Genesis - 1973-10-30-31 - Shepperton The 16mm Film (Pro Shot) [NTSC]

Genesis - Shepperton, The 16mm film
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Shepperton Studios, Borehamwood, UK: 30th-31st October 1973


1. Opening Credits
2. Watcher of the Skies
3. Dancing with the Moonlit Knight
4. I Know What I Like
5. The Musical Box
6. Supper's Ready
7. Closing Credits

Plus Easter Egg!

Pro-shot film, footage digitised frame by frame direct from 16mm master reel to PAL 25fps.
(See below for exact details!)



Credits:
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Source: King Lerch and the members of MeeksGenesis
Video Transfer, Source Clean Up, DVD Authoring and other general extreme hard work : King Lerch
Audio Remastering: SAB (DanLore)
Artwork: RH Productions


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Adam's Production Notes:
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Summary

I originally thought I should not create an essay like this as it is rather pretentious and
long-winded. I certainly don’t expect most people to read or even be interested in it. But
I know that if I don’t write down the process when I am able to remember it, I most
likely won’t be able to remember it at all when someone does ask something about it.

As a quick summary, this source was not perfect and suffered from some damage. Also,
this is a dark 16mm film not Hollywood film quality. I did the best I could, learned a lot
about the process, and never took shortcuts. A big thanks to Gunnar Thalin, the Swedish
video expert who helped with great information. Several times I went back to the first
step all over again to compare and get the best possible final product.

Test versions were sent to 4 testers in different parts of the world. Their suggestions were
some of the best I’ve ever received and I was able to incorporate almost all of them. As
one of the testers said, “This may not be the holy grail…but it is his older brother.”

Auction

It was over 6 months ago when I noticed a 16mm Genesis film was being auctioned from
a NY estate sale. There was no way to be sure of the contents, quality, authenticity, or
value. After discussing it with some collectors I know, I was prepared to make a high bid.
But adding the costs to do a proper transfer, I didn’t know if my bid would be high
enough to win.

Then I read that a small group wanted to pitch in and buy this film. Rather than bid
against each other, we thought it was much better to join resources. We were able to come
up with enough to make a substantial bid and help pay for the transfer as well.

It was explained that no one had any idea of the film’s condition. It could be damaged,
worse than existing copies, untransferable, etc. We all took a risk in hopes we could
benefit from a great film, or reduce the losses if it was not good. We won the auction,
sent a huge money order, received the film, packed it up again, sent it fully insured to the
lab, and hoped for the best.

Source

The source was a 16mm film shot at 25 frames per second. It is Kodak date coded with a
triangle and plus which indicates 1973. This is significant in that it is not a recent
production or a copy of a copy. However, there are old Kodak films that suffer from “red
shift” where the organic parts of the film change over time leaving extra amounts of red.
This film was no exception.

Although I don’t remember where I got this information, I remember hearing that several
copies of this concert were printed on 16mm film for distribution to schools or small
theatres. It is unknown how many of these films exist or where they were used. There is
no doubt in my mind that these are a professional production, and a distinct “Charisma
Reel One” can be heard at the very beginning of the film.

[UPDATE: I spoke with a friend about this film and he only recently mentioned that he
saw this film not just on video but in the spring of 1974 on 16mm. He is the only one I
have spoken to who has actually seen this film in regular use. It was at an Atlantic
Records hotel suite at a national college radio convention in NYC. They dimmed the
lights, wheeled out a 16mm projector, and showed the film on the wall. Everyone thought
it was amazing. More amazing is that our print from "a NY estate sale of someone in the
music business" is possibly the exact same print.]

Also, there are artifacts in the film like spots, marks, etc that are on all copies of the film.
These are not removable or cleanable, just a clue that all of these films have the same
“parent”. Another clue that these 16mm film(s) have the same source is the audio.

16mm audio is very distinct. Not only is it rather poor quality, but because of the unique
25 fps speed it is often played at the more common 24 fps speed where the sound is 4%
slow. All of the sources we have seen (correct me if I am wrong) such as the Old Grey
Whistle Test, Speakeasy, documentaries, etc all have this 16mm audio. If something
better than a 16mm film exists, it is not easily available.

