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

[Marco33]

Buy them... eh, no.

I will rent them,just to see how much more screwed up they are.

Reset assured, right after I view them I'll be right here to VOICE my OPINION.

oh, I can't wait.

[IG-88]

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately I don't have a laserdisc player It's not worth it for me to buy it just for this project

Kevin,
I was hesitant about using the LDs as well since I too did not own an LD player and did not have the money to spend on one. What I evetually ended up doing was posting a request on a local home theater board asking if anyone would let me borrow one. Thankfully someone was kind enough to loan me a player for a week and I was able to do my captures. I had nothing to loose by asking as I would have just gone ahead with my VHS captures.
Chris S.

[IG-88]

Taking a second look at my screen captures I noticed the images look soft and lack detail, but I didn't remember seeing this when I was watching them on my Toshiba HD set. I just loaded them up and the softness is definitely not there. There is considerable more detail in the image than these captures demonstrate. Is it likely that my video card, nVidia Geforce Ti200, is softing the image or could it be a rendering problem with WinDVD?

Chris S.

[wulf109]

Earlier there was a discusson of DVD cover art styled like the VHS boxes. I was able to locate the art for A New hope and Return of the Jedi on cd.covers.cc,but I cannot find the cover art for The Empire Strikes Back.
Could someone post a link to The Empire Strikes Back cover art?

[Marco33]

Earlier there was a discusson of DVD cover art styled like the VHS boxes. I was able to locate the art for A New hope and Return of the Jedi on cd.covers.cc,but I cannot find the cover art for The Empire Strikes Back.
Could someone post a link to The Empire Strikes Back cover art?

That would be me. I don't have a link. Post your e-mail here or PM me. I'll send it to you.

[gshelley61]

Taking a second look at my screen captures I noticed the images look soft and lack detail, but I didn't remember seeing this when I was watching them on my Toshiba HD set. I just loaded them up and the softness is definitely not there. There is considerable more detail in the image than these captures demonstrate. Is it likely that my video card, nVidia Geforce Ti200, is softing the image or could it be a rendering problem with WinDVD?

Chris S.

It looks like you've done a letterbox to anamorphic widescreen conversion... if so, that involves resizing the image larger than the original capture, which results in some softening. I leave my letterbox LD's in their original format and let the scaler in my Bravo D1 DVD player zoom it to fill the width of my 16:9 Samsung DLP HDTV. It looks better that way... IMHO. YMMV.

[Eandtc]

Okay, here are some screen caps. One admission: The captures were very dark for some reason (both as BMP's and JPG's), so I lightened them back to normal in Photoshop.

[gshelley61]

Eandtc, it looks like you are using the analog-to-DV pass-through feature on a digital camcorder... is that right? Those blocks and lines look very similar to some test captures I've done using that method.

The cleanest capturing method I've found so far is using standalone DVD recorders encoding right to MPEG2 (VOB's) using re-writeable DVD's. The capture cards and digital camcorders I've tried so far introduce lines, blockiness, dot crawl, electrical (herringbone) noise, etc. These all have to be filtered out during the MPEG2 encoding process. The inputs on standalone DVD recorders (at least the two I have) appear to have fewer of these types of problems from the start. Lots of folks like the Canopus ADVC-100 analog-to-DV box, though (I haven't tried one of those). YMMV

[DivadX]

Just an FYI in case you are trying to get the best capture of the Definitive Collection be sure you also get the "corrected" versions. The initial pressings had several flaws including misspelled subtitles (such as Wookiee and Banta) but worse they are missing 7 seconds from side 3 of Empire Strikes Back which is the scene of Leia welding on the Falcon. If your side 3 of ESB starts out with Leia hanging up here welder, your versions are flawed! When I found out about this, I had already purchased a flawed set off an online auction site but was determined to get the best so I emailed everyone that had one for sale on the auction site asking them nicely to check side 3 of ESB and actually had a few do it and found a few "corrected" versions that way! Good Luck!

Flaw List:

http://home.comcast.net/~dbg_ebay/SW_Definitive_Collection_Flaw_List.htm

[gshelley61]

Thanks for the tip. I'll have to check out my set now...

[Eandtc]

"Eandtc, it looks like you are using the analog-to-DV pass-through feature on a digital camcorder... is that right?"

Yes. Until I am able to afford a high-quality vid-capture board, this'll have to do. I doubt I'll ever get a standalone DVD recorder, since I have no other need for it. (Though this didn't stop me from buying an LD player solely for Star Wars. )

"Just an FYI in case you are trying to get the best capture of the Definitive Collection be sure you also get the "corrected" versions."

My version isn't corrected, so I just used the Faces set, which looks just as great and has no missing sections.

[wulf109]

Marco 33

Many thanx,

[Mythos2002]

I got lucky with my Definitive Collection set. I didn't know about the missing footage until I had already purchased mine. Luckily it wasn't from the first pressing. I'm not sure why most people didn't trade in their defective sets back in '94 or '95 when they were offered.

