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

[vhelp]

I agree, that that would be very difficult.

There are too many missing audio pieces that would cause hoavic in syncing
everything up, (ie, missing dialog; poorer quality sound in others; and a few
other things I can't remember off the top of my head so far, in my endeavors) :P

I started messing around w/ the Orig version. I noticed that the video is pretty
light in output. So, this is to be expected. I found (according to my experiements)
that it's def. not safe to darken your video source through filtering.
.
I've used my SIMA SCC (the one w/ all the fancy controls) and there seems
to be some issues (ie, video shifts to the right; and color is hard to adjust)
.
There are lots of .DOT crawl all around (for DV) however, in an Analog capture
(ie, using my new WinFast TV-2000 XP "Expert" card, there is serious "hatching"
(not my usual "checkers") look throughout the video. And, no matter what
cord I use, ranging from El-Cheapo's to $60 "Dot Crowl eliminator" cords,
they are still their. So, for this analog cared, it makes me wonder weather
it's a "driver" related issue (and needs to be tweaked or whatever) OR, it's
an internal issue that I need to adjust in my setup of things. I don't know,
but if anyone has this same card, please jump in if you have had this same
issue w/ "hatching" in your captured video source. In the mean time,
I'll be doing some researching w/ this card and it's related "hatching" at its
web site. I'm hoping that there is a solution already, that addresses this.
The card however, is great. In my main pc, I get no dropped frames and
the video is (or seems to be) noise'less (if I adjust the color control slightely)
I did a quick sample of ANH (Original Ver) and using the vdub's filter for
,DOT crawl, I was able to get a much "hatchless" output, though the video
did look a tadd blurry, though not too much - worth the comprimise, perhaps

I'm curious though.. what bitrate some of you all R using (ie, CBR; CQ; CQ_VBR etc)
in your attempts for "Best Shot.." quality :P

TIP for TMPG:
I'm using CQ, but in my testing for quality, I would Tool w/ a CBR and start at
7000k and work my way up (or down) depending upon quality, and scene (ie,
dark vs. light etc)

For what it's worth, even the Original version looked great on my TV set.

I'm still waiting for those of you that have samples, to post them here
-vhelp

[Mythos2002]

I like 2 pass VBR at around 7500 max, 4000 ave, and 2000 min. With CQ it seemed I had a few jumps in the video. Maybe my max was too high. I believed I used 7900 max when I did CQ and you have to add your audio. When I used display on the DVD Player, it appeared that I had bitrate spikes over 9500 which I believe is out of spec.

I have a question about audio on the LD's. I hear more sound effects than I remembered, but it seems I can't here a couple that I thought should be there. One example is that I cannot hear the Snow Speeder spinning out of control when it is shot towards the end of the Hoth Battle, just before the shield generator is blown up. I can here the explosion of the speeder crashing, but you should be able to hear it spinning out of control as well. I have the Definitive Collection LD's. I haven't tried that part with the LD Player hooked up to the TV yet to see if the sound is missing from the LD's or not though. Can anyone with the Definitive Collection LD's check and see if they can hear that sound effect? Thanks.

Mythos

[Gary Lightfoot]

There doesn't appear to be any specific noise for the speeder before it crashes and bursts into flames.

I'm wondering if you're thinking of the Tie fighter sound that collides with an asteroid, spins out of control and crashes into another asteroid?

Don't know why, but that's the sort of sound effect I was expecting.

Gary.

[flaninacupboard]

Myth, if you google you will find every single version of SW has different sound in one way or another. even on release some cinemas had different sound effects to others, and the 70MM version even had different music cues! this is why splicing and dicing is going to be a bit of a job...

[Mythos2002]

Thanks for the information guys. It appears the sound effect of the snowspeeder spinning out of control is missing on the Definitive Collection LD's. I found this link below. My old CBS/FOX VHS tapes had that sound effect.

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=snowspeeder+spinning+out+of+control+sound+missing&hl...jit.edu&rnum=1

A line of dialogue is also missing from ANH where 3PO says, "The tractor beam is coupled to the main reactor in seven locations. A power loss at one of the terminals will allow the ship to leave."
http://www.davisdvd.com/misc/ep4.htm

I'm not going to buy the official DVD's unless they were to contain the Original Versions as well. That would be the only way I would ever buy both versions again.

Thanks.
Mythos

[Gary Lightfoot]

Wow, that's very interesting.

I'll have a look at the 'faces' THX release disks and see if the sounds are on there too. It should be possible to add those bits in if they're just cuts.

I also have the early widescreen release laserdiscs with the movie poster covers, as it looks like those parts will be on there.

