Well, even if it has blended frames, it could be good enough to "cover" the few french subtitles - at the contrary, the japanese version has a LOT of subtitles, and they are bigger than the french counterpart...
pittrek, shipping cost to Italy or UK should be roughly the same; the most important thing is who has the best hardware for capture... mine is as following:
the video path will be S-VHS recorder - DVD recorder (needed for stabilizing picture via TBC) - capture card
the audio path will be S-VHS recorder - MiniDisc recorder (for its superior ADC) - sound card via optical in
the only missing thing is a really good 3D comb player inside those devices, but AFAIK there is no PAL 3D comb player around, or at least I'm not aware of any.
the "From Star Wars to Jedi" needed pieces could be used together with the captures from the japanese lasedisc, or, better, from the "pyramid" PAL french laserdisc.
I live in Italy, and have a PAL S-VHS deck with low usage (few hundred hours); I'm ready to capture it - if it's a PAL VHS tape, of course...
AFAIK, "From Star Wars to Jedi" isn't there; don't remember about the other three....
The extras could be used to cover the japanese subtitles of the same material from the NTSC japanese laserdiscs... a subtitle-free four documentaries with superior video quality than VHS will be a great addition to any collection!
I could offer my help; with 15 laserdisc players (including two MUSE) I think this disk SHOULD play well in one or another... (^^,)
UPDATE:
The final video is ready to be processed; all shots affected by artefacts are fixed, but I left intentionally few frames here and there because they are not so noticeable, and I preferred to leave the shot in HD.
The lossless version should be ready in two days, so I think the release could be started to be uploaded on saturday.
...yes, this is one of the "lost" frame (read: one of the frame affected by artefacts that I've not noted until lately...) - it, with all the others, will be fixed before the final release!
drngr said:
Also a lot of red splotches in black areas. :(
I've noted those frames after I uploaded the clip... think that I watched it a dozen time... I'm getting too old to note those little remained artefacts, or they are so small that often pass unnnoticeable, or both... probably the first! (^^,) but I'll watch again and delete those last *survived* artefact-ridden frames.
But you know what? A friend member watched all the movie (semi-finished) to spot out the affected shots, and he found several shots, but only two were the same I spotted out myself... so, some artefacts will be seen by one person and not from another, and vice versa; it could also depend by the display setting, or the experience of the viewer about those kind of artefacts. Hope the final product will be 99.9% glitch-free, and I will be happy!
Thanks for the support!
I added a small test clip - you could find the link at the end of the first post; it containts also some upscaled DVD shots... I'd like to know if the video runs smoothly or if the upscaled DVD could be clearly seen... I've watched several times, and, as I don't remember which shots they are, I can't say honestly if they could be seen, maybe because are short shots (few dozen frames) and/or maybe because there is a lot of action.
I'm processing the lossless video right now, tomorrow it will be ready to be encoded for the final release.
Goint to sleep - 2:23 a.m. here, too old to stay asleep further...
I'm happy you finally did it!
Welcome to the bit-perfect-audio-capture-card-owner family! (^^/)
I followed the thread above, but there is also this one.
And I'm interested in this solution too... think what kind of signal could be obtained from top laserdisc players...
As I have a day off, I'll take a plane to watch it... (^^,)
Well, if someone will be there, please post your thought, and tell me if the snow is blue, or the husky dog is brown...
The XL systems was thought as HTPC, and so I think there will be no problems about HDDs heat - infact, in some models there were two, one on top of another, and I heard about no issues about HDDs heat problems, and those models are 6/7 years old... plus, newest HDDs should produce less heat than older, in particular 5900rpm models.
Yes, GPU should be low profile; in particular, the AMD based HD 5450, 6570, 6670 and 7750 are the ones tested by many XL users, and all works very well; as the PSU is only 300W, their power consumption is well under their specs, around 50/60W. Still, don't know a lot about Nvidia GT640; it's a new card for "us" XL owners, and should be tested further, but I think it will be OK, too.
