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

[flaninacupboard]

viande,

I snipped out the scene i think you want,



is that right? if so, the DV file is 36 or so megs, i can transfer it over MSN or some such, as at a guess you're not in the uk for me to just post you a disc...

I'd really like to open a big fat server for all you people who are sturggling, so you can grab my shiny PAL files, but alas, i am too poor, and fear the law!

[flaninacupboard]

oh, and the interlace discussion? here's a scene from the end of side 1



which i think speaks for itself.

although if your vision is poor, this makes it a little clearer

[viande]

hello flaninacupboard!!

Yes thats _exaclty_ the scene i need from esb.
Ill try to find a bin for you to dump it in, but yes, imho this file should be made available for all who has the laserdisc. I dont think these 7 seconds
would be considered very resellable material for Lucasfilm...

the one on the first pressing laserdisc starts with that frame:

(this is allready converted to mpeg2 at 8000


Man comparing these two images, made me realise that yours is
1)PAL
2)MUCH nicer looking

i guess pal colors do the trick....

[vhelp]

viande wrote:

I tried for fun to capture that section on my equivalent VHS WS release
and wanted to match the shots, while it was an interresting thing to try,
the VHS section was SOOOOO ugly, that it would distract way more than having the shot missing

Yeah, but at least you got a WS VHS version. I got nothing hehe

Anyways, your pic looks like a little washed out in color.

Can you elaborate on your system setup (don't forget to fill out your computer
details too)

* LD player brand/model
* capture card
* encoder used
* authoring ie, mpeg-1 or mpeg-2 (better to process in mpeg-2)
* filters ie, color, resizing etc. etc.
* issues during the proces ie, framedrops or noise etc. etc.

-vhelp 2021

[viande]

[quote="vhelp"]viande wrote:

Anyways, your pic looks like a little washed out in color.

Comparing with PAL might be the reason

Can you elaborate on your system setup (don't forget to fill out your computer details too)

Everything NTSC:

LD: Samsung DV-555 (VideOrche)
capture card: nil, composite Analog ins of my Canon Optura 20 miniDV
in SP (of course)

DVIO -> pentium 3 (no loss, pure dv)

1)virtualdub direct stream croping

2)tmpgenc IVTC 24p in uncompressed AVI

3)virtualdub 411 helper (defaults) (with whitout no much diff unless in laserblasts/light sabers heavy scenes - to my eyes at least)

4)tmpgenc fill black bars, noise reduction (defaults - HQ)
encode 720x480 VBR 2 pass 8000 (max since i use the pure LPC tracks, not stereo ac3)

if i compare my m2v's and my _source_ DV avis, the colors are the same
,just a bit less analog noise, no interlacing and a slight "mpeg look" (faint blockyness) in smoke scenes.

In all those steps i did NOT touch any brightness/contrast/color settings
(afraid of doing more harm than good!)

So if there is a color problem it must have been from the LD player
or the miniDV encoding. Then again, i doubt that anything major arrived.
If anyone else did a NTSC capture of the same LD source, please post
the same frame. ... we could maybe find a better frame to compare colors , perhaps the luke/vader encounter at the end of ESB,
when vader says "youre not a jedi yet", im not home atm, but ill post a capture tonight (this scene has SOO must bitcrawl between the black/blue/red edges - its horrible)

Ok later

[viande]

Ok i just made some interresting captures

NTSC WS VHS (original)


NTSC WS LD (original)


NTSC WS VHS (Special Edition)


One thing to remember is that the ESB LD is the worst tranfer of the lot, ill do the same with JEDI and SW once im there

(same capture equipment as before, NO editing, these are DV captures)

[spiderman2k1]

I'm in the USA and have seen on TECHTV a person that wrote a book on "Final Cut Pro" for the MAC has said PAL is better for DV film's it's 25 frame's a second and a 720*576 while film is 24 frame's a second. And he said red's are better in PAL then in NTSC

NTSC is better for sport's having 29.97 frame's a second.

