spoRv

DVNR affected scenes

Here you are some scenes affected with the infamous DVNR on GOUT, but obviously DVNR-free in the 'pyramid' LD.

COMPARISON 1

Two consequential frames - the robots seems "disassembled" in the GOUT but only shaked in the second picture's LD capture. The colors are not satisfactory to me here.

COMPARISON 2

This is the (in)famous "four-eyed stormtrooper" scene - as you could see in the GOUT. Colors in the ColourLike version is a bit better than the former, but not so much - it is really better in the THX PAL LDs.

COMPARISON 3

Another example of bad DVNR... Here the fourth picture has a good color compared to the color-corrected GOUT.

COMPARISON 4

Maybe the most known example of bad DVNR... look in partcular at the dude legs and the tower on the left. Another time the colors are quite different in this example.

Waiting for your comments, but please do not quote this post, to avoid an infinite lenght thread due to the pictures, but instead refer to the comparison number. Thanks!

Today I finished the comparison between the GOUT PAL DVD (color corrected) VS ‘Pyramid’ PAL LD (with and without color corrections).

The GOUT PAL DVD was extracted and then color corrected; I decided to follow some hints found here and I took the “THX Wow” as reference, done “by eye”, because not all the scenes found in the “THX Wow” could be corrected using just one correction - about 8 on 10 of the selected scenes have now almost the same colors. The color correction was made with a VirtualDub filter, taking the red and green at about 110% and saturation at 125%.

The ‘Pyramid’ PAL LD was captured at 744 horizontal lines and then cropped to 720, to fill the screen; the height of both clips are set at 376 pixel, to allow the LD picture and titles to stay in the screen. The capture settings was the best match I could achieve, after tweaked few hours yesterday, but far from perfection.

To perfectly match the two clips, I added several black frames to the ‘pyramid’ capture at the reel join, but also added three black frames to the GOUT.

At the end I used the ColourLike AviSynth filter, so to make the GOUT the reference used to color correct the ‘pyramid’ LD. Sometimes the colors are very similar, others are really different.

The screenshots will follow soon.

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

as I'm going to compare the "pyramid" LD with the GOUT DVD, I discovered that also this "pyramid" edition suffers the "incredible shrinking ratio" problem... sigh! :(

So, at this point, it seems thare are at least three major masters around used for OT laserdiscs... I list some of there I'm aware of, but surely there are others:

1. DVNR-free + no white clipping - NTSC Japan Special Collection, NTSC US Special Widescreen Edition, PAL french "pyramid" boxset, PAL german Silver Screen edition (some with the "incredible shrinking ratio" problem)
2. Light DVNR + white clipping - PAL french THX subtitles, PAL french THX dubbed, PAL german THX, PAL spanish THX
3. Strong DVNR + white clipping - NTSC US and Japan Definitive Collection, NTSC US "faces", NTSC Japan Collector's Set - also GOUT PAL and NTSC DVDs of course...

Anyway, when the comparison will be ready I'll post more info here.

Grisan,

is the color of your silver screen pink-shifted? Is the aspect ratio about 2.2:1? Is the picture noisy?

If so, I'm quite sure that the french "pyramid" and german silver screen collection share the same master...

But it will be better to have the captures from both, to average noise and drop-outs... would you borrow me your copies, or exchange them with other laserdiscs? ;-)

The next step is coming: stay tuned!

This "pyramid" set HAS to be preserved, as it is the most similar to the theatrical version, as the JSC - but, as it is PAL, *must* have 20% more vertical lines of resolution.

The differences from the THX PAL LDs consists in NO white clipping and absolutely NO DVNR - this last thing is really important.

I know that there are really better sources around, but if they are GOUT based they have white clipping and heavy DVNR for sure, and maybe blacks crushed; the SE has for sure blacks crushed, and it's quite difficult to "cut" all the added CGI to restore original scenes...

I have thought this: take four OUT versions - GOUT PAL DVD in english, THX PAL LD in german, "pyramid" LD in french and THX VHS in italian (just because I want to extract the HIFI audio and need the fourth version) and combine them in a 2x2 grid; then make a side-by-side comparison and choose the better scene either from the THX PAL LD and the "pyramid" LD.

