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the ugnaught

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4-Nov-2005
Last activity
17-Jan-2022
Posts
156

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Post
#585885
Topic
Star Wars 1982 Rental Copy Preservation (Released)
Time

Not sure why you are looking for tapes without Macrovision.  It is very very easy to copy tapes with it.

My current setup can do it, and I imagine most other people around here could do the same.  Especially if you have a capture card of some type installed on your computer or something like an Canopus ADVC110.  

Macrovision essentially used trickery to make older recorders THINK there was a problem with the signal, thus you would just get a bunch of tearing and chroma goofyness.  Any modern recording method (like the ones I mentioned above) pretty much just ignore the trickery from Macrovision.

Post
#585002
Topic
Droids Series Complete Set. Reconstruction from multiple sources. V1.0 is out! (Released)
Time

Asaki said:

Asaki said:

Nearsighted Scrappile said:

This is great! I was just going through my video collection and came across my Droids and Ewoks DVD's and a VHS of the Droids "The Pirates and the Prince."

 I just picked this up from Goodwill the other day, just for the heck of it (never seen any of the cartoons or the Holiday Special). Is it the same as what's on the DVD? Wikipedia doesn't say.

 Nobody knows?

The VHS tapes released by J2 in the late 80's/early 90's are similar to the original airings.  The Lucasfilm and Fox VHS tapes released in the late 90's/ealry 2000's are similar to what you get on the DVD's.

Post
#579354
Topic
Star Wars 1982 Rental Copy Preservation (Released)
Time

msycamore said:

Interesting that your rental copy didn't have the FOXVID-code in the upper corner like Starkiller's tape had

I was wondering the same thing.  The only thing that I can think of that looks different on my VHS cover is this sticker for the Canadian Twentieth Century Fox office.

http://i.imgur.com/K18eB.jpg

You can see that on most others it isn't there.

http://www.swonvideo.com/vhs/vvhsanh1982us.htm

These pictures are taken from a recent auction on ebay

http://i.imgur.com/mOJKG.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/qkCz3.jpg

My tape doesn't have the yellow'ish tape cover.

http://i.imgur.com/iZfym.jpg

 

So maybe there are different production runs of this rental tape?

Post
#578993
Topic
Star Wars 1982 Rental Copy Preservation (Released)
Time

Is there any interest in this?

I made a copy of my Rental tape a while ago and considering the tape is exactly 30 years old this month (released May 1982) it seems like it may be a good time to let it loose.  Not to mention I am kind of on hold again with my Droids Series preservation.

Lineage…

JVC 9600 SVHS -> Hauppauge card on PC -> Virtualdub cleanup using Avisynth just for IVTC and slight levels control -> MP4

There is no noise reduction or color adjustments.  Might as well see it warts and all.  And I figure with it being a 30 year old tape, a preservation is kind of now or never.

And I would just upload the video as an MP4 because I honestly can’t tell the difference between that and a DVD and the year is 2012.  Time to get with it.

Also, if anybody wants to do some screenshot comparisons with the other preservation’s I think they will find that the 1982 laserdisc actually has a different pan&scan edit as well as a slightly more zoomed in framing.

If there is any interest in this I can get it uploaded to MySpleen this holiday weekend.

Post
#576713
Topic
Droids Series Complete Set. Reconstruction from multiple sources. V1.0 is out! (Released)
Time

Sorry guys, just got back from vacation.  Had to take the kiddo down to visit the grandparents.

This project hasn't stalled, but I have been waiting on my second copy of the Droids 3 tape to show up, as the one I have on hand isn't the best quality for audio.  

But I may just roll with it.  Unless maybe pittrek or VideoCollector wouldn't mind sending me a copy of their Droids 3 PAL tapes? :)

Post
#573536
Topic
Preserving the...<em>cringe</em>...Star Wars Holiday Special (Released)
Time


I'm willing to loan the tape to someone than can do a proper job of capturing it if this tape is deemed worthy of the effort.

As Video Collector mentioned, I have a PAL SVHS player that I have been using for captures.  I have already done some of the Droids VHS captures with it and they have look pretty good (check out my Droids preservation thread).

I am all the way in the US, so not sure if that causes a problem, but I would be willing to give a crack at it if you have no other options.