[Jakobud]

Okay so this thread is super old and I have tried to comb through about half of it but i get losted. Has anyone yet created some sort of deffinitive tutorial for this Laserdisc to DVD conversion?

I am trying to accomplish this:

Star Wars Trilogy (Original) Widescreen Laserdiscs
to
DVD

The thing is, the TV(s) I am going to be watching this on are new widescreen HDTV's. So I'm not sure what I am suppose to do about the Interlacing. Am I suppose to leave it in or filter it out since I am using a nice new DVD player and nice new HDTV?

Also regarding the resolution, I'm confused. How do I determine what the source resolution is that the laserdisc player is sending to my computer? Should I be capturing at that exact resolution? Is it a waste of time to capture at a higher res?

Also I heard that all Laserdisc are either 528x480 or 544x480. Does this mean its a waste to capture at 720x480? Virtual dub doesn't give me the option to capture at 528 or 544....what do I do?

Also, the Laserdisc say they are 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. I can tell the video comes in with the widescreen picture and letterbox black boxes on top and bottom. If I measure the aspect ratio of the actual movie without the bars it's not 2.35:1....its more like 2.62 or something. Why is this?

Another problem, I tried to capture the video in VirtualDub. I set it up to do 29.97fps and 720x480 and it in the lower right corner (where it shows fps) it automatically uses something crazy like 20,000kbps....how do I change this??

Jakobud

[Mythos2002]

Okay so this thread is super old and I have tried to comb through about half of it but i get losted. Has anyone yet created some sort of deffinitive tutorial for this Laserdisc to DVD conversion?

I haven't finished mine yet due to lack of time, but I finally have all of the equipment I need.

The thing is, the TV(s) I am going to be watching this on are new widescreen HDTV's. So I'm not sure what I am suppose to do about the Interlacing. Am I suppose to leave it in or filter it out since I am using a nice new DVD player and nice new HDTV?

The only thing I would do is to IVTC (Inverse Telecine) it. This changes the framerate from 29.97 to 23fps. This will remove the interlace lines. You do that with your encoder. Which one are you using? I use TMPGEnc. There should be a good guide on this site for how to do that for whatever encoder you are using. I can help if you are using TMPGEnc. I don't know enough about other encoders, but others here do.

Also regarding the resolution, I'm confused. How do I determine what the source resolution is that the laserdisc player is sending to my computer? Should I be capturing at that exact resolution? Is it a waste of time to capture at a higher res?

Also I heard that all Laserdisc are either 528x480 or 544x480. Does this mean its a waste to capture at 720x480? Virtual dub doesn't give me the option to capture at 528 or 544....what do I do?

I'm doing the Definitive Collection Widescreen LD's and I capture at 720x480. I believe it should be the same for Fullscreen LD's. However, you would capture PAL LD's at 720x576.

Also, the Laserdisc say they are 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. I can tell the video comes in with the widescreen picture and letterbox black boxes on top and bottom. If I measure the aspect ratio of the actual movie without the bars it's not 2.35:1....its more like 2.62 or something. Why is this?

I never heard of Anamorphic LD's, but I'm not the expert on that. DJRumpy would probably know the answer to that.

Another problem, I tried to capture the video in VirtualDub. I set it up to do 29.97fps and 720x480 and it in the lower right corner (where it shows fps) it automatically uses something crazy like 20,000kbps....how do I change this??

You can click on settings in the lower right corner to change them. I set my audio and video settings there.

I've found that you can successfully make 16:9 DVD's from 4:3 sources by using the crop and resize features in your encoder. I capture the black bars, but I crop them out.

I know this thread is long, but I would click on the Printer Friendly button and use the Edit Find button on your browser to look up key words like IVTC, resizing, cropping, etc. I'm not trying to be a smart alic with that answer, but there is a lot of good information in this thread that will help you. I'm not an expert, but I'm a lot more knowledgeable than I used to be because of this thread and this site.