Anything else that the Definitive edition is missing that we know of?

Gary.

[vhelp]

Hi guys..



In my attempts at ANH (original ver) I found many strange markings in various
frames (when the scene changes) They are usually oval-circles, located at the
bottom left and bottom right, only. They are not bad, and I don't find them
annoying (unless you are picky) but I found it strange that they left all these
markings in the frames (w/out cleaning them up) It led me to believe that they
used a "marked" version, and transfered the movie onto these LD disks, w/out
ever realizing it. Course, I'm just thinking out loud w/ this guess. But, still..
it's pretty messy to have marketed these these LD's onto shelves back then.
But, I'm guessing that nobody (at the time) really ever noticed it, and probably
would have taken it for the movie as such


The one thing that gets to me in the Orginal version is that the space color
and stars were pretty bad. A lot of flicker and bad coloring. Still, that leaves
a challenge to make it acceptable to the eyes (mine at least)


FWIW..

It's strange watching these original versions. Because they have different
dialogs and scenes (never seen, other than the SE versions that I'm a custom
to watching all these years) and the only one that I did actually see in the
movie thearters were the last one, "Return of the Jedi". So, it will be interesting
to see what I notice "different" about those two last ones


So far, I have TWO goals..

* ONE, to transfer each Movie to a DVD, and
* TWO, to see if I can fit all three onto one DVD disk

I'll worry about menus and other things later. Right now, I just want to get
them onto DVD's first, to see how I make out.
.
Those are my two main goals for these long over due Star Wars endeavors
of mine. Of course, I'll be focusing on quality for the two as well :P

-vhelp 2490

[flaninacupboard]

all three movies on one disc?! that'll give you a bitrate of ~1.5Mbps, that's like a VCD! eurgh!

@Gary
just one or two probs with it....
http://home.earthlink.net/~treadwell_jay/starwars/THX.htm


there is a more complete list out there somewhere, but that's a good start.

Damn, now i'm in a quandry - i want to supplement my SE PAL LD's with some original material for the, frankly, fucked up bits. do i buy the NTSC definitive LD set, or an unopened PAL VHS definitive set? big price dfference, plus no problems with brightness/colour matching my formats - but it's VHS.

Some decisions are so damn hard.

[Gary Lightfoot]

I've noticed a lot of similar markings on Empire - they almost look like chemical spill marks from developing (I did some colour photography/developing for a while).

I noticed that not all the marks have been cleaned up in the SEs though - in Empire when the first transport is flying past the damaged Star Destroyer, there is some kind of rippling 'blob' on the tail of the transport. It's there on both the Definitive and SEs.

Another thing I've found is that when using TMPGenc, gor Empire, I ended up using the 'output yuv data basic..' ticked, and adjusting brightness to match the lasers by increasing the gamma slightly.

In ANH, if I used the same setting, the whites would 'blow' and a lot of detail would be lost - a prime example is as the storm troopers walk take Leia to Vader - as one troopers breat plate comes up close to camera, all detail is lost in a field of 'hot white'. Unticking the box allows all that detail to remain, but with greyer blacks. I got round that by dropping the brightness a little. Brightness adjusts black level, and contrast adjusts white level for thode of you who didn't know.

As for menus, I've got some transitions that take you from a menu to another menu, and I made these in Premiere. Encore allows you to make use transitions, and that allows you to closer match some of the motion rich menu transitions you see in DVDs like The Matrix and SW Ep 1 and 2.

You can spend as much time on the menus as you did on getting some mpg2 transcode settings and filters correct...

EDIT: thanks for the other info flanin'.

Gary.

[Mythos2002]

I had a couple of small questions with the Jedi LD's from the Definitive Collection. Do any of you notice a pop sound when you see the Shuttle Tyderiam (spelling?) getting ready to approach Endor. Specifically, it is right after a scene change. You see a closeup of the front of the shuttle as it is facing you. It is the only thing in the shot. The other question. Have any of you noticed how hazy Jedi looks especially during the Endor night scenes?

Thanks for the link Flanina. I bookmarked it as it is very good to know about the flaws in this set. Thankfully, mine isn't missing the 7 seconds.

I'm going to try to recapture the films again. I'm wondering if anyone has worked out the dot crawl filter that was posted a week or so ago. I used the default settings, but they may have been too much. It took out the crawl, but it was a little blurry too as vhelp mentioned.