I don't own the Faces set, but from what friends told me, you can see a difference in quality between it and the Definitive Collection. The DC is supposed to have slightly better quality since it is CAV instead of CLV like the Faces set. However, the Faces set makes it easier to IVTC because of the pattern doesn't change during the side changes like the CAV set does. What a friend did was to mix sources by inserting the CLV footage where the side changes occur in the CAV set because the CLV set messes up a few frames during the side changes.

I hope all of that makes sense.

Mythos

[Marvingj]

Laser Disc still Lives!!!!

[viande]

About the missing welding scene

Could i suggest someone record the missing 7 seconds it in huffyuv and seed it as a torrent for a while. Reaaly i dont think LFM would bother.
this is to solve a FLAW in their product.

I too got hold of the definitive edition and miss that scene.
(well i also miss the whole scene alderaan explosion and the princess,
but thats because of my player dislikes the end of disks, and this ANH side 2 is 28 minutes long iirc - not home ritgh now)

Cheers

[Mythos2002]

I'm thinking about picking up a Winfast TV2000XP Expert and was wondering if any of you are having any sync issues with the audio. I like my ADVC-100, but I like the fact that the Winfast seems to be able to capture in 4:2:2 colorspace instead of 4:1:1.

VHelp, are you still using the Winfast for your Star Wars conversion project?

Thanks.

Mythos

[Karyudo]

Here are some some screen caps I took from my LD captures. As a little exercise in benchmarking, I grabbed the exact same frames as Eandtc did, above. Unlike Eandtc, I didn't mess with the colour at all. I just resized (Photoshop "bicubic") to the same 1024 x 576 pixels Eandtc used. Enjoy!

[Eandtc]

FWIW, the captured images were much darker than the actual video when playing the film. I got this effect with my Roxio player as well as WinDVD.

BTW, are your captures from the Def. Col. or the Faces set?

[Karyudo]

Neither, actually: they're from the PAL release equivalent to "Faces".

Don't forget that your TV (if you're in North America) has some IRE funny business going on, and will display only 15-235, effectively. PAL and Japanese NTSC will do the full 0-255. That might be part of the explanation for why your caps look darker?

[Eandtc]

Not quite, since I'm comparing the vidcaps of my computer to the playback of my computer.

[FulciLives]

Video (especially NTSC) will look overly dark on a computer monitor but chances are if you don't **** around with the birghtness/contrast it will look fine on a TV.

At least that has been my experiences.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Mythos2002]

I may need to do some tweaking with the codecs and the settings I use. I have both the Panasonic and Canopus codecs installed. My problem is that the picture is too dark with Output YUV data as Basic YCbCr not CCIR601 checked and capturing with 7.5 IRE using the ADVC-100. Also, in TMPGEnc's Environmental Setting I have all 3 options checked under the Canopus DV Codec setting and I have Basic YCbCr (default) selected on the drop down list. When I have everything set like that, you can't see most of the stars in the space scenes. If I turn off the Output YUV data as Basic YCbCr not CCIR601, I can see a lot more during the space scenes, but the light scenes seem to look better with this option on. This is a pain.

Mythos

[FulciLives]

Well I love sample pics so here goes:







Source is the NTSC CLV LD of STAR WARS (the one with a close up shot of DARTH VADER i.e., the "faces" LaserDisc).

I captured composite video from my LD player to my AverTV Stereo PCI TV tuner capture card. I used PICVideo MJPEG on the 19 quality setting with a resolution of 688x480 (sounds weird but that's the only way to get a proper aspect ratio with the AverTV Stereo drivers).

I cut 60 from the top and bottom and resize to 688x480 then padded the sides with 16 black on either side. Thus I converted my 4:3 widescreen source to 16x9 widescreen.

Captures done through VirtualDub to PhotoShop resized from 720x480 to 852x480 for proper 16x9 to 4:3 conversion as per a computer monitor. I did no touch up of the image. Looks dark but should look fine on a TV ... I have experienced this before.

Oh and the pics are not from the raw capture file but from an MPEG-2 file created with CCE using a CBR of 7500kbps and of course I used the very trusty Convolution3D filter (on the movieLQ setting).

The only thing I dislike is I pumped up the SATURATION a bit (using the capture driver) but I think I did it a bit TOO much. Unfortunately the skin tones are a bit REDDISH I've noticed this on STAR WARS in the past (at least this LD version). Cutting back the SATURATION to normal should help a bit though I think but they will always be a bit red that is just the way they are on this LD version.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[dphirschler]

Unfortunately the skin tones are a bit REDDISH I've noticed this on STAR WARS in the past (at least this LD version). Cutting back the SATURATION to normal should help a bit though I think but they will always be a bit red that is just the way they are on this LD version.

John, You can kill two birds with one stone if you up the gamma slightly (1.1 or less). That will bring in some of the stars in the space scenes and some dark details as well as "wash out" some of the saturation.