I mean: if in the THX PAL LD the DVNR or the white clipping is evident, choose the "pyramid" scene, else take the THX PAL LD scene - obviously, no GOUT for the reasons explained before.

...if only someone out there will help me to check the scenes... ;-)

@Chewtobacca

I must admit that I like too very much the previous spanish LD capture, but as explained it will be a "wrong" restoration... but IT IS better in resolutiion and colors, as it is THX-ed - they made something good, after all ;-)

You can see here the "evolution" of the white magic script:

@Ziz

it's quite time-consuming do all those comparison... by the way,  I'm trying to do some other captures with different color settings, and the following pictures seems promising... but it is still not perfect :(

(the one without marking is the newer capture)

Here you are the comparison:

I'm still experimentig with the script, but given the raw capture the results are good, don't you think? Which version do you prefer? (look at zoomed pictures too)

About the colors of spanish capture: you are right, they are richer than the "pyramid" LD, but are they "right"? Well, you can see also that some colors are loss due the white magic script... they could be improved if I tweak the capture color setting a little higher.

But the meaning of this thread is another: the PAL THX LDs (german, spanish, french with and without subtitles) shares the same masters, with two inherent problems, DVNR (also if not so destructive like GOUT or DC) and clipped white levels (that destroys literally white details - see the picture in the first post).

So, making a restoration based onto any PAL THX LD is wrong, as it is impossible to restore white lost details and de-DVNR the image.

Is it possible to overlay the spanish LD chroma onto the "pyramid" LD luma, but it makes any sense, as the problem of clipped white levels stay in the chroma... so if you make that way, the problem will be still present! It could be made the opposite, overlay the "pyramid" LD chroma onto the spanish LD luma; in this case, the clipped white problem is solved, but the DVNR problem will be still present...

So, at the end, the "final" solution is to use ONLY the "pyramid" LD captures to have a totally DVNR-free and color corrected (I mean without clipped whites and crushed blacks) restoration.

After the comments received in one of my previous posts, I decided to clear a bit my script, and I took the images posted in there and make my new verstion:

the picture frame is similar to JSC, but "pyramid" has less lines top and right, and more bottom and left; more details could be found, and albeit colors are different from JSC V8 and GOUT, it seems there is no reference image for colors, so is it quite difficult to say which has the right colors, and which has the wrong ones! (yes, my blacks are not so black, I know!)

Then I continued to "play" with this "Pyramid" edition and I achieved the following result:

From White Magic 0.3 the upscaling will be done apart and not by default... so the test outputs will be smaller and the comparisons simpler.

I'm having much fun with this project, also thanks to all the inputs I received in this forum. Thanks again, to everyone!

Waiting, as usual, your comments...

First of all thanks to the forumers’ comments (in particular to msycamore and Moth3r) that pointed me in the right direction!

After my post about the White Magic 0.2 script, msycamore noted that the PAL THX LDs has lower DVNR problems than GOUT, but the white levels are clipped, so many light details are lost forever… well, he’s right - as usual, I must admit 😉

So, during my vacation, away from my own PC, I thought about a solution… maybe a script could take back the clipped white details lost? No, they are lost forever… well, there is the JSC, right? Yes, but I’d like to have few details more… and then BLINK an idea popped into my mind like the famous lamp in the cartoons!

Because all the THX PAL LDs share the same master - yes, with low DVNR but it is still present, and now I know with clipped white levels problem - I must find another PAL LD edition pre-THX… and I got it from a long time! YES! It is the French “Pyramid” edition (see LDDB)

I discarded early this edition because it has pinkish tones, and less details… but, after reading and reading and learning and thinking, I decided to pick it up again and give it another chance when back home.

I twicked the capture settings to improve the color, and the solution works… I discovered also that the aspect ratio is 2.2:1 (less than the proper 2.35:1) but it has a little more vertical details, and the best thing is that there are 352 vertical lines of resolution, VS 324 of the THX PAL and 272 of the NTSC DC!!!  Over 80 lines more than NTSC - almost 30% more!

note the “sun” reflection on the droid, it is completely gone along with some details in the upper part of its head… also, there are few more lines of resolution in the upper and lower part of the “Pyramid” LD.