I'll be glad to answer questions I can in more detail, but it would help to know what programs you are using and your capture card and such.

Mythos

[Robster]

has said PAL is better for DV film's it's 25 frame's a second and a 720*576 while film is 24 frame's a second. And he said red's are better in PAL then in NTSC

Maybe so, but the PAL audio is wrong. Because of the difference in framerare, the film essentially runs 4% faster than an NTSC counterpart. This means audio is raised in pitch by approx a semitone. There are ways of correcting the pitch but it usually results in audible artifacts.

I didtched PAL LDs many years ago because of this problem. The NTSC versions just sounded so much better (and generally looked better too but that's another story).

[Mythos2002]

Hey Robster,

Long time, no see. I'm loving this ADVC-100. I've only had time to do a few short tests so far, but I've had no audio sync problems or dropped frames. I went back and looked at an encode I did with my old GeForce4 and could tell it was out of sync when I compared it to the same scene from an encode I did with a capture from the ADVC.

I've also been doing some tests with subtitling. I've been trying the demo version of Video Vegas and free Sub Station Alpha. I have to read up on Video Vegas to figure out how the subs work. I know a little how to do the subs in SSA, but I don't understand some of the things from Flanina's script he posted. He had a few lines where it said something like
"Dialogue: Marked=0,0:02:37.4,0:02:40.48,Default,NTP,0000,000 0,0000,!Effect,Solo, come out of there, Solo!
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:02:46.68,0:02:48.24,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,Have you now.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:02:52.72,0:02:56.60,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,Han, my boy, you disappoint me........" I was wondering what that was for.
Flanina, are you there?

Did you ever finish your two disc encodes Robster? I know before you said you weren't going to do menus? Did you change your mind?

I've been using WinDV to capture. When I purge my PC of a lot of useless files and do a fresh install, I'm going to start working on this project again. I'll probably try out Scenalyzer Live as well.

Mythos

[dvdguy]

Why dont you just wait til next year for the trilogy to come out on DVD.
If the Indy DVDs sell then you know whats next.

[vhelp]

yeah, some guys just don't get it - - still

These are hobby's.. to capture and encode these movies. Going out and getting
the movie would not be the same thing. We know we can get these movies
on DVD (except Star Wars) but it's not the same thing, and also, we have
a love for these special not on DVD exceptions.

Like pizza. You know you can go out and get a fresh tasty pie. But, once
in a while, there comes a pie that we all would like to try our hand at cooking.
And so, we begin the baking process. For some, it's a hobby, while for others,
its an advanture, and yet others, it's a do or die, and even others, it's a
last chance to do, before it does finally come out on DVD



-vhelp 2053

[Mythos2002]

dvdguy,

Even if Lucas puts these Star Wars films on DVD next year, you can bet he'll probably only release the Special Edition versions. I don't like those versions and am doing the original versions.

Mythos

[Robster]

Myth,
I'm almost done on the two-disc versions. I had to re-capture Empire because I managed to lose part of the original file. I did menus for the single-disc but not for the others. The time it takes to get them working nicely and looking good just isn't worth it for me.

I don't like player-generated subtitles. They generally look crap. I did permanent subs using Vegas Video 3 LE (which I got free with the Canopus). They're a frame-for-frame match of the original subs on the LD but placed correctly near the bottom of the frame - NOT in the black border (hate that). The end result is subs which look part of the film, which is how it's supposed to be.

[Mythos2002]

Hello,

I'm still prepping my computer to start the capturing process over again and have a couple of questions. A friend of mine stopped by and took a look at a test disc I made with my old capturing methods and one test encode I made with the ADVC-100. He said they both look okay, but it looks like there is some loss of detail. Both of these clips were made 16:9. Could the stretching or resizing to 16:9 be the reason for the loss of detail? Has anyone who converted to 16:9 noticed loss of detail? He also said his VHS has a little more detail. He is looking at the Special Editions though.