My deck is a Philips branded SVHS player, but I am almost positive that it is a re-branded JVC (which are still considered some of the best consumer/prosumer decks). When it sits next to my JVC 9600 SVHS deck it has the exact same chassis down to the screw holes and vents.  Just a different front plate and menu GUI. http://i.imgur.com/sndiL.png

Your tape looks great!  If I am not able to assist, I hope somebody else can so we can maybe get a different glimpse at this.

On a side note, does anyone know if the special was filmed on video or film?  If it was video there may be some odd frame timing and possibly blended frames.  If it was film, I would assume a speed up was applied.  

Post
#572918
Topic
Droids Series Complete Set. Reconstruction from multiple sources. V1.0 is out! (Released)
Time

Sorry for the long breaks between updates.

I finished the Great Heep episode.  Using SRestore for standard scenes and then a simple blend for the panning/zooming scenes.  It took a while going through the mini-movie scene by scene but the results are pretty nice.  It is also now 23.976fps (via slowdown) and 720x480 to keep with the rest of the NTSC set.  

Here is the video track just to show you how many cuts had to be made.

http://i.imgur.com/KSPHl.png

Now I am just waiting to get my Droids 3 tape back from Ringwraith so I can copy the English audio from it with my current setup.  My backup Droids 3 tape that I have is somewhat lacking and has nasty spots all over it.

Oh, and I haven't finalized Coby yet but I have been tweaking my process a little here and there for it.

And I have been toying with some 640x480 encodes and they do look pretty much as good as the 720x480 encodes.  But I have been unable to replicate the AR display problem that Moth3r had.  It may be best though to keep the mp4 set 640x480 just to avoid any problems. 

Remember, I do plan on releasing a DVD set one day when I track down the Mexican VHS tapes.  And that will be 720x480.

Post
#569446
Topic
Droids Series Complete Set. Reconstruction from multiple sources. V1.0 is out! (Released)
Time

True.

I could just take my final project (of mixing together the two encodes) and slow it down.

I wonder by how much that would increase the total time for the episode? I have heard the conversion for a 2 hour movie adds on about 5 minutes to the total run time.  The runtime for this episode is about 47  minutes.  So this would probably add a little over 2 minutes?

The original commercial VHS tape wasn't a PAL speedup (as far as I can tell).  This was a PAL blend from 29.97 -> 25.  So we would effectively be altering the run time.

It is food for thought...and something I may wind up doing.

Post
#569443
Topic
Droids Series Complete Set. Reconstruction from multiple sources. V1.0 is out! (Released)
Time

After trying a million different things, I think that I am just going to leave The Great Heep episode at 25fps.

I can't seem to get a straight 25fps->23.976fps (no decimate or SRestore) to work without it having a slight hiccup.  As it is removing a frame just about every second it gives it a little stutter on pans/zooms.  

If anyone else wants to give it a shot let me know if you can produce better results :)

So the plan is to render the episode twice, once with SRestore and once with just a plain deinterlace.  I can then edit them together using the SRestore scenes when the camera is stationary while using the deinterlaced encode for the pans/zooms.  I think that this should lend the best results, although it will be time consuming.

And this sort of rules out a DVD set unless this episode is by itself.  Then again, I could probably just convert the footage to 29.97 fps instead of 23.976.  That would probably help with the stutter but at the same time introduce even more blending.

Post
#568417
Topic
Droids Series Complete Set. Reconstruction from multiple sources. V1.0 is out! (Released)
Time

Here is just a quick bit on the wiki page...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Droids#DVD_release

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Droids#Home_video

Essentially, the series consists of 13 episodes and 1 TV special.

But they only released 8 of the episodes on DVD.  And those 8 were edited together to appear as 2 mini movies.

Differences are...

  • No intro/theme song.  Cut completely.
  • different credits.
  • music throughout the episodes are replaced with new compositions.
  • the section surrounding the commercial breaks are trimmed to appear seamless.  So no cliffhangers before commercial break.
  • DVDs have all new footage and voice overs in the beginning to replace the intro.
  • minor trims here and there throughout the "movies"

 

Kind of the same thing that happened with the Young Indiana Jones chronicles and the DVD release.  They are no way near the original broadcasts. 

Also, all of the current sets of the original episodes floating around on P2P and from conventions dealers are abhorrent.   