In the next post another example.

I was thinking about improving the quality of the capture before messing around with avisynth noise filters, sharpening, upscaling et al, and, after reading a lot of posts last night, I find a solution.

Multiple capture is THE answer… but the question is: what technique to use? Average, median, TOOT, overlay, merge… a bit of confusion, but I have an idea that must be the final solution… but before explaining it, some info could be useful…

At the end, I decided to use the PAL laserdiscs, for simple reasons: first I have not any smear-free NTSC LDs to capture - neither the JSC nor the Technidisc SWE - and the DC (japan and US) and “Faces” editions have too many DVNR related problem - if I decided to use them, maybe GOUT will be a better idea. Second, the PAL LDs, also if have some DVNR, it’s quite “light” (compared to GOUT - I can’t say how much compared to JSC or Technidisc SWE), have 20% more vertical resolution (50 lines can’t seems too much, but everything counts, in particular when you upscale), and, most important, have not IVTC issues like NTSC film originated material.

OK, after the explanations, here you are the tools I have:

• <span>at least FIVE different PAL laserdisc players (two only composite, the others also S-video)</span>
• <span>four different PAL LD trilogies editions (german, spanish, french VF, french VOST)</span>
• two copies of the spanish LDs and two of the french VF (plus the VOST)

I considered first to do multiple captures of different editions and average (or median, but this was only the initial thoughts, more about it later) them to have a cleaner original clip to work on… but I decided to not follow this idea, because the colors are quite different between them (look at the picture below to see what I’m talking about), and the resulting clip may have different colors between scene and scene… not talking about the (few) scenes with alien subtitles…

Then I considered to pick up the best edition, and capture it with different players… but in this case, when there are drop outs (and believe me, there are quite many), they will be present also in the resulted clip.

So here you are the solution - which seems the better compromise: I will use three french LD trilogies (one VOST and the other two VF) because I have three of them (needed if I want to use the TOOT filter), the video quality is good (if Moth3r used them, there will be a reason…) and last but not least, they are CAV (yes, like the german LDs, but not like the spanish ones).

The first capture will be the VOST, to retain the english audio and let the subsequent audio dubbing easier (than using the french audio track), and the others will be VF1 and VF2. The three resulting caps will be filtered with the TOOT avisynth filter, which choose the two more similar pixels out of the same pixel in the three capture, and discard the other. With this filter, I’ll obtain a drop-out free clip. (Take a look at the same following picture - <span style=“line-height: normal;”>thanks to Karyudo):</span>

<span style=“line-height: normal;”> </span>

Then, I will repeat the operation three times (needed if I want to use a median filter and useful with the other filters), with three different players - the CLD-D925, the CLD-2950 and the third… maybe the CLD-600 or the LD-V4300D, passed though the DVR-320S Pioneer DVD recorder which has a good comb filter.

At the end there will be three resulting clips from nine captures, drop-out free thanks to the TOOT filter. So now I have to decide which technique to use to blend them together… median, average, overlay, merge… reading the forum, it seems that median procedure is slightly better than average, and I think the same, but opinions are welcome and needed!

Thanks to everyone.

@msycamore

yes, you are right, I confused the versions... you know, I have a dozen LD trilogies and I can't remember all the features they have, figure out to remember other versions' features... I wanted to intend that the Technidisc SWE have no "shrinking" problem as early pressing of the same edition... I studied a lot last night (I'm on vacation, away from my own computer, but still mumbling about the project) and it seems that this Technidisc SWE and the JSC originated from different telecine dubbing... not sure about it, I read the forum until late night and don't remember exactly what has what and what has not... I know, I need a vacation, the problem is I AM on vacation right now :-)

See you in the next topic!

@Msycamore:

to download the clip, copy the URL and paste into your browser's address bar, then press the FREE-DOWNLOAD button on the bottom of the page - you have to wait 5 minutes before the download starts...

The script named "white magic" is a collection of some of the better avisynth scripts I found on the web, put together to restore the video captured from noisy sources (LD and especially VHS) - I'm still working on it, infact is just 0.2 version.

