Star Wars Conversions-Hit me with your best shot...

[miked00]

I've found that I can correct audio skew using the "DelayAudio" command in Avisynth, but I'd rather not re-encode all that video...someone please help.

[vhelp]

@ miked00..

you COULD try under TMPG's Advance tab/[x] Source Range
and adjust the Audio gap correct: [nnn] msec to something. I
forget what the tipicle values to use (as your starting point) and nudge
by ~100 or till it matches video. And, only encoding a small portion, not
the whole video mind you.

Perhaps someone else can elaborate further on this, though sometihng
like this shold be addressed under the Audio FORUM here.

-vhelp

[borghe]

the only other thing I can say is that if you are authoring and importing the audio and video separately, you can sometimes specify a delay in the audio depending on the package. Scenarist you can specify a dealy in SMPTE frames.

[energy80s]

Does anyone know of a program where I can mux MPEG audio/video but set a delay time for the audio? My movies came out a bit asynch...the audio plays a little too early.

bbMPEG will do this for you, and is a damn fine multiplexer anyway!

[DivXExpert]

I want the master films. =(
Wonder how I could get George Lucas to let me use them. How much it would cost.

[miked00]

Thanks guys, I'm currently fooling around in bbmpeg...I've got the synch so close that I can't really tell if the audio plays too early or too late, so I'm just putting values in and seeing what happens.

[flaninacupboard]

couldn;t tell you hot to get the masters, but, would 35mm film be good enough anyway? it's simple phone 20th Fox and say "hello, i've just set up my own film projector at home, and was wondering if i could some rent some titles?" and there you go. now get a film scanner, and away you go! actually i don;t know whether they would rent them to individuals, but someone on the forum must work for either a cinema or entertaiment complex.......
OH WAIT A MINUTE!!!! I DO!!!!!!!!!!!!
I've thought about doing this a few times, but would need to purchase a film scanner, and a 5,000tb hard drive
the other thing is, i've -no- idea how long a film scanner takes per frame. if i were to rent the films i'd probably get them for about 3-4days, for the mere sum of £80 (only $120 or so) but don;t know if that's long enough.

[DivXExpert]

Thats a great idea. And I do believe that film scanners are fairly fast. I saw one in action in the "making of" thing of some movie.

[Robster]

You'd never get hold of them. Lucasfilm keep a very tight wrap on where and when the SW films are shown. And even if you could, they'd be the bastardized 1997 re-releases, not the original versions as Lord Lucas believes the newer versions are definitive (until the next re-re-re-re-release). And since prints are inherently worn and dirty, it still wouldn't be that great. And anyway, how on earth would you go about transferring 35mm to DVD? You have any idea of the kind of resources you'd need for this? I've seen the DVCC plant in LA where they transfer and encode films for Fox, Universal, Dreamworks, Artisan and others. Let me tell ya - small and cheap, it ain't

[DivXExpert]

I wonder if he destroyed the originals, it wouldn't suprise me if he did.

[Robster]

The word was that the original negs were replaced.

I highly doubt this was the case. First of all the original negs were in bad shape in 97. If they hadn't had done something with them then they may not have been able to salvage them at all in the future.

Given Lucas' perchant for archiving and storing EVERYTHING I imagine that once restored, the negs for the film were replaced - but without the additions of the 97 SEs. The 'enhanced' version was then worked on separately. There's no way the film in it's original form would have completely erased from history.

[flaninacupboard]

DivxExpert, don't be silly!! how could he do the special special extra bonus deluxe uber ultra final edition if he thre away the originals?
has any one here seen the fantastic episode of south park when lucas and spielberg are plotting to re-make raiders of the lost ark? i almost wet myself when spielbergs' "heavies" threatened the kids with walkie talkies!
Robster,
i'd never thought about it until i saw the additional material from LOTR:FOTR showing the CGI studio, which consisted of a film scanner, two computers, and a film burner. jeez! i've got more computers than that!!
although you're right, they would be the special eds. heh, i wonder how off it would look to have 35mm transfer for the entire film bar the meeting with greedo and han

[ironwood321]

The film scanner route would take a long while unless it is a special one for film. Normal photo film scanners you will ethier feed in 6 wide neg strips or fillet your film into slides.

I believe they used in the past something called a flying spot converter which is a CRT scanning beam a series of RGB filters and a sensor.