On a side note, Star Wars fans at large were unaware of the Mexican release of the Coby episode until we started to do some digging here at OT.com.  And now we are seeing stuff on wiki pages about it.  I just thought that part was a little funny :)

Post
#568410
Topic
Droids Series Complete Set. Reconstruction from multiple sources. V1.0 is out! (Released)
Time

Moth3r said:

I spent some time looking at this; the best "off the shelf" solution I could find is SRestore with a target framerate of 23.976, which restores some frames, but not all.

SRestore seems to break down during scenes that pan and zoom.  When the camera is stationary though it has great results.  I played around with some of the parameters all with the same result.  Sample 2 has some very visible pan and zooms, but if you want another example with more let me know.

althor1138 said:

Have you tried the AnimeIVTC plugin for avisynth? I've had luck with it sometimes.  After finding the right settings I always make sure killcomb is set to 1.

Yeah, I have played around with AnimeIVTC quite a bit.  With no good results so far.  It either multiplies the blending, or removes to much, leading to the same results with the pans and zooms.

I really do think this will just have to be a 25fps encode with just boring old de-interlacing.

What I may do is render the episode with SRestore, Telecide or something similar.  And then just replace the scenes with panning/zoom with a regular de-interlace.  The finished product would still have to be 25fps but it is probably the best we are going to get unfortunately. 

Post
#568307
Topic
Droids Series Complete Set. Reconstruction from multiple sources. V1.0 is out! (Released)
Time

Moth3r said:

My media player (MPC-HC) played this back at the wrong AR, not sure if that's the fault of my player ignoring the aspect ratio flag, or if you didn't set it in the MKV in the first place (I didn't have time to check). Since compatibility with AR flags generally can be hit-and-miss, I would recommend you resize to 640 x 480 before encoding. Since the source is VHS which has limited horizontal resolution anyway, you wouldn't lose any detail.

Maybe consider the use of AAC instead of AC3 for audio, and MP4 instead of MKV for the container (formats that the pirate "scene" is now moving to - look up the SD x264 TV Release Standards 2012).

Odd, I did set the AR width to 640.  It displays fine with VLC and my Popcorn Hour in the living room.  I wouldn't rule out software weirdness on that one and I agree that sometimes it can be hit-or-miss.

I am not 100% certain that I want to drop the size down to 640x480 though.   I would like to pack as much detail in there as possible, especially if these encodes last as long as the previous ones did (VCD set from 1990's are still all over the place).  

In regards to the MP4/AAC suggestion, I was actually just thinking the same thing these last couple of days since the new scene standards have been revealed.  I settled on MKV/AC3 a few months ago, but if new hardware over the next couple of years becomes more MP4/AAC friendly (which is likely to happen when the scene decides upon a standard) then that is probably the way to go.  I am not packaging multiple audio tracks or subtitles so MKV isn't necessary.

So I will probably do some test encodes with MP4/AAC at 720x480 with an AR flag of 640 width and test them out on a few different media players to see if I have any problems.  If I run into a bunch of incompatibilities then I will look into trimming them down to 640x480.

thanks!

Post
#568124
Topic
Droids Series Complete Set. Reconstruction from multiple sources. V1.0 is out! (Released)
Time

Here are some clips from the Great Heep UK PAL tape.

Sample 1

Sample 2

Does anybody have any ideas as to how best to proceed with deblending these frames?  We played around with them a little in the previous Droids&Ewoks thread but it looked a little hopeless.  The frame blending is just out of control.

I am leaning towards just a straight de-interlacing and settling on a 25fps version of the Great Heep.

Concerning the Coby episode, I have a DVD made from a VHS.  For some reason I am having the hardest time getting the sucker to deinterlace properly in Avisyth/Virtualdub.  There is this weird combing effect.  I have tried just about everything.

Here is what the video looks like playing off the DVD

And here is what it looks like IVTC'ed in Avisynth/Virtualdub

Here is a d2v/m2v sample for anyone wanting to take a look

Post
#568122
Topic
Droids Series Complete Set. Reconstruction from multiple sources. V1.0 is out! (Released)
Time

**Update (4/6/13): Version 1.0 is up on MySpleen and soon to  a.b.starwars **

We all know how terrible the DVD releases for Droids and Ewoks were.  They were cut up, mangled and all together different.  This set is the culmination of about 3+ years of tracking down foreign tapes to find the best sources possible for the original Droids animated series in full.  And then syncing them up with English audio tracks that contain the original sound effects and music as they aired in 1985 and 1986.

The set will include UK PAL VHS tapes, Japanese NTSC VHS tapes, as well as original TV broadcasts.

