'm proud to receive your congratulation... I'm really happy you have appreciated my hard work! Thanks again!

Do you think I should continue my "ruLes" projects?

@everyone who watched the release

What do you think about audio soundtracks? As I have not (at the moment) a working 5.1 amplifier, I have not the chance to test the 5.1 soundtrack. I made all the possibile checks, but no real audio "road test"...

What I really need is someone who has a 5.1 audio system that can check the channel positions, and tell me if they are at the right place!

The HLD-X9 S-Video out should be better than HLD-X0, because is 3D and came after two years...

To myspleen users: please don't forget to seed as long as you can... (° * ,)

To everyone: MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

LAST UPDATE: 2018-04-20

I’d like to know which title of the following list

has not a DVD and/or BD edition with a DTS soundtrack

OR

where the DTS soundtrack is present, the DVD/BD edition is different from theatrical presentation but the laserdisc is the same

OR

the DTS soundtrack is half bitrate (768kbps) - where laserdisc are 1441kbps - or the quality is not that good

OR

simply, there is no DVD or BD edition at all!

This to determine which title could be eligible for a DTS soundtrack restoration, using the laserdisc DTS soundtrack and the best video available (BD or, if not available, DVD or, if there is no digital edition at all, the laserdisc video).

So, here you are a list of NTSC USA laserdiscs with DTS Digital Surround soundtrack:

1. … 12 Monkeys (1995) 43208
2. … **Alien Resurrection (1997) 0032584
3. … Apollo 13 (1995) 43119 -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
4. … Armageddon (1998) 16066 AS -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
5. … Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery: Special Edition (1997) ID4402LI -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
6. … Babe (1995) 43209 -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
7. … Blade (1998) ID5423LI -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
8. … Blown Away (1994) ML106171
9. … Boogie Nights (1997) ID4415LI
10. … Born on the Fourth of July (1989) *** ID4482MC -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
11. … Broken Arrow (1996) 0896384
12. … Carlito’s Way (1993) ID4425MC
13. … Casino (1995) 43117 -> The BD is DTS 5.1 but likely a new mix.
14. … Casper (1995) 43120
15. … Con Air (1997) 12881 AS
16. … Crimson Tide (1995) 12156 AS
17. … Crow, The (1994) 12157 AS
18. … Dante’s Peak (1997) 43364 -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
19. … Dark City (1998) ID4643LI -> theatrical was reissued as a bonus to the Director’s cut and not in DTS.
20. … Daylight (1996) 43271 -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
21. … Deep Rising (1998) 15066 AS
22. … Die Hard (1988) *** 0890584 -> original sound mix altered for all 5.1 remixes.
23. … Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990) *** 0890684 -> original sound mix altered for all 5.1 remixes.
24. … Die Hard 3: With A Vengeance (1995) 0885884 -> New BD audio very strong but not as detailed as a 1995 film should be, suspect a remix and not theatrical. -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
25. … Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993) ID4426MC
26. … Dragonheart (1996) 43207 -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
27. … Eagles: Hell Freezes Over (1994) ID4065GF -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
28. … English Patient, The (1996) 12356 AS
29. … Eric Clapton: Unplugged (1992) ID4747WO
30. … Evita (1996) §§§ 12096 AS -> original theatrical sound was Dolby Digital.
31. … Firestorm (1997) 0277384
32. … Flubber (1997) 14687 AS
33. … Frighteners, The (1996) 43274
34. … From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) 12160 AS
35. … Game, The (1997) ID4386PG
36. … Gate to the Mind’s Eye, The (1994) ID4068MM
37. … Get Shorty (1995) ML107093
38. … Getaway, The (1994) ID4471MC
39. … Goldeneye: Special Edition (1995) ML105987 -> 2006 BD loses it’s thunderous bass and LFE.
40. … Good Will Hunting (1997) 15112 AS
41. … Great Expectations (1998) 0449284
42. … Halloween: H20 (1998) 16070 AS
43. … Happy Gilmore (1996) ID4423MC
44. … Hard Target (1993) 43276
45. … Heart and Souls (1993) ID4483MC
46. … Hercules (1997) 15067 AS -> This Disney films all get 7.1 remixes nowadays, so the laserdisc DTS soundtrack is the original.
47. … Hoodlum (1997) ML107094
48. … Hunchback of Notre Dame, The (1996) 12354 AS -> This Disney films all get 7.1 remixes nowadays, so the laserdisc DTS soundtrack is the original.
49. … In the Mouth of Madness: Special Edition (1994) ID3751LI -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
50. … In the Name of the Father (1993) ID4484MC
51. … Independence Day: ID4 (1996) 0411884
52. … Jackal, The (1997) ID4424MC -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
53. … Jackie Brown (1997) 15065 AS -> BD mix is DTS 5.1 but may be sweetened as Tarantino likes to tweak his films for video.
54. … Jackie Chan’s First Strike (1996) ID4713LI -> American dubbed and re-cut version.
55. … Jurassic Park (1993) 43115
56. … Kingpin (1996) ML107092
57. … Kull the Conqueror (1997) ID4422MC
58. … Last Man Standing (1996) ID3735LI
59. … Liar Liar (1997) 43365 -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
60. … Long Kiss Goodnight, The (1996) ID3738LI
61. … Lost in Space (1998) ID4712LI
62. … Lost World, The: Jurassic Park (1997) 43366
63. … Man in the Iron Mask, The: Special Edition (1998) ML107203
64. … Mask, The (1994) ID3752LI
65. … Mimic (1997) 14343 AS
66. … Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997) ID4421LI
67. … Mortal Kombat: Special Edition (1995) ID3753LI -> The audio on the Mortal Kombat BD is weak compared to the DTS LD. There was also a commentary track never carried over to DVD or Blu.
68. … Most Wanted (1997) ID4716LI
69. … Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995) 12161 AS
70. … Mr. Nice Guy (1997) ID4715LI
71. … Mulholland Falls (1996) ML107089
72. … Nightmare Before Christmas, The (1993) 12162 AS
73. … Nutty Professor, The (1996) 43272 -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
74. … Phenomenon (1996) 12159 AS
75. … Pocahontas (1995) 12158 AS -> This Disney films all get 7.1 remixes nowadays, so the laserdisc DTS soundtrack is the original.
76. … Pulp Fiction (1994) 12154 AS
77. … Quest, The (1996) 43367
78. … Red Corner (1997) ML107096
79. … River Wild, The (1994) 43275 -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
80. … Rob Roy (1995) ML107090
81. … Rock, The (1996) 12155 AS
82. … Ronin: Special Edition (1998) ML107602 -> BD uses LD DTS bitrate so it may be the same track.
83. … Rush Hour (1998) ID5477LI
84. … Schindler’s List (1993) 43277
85. … Scream 2 (1997) 14607 AS
86. … Scream: Director’s Edition (1996) 14797 AS
87. … Seven (1995) ID3750LI
88. … Shadow, The (1994) 43116 -> The German BD has LD DTS bitrate so it may be the same and theatrical; there was an early DVD of The Shadow with a DTS track, fullscreen unfortunately.
89. … Shine (1996) ID3957LI
90. … Six Days Seven Nights (1998) 16069 AS
91. … Spawn: The Movie: Special Edition (1997) ID4236LI
92. … Species (1995) ML105760
93. … Speed (1994) 0896784
94. … Stargate: Deluxe Edition (1994) LD 60231-DTS -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
95. … Strange Days (1995) 0893984
96. … Street Fighter (1994) 43368
97. … Sudden Death (1995) 43210
98. … Super Speedway: IMAX (1997) ID4717OW
99. … Timecop (1994) 43211
100. … Tina Turner: Live in Amsterdam (1996) ID4019ER
101. … Titanic (1997) LV334812-WSDTS
102. … Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) ML107148 -> 2006 BD loses the surround clarity and in it’s unbelievable discrete effects.
103. … Toy Story (1995) 12153 AS -> LD original mix, BD has a DTS-ES 6.1 remix
104. … True Lies (1994) 0864084
105. … Vertigo (1958) *** 43212 -> is the bad 5.1 remix with horridly intrusive new foley work. The new BD mix is supposedly a new and more faithful mix. The film is best in original mono.
106. … Village of the Damned (1995) 43278
107. … Volcano (1997) 0603984
108. … Wag the Dog (1997) ID4646LI
109. … Waterworld (1995) 43118 -> DVD has full bitrate DTS track
110. … Wedding Singer, The (1998) ID4686LI
111. … West Side Story (1961) *** ML107088 -> LD is a transfer of the original 70mm six-track audio mix
112. … X-Files: The Movie (1998) 0044884

*** the movie’s soundtrack was not originally recorded in a multi-channel, digital audio format; these laserdiscs’ DTS soundtracks have been created by re-mastering the film’s original analog soundtrack

§§§ the movie’s soundtrack was originally recorded in a multi-channel digital audio format other than DTS Digital Surround

–> notes about DVD/BD DTS soundtrack (THANKS TO THE MEMBERS WHO POSTED HERE!)