For those thinking about mixing the upcoming DVD's with the LD's. I was thinking of doing the same thing, but gave up the thought as it would be a royal pain to try and match up. I don't think it would be impossible, but I think you are going to notice when the footage switches between the different sources and I don't know if how hard it is going to be to normalize the audio between both sources. Lastly, I don't want to give Lucas money for a DVD set that doesn't contain the Original Versions. I'm not betting on it, but I hope he surprises us like Spielberg did with E.T. If he does that, I'll buy them.

Mythos

[flaninacupboard]

Well i remember him saying somewhere that the originals were GONE, when they did the SE restoration they chucked the un-needed material. Factor in that the definitve collection wouldn't have been mastered on a digital format, and the best you'll get is the videotape definitive master. which he probably threw away too. perhaps someone has their own 35mm copy out there....?

The pops will most likely be because of the scene change - are they not the ones mentioned in that FAQ? i'm sure you can kill them in cooledit or such like.

Big problems with DVD matching, it'll be DD5.1, i doubt it'll have 2.0, so you'd have to use definitive sound through out. the difference in PQ would be very noticeable indeed - quite distracting. plus of course you have to decode the DVD so you can edit it - pain in the ass!

[Gary Lightfoot]

i Mythos,

I've found the best settings for the dot crawl filter are the bottom ones so far (trellis and multi-path) - try it on some moving faces and see if you can notice any difference. I used the guy talking with darth early in ANH - where he says something like "She'll die before she tells you" refering to Leia.

I got the impression it was losing some detail and rendering faces a little like clay, but the slower settings seem better. The reason why I chose the guy walking with darth is because the shadow on his face seems to confuse it, and his right cheakbone and jaw seem to move about out of time with the rest of his face. Let me know what you find.

As for using the upcoming DVD footage with the laserdiscs - I agree, far too obvious in quality o be 'seemless'. I think using the SE laserdiscs for the video and keeping the DE sound will be the best option.

Cheers.

Gary.

[geek rock]

this is just my personal opinion, but i'd rather not watch a version of the film that was spliced together from 2 different sources. i'd rather have consistent quality than varying quality; i think your vision gets used to seeing one type of quality in a few minutes or so.

i have one dvd that has uncut scenes added back into it, taken from a different-quality print of the film. they have combined the higher quality print of most of the film, with the lower-quality uncut scenes, and the difference in quality is very noticable and quite off-putting. the flow of the film suffers as a result.

just what i think anyway..

-Mark

[Gary Lightfoot]

Hmmm, that sounds like they've done what some of us were considering - using the the parts of the SEs that can be used for the OT and then using the OT laserdiscs where the SEs have been changed form the originals.

I might try some of that myself just to see what it's like..

Gary.

[flaninacupboard]

i know what you're getting at geek, i have the directors cut of stargate, and the re-introduced scenes stand out like a sore thumb! given that the video i'm making will have been resized from ~720*320 to ~720X460 from a source that's more like 540*230 i don't think it will matter! as long as i can match up the colours, but again this isn't a massive problem because i will swap source on scene changes wherever possible.

[geek rock]

Hmmm, that sounds like they've done what some of us were considering - using the the parts of the SEs that can be used for the OT and then using the OT laserdiscs where the SEs have been changed form the originals.

well this is an official DVD - the 2 sources are purely just on different quality film stock. i'm guessing that only a rougher copy of the uncut film survived, compared to a higher-quality copy of the cut version.

oh and also with these SW splices, you'd have to convert the new DVD's mpeg-2 back to uncompressed dv/avi, and then back to mpeg-2.. never a good thing to do.. as i said above, a lower but consistent quality is more pleasing to the eye than 2 totally different sources of the same film.

-Mark

[flaninacupboard]

yes but i aim to splice NTSC LD and PAL LD, the difference isn't massive. i don't think i will bother with the official DVD's because a) the PQ is not going to be a vast improvement on the PAL LD and b) if no one buys the crappy SE's.....maybe.....

[geek rock]

hmm. if the differences between the LDs arent too noticable, why bother making all the work for yourself?!

not a criticism, just wondering why?

-Mark

[Gary Lightfoot]

well this is an official DVD - the 2 sources are purely just on different quality film stock. i'm guessing that only a rougher copy of the uncut film survived, compared to a higher-quality copy of the cut version.

Ah - I was assuming it was an unofficial Star Wars DVD you were talking about.

Gary.

[MJPollard]

b) if no one buys the crappy SE's.....maybe.....

Converting VHS/LD versions of the original trilogy to DVD as an exercise in preserving the original films is one thing, Flan, but I'm not going to delude myself. Face it, Joe Sixpack isn't going to give a rat's ass what version of the films are being released, so long as he has "the original three films." OT and SE isn't going to mean a damn thing to him, and educating him on the differences and why the OT is "better" would be a challenge slightly less daunting than climbing Mount Everest in nothing but your underwear.

