Audio Remastering

[Bladez636]

Is there any drawback from using the recent US DVDs?
Better that than using a recording from a VHS or VCD-made-from-a-VHS, I would think.

They're the same audio as the UK DVDs - and thus have the same glitches, as I mentioned. I only need access to the VHS audio to fix those problems.

[Crash]

Ah, I misunderstood. I didn't really watch the US DVDs because the quality was a big disappointment.
I haven't still got the VCDs and even if I had VHS, I'd need a capture card and VCR to pull the audio and I haven't got either.

[Bladez636]

Ah, I misunderstood. I didn't really watch the US DVDs because the quality was a big disappointment.
I haven't still got the VCDs and even if I had VHS, I'd need a capture card and VCR to pull the audio and I haven't got either.

I guess I'll bite that bullet and track down the tapes on eBay (they pop up less frequently but still not expensive when they are) - all I really need to find are Volumes 3, 4 and 8 since the only episodes I need excerpts from are Episodes 7, 12, and 24.

I've needed to get VHS capture equipment for a while anyhow.

[Crash]

Awesome, I'd love to know how you get on.
I tried to find some VCDs that would eliminate the need for analogue capture but the suppliers seem to have dried up.

I got some VCDs of Star Fleet ages ago from a guy called Simon Coverdale. I'm surprised that I remember the name because I don't remember the names of people I work with half the time.
Anyway, I mustn't have held onto them after the DVDs were released in 2009.

[Bladez636]

I ordered Vols. 3, 4 & 8 and they all arrived today. Vol. 4 was new in packaging so that one should come out well (incidentally it's the one I need to sample the least off of). Vols. 3 & 8 were used former rentals off Amazon but in good outward appearance (the worst that can be said is that Vol. 3's cover has sunfading on it) so hopefully that's a sign they'll still play decently with good audio quality - I can't judge audio quality right now, the VHS player I have I can't get to play sound with my current TV setup (not that I think I have it set up correctly anyhow). If they don't work out, meh, it won't be too hard or expensive to find another copy; it's a gamble unfortunately.

I bought a VHS capturing program from Wal-Mart the other day, hopefully the capture card that came with will do the job. Even if the program I bought doesn't, there are plenty of freeware I can try out.

[Crash]

I'm impressed that you found a VHS from 1982 or whatever unopened.

I would think that capture cards will be much-of-a-muchness where you can spend a huge amount for not much gain over a cheaper one.
I mean, all it has to do is to take the signal from the VCR and present it via the driver software to Windows.
It'll either do that accurately or it won't.

[Bladez636]

So I got my software to work and I captured what I needed. The video quality is shite, but that's fine because it still suited what I needed - and that's the audio. The one that came out the best is Vol 3's audio - with the hiss being less noticeable there than the others. Vol. 4 I was surprised that the audio was pretty hissy since I got it new, but it's still good quality. Vol. 8 was the worst, both in video and audio, but its audio is still serviceable apart from a strong hiss. If I recall correctly, the audio from the VHS rip I used back in 2012 was similarly hissy and I still managed to clean it up fairly well, even with my subpar audio editing skills back then. I should be able to clean them well. We'll just see, I'm optimistic.

EDIT: Here's a sample https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k90rHwfBB1o

I'm impressed that you found a VHS from 1982 or whatever unopened.

1988. From what I've gathered, I feel the tapes were made primarily for a rental market so I'm assuming that there are still quite a lot around.

[Bladez636]

http://www.mediafire.com/folder/h3m31a7 ... 20Upgrades

I finished the new cleanups; I did my best to keep the noise removal artifact at a minimum. I noticed that there is an audio difference between the US and UK DVDs; from Episodes 10-on, the audio is slightly cleaner on the UK DVD (especially for Episode 11) but they are definitely the same audio masters as they sync perfectly, indicating that Fabulous Films did some light cleaning up to the audio (but not so much as to completely remove the hissing). As such, I primarily used the UK DVD and only used the US one to re-instate various cuts on the UK DVD (premature cuts between the commercial transitions).

The results vary, but overall I'm pretty pleased with it as a whole. The last 5 episodes are the most hissy and buzzy, with Episode 20 coming out not the best in my opinion, but still perfectly listenable.

I used the US VHS rips I captured to clean up various glitches on the DVD masters (only applicable to Episodes 7, 12, 23 and 24). Episode 24 I had to almost completely use my VHS Rip, save for the 14 minutes of the Episode on "Space Quest for F-01" on the Japanese DVD. I'm pretty pleased with the outcome considering this is what my rip originally sounded like. The problem with the audio on the DVD is that the audio is that the sound effects and some of the music are lighter than they're supposed to be. I don't know if there's a technical term for that, but it's rather common with older series and films. (an example; compare this VHS rip of the "Inspector Gadget" theme with the DVD one). I also realized that Episode 23 was also affected by this, but not as badly, which is why I didn't notice it before. Rather than cleaning up a VHS rip, I fiddled around with filter settings in Adobe Audition to fix it, as well as using the scarce 5 minutes from Episode 23 on "Space Quest".

I kept the originals I did back in 2012 for comparison if you want to know the difference. My originals I just used lowpass filter to drown out the hiss, which resulted in the audio being muffled

[Crash]

The quality of these is great.
They sound like a really well-produced audio drama.

Can I upload those to here? Might be easier for people to get at them.

[Bladez636]

The quality of these is great.
They sound like a really well-produced audio drama.

Can I upload those to here? Might be easier for people to get at them.

Sure. Glad you think so. Check you have the most recent version of Episode 6 because I updated it last night; mainly to make a smoother sounding transition for the end part of the 'next episode' sequence; since it prematurely cuts on the DVD's (though is intact on the US VHS) - likely to cover audio damage, as the end theme is taken from the previous episode. As such, I had to use the audio from another episode to fill in that gap, but it didn't sound so smooth due to the varying audio quality of each episode.