TITLES IN BOLD - movies I own

STRIKEDTHROUGH - movies that doesn’t deserve a DTS soundtrack restoration for one of this reasons:

(DVD) DVD available with a DTS soundtrack better than the laserdisc edition

(BD) Blu-Ray available with a DTS soundtrack better than the laserdisc edition

(BD/DVD) Both DVD and Blu-Ray have better DTS soundtrack than laserdisc

Note: altough I strikedthrough some titles, this doesn’t mean necessarily that DTS track on DVD is better than LD; it could have a different mix, or worst quality, as many DTS tracks on LD were 18-bit, while only 16-bit on DVD. So, any info on each of these title will be highly appreciated!

althor1138 said:

Btw.  I tried the little test for rainbowing like you suggested and the only player that doesn't exhibit really bad rainbowing is the HF9G whilst using the s-video connector. It has some but not nearly as much as the other 2 laserdisc players.  They all exhibit rainbowing pretty bad whilst using the composite outputs. Happily, tcomb seems to alleviate most of it.

If you can try another capture card, probably also your other two laserdisc players might exibit near no rainbowing - as my CLD-D925, that is similar to CLD-606, just a bit above your 505.

P.M. your email address, so I could send you the twooutofthree.dll you need.

The first thing to do to improve the capture quality is obviously change the capture card... it must not be a super expensive one; I suggest to avoid USB based (I have one and is really awful); an old and/or used PCI card, that would top quality some years ago, could be a good choice - it will be really cheap nowadays!

Mine is based on the Philips SAA 713x cheapset (could be SAA 7130, 7133, 7134... the bigger the last digit, the better) and it's pretty good.

Anyone consider the laserdisc internal comb filter really basic, compared to today's standard; it can be true, but as many capture card cheapset are old too, sometimes using a s-video out from a laserdisc is not a bad idea, in particular if you use a high quality player - that could have a better comb filter than your capture card.

A simple test is this: capture some footage and let the laserdisc display the time on screen; then look at the digits on the screen; if there are visible rainbow artifacts, the comb filter is not that good...

About the lasedisc players: the first one (CLD-HF9G) is really good, could be included in the top twenty (maybe to ten) laserdisc players of every time; the others are medium quality. If you decide to use the TOOT (two out of three) avisynth plugin, use the HF9G capture as first clip, as it will be the best.

The first public release of Star Wars: A New Hope [OUT ruLes] is ready!

More info could be found on the first post.

The torrent is on myspleen, thanks to AntcuFaalb invite!

PM me if you are interested; hope you will enjoy it!

(, ° °)         "do you like it?"  

//c '_')      "dunno.."

(_o-o)        "...from laserdisc?!?"

_,,,^..^,,,_ "if a cat likes it, it can't be (totally) wrong!"

althor1138 said:

I am armed with free software (avisynth,virtualdub,etc.), a usb capture card, and 3 laserdisc players of varying quality(CLD-HF9G,CLD-D505,CLD-D615).

I suggest to do three captures for each title, using your three laserdisc players; align them temporally (I think there is no need to align them spatially too, as you'll you the very same title and not different copies); then average and/or median the three captures to obtain a cleaner picture with less noise; you may use TOOT too, but it will not clear out droputs, as you are using the same copy and not different copies (that may have video dropouts scattered in different places).

I wrote the BeHappy settings before try it... and, after I applied the settings, it doesn't work here, too!

So, I let BeHappy to "Be Happy" without me, and tried Audacity instead... and it works flawlessy. Now I have converted all the tracks at correct speed/pitch for 23.976fps, 48kHz, Dolby Digital 5.1 - ready to be muxed with the video.

For the subtitles, I finished to rebuild the italian one, but there are many lines out of synchronization... I fixed at the best I can do with the few spare time I have this days, but I promised to release the alpha version before Xmas, so...

Right now I finished to mux the video with tsMuxeR, along with the five soundtracks and the ten subtitltes (five forced, five full); I'm going to watch all the movie to check if all is allright; I think the first thing I'll do will be to torrent the file.

It is around 8.4GB, so if you want to download it, take it in account.

abolafiaa said:

_,,,^..^,,,_, you forgot to add the 1997 Bambi 55th Anniversary Laserdisc.

It includes the RKO Radio Pictures logo not seen on the DVD and Blu-ray.

If this is the only difference, I could capture only the RKO logo, and someone could insert it in a DVD/BD version. What do you think?

Thanks for the help!

I'd like to try to convert the audio myself, so I could learn something more.

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?

About the audio captures: as written in the first post, audio is captured bit-perfect, using the digital audio out of the laserdisc player into the digital in of the capture card; the italian soundtrack is taken from the analog out of the HIFI VHS videorecorder, to the analog in of my MiniDisc recorder - here used ONLY as a Analog-Digital Converter - then from the digital out of the MiniDisc recorder to digital in of the capture card.

So, if there are some problems, they are in the original soundtrack... 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"?

"The Rescuers" catalog number is 1399 CS.

About Akira: do you think the laserdisc could be better than the DVD counterpart? If I'll decide to do a preservation, I'll include, apart english and japanese, also the italian soundtrack - also, for the Disney, I could use italian soundtrack from my friend's original VHS , if they are still playable...