And there should be no problems for PCI cards, as they are horizontal and with some empty space between the PCI riser and the PCI-e slot.
RAM: a heat spreader is welcome, but as the max speed is "only" 667MHz for 8GB, and 800MHz for 4GB, I don't think it will be "crucial".
The Esi Juli@, after many research, seems the best price/quality sound card, with RCA input so needed for movie captures; the LynxTwo is better, but will cost 5x, so...
I'm still looking for the best PCI video capture card with a good comb filter... I like very much AJA products, but it seems they have only a three-line comb filter. I'm still looking further info of the comb filter of the Osprey Viewcast PCI models, but without success. The ATI HD 750 seems a logical choice, but as this is only PCI-e, and I have only one PCI-e slot (for video card) I can't go for it, and I'd like to avoid any USB capture card.
Or, as my capture card is quite good, apart comb filter, I should find an external device with a very good comb filter; the best one should have a 3D filter that works with PAL signals too!
UPDATE:
the final video is processing right now, and should be reviewed tomorrow by me and other selected members to find out if there are residual shots with artefacts; if - as I hope - everything will be OK, it will be released within one week or earlier.
I'm happy you like it! Maybe it was not ahead of its time, but still one of the best HTPC around, for its design, build quality and technical features... even if not so powerful "as is", when upgraded to the max it's still on par with the less powerful desktop PCs of nowadays - and don't forget some models has a BD burner, not bad at all!
I think I'll go with these upgrades, from the first to the last in the future:
plus a better PCI capture card than the actual one, with the best comb filter ever made (still should find out which one), and a PCI sound card (ESI Juli@ is the first candidate).
Well, the Sony VGX-XL systems were the top of the line of Sony computers, and today still retain their own unique fashion... in particular, I like the fact the cabinet is like other hi-fi/video rack devices (19'/43cm), so it fits in any audio/video system without to be "out of place"; also, its wireless keyboard is small, and with integrated touchpad; it could be used "out of the box" to capture analog audio and video, and, as I discovered years after I bought my first one, it could be upgraded to be really much more powerful than it was at factory default.
About CPU: the motherboard does not allow overcloacking, and even if it will with a BIOS upgrade, I'd like to leave its frequency at factory default, to prolong its life; as you wrote, it's quite difficult to find a brand new Core 2 Quad, and the used ones were almost all overcloacked; this is why I still use my old Core 2 Duo.
About GPU: I'm pretty sure it will increase a bit the speed, even if I agree it will be not comparable to the cost difference; but, as you know for sure, when you upgrade your PC with the best CPU, the biggest HDDs, the fastest RAM your mother board allow, why you shouldn't do the same with the GPU? (^^,)
About RAID: can you confirm that, if I buy two identical SATA HDDs, set them to RAID0, plus another SSD for OS, the speed improvement will be 40%? I mean, if virtualdub process an avisynth script at 10fps before, it will be at 14fps after?
Well, here you are some info about the VGX-XL system:
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/desktops/sony-vaio-vgx-xl202-review-49285076/
http://web.archive.org/web/20130626000943/http://store.sony.com/p/VGX-XL1/en/p/VGXXL1 (technical info on the less powerful model, just to have an idea of how much ahead of its time it was - released in 2006)
I'm aware that the laserdisc signal is composite, and RGB output is a "constructed" signal, but I'm open to any solution... sometimes, old technology is better than newer, who knows!
Still looking for "the perfect comb filter", in particular for PAL signal; a Snell&Wilcox TBS-185 could be a very good candidate, but I've found some of them only in US, and shipping price could be almost more than the device price itself... (**n)
...and still waiting to know further info about the phase-inversion trick; if it will work, it will be possible to obtain a dot-crawl free image with just a good capture card (with a bad comb filter too) and two capture stages.
I don't want to buy new PCs, as my three Sony VGX-XL systems are really beautiful "vintage" computers, still today with very good qualities that cannot be found on normal PC without a quite big budget... so, no "fancy" Intel I7!