But technology might have changed.

Then you have to read the audio marks with some form of light sensor.

Imagine having to digital ICE and 2D comb filter all the frames it would take forever.

[Mythos2002]

Does anyone know if Adobe Premiere would be a good tool to use for any of the processing on this project? I would love to get one of those ADVC-100 cards, but I'm going to have to save up for it.

I hope my LD Player is good enough. I've checked the LD's with several different S-Video cables hooked to my TV directly and noticed there is a considerable amount of video noise in the LD's. I know most of you do not use noise reduction, but your screen captures look far better than mine. That is what I'm trying to accomplish.

Mythos

[borghe]

You would have to use a film scanner on the negatives. This is what's done in virtually all instances of serious restoration. You could do this at home with minimal equipment, but the question is how much of your life do you want to devote to it? I can tell you right now the movie clocks in around 174190 frames. My scanner takes 5 frames at a time meaning it would only take 34838 scans to get the entire film in... Oh, then I need to do the audio.

As far as even getting a hold of the prints, no you can't rent them out as a consumer. As a business you are able to rent prints, but not Star Wars as Lucas is the owner of the coyprights. and doesn't rent them out. As has been said before, he is very choosy on what and how Star Wars is shown, television, film, or otherwise.

Mythos, I don't know how much Premiere would help. I haven;t used it at all and I feel I am done with encoding. The only tool I really used was AVISynth and some filters, all of which I've documented here. Premiere certainly has it's use as an excellent video editor, but what we are doing here really isn't editing to that degree.

As for cables, cables will never make as dramatic an improvement as it sounds like you are looking for. If you are really dissatisfied with the quality, your only real solution would be to buy a new LD player.

[Robster]

Myth - I got a copy of Vegas Video 3.0 LE with my ADVC-1394. It seems pretty good, though I haven't used it an awful lot. I did use it though to do the permanent subtitles on my SW transfers.

I think Premier - like Photo Shop, is a superb tool but needs time to learn it properly.

[indolikaa]

Why clean any of the transfers up? What about the nostalgia of listening to an original LD with the audio bandwidth of AM radio? Or how about the phenomenal amount of video noise from a disc that dates back to Ronald Reagan's presidency?!

You know, y'all probably spend countless hours agonizing over three or four test frames, desparately trying to squeeze out just one more pitiful ounce of perfection, forgetting that your dinner's been on the table for six days and the house smells like cat poop because your wife and kids left you days ago. Why? Because you couldn't settle for anything less than something you cannot possibly achieve in that digital universe you call your computer that is hooked up to something that works in the ANALOG world! Perfection! Abandon it, and save your soul!

Whoa. Sorry. Don't know what came over me. Hey, why does it smell like cat poop in here?

[Mythos2002]

I know my project won't be perfect. I'm just trying to get it to the point where it is at least as good as the other guy's conversions.

What LD Players are you guys using?

Mythos

[Styro]

I've got a Pioneer DVL-700. Damn nice picture coming off it. Too bad the DVD part couldn't keep up with DVD advances...

-- Styro

[MJPollard]

Why clean any of the transfers up? What about the nostalgia of listening to an original LD with the audio bandwidth of AM radio? Or how about the phenomenal amount of video noise from a disc that dates back to Ronald Reagan's presidency?!

(... amusing yet annoying rambling deleted ...)

Whoa. Sorry. Don't know what came over me. Hey, why does it smell like cat poop in here?

Anyone else suddenly get a mental image of William Shatner telling a whole roomful of Trekkies to get a life?

Good luck with the cat poop. We'll be just down the street, enjoying our little hobby. Need a mop to clean up that large amount of bile you just spewed?

[Robster]

Why clean any of the transfers up? What about the nostalgia of listening to an original LD with the audio bandwidth of AM radio? Or how about the phenomenal amount of video noise from a disc that dates back to Ronald Reagan's presidency?!

You've clearly never seen or heard an LD system playing properly.

Audio is digital PCM at 44.1khz. Disc noise is dependent upon the player and the pressing itself and on a decent system, is not intrusive, or even noticeable.

So if you want crap in a thread, kindly choose one where you have a clue what you're talking about.

[Mythos2002]

What Pioneer Elite model is recommended?