Moth3r, as usual, has all the answers, and pointed out that the PAL LD master has the clipped whites... when I'll be home again, I'll try to recover (part of) the signal lost... maybe it's just impossible, but I'll try anyway.

Back to the JSC, AFAIK it has the "shrinkin' problem", that is not present on the SWE, isn't true? If so, I could manage to capture the SWE trilogy with my Pioneer HLD-X9 and improve the quality with my "white magic"... the only problem is, between my dozen SW OUT LDs I have NOT the SWE!!!

If someone would sell the SWE LD trilogy, or could be interested in a swap, or just want to borrow it to capture, let me know via PM!

Hi, thanks for your comments.

The reason of the too high white level could be one of the following:

• the PAL LD master 
• the wrong capture levels
• the white magic script itself
• the "amount" of white magic (test is 60%)

I suspect that could be also the sum of more than one factor - infact, I made the test using one of the first captures I made with the levels not properly adjusted, as far as I could remember...

For the oversharpening: it must be the third and/or the fourth option.

But, as I'm on vacation and away from my PC for the next two weeks, I can't check by myself, but someone like Moth3r could say if the first option could be true or not. Anyway, my brain is "working" on possible solutions, also if in "abstract mode"...

BTW, if you think this is only a version 0.2 of the script, it's not too bad, isn't true? There is surely space for improvements!

I managed to improve the "white magic" script and now, after days of though tests, it surely looks better than the very first version... let's call it "white magic 0.2" version, OK? It must be refined, but I think the most part of the work is done - I hope so, at least...

Comparison picture - screenshot taken from the test clip: left "white magic 0.2" from Spanish PAL LD, right GOUT PAL DVD enhanced with G-Force script and bilinear resized to match the "white magic 0.2" clip.

I decided to choose this image because is the same of only one the X0Project released - one of the worst scenes found in the GOUT, according to many OT fans.

What do you think? Download the test clips and see them in motion - it's definitively better than still images.

GOUT PAL DVD enhanced with the G-Force script and bilinear resized to match the "white magic 0.2":

https://rapidshare.com/files/3588910278/nolegs_GOUT_G-Force.avi

Spanish THX PAL LD captured and treated with "white magic 0.2" at 60% strenght (more is too sharp for my taste):

https://rapidshare.com/files/1842014530/nolegs_PAL_ES_white_magic_2_60-40.avi

Comparison clip side-by-side:

https://rapidshare.com/files/350774968/nolegs_GOUT_G-Force___WhiteMagic_comparison.avi

Clips info: video 1920x810 (HD 2.35:1) AVC 8000kbps, audio uncompressed PCM 44.1KHz stereo.

Sorry if the comparison clip is not perfect - is not that easy to match two halves taken from different masters!

Waiting for your comments, as usual.

Nope, all the Star Wars related material is on this list, sorry!

I know many of you were deeply interested in the so-called "black magic" process used by Laserman to improve the quality of his laserdisc captures, taken from the Pioneer HLD-X0... but now the project is abandoned.

During the past months I read and re-read many many threads, talking about the x0project and the fact that is a pity nothing is released, apart an image and a short clip.

So I told to myself: "can I make something like that? I mean, capture an old laserdisc and write a magical script that transforms the ugly duck in a beautiful swan? surely NOT, but I want to try anyway!"

As I posted before, I take several Avisynth scripts, tested them, picked some and put them in a single script called "white magic" (an homage to Laserman's "black magic").

The script - for now - reduce the noise, clean the image, adjust a bit of color, upscale the video from the laserdisc widescreen SD to full HD and set the framerate to 23.976 - this is because I wanted an AVCHD to put in my PS3 and BD player.

These days I made many many tests - and I'm far to finish - but the result, also if not comparable to the HD - is quite satisfactory... at least, it is watchable on my 55', on the contrary the GOUT PAL DVD is not so good...

Well, I found the famous x0project screenshot of one of the worst scenes of EP4 and I tried to make something comparable. Take a look at the images:

(the first has its original size, the others are downscaled from HD to match it)

I used the PAL Spanish LD because the colors seems better than the other SW PAL LDs I have, but the raw capture is really ugly... as said before, the PAL masters have less DVNR than the DC, but it's still present - look at the fine details over the blue sky, they are almost disappeared +and consequentially the white magic cancelled them thinking is noise (sic!).