One thing my friend suggested was that they could possibly modify my LD Player and put an RGB connector in it. I know he could do it because he did a lot of electronics works and even knows how to make circuit boards and many other electronic things. Would having an RGB connector have any advantage or improvement? I know it does on a DVD Player, but I don't know about it on an LD Player.

Thanks.
Mythos

[geek rock]

One thing my friend suggested was that they could possibly modify my LD Player and put an RGB connector in it. I know he could do it because he did a lot of electronics works and even knows how to make circuit boards and many other electronic things. Would having an RGB connector have any advantage or improvement? I know it does on a DVD Player, but I don't know about it on an LD Player.

Thanks.
Mythos

if it was possible to fit an RGB connector to the LD player, how would you connect the RGB output to your advc-100? it only has composite & s video inputs. just a thought..

[Mythos2002]

Doh. I should have thought of that.

Anyone have a comment about the 16:9 resizing? Anyone notice a loss of detail when they converted 4:3 to 16:9?

Mythos

[Mythos2002]

I've finished encoding the first half of Empire. However, I'm having a new problem. When I import the audio and video files into DVD-Lab, the audio time is 4 seconds longer than the video. The video is at 1:03:05 and the audio is at 1:03:09. Here is what I did. Please let me know where I went wrong.

I captured the first 1/2 with WinDV, edited with VirtualDub, saved wav from VirtualDub, encoded video only with Tmpeng. The only things I did in the encoder where to IVTC and 3:2 pulldown when playback (23.976fps (29.97fps internally). I also converted from 4:3 to 16:9 using clip frame (104 from top and 100 from bottom). That's all I've done. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks
Mythos

[vhelp]

Hi guys

FYI.. .. ..

Finally found a copy of a Widescreen version on VHS of
Star Wars - Episode 4 !! - THX special edition. Yes, A New Hope !!
Yeah, can you believe it. After 18 pages envy, I finally found one tape
to start my SW endeavor :P

.
.
The box is in pretty bad shape, and the quality's probably gonna be so so.
but heck, I've ben searching for ages, and this is the closest I could come,
and I'm not gonna pass it up no-how, even if it's poor quality. Well, I hope
it's not hehe.. we shall see
The box looks like it went through some great times w/ the multitue of all
the many Star Wars fans. I think this one (box) looks like an original

-vhelp 2146

[Mythos2002]

That's awesome Vhelp. Let me know if you need any help with the others.

Well, I went ahead and made a test DVD-RW of the first half of ESB. Even know DVD-Lab said that the audio was 4 seconds longer than the video, I didn't have any sync issues.

I do have a few other questions though. I noticed a slight amount of jumpiness every now and then like something happened with the IVTC. It is nothing major at all, but I was wondering if anything can be done to make it perfect.

Also, is there any way to do noise reduction without severe loss of quality? My DVD doesn't look bad on the PC, but on the TV, there is a decent amount of analog noise. Should any color correction be attempted? I can't tell if my colors are totally accurate.


How about menus? If I go with 4:3 menus, will they look okay on a 16:9 TV or will they be stretched out of proportion? I'm thinking about going with 4:3 menus because 16:9 menu images do not line up properly on my current 4:3 TV. I can live with black bars on the sides of the menus on a 16:9 TV, but I don't want the images to be out of alignment or disproportionally stretched? Anyone find a good way to do both 4:3 and 16:9 menus on the same DVD where the player can automatically pick the correct one for the type of TV you have?

I did constant quality for my encode. I used 7400kbps, but my DVD player says it is more like 9000 to 9100kbps. Did DVD-Lab do something there? Would I have a better IVTC and better picture quality if I went with VBR? I know that takes more time, but I was wondering if it may be worth it.

Thanks.
Mythos

[MJPollard]

How about menus? If I go with 4:3 menus, will they look okay on a 16:9 TV or will they be stretched out of proportion? I'm thinking about going with 4:3 menus because 16:9 menu images do not line up properly on my current 4:3 TV. I can live with black bars on the sides of the menus on a 16:9 TV, but I don't want the images to be out of alignment or disproportionally stretched? Anyone find a good way to do both 4:3 and 16:9 menus on the same DVD where the player can automatically pick the correct one for the type of TV you have?