Droids tapes

At first I had just collected the PAL tapes in hopes of making a direct transfer but I (along with a number of other people here on OT.com) found them to suffer from some terrible frame blending.  The NTSC->PAL transfer done by CBS/FOX was atrocious.  No amount of IVTC or deinterlacing appears to help.

But then I was made aware of the Japanese NTSC tapes.  It took me months and months to finally track them all down but fortunately I was able to get them and they do not suffer from the frame blending problem.

So the plan is to use the Japanese tapes for the video and the PAL tapes for the English audio.

The main problem at the moment is there is no Episode 9 “Coby and the Starhunters” on either the UK PAL tapes or the Japanese NTSC tapes.  The only source that I have at the moment is a recording of the original broadcast on ABC.  The broadcasts from the SciFi channel will not suffice as they have been edited down by a few minutes. The only commercially available source of this episode (to my knowledge) is a Mexican NTSC VHS release that has proven near impossible to track down.  The copy that I have is not the best in the world but it will have to do for now.

The other problem being that there is no Japanese release of the Great Heep. (Edit: this turned out to not be true. See post on page 6) Again, there is a Mexican NTSC release of this episode that is impossible to track down and the SciFi channel airings were edited.  I plan on using the UK PAL tapes as a source for the time being.

The workflow for NTSC is JVC HR-S9600U SVHS with TBC -> Hauppauge HVR-2250 capture card -> VIrtualdub -> AVI

For PAL it is Phillips VR1070 SVHS -> Hauppauge HVR-2250 capture card -> VIrtualdub -> AVI

Then I have been using minimal Avisynth and Virtual dub filters to just perform IVTC, light leveling to brighten the image and slightly darken the blacks, and some light denoising. I am trying to do as little “improvements” as possible. I will then piece together the audio track in Sony Vegas and save the audio as an AC3 file and then merge it with the AVI file.

The 1.0 version of the project will be uploaded as an MKV set with AC3 audio (incase anybody wants to make their own DVD set you are already half way there).  Version 2.0 will come later on down the road when I get a commercial version of the Coby episode as well as The Great Heep. This could takes years at the rate it is going.  I will then likely make a DVD set.

And I would just like to state upfront that these are VHS rips.  They are only going to look so good.  All of us will be able to find plenty of defects and eye sores with little effort.  But I really have no ambitions of laboring over them in Avisynth for the next couple of months. Trust me, with 14 episodes totaling almost 400 minutes…it is a huge time-sink.  But if there is somebody around here with tons of experience and a proven track record then I would simply offer up my raw AVI files to them to make their own set.

The audio sync alone has proven to be quite the undertaking.  The UK PAL tapes repeatedly trim seconds off near commercial breaks and fadeouts in an attempt to make it feel more like a movie.  I have been using some clips from the original broadcasts and the SciFi airings to fill in some of the shortcomings.

All in all, I think it has turned out pretty good.  I am just about done with the Japanese/UK mixes and will soon be focusing on the Coby and Great Heep episodes.

Here is a sample of what the completed MKV set will probably look like

Post
#567624
Topic
Info Wanted: Calling all Color Correctors: Can this source yield a different set of results to Gout?
Time

frank678 said:

Well despite the extremely unlikely prospect that a retro fullscreen/analog revival kicks in sometime in the future, I did find I could dig better colors out of another source, which was the Starkiller 82 Preservation, again it degraded the image but again working with original raw captures of the source laserdisc might yield a more pleasing result (or maybe not). Also someone who understood working color correction programs properly might get a more refined result.

The point for me was to try find the least red-shift damaged digitized/digitizable source and see what came out through color correction...

Original:

http://i41.tinypic.com/jtvtok.jpg

Correction attempt:

http://i41.tinypic.com/2a6jfxs.jpg 

 

I would probably avoid doing a color restoration project on a laptop.  That is about as far away from a calibrated monitor as you can get.  Especially with some of the terrible viewing angles on those things.

No offence, as I am sure that some of these look good on your laptop, but to the rest of use they look terrible.  Again, it may just be the setup that you are using.

EDIT: also, how much does Mark Hamill look like Jane Krakowski (Jenna Maroney from 30 Rock) in that pic?  creepy.

 

Post
#566880
Topic
Featurette on main site?
Time

I think that sounds like a great idea.