[vhelp]

@ mythos,

As for your dot-crawl..

Have you tried a different Cable ??

I know it's ben talked about before, in other forum topics etc., but I've tried
so many various types and brands, and from El-Cheapo's to Top Dollars, and
my latest cable (S-Video) turned out to be todays purchase from Wal-Mart's.
.
I've ben on a hunt for the best cable, and I did give up on them last week, after
my last purchase from CompUSA. They all output the same quality, I said to
myself, as I made many test captures from my LD (both, CLD-V2600 and CLD-D701
this time) - - I had more time to play w/ the CLD-D701 model and new cable.

My test LD w/ this new cable was Jedi. And, I must say, to my eyes, I'm
very impressed w/ this latest cable's results
The source is much cleaner, and the yes, the dot-crawl seems to be
almost gone now. In fact, I'm not even using the 411 filter, neither the
dot-crawl filter for vdub. I'm adjusting my colors (slightly, because I've learned
that the source is better (slite lightlier) than if made darker)

The cost of this latest cable from Wal-Mart is $8.96 cents. Get it anywheres
else, and you'll pay triple (ie, CC)

But, if you insist w/ using the dot-crawl filter, my suggestion is to use the
setting (o) None ( Temporal filter.. ) because the others below, cause
the source to "bleed" some dots into other frames

-vhelp

[Mythos2002]

Thanks Vhelp.

I haven't tried another S-Video cable yet. I've tried two with the same results. I have also tried RCA Composite cable and didn't notice any quality loss or dot crawl at all. The dot crawl definitely does not appear when I use Composite cables. I may stick with them since I don't notice any quality difference between S-Video and Composite. I know S-Video is better, but this is one of those times where it doesn't seem to make a difference. If you get a chance, try a Composite cable with your ADVC.

Thanks.

Mythos

P.S. The reason I won't buy the DVD's this Sept. is that I don't want to give Lucas anymore money unless the Original Versions are included. I'm not one of those who is happy to accept the SE's and say, "At least it's on DVD.". I hate the SE's, so it wouldn't be worth it to me.

[dphirschler]

Here are my bitrates for an encode with one AC3 audio track and the movie on one DVD. Also take note that I decided to go 704x480 instead of 720x480. I saw no visible difference going with the higher resolution. From what I've read, the best LD can do is not even 704 wide, so I have no guilt about that.

avg. 4643
max. 9406
min. 0

I cannot tell the difference between my DVD and the LD. In fact, I've tried a lower avg bitrate (in case I decide to add the commentary track) and it too looked perfect.

Somebody earlier posted a min bitrate of 2000. If you try a min of zero, you will see a much improved picture. There is no reason to set your min so high. It just degrades your video quality.

I am glad some people have reported scratchy audio in the loud parts. I heard the same thing and thought it was something I had done... although I could not for the life of me figure out what. I think I will test the audio off the "Special Widescreen release" (the movie poster cover) and see if the audio is any better. If it is, then I will take the audio from that.


Darryl

[dphirschler]

correction/clarification for the above bitrates:

When I want to add a second audio track, I had to reduce both the avg bitrate as well as the max.


Darryl

[Gary Lightfoot]

Is there a definitive detailed list of all the SE changes from the OT laserdiscs?

I'd like to use the SE disks as much as possible where there aren't any changes, and use the OT disks where there have been changes to the video. I can use the audio over the top of the SEs if the scene length is the same.

TIA

Gary.

[flaninacupboard]

some bits here
http://www.theforce.net/swse/

but it's not complete....

[Gary Lightfoot]

It's a start though, thanks.

I'll probably end up doing a scene by scene comparison and die from old age before I finish it though, but ANH is the most important of the three (even though Empire is my fave).

Gary.

[flaninacupboard]

it will be very laborious! there's scenes he has edited for "violence" where 5or6 frames of someone being shot are replaced with someone else on the other side of the room (think that may have been linked in this thread actually) down to things you may not have even noticed, like the bay the flacon is in onboard the deathstar, compare, you'll go "ooo, i didn't notice that before" !

[Gary Lightfoot]

Hmmm, if it starts to get too much like hard work (like it's easy already!), then I'll drop the idea...

Gary.

[grimby]

alright, i'm getting ready to do my captures and i just realized something: i don't have a digital demodulator to use for the audio. i'm going to be capturing the definitive set, and i've heard that they have a digital audio track and a comentary track. will i still be able to capture both of these with regular analog audio cables?