Well, whatever you ultimately decide, keep in mind that if you're going to use DVD-Lab, the menus and the video have to match (i.e. both have to be 4:3 or 16:9), as DVD-Lab currently does not support mixing the two (it puts everything into one VTS, as opposed to multi-VTS authoring programs like DVD Architect).

[vhelp]

So far, this is what my output looks like (before TMPG encode it)

@ mythos2002,

I do know what you mean w/ quality output through your DVD player. I just
did a quicky author to CDRW and played through my AD-1500, and I did
notice in the dark scene I did, that it looked a little artifact like, but on my
PC, it was nice and clean. I guess you can blame that on the DVD/TV's
resizing/scaling and colorspace conversion. But, try and play around w/
the brighness some, and do a bunch of small test clips w/ different values,
burn and play each one (do a bunch in a row and burn all at once) and then
finall test which one has the best color (in dark background) and w/ less of
artifacts. That's what I would do. But, again, I'm surprised that you are
having these problems. I'm assuming you mean in dark areas like in the
space scenes

My short test clips have ben w/ CQ so far. Basically using low bitrate. I do
know that if I raise the minimum, I'll probably not see those artifacts anymore.
So, I'll have to play w/ whats the best min/max bitrate for CQ. However,
i'll be testing other bitrates modes as well ie, CBR.
.
.
With a high enough bitrate (ie, your 7400) and CBR, I would have suspected
that you'd get very good results. Perhaps there are other factors involved
here. Some examples:

* CD or DVD burner
* burn speed
* media
* DVD player
* and a few others

Well, as soon as I'm pleased or comfitable w/ my CDRW burns, I'll probably
move on to DVDRs next. But, that probably wont happend for some time.
However, I just got a new DVD Writer by OptoRite, since it states that it
supports Windows 98.

I was hoping to get all three Star Wars onto one DVDR, but if the quality
dictates this planned project, I'll have to opt for a per disk route instead.
Will probably be better for a one disk project anyways, but I'll see, when
the time comes.

The pic that flaninacupboard provided are much richer in color. Of course,
they are LD but still richer. Mine are close to viande had posted above.
PAL seems to have a better grip on color output But, I'm not gonna let that
stop me from having fun here w/ my NTSC version, especially since I've ben hunting
for them since July, 2002.
.
.
Still, the pic I posted above ain't so bad, considerng VHS and a bad one
at that. It was viewed many times over. I found some areas to be worn or
streaky like. But, that's ok. I'll settle for what I got

-vhelp

[FulciLives]

Right, after finally capping encoding and noise reducing and PCM recording and transferring and DD encoding and authoring and burning...... I wasn't happy. there's a couple of reasons for this. 1) i KNOW i can get better quality on the video front 2) this is in 4:3 format and i wish i'd done 16:9 format and 3) DAMN SUBTITLES!
so i
1) bought a Canopus ADVC-50 (the 100 was overkill, i don't need to play back the DV on my TV, and my PC has TV out in any case, and macro is moot point, i live in the UK and the macro hack doesn't work on PAL signals) so my capture is 10000% better than my bt878 card.
2) i'm gonna crop and encode in anamorphic, i don't like the way 4:3 widescreen material looks on a 16:9 display
3) this is why i'm posting again. when the aliens speak in the star wars movies the english subs appear in the letterbox bar which i will crop. therefore i have to copy the text and timings into a text file. I have seen how to write subs text, but how do i put these cues into a DVD? is there a guide anywhere on this? i see in ifoedits' dvd authoring section there is an option for "subpicture" i'm guessing that means subs, but what format does it require and how do i get text into it??
The only other thing i can think of doing is manually adding subs frame by frame into the cropped picture. Not Fun.