The third picture is a mix of white magic at 70% and another resize&clean script at 30%. To me, this is a good compromise between the overly sharp image of white magic set at 100%, and the bad quality of the raw capture.

Again, I'm completely aware that the white magic is just another avisynth script that is trying to ameliorate the quality of an analog capture and the result IS NOT HD, but you can see the difference between the raw and the processed images, and it's made only with an avisynth script, not a $$$ hardware workstation!

...take also in account that I started to play with avisynth just around ten days go - then, an avisynth master is really needed to fix the script!

Thinking that the capture is taken from a not-so-really-good master and with a good-but-not-the-same-league-of-the-x0 PAL player, there is surely place for more video quality improvement.

If I could find the SWE (Special Widescreen Edition) that seems the best non-DVNR laserdisc around, I'll capture the discs with my Pioneer HLD-X9 - yes, I know it's the second best player in the world after the X0, but it's not so bad! ;-)

If it happens that you have a SWE LD trilogy lying around, let me know!

Then maybe I could merge those captures with my japanese DC and get a DVNR-almost-free version...

What do you think?

Hello,

also if I have decided to NOT start another restoration myself (also if I think it will be a satisfactory challenge to start - and finish - a new one) I think someone who is missing something in his own project could be interested in some audio and/or video capture.

So, let’s begin to list the “stuff”:

HARDWARE:

• Pioneer HLD-X9 NTSC/MUSE LD player - only second to X0
• Panasonic LX-HD20 (clone of Sony HIL-C2X) NTSC/MUSE LD player - maybe the fourth best lasedisc player
• Pioneer DVL-909 PAL/NTSC LD player/PAL DVD player - still a good PAL player
• Pioneer CLD-D925 PAL/NTSC LD player - one of the best PAL players
• Pioneer CLD-2950 PAL/NTSC LD player - the other best PAL player
• Pioneer CLD-600 PAL LD player - basic player but without digital “frills”
• Pioneer LD-V4300D PAL/NTSC LD player - industrial, heavy, “a tank”!
• Philips LDP-600WS PAL/NTSC LD player - top of the MatchLine
• Pioneer DVR-320S PAL/NTSC DVD recorder - with a good 3D comb filter
• Sony Vaio desktop PC with Philips SAA713x capture card - an old Core 2 Duo PC with a good 9-bit card, but still good also with HD material
• Panasonic NV-FS200 PAL S-VHS recorder - still a very good VHS player
• various: RF AC-3 and CC decoders, CD recorder, a huge 55" HD LED TV

SOFTWARE:

• DScaler - Used to capture, because it could “see” my capture card directly and not through DShow, and then it captures better than, for example, VD
• AviSynth - Used for image improvements, through VD
• VirtualDub - Used mainly for compression
• KMPlayer - Main video player
• Media Player Classic - Second video player
• Paint (!) - For screenshots
• various little software to encode/decode audio, not found a “one-for-all” free and open source

NTSC USA LDs:

• Star Wars Trilogy: Definitive Collection [0693-84] (X2)
• Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition (1997) [4102985] (X2)
• Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) [8763-85]
• Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) [8764-85]
• Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983) [8765-85]

NTSC JAPAN LDs:

• Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999) [PILF-2830] (X2)
• Star Wars Trilogy: Collector’s Set [PILF-2070]
• Star Wars Trilogy: Definitive Collection [PILF-2071] - with also the following three documentaries:
• Star Wars: A New Hope: Making of: As told by C-3PO and R2-D2 (1977)
• Star Wars: SP FX: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
• Star Wars: Classic Creatures: Return of the Jedi (1983)

PAL UK LDs:

• Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition (1997) [EE 1232]

PAL FRANCE LDs:

• Star Wars: Coffret Trilogie [168035]
• Star Wars: Coffret Trilogie: Edition Collector [856235]
• Star Wars: Coffret Trilogie: Edition Spéciale (1997) [604735]
• Star Wars: La guerre des étoiles (1977) [113039] (X2)
• Star Wars: L’Empire contre-attaque (1980) [142539] (X2)
• Star Wars: Le retour du Jedi (1983) [147839] (X2)