But, a Core 2 Quad Q6700 at 2.67GHz (the best CPU that Sony's motherboard and PSU could handle, and with no overclock, I'm sorry to admit) will be a huge improvement in speed.
I'm aware of no further speed boost by upgrading the GPU, but as the other two old videocards are dead, I think a better GPU than a "simple and honest" HD 5450 will give some modest speed improvement - after all, as I should replace them, I'll go for the best it could fit, e.g. GT 640 2GB or HD 7750 (1 or 2 GB).
I was also aware of the CUDA related things, but I was surprised that an AMD Radeon could improve avisynth/virtualdub speed too!
About SSD and/or RAID: I could do both, but after I will upgrade CPU and GPU, I think the speed boost will be relatively small (5%? 10%?) - a RAM booster maybe could be a cheap alternative with comparable results, what do you think?
Well, the BD has the french and italian soundtracks encoded in AC3 5.1 640kbps, that's not bad at all... I think it was released in french and italian theaters in Dolby 5.1, so the BD tracks should be the best versions to use for this movie...
Well, I thought too to use the Matrix laserdisc audio, but, as you wrote, it's terribly expensive so I'll leave its soundtrack out - unless someone who has it would like to capture it, preferably bit-perfect...
A french VHS Hi-Fi stereo track is not a bad idea; if only I have the italian VHS, I'll do it the same; but, as I have all the BD soundtracks, and it seems that audio was the same on DVD and BD, I could think the VHS should be the same, apart the fact that it is only stereo, Dolby Surround encoded, while the BD soundtracks are 5.1 discrete surround... so I think this time I'll use the untouched BD tracks.
Yes, upscaled DVD is one choice, the other is to use CM chroma over the BD luma (at correct levels).
Keep an eye on this thread for the next updates.
UPDATES: my video card died last week, and just today I replaced it, with a more powerful and faster one, so I'm back to this project!
I want to say a big THANK YOU to nirbateman, who kindly offered his help checking the whole movie and spotting the shots with artifacts; without his help, this project will still be a lot behind its schedule!
Right now I'm processing the pre-final video; only few shots/scenes should be fixed after that, and the most time-consuming process will be to find out (again) the wrong ones, then choose the best method to fix them. Probably it will take few days this time - I strongly hope so...
Recently my old video card die… it is (was) a GeForce GTL 7600 (a custom made version by Sony, the same specs of a GT 7600, but a bit slower and with a very good pipe cooling system). It was the default video card in my Sony HTPC PC - a VGX-XL202 - and I never thought to replace it because, even if it was slow and old and with only 256MB, it was capable to play Blu-ray without stuttering (with some codecs and setting tweaks) and because AviSynth and VirtualDub use only CPU for their processing…
Or, at least, it was what I thought!
Just today I replaced it with a brand new Sapphire (AMD) Radeon HD 5450; a low profile 1GB DDR3 “honest” video card. I chose to buy this because I need a video card ASAP, it’s cheap and, as I have other two PCs, I’ll buy a better one later when I’ll upgrade another CPU.
Well, as I was working onto one of my project the day the card died, I promptly re-run the conversion, and I noted one thing: conversion speed is improved, A LOT! Now it runs at about double speed!
So, it seems that AviSynth and/or VirtualDub DO USE GPU power too, or the old GPU simply slowed down the CPU speed?
If it’s true that GPU power is important for conversion speed as the CPU, my next upgrade (CPU from Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86GHz to Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.67GHz, and GPU from GeForce GTL 7600 256MB to AMD Radeon HD7750 1/2GB) will improve speed up to 2.5x/3x thanks only to CPU; how much the video card will improve speed is to be discovered…
If someone had some similar experience, please post here… if only I knew this, <span><span>I would have replaced my old video card</span> <span>before… years before!</span></span>
Sorry, at the moment I can't use my main PC, as its video card is dead... but I will do the Criterion LD capture in a near future.
Davnes007 said:
@ _,,,^..^,,,_
I think you meant postimage.org .
ooops... right!
Cain, I'm waiting to see your improvements; please post your screenshots there and insert the link here.