You are working with PAL correct? To make your image 4:3 to WS 16x9 you need to cut 72 off the top and 72 off the bottom. However will center the image with black still above and below it since this is a 2.35:1 movie and 16x9 is only like 1.78:1

So try this ... cut as much black off the top as you can without cutting INTO the actual image of the movie. You should be able to cut more than 72 pixels this way. You still should leave some black above the image though to account for OVERSCAN and you will have to play around with some tests and your TV (using a DVD-RW or DVD+RW) to see just how much black you need to leave.

Now when you cut black off of the bottom it will be less than 72 since you cut more than 72 from the top and IF YOU ARE LUCKY the subtitles will not get cut into and still be readable. Even if you don't CUT into the subtitles OVERSCAN may burn you here.

But it's worth a try. Easier than doing the subs yourself.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

*** EDIT ***
I just realized that I thought I was responding to a recent post when in fact I think it was an OLD post. Duhhhhhh me sorry!

[vhelp]

Hay Star Wars fans :P

So, here I am, on a snowy day

I got to working on tweaking my steps for this project.

First, to shortly explain the prev pic some more. That pic was a demo of
a frameserve into TMPG. I did some color filtering (inside TMPG) to try and
improve upon it some. I had ran a number of battery test clips all ranging
form light to dark. As you may have noticed, the pic posted above was
the last setting w/in reason/comprise on those test. Also, so far, I have not
used any NR in my test clips. And, the above was from my ADVC-100.
I'm also testing out my ATI-TV Wonder (ATW) card. To see what kind of
output i get in comparison to the DV device I love so much to use

Now, what I did was snap a pic as it was shown inside TMPG's window by
pressing:

* Ctrll+Shift+P
* then I seeked to a scene (randomly) and choose the pic you.

So, as a tip, if you want to post a sample pic (before it gets encoded inside
TMPG, this is it, and as accurately close as you'll get, describing your source
quality etc. Course, I left out that I open PSP and save as .PNG becuase this
format doesn't alter the quality that .jpg files do. I know that storage is
a problem. And, you could just delete them after a few days But, this
method is the best one going and won't give others cause for doubts.

As I've said before (in so many words) that some sources require a bit more
"naturalness" in process. Ok, what I mean is, that we all know that DV
is a lossy (compression) and that when you opt to go this route, you will
undoubtly reduce your chances of a good output source (aka color space)
to work with. Remember, you've gotta encode this output source. And, if
you use any form of filtering, that's three times in all, that you tainted your
process. But, considering the comprimise in going the DV route ie, Frame drops;
Noise; Audio sync to name a few, its worth it for those that are knowledge
about this tip, vs. going the Analog capture route which give you the issues
I just laid out a second ago. Never the less. As I was saying.. that sometime
the source (I was speaking about VHS) you need to go the extra mile (or original
long way) and go with the Analog capture route. I'm currently testing this out
as I compose my thoughts into this post. Still, I would prefer using the ADVC
because of it's ease and 48k audio etc. Well, I'm still testing.
But as I've said, this is a hobby, (and an SW endeavor) so I don't mind going
the length.

Ok, back to more tests. I'm working on yet another method. So bare with me.
I'll keep ya posted. pfew, still snowing over here :P

-vhelp 2152

[FulciLives]

If anyone is interested there are some STAR WARS capture pics in the following thread (see page 5 of the thread):

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=192925&highlight=

Some of the pics are from Will Hay using a Canopus ADVC-100 and a Full Frame PAL VHS of STAR WARS. The other set of pics are by me using an AverTV Stereo capture card which is your basic run-of-the-mill PCI TV Tuner type capture card. My pics are from the NTSC THX WS LaserDisc release of STAR WARS.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Here is a single pic from the NTSC THX WS LaserDisc release of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. This is straight composite LD to AverTV Stereo capture done at 704x480 with PICVideo MJPEG at the 19 quality setting. The clip was then read into CCE using an AviSynth AVS script with no processing AT ALL otherthan the fact that I added 8 pixels to each side of the image to make it 720x480. The CCE encoding was done at a CBR of 8000kbps and the image was captured through WinDVD which captures to a BMP file. This BMP file was then read into Adobe HomeDeluxe and saved out to a JPG file with a quality rating of 7 on a scale of 10 being the best. The final size of the JPG is just barely under 50k which is the posting limit here. Image was not resized but is at 640x480 which is how WinDVD captures from DVD sources.