PAL GERMANY LDs:

• Star Wars: Krieg der Sterne (1977) [5895-05]
• Star Wars: Das Imperium schlägt zurück (1980) [5896-05]
• Star Wars: Die Rückkehr der Jedi-Ritter (1983) [5897-05]
• Star Wars: Trilogie: Special Edition (Krieg der Sterne) (1997) [604705]

PAL SPAIN LDs:

• Star Wars: La guerra de las galaxias (1977) [0600] (X2)
• Star Wars: El imperio contraataca (1980) [0601] (X2)
• Star Wars: El retorno del Jedi (1983) [0602] (X2)

PAL ITALY VHS:

• Star Wars: Trilogia di Guerre Stellari Edizione Speciale (1997) [6047WS]
• Star Wars: Guerre Stellari - Widescreen (1995) [113035]
• Star Wars: L’impero Colpisce Ancora - Widescreen (1995) [142535]
• Star Wars: Il Ritorno Dello Jedi - Widescreen (1995) [147835]

PAL ITALY DVDs:

• Star Wars La Trilogia (2004) [F4-OITSSEA-27233CD]
• Star Wars: La Minaccia Fantasma (2001) [F4-SITS-22733DX]
• Star Wars: L’Attacco Dei Cloni (2002) [F4-SITS-22545DS]
• Star Wars: La Vendetta Dei Sith (2005) [F4-SITSSE-29309DE]
• Star Wars: Una Nuova Speranza (2006) [F4-SITSSE-33919DE]
• Star Wars: L’Impero Colpisce Ancora (2006) [F4-SITSSE-33920DE]
• Star Wars: Il Ritorno Dello Jedi (2006) [F4-SITSSE-33921DE]

PAL ITALY BLU-RAY

• Star Wars: La Saga Completa (2011) [F4-OITS-51416EF]

All the software have OAR video and stereo or DD audio.

I know the vast majority were captured, but it will be interesting, for example (to me, at least) watch a very good restoration with the italian language - the VHS HI-FI stereo is pretty good, surely better than the more-than-necessary compressed DD audio tracks found on the DVDs.

Plenty of resource, with so little time! 😉

Let me know what do you need and explain shortly how you will use the material on your project - I’ll try to do my best for the most interesting proposals!

This is the project I had in my mind: take the best laserdisc OUT versions, merge together to average OR median the multiple captures, upscale them to HD (to make AVCHD and/or BD) just to don't bother with PAL and NTSC DVDs, but to have the best original version of Star Wars in a format available for playing in the PS3 and BD players, whatever country it is played.

During these days I made several test, first with PAL THX laserdiscs, then with the Japanese NTSC Definitive Collection... the latter, despite the lower resolution, is AWESOME when captured from the Pioneer HLD-X9!

Also if the results are encouraging, I decided to not make another restoration. This is because there were many others who made similar things at SD (DVD based on the DC or PAL LDs) and few made them better than what I've acheved upscaling the SD to HD (the AVCHD based projects).

Maybe, after the official BD, IF it will be lower quality than the expected (as usual with our GL) I will think again about this idea...

Now I'm going to start a new thread where I'll offer my audio and video captures to someone who could be interested in.

For everyone involved in a project: GO ON!!! I really appreciate your efforts!

Thanks to everyone for the comments - I'll stay tuned on this forum!

_,,,^..^,,,_

Thai Panther

Moth3r,

I refer to this one.

As you can see in the pictures, the video quality is the worst of the PAL editions I have, but maybe with a better player, cable, comb filter, it could be watchable... and it maybe "smear-free" too!

RU.08,

the HLD-X9 will ABSOLUTELY blow away any PAL laserdisc player!!!

By the way, I have not any LD based on a smear-free master, based on what Moth3r replied some posts before... or not?!?

So I decided to find the truth, because, as Mulder says, "the truth is out there"... and finally I found this thread.

Reassuming all, it *SEEMS* there is a smear-free (so, AFAIK, DVNR-free too) master that is not "shrinking"... ANH LD with cat.#1130-85.