I know that I have sent a number of people in the direction of originaltrilogy.com without much information.  I am sure that it was probably a little daunting for them at first.  I am sure that it is easy for those of us that have been here for years to just know everything that is going on and where to look, but to a newcomer it is probably like trying to drink from a fire-hose.

But to play devils advocate, this idea would in turn create plenty of work for the site admins as people will begin complaining about what gets linked where and "why isn't my new preservation good enough for the front page?" type junk. 

Post
#566664
Topic
OBITUARY - Star Wars Fullscreen/Pan and Scan versions. R.I.P.
Time

I have a few different Full Screen tapes that I was eventually going to transfer.  I have been busy with my Droids set but doing a straight preservation of these tapes shouldn't be a problem.

I have a Faces set that was still in the wrapper until about 6 months ago when I got my hands on it.  I have only played Episode 4 for about 10 minutes just to check out how nice it still looks.

I also have the 1992 VHS Full Screen box set with Empire and Jedi still in the wrapper.  I also have the 1982 Rental tape as well.  Pretty good condition.

I have some decent SVHS decks and a capture card to do raw AVI captures.  

Here is a sample I just made of the 1982 Rental tape on my JVC SVHS deck. http://www.sendspace.com/file/1iz9lk

And here is a sample of the intro to Episode IV on the Faces set http://www.sendspace.com/file/4s9ewr

If anybody wants me to capture any of these let me know.  Although I must say my current Droids project already has me pulling my hair out :P

Post
#561738
Topic
Info: Droids and Ewoks, anybody ?
Time

Thanks for looking into that. It is edge halos (a quick google search confirms it).  

I remember doing tests back when I got the deck and deciding to go with the R3.  But it couldn't hurt to do more.

Here is a screencap without the R3

http://i.imgur.com/RCyAI.png

Here is a screencap with the R3

http://i.imgur.com/jYMCj.png

You can see that Digital R3 is not the cause of the halos, but it does enhance it.  But it also works wonders for the rest of the image too. I think any sharpening done in Avisynth/Virtualdub would likely lead to the same results.

There is a Virtualdub filter out there called Exorcist that is supposed to help with edge halos but it can give mixed results.  Not to mention destroy a little bit of detail in the process.  

But to be honest I think that it would start to veer away from my originally stated goal of just making a simple preservation while implementing the most bare minimum enhancements.

Post
#561457
Topic
Info: Droids and Ewoks, anybody ?
Time

Thanks for the feedback Video Collector.  Unfortunately a number of these issues have already been nagging at me for quite some time :/

Concerning the edge fringing (I feel like there is another term for it that escapes me at the moment) those are in the actual capture/source itself.  Keep in mind I am using a JVC 9600U SVHS player with TBC so the VCR itself shouldn't be adding much to the problem.  Here is a screenshot of the raw capture.  You'll notice the lines are still there.

 

Concerning the blooming reds in the NTSC capture.  It appears that this is just the way the NTSC copies are meant to look.  For example, here are some screenshots from my capture and the DVD.  

RAW CAPTURE

Filtered

DVD

So here for example, the red isn't my only concern.  I am also trying to get the scepter to not be so dark and damp. And I still didn't go as high as the DVDs. It really is a game of compromise.  In the end I pretty much went with less is more and only made slight tweaking.

Also, notice that there are blooming reds in almost every shot.  And I really don't want to tone it down as it then negates too much color from other shots.  I am sure you have noticed while going through these droids tapes that once scene can have completely overblown whites and washed out colors only to have the next scene be so dark you can't make out any details and the colors are turned up to eleven.  I am pretty sure that is just the way the cartoon was produced.  It really makes it a pain to try and tweak this colors and have it work for the entire episode.

In regards to the sound, I made my recordings in VirtualDub straight from the VHS tape to PCM.  Then I edited the sound in Sony Vegas to get it to sync properly, as well as make up for the UK PAL tapes deficiencies around commercial breaks and the end of the episodes (they usually cut out about 2-3 seconds early.  I then saved the Vegas project as AC3 and that is the track in the MKV.  I performed no cleaning or denoising.  For the VCR used on the PAL tapes I have a Philips 6-Head SVHS which produces pretty good sound.

One thing I will say about my captures that makes me really happy is the TBC used on the JVC SVHS deck.  It really straightens up the lines on the tapes and eliminates a lot of the traditional VHS wavy lines.  Here is a screenshot from the intro showing almost perfectly straight lines.

I love it!