The pics I have from STAR WARS in that other thread I linked too were created the same way as this capture pic from EMPIRE was created.

*** EDIT ***
All my STAR WARS/EMPIRE screen captures are from the THEATRICAL EDITOIN releases NOT the so-called SPECIAL EDITOINS with added footage and effects etc.

[viande]

OMG FulciLives

I guess my that either my LD player is REAL bad, or that my composite DV input on my canon cam is bad. (or combination of both)

Just comparing your shot from the ESB NTSC WS LD with mine a bit up.

(/me is now depressed)

Cheers

[vhelp]

@ fulci,

I think that your pic looks good in any case.. better than my VHS, but I
can't complaine about mine

I also think that your other are pretty good too, even though light. And,
on that note, I was playing some more w/ my ADVC and I changed the
IRE from the PAL 7.4 to NTSC's 0 to see what kind of results I would get.
As I suspected, it was pretty light, like your pics. In fact, I would dare say
that my caps looked just like yours (though not as detail, thanks to my VHS)
The color tones were the same imo. So, I don't think it was your fault or
anything you could do. Rather, it's either your LD disks, and/or your LD.
Who's to say for sure
But, I've seen other LD's (take flaninacupboard's) But, we all know why his
are richer in color tones - PAL !!

So, maybe we NTSC 'ers are screwed in that respect.

But, I have an idea to try w/ my ADVC, and continueing leaving it at the
changed IRE of 0. I have the SIMA "SCC" device. I wonder if I can play
around w/ this gizmo, and see if it brings me closer to flaninacupboard's
color tone. Hmm... I am curious - don't know about you. Anyways..

@ flaninacupboard..
GOD bless 'ya pal :P

Let me get back ta playing w/ my SW VHS endeavor..
I love this hobby :P :P
-vhelp

[vhelp]

@ viande,

Can you post some pics (like you did above three) but from the "A New Hope"
tape ??

I'd sure love to see all three versions. I'm realy curious. But, try and just
upload a snap-shot of your .avi instead. Compression ie, MPEG is not really
giving me an accurate depiction - please.

Thanks a bunch,
-vhelp

[FulciLives]

Yes my single EMPIRE STRIKES BACK picture cap looks really good but my A NEW HOPE picture caps do look rather bright and "soft" with inaccurate pinkish skin tones but that is the way it is on the original LaserDisc.

I played back my sample encode of A NEW HOPE on my NTSC TV using my old but very trusty Sigma Designs Hollywood Plus MPEG decoder card (thing comes in handy for testing stuff on a TV without needing to burn a test DVD-RW/+RW disc) and it looks better on the TV especially when you adjust the brightness/contrast on said TV.

I deleted my sample capture/encode of EMPIRE but I still have my full AVI capture of A NEW HOPE disc 1 side 1 so now I am afraid that I have "got the bug" and I might just end up doing the whole thing ... even though word is the movies will hit DVD in a year or so from now. I know everybody thinks it will be the SPECIAL EDITIONS only but I have heard rumors of a BIG box set that would include both the THEATRICAL EDITION and SPECIAL EDITION cuts of all 3 in the original trilogy.

Would be nice though I'm afraid that such a MONSTER set won't be cheap ... if it happens.

My guess is IF it does happen that it will be the only way to get the original cuts ... i.e., buying a big expensive box set which I bet will also be "limited" even though a bazillion of them will be made ... again if THAT happens

- John "FulciLives" Coleman