I may take a chance and clean my LD Player before I start again. I'm reading over the FAQ on how to do it and am pretty competent with electronics. I bought my unit on Ebay back in November of 2002. The people I bought it from may never had it clean. They did take pretty nice care of it and are probably the original owners of this 1994 unit as they supplied the original manual, remote, and box with all of the styrofoam packaging intact.

I wanted to also chime in on the post that pretty much told us not to strive for perfection. The big reason we are doing this is because the a-hole who owns the films said he would never release the original versions again. Now, if I were a big fan of the Special Editions, I wouldn't care or would even be attempting this project. I would simply wait until 2006. The problem is that I can't stand the Special Edition and I'm not going to buy any Star Wars DVD set that doesn't feature the original versions. That's why I'm doing this project.

Mythos

[Robster]

Myth, if you're wanting to get an Elite, then they're all really good. The Elite 79 was the lowest model, then the 99. An earlier version, the Elite 97 was the BEST one ever. Massive build quality and the lowest noise levels of any of the Elite range. But, it was single-side play only and had no AC-3 output (not that you'll need that for the captures).

The 99 was also really good and had a neat adaptive comb-filter built in, which could store different settings. My CLD-HF9G is the Japanese version of the 99 but with a few extra tweaks.

You may want to consider taking your current player in for recalibration. Noise levels can increase when the laser isn't tracking quite correctly. However it's a skilled job and it may be difficult to find someone now who can undertake it.

[indolikaa]

Thought I'd play nice and remove the whole thing. Peace, Robster.

.indolikaa.

[Robster]

It was a joke.

Fine. However your post just looked like ANOTHER troll post. It hasn't been the first one in this thread. Try using smilies.

Audio is PCM 44.1kHz. The source material was not; it had to be digitized/transcoded/converted into a digital signal

And? That does not mean it has the bandwidth of AM radio. It's analogue source material like a massive number of other films and audio recordings.

The original LaserDisc transfer was made from the original negatives. Negatives begin to deteriorate the instant that light is exposed upon them. The deterioration is evident in the playback of the original LaserDisc trilogy.

Perhaps it is you that needs to get a clue.

I don't really see how. Your criticisms quoted above are meaningless within the context of this thread.

Since Lord Lucas is unlikely to ever give people the real Star Wars on DVD it's all we have to work with. What you seem to be saying is 'why bother because it will always look/sound' bad. Sorry, but it doesn't.

I reiterate again - jokes work best when you smile.

[DJRumpy]

Now I think you both need to lighten up

(please note the smiley...)

[ironwood321]

Hi,
There are several laser disc versions of starwars. Some had faults and some where pretty good.

If you go to www.imdb.com and type in star wars with spaces. You will see a list of star wars films. Click on Star wars or Star wars Ep I

Cast / film details appear.

On the left hand side under other info is an entry entitled "laser disk details"

Click it and you might end up with either

http://us.imdb.com/Laserdisc?0076759
http://us.imdb.com/Laserdisc?0120915

This has some information about most of the disk releases. Including quality and fault info. I believe there another text file somewhere else on the net with slight more information.

http://users.southeast.net/~datalore/starwars/THX.htm

I found a link which might be of interest

http://www.originaltrilogy.com/petition.cfm

[Robster]

I would lighten but my picture is too noisy! 8)

[indolikaa]

OK, I will play nice.

[Mythos2002]

Well, I cleaned my LD Players lenses and I have some good news and bad news. The bad news is that it didn't make any difference. The slight video noise still exists. The good news is that I didn't mess up the LD Player.

To tie in with what indolikaa said, I'm going to have to make due with what I have. I've been driving my fiancee crazy with this project for months. We are trying to save up for a house, so I'm going to have to make due with what I have. I would love to get a Pioneer Elite-97 and a Canopus ADVC-100 card, but that would put us that much farther from our house.

I hope my LD's don't have rot. I don't think they could this far along though. I figured they would have had it a couple of years after they were pressed. The noise isn't too bad, but it is a little distracting. Then again, I'm looking at it less than 2 feet from my monitor. Hopefully it won't look that bad on the TV. The LD's still look better than my VHS versions.

I'm probably just going to capture all of Empire and work on it. I haven't noticed any more jumpiness, so I think I have my telecide and decimate lines in my AVISynth script correct.

I just wish we had a group page where we could post small video samples of what we accomplished so we could compare and make sure each of us is on the right track.

Mythos