Darryl

[FulciLives]

I did a new capture and MPEG-2 encode. I did everything exactly as I did before but this time I set the SATURATION to the normal DEFAULT value instead of "pumping" it up as I did the first time.







I guess this looks better now

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[dphirschler]

John, that's amazing quality considering your source is NTSC (ie. lower resolution than the PAL). Care to show us your AVIsynth script, particularly the convolution settings?

I've never liked convolution very much, but perhaps I just didn't understand what it can do. Apparently, it does something because there is nice detail in your captures even after resizing. Can you explain how it works and why you like to use it?


Darryl

[FulciLives]

Well I realized after playing the clip back on my TV (using my trusty Hollywood Plus card) that I goofed with the resize. Since the video is 29.970fps interlaced NTSC and since I do not wish to muck around with IVTC I left it at 29.970fps interlaced but I forgot to resize it properly when doing the 4:3 to 16x9 conversion (shame on me) so I am encoding it again using the following AviSynth script:

LoadPlugin("Convolution3d.dll")
avisource("D:\CAPTURE\capiuvcr.avi")
Trim(2805,11257)
crop(0,60,-0,-60)
jdl_UnfoldFieldsVertical(true)
Convolution3D(0, 6, 10, 6, 8, 2.8, 0)
LanczosResize(688,480)
jdl_FoldFieldsVertical(true)
AddBorders(16,0,16,0)
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)

This should look the same just without the interlaced artifacts I had the first time but my screen captures where from non-interlaced frames so should look the same.

I'll try to post a 1 minute clip on my website so people can download it but that probably won't happen until very late tonight or sometime tomorrow. I will post back here with a link so that those interested can download it.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Go to this link for the jdl function:
http://www.avisynth.org/stickboy/
Make sure to read the directions so that you set it up correctly!

[dphirschler]

John, thanks. I also found this shortly after I posted my question.

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=225951&highlight=convolution

[vhelp]

Well I realized after playing the clip back on my TV (using my trusty Hollywood Plus card) that I goofed with the resize. Since the video is 29.970fps interlaced NTSC and since I do not wish to muck around with IVTC I left it at 29.970fps interlaced but I forgot to resize it properly when doing the 4:3 to 16x9 conversion (shame on me) so I am encoding it again using the following AviSynth script:

I'll try to post a 1 minute clip on my website so people can download it but that probably won't happen until very late tonight or sometime tomorrow. I will post back here with a link so that those interested can download it.
.
.

Looking forward to your clip :P

Here's my pesonal recommendation for even more control over quality

Assuming you have the HD space..

* Do your IVTC inside vdub !! ..Then feed this directly inside TMPG (or CCE) but
... use HUFFY for this step. Filtering seems to look better when I do this process
... inside vdub vs. AVIsynth. I don't know.. I just don't trust AVIsynth anymores.
... I feel that it may have a color space leak (or something) somewheres. But, ??
... do I know. I'm just doing this cause it's my hobby :P Anyways.

How ?? ..you ask ??

Well, ..first let me briefly explain. Assuming you are adding a filter-chain in
your frameserving/encoding process, do this in a post-step instead of during the
frameserving step. The reason is, in my OP, where's there is a loose leak in
quality. Maybe colorspace.., though a newbie most likely will not catch this, I
do. In my OP, AVIsynth has a leak in its colorspace and suffers. But, again. Its
my OP that it does, due to my picky eye.
.
So, I prefer to use vdub to do the IVTC (built-in) (so far, in my few tests I've
performed these past few months) with very good results.


Some other notes follow..

Note 1:
I found that different graphics cards give different results.
For example, while at work, your sample pics looks really saturated. I'm not
sure what graphics card was inside that pc (OS w2k)
But, on my pc here, the pics looks much less saturated.
And, you 2nd set of pics above, look lighter.

Note 2:
Currently, my main pc here has my ATI-Rage 128 pci as my graphics card. I did
notice that the color output looks pretty good - actually. But, my main graphics
ATI-Rage Fury Pro (AGP card) looks better in a different way, due to its online
"Overlay" output. I'm not sure I'm stating this anamily correctly, so please
forgive me on this 2nd note. But, FWIW.., w/ my ATI-Rage Fury Pro card, I can
more easily spot the flaws in my .AVI's, my MPEG-2's and my encoding settings,
thanks to a better "Overlay" output.

I'll try and do the same pics and post them later. But for now.., well, that's
it for the moment.

-vhelp

[Mythos2002]

Hi Vhelp,

I know you were talking about AVISynth, but a friend of mine prefers to use the IVTC of VirtualDub over TMPGEnc's as well. I'll have to try it out. They told me it is a very trial and error process and that you have to basically IVTC each side separately due to the deviations in the LD's.

I was also wondering if you are still using the WinFast TV2000 XP Expert or Deluxe (forget which one) and if you recommend getting one. I would like to get one for VHS and TV captures, but I'm worried about getting one with the A build that is problematic. It's funny how we have to have so many different devices to capture from different sources.

Thanks.

Mythos