Now, it happens that my french PAL LD has cat.#113037... maybe it's just a coincidence, but... check the following comparisons (all the first three images are just taken from the former thread).

Comparison 1: Tantive corridor burn mark

It seems that my capture has better blacks but lack of details and yellowish white.

(Note: this time I used the Pioneer LD-V4300D with a brand new gold-plated "fat" BNC cable with RCA plug, but it seems there is no quality improvements: on the contrary, the resolution seems lower, but it may be the re-adjusted Pioneer DVR-320S comb filter settings where the LD-V4300D is passed through - needs further investigations)

Comparison 2: Two-eyed VS Four-eyed stormtrooper

One of the first test captures done. The colors are similar to JSC. Note that is hald stormtrooper on the left, and not only his shadow!

Comparison 3: Sandspeeder over dude's legs

No color correction between my two captures; to my eyes, the spanishLD capture's sky has the best color of the lot.

Then, to me, the PAL LD master is the same of the smear-free edition, that is, if I'm not wrong, the Special Widescreen Edition (SWE).

Now, I'm sure Moth3r is more expert than me about these things, because he said the PAL master is NOT DVNR free, but in the linked thread he's not talked about this issue...

At the end, is the PAL master DVNR-free or not? If yes, then the SWE should be the same, and so not smear-free, as it seems they have the same master...

I'm lost now... please save me ;-)

Waiting for your comments!

Orinoco_Womble,

you are right, the video quality of the BNC output of the 4300D seems the same of the RCA, as I'm testing both of them... but at least now I have a FAT BNC cable and not a thin unknown-obscure-cheap-brand used before ;-)

Hope to do further tests soon!

I bought a brand new BNC cable with RCA reductions, so I think next days I'll capture some test clips from the Pioneer LD-V4300D and see how good it will look.

Meanwhile, if someone has some directions in choosing the best scene I have to capture... and, may a one minute clip to be sufficient to judge the capture quality?

Now it's time to sleep - is night here!

Thai Panther

The laserdisc players comparison along with screenshot is ready!

Follow the link

Thai Panther

Dark_Jedi, this is talking!

I appreciate very much your honesty, really!

I admit the upscaled version is far from perfection, but you have to forgive me - at least, I decided to learn the basic usage of avisynth only two days ago, and the so-called "white magic" is only some scripts put together yesterday... but if you see the first and the last section of the clip, it is not soooo bad... or it is?

I'll wait for some days to decide if I'll go on or abandon the project; obviously all will depend by the comments here. I'm also thinking of a better script to merge together PAL and NTSC captures, and upscale them with less artifacts.

Again, I don't want to do the N-th version of the trilogy if no one is interested in, but I'll be glad to do it if someone is interested.

Also, if some other projects needs some help, here I am.

Yes, the HLD-X9 is one of the best laserdisc in the world, second only to HLD-X0... and, it happens I also have the fourth(?) better laserdisc player, the Panasonic LX-HD20 (clone of Sony HIL-C2X) that reserves some respect...

...and thanks, I'm very proud of my username!

Thai Panther

Moth3r,

thanks for your hints. You are one of my favorite poster here.

Take this in account: I made it for my personal amusement, right yesterday, using one of the oldest CLD-D925 I have (I have other two, one almost-new) with a low quality cable. All done in few hours (between captures, choosing and testing scripts, conversions).

So, *maybe* IF I use

• a better player - the almost new CLD-D925 or the same almost-new LD-V4300D
• a better cable - not an hi-end one, just a very good quality gold-plated one, maybe the BNC out of the LD-V4300D has a purest video path
• a very good hardware processor - thought about an Elite Video BVP-4, one of the rare which could handle PAL video signal
• a very good comb filter - maybe the one in the DVR-320S may suffice
• a better capture card - but I think mine is better than any DV based

then the captures will be better, of course.

But the post-processing is equally important. And there I have much to learn...

So, what do you think about the project?

Should be continued, abandoned, or I just have to capture some scenes to add to other versions?

I'm open to suggestions.

Meanwhile, have you seen my other post about laserdisc players?

Thai Panther