Transfer

Because the 25 frames per second film matches perfectly the PAL video standard, a
720x576 transfer was done. This has better color than NTSC, 100 more lines of
resolution, and does not require any speed changes or frame blending.

The film was slowly projected 1 frame at a time directly onto the 3CCD chip of a PAL
DV digital video camera. This allows corrections for brightness and color with each frame
of film and gets the most detail. Instead of trying to catch 25 constantly moving frames
per second, this process can examine each frame as slow as necessary.

The biggest disadvantage of the frame-by-frame transfer (other than the higher cost) is
that sound cannot be captured at the same time. It must be added later. Also note that
with my agreement the transfer lab did a 5% underscan of the film with a small black
border around the edges. Since TVs usually overscan by 5%-10%, this keeps more of the
picture viewable without zooming.

Sound

The sound from this and most 16mm films is printed along the side of the film like
waveforms. This is read by a bulb in the projector so the quality is not great, somewhere
around a 8.5 kHz spectrum. The sound remastering was done by SAB so I don’t know all
of the specifics. I know he was able to get a great result from a mediocre 16mm source. It
has a stereo simulation and increased low end which adds great depth. I corrected the
sound for speed and pitch, the first time for this concert that I know of.

Color

The first major task was to correct the color. The amount of red in the film is simply
ridiculous. It washed everything else away. The color red is also the most difficult for
compression and encoding software to deal with. It causes unnatural lines, compression
artifacts, almost all video problems show themselves in the color red (lucky us). To see
just how red the original film was, look for the DVD Easter Egg.

It appears as if on previous film transfers that this red was reduced, but much of the
image details reside in the red so it cannot just be turned down. I struggled with the color
for a long time and did several comparisons to A History video to get it as close as
possible.

Also, the film is not 100% consistant. Some parts are redder than others, some are
brighter than others, etc. So certain corrections could not be applied to fix one scene
without adversely affecting another scene. And as a general rule, all changes have at least
one side-effect. So a happy medium had to be reached between redness, detail, noise,
brightness, darkness, etc. All color was changed with TMPGEnc.

Filters

I used a few filters with VirtualDub and AVISynth. Each filter was applied with only
lossless compression (averaging 10-30GB / 15 minutes of video) so more filters did not
reduce image quality. I won’t go into every filter but the most major improvement was
from the Temporal Smoother.

Most films are 35mm (4 times the size of 16mm) or even larger. So when this 16mm film
is expanded on large TVs, the film grain can be seen in the form of dots or blobs of color.
When watching the raw film, it looks as if non-moving objects are bubbling or crawling or
something. The Temporal Smoother looks for these spots that show up for only one film
frame and smoothes them out. The image and structure are more visible but the effects of
video noise or grain is significantly reduced.

Sound Sync

Because of the slow film transfer, sound had to be added afterward. This was a long
process for several reasons. One reason is that two transfers are never exactly the same.
Even a small change in speed would lose total sync by the end of the film. The other
problem with this film is that it was recorded over 2 days. While the sync may look good
during one part of the song, it may not exactly match another part of the song from the
other day.

The first sync pass was done entirely by sight. As a double check, I examined sound
frames from other real-time 16mm film transfers to verify accuracy. It should also be
noted that at 25 fps, each frame of film covers 40 ms of sound. While this may not seem
like much, being off by only a few frames of film can be very distracting.

I used Pinnacle Studio for the syncing and also the credits. This program is great in both
features and bugs. Still I really like it. Over 100 of my rare photos were scanned to create
interesting credits.

Compression

In order to work with the DVD standard, the film had to be compressed into MPEG-2
format. To do this I used the trusty TMPGEnc at a constant bitrate of 8000 MBPS. This
compressed the film for DVD while retaining the closest possible result to the source.
Also note that the total maximum bitrate allowable for DVDs is 9800 MBPS, more than
1500 MBPS of which is taken up by the uncompressed PCM audio. So 8000 MBPS is the
true maximum for the video.

As a test I ran TMPEnc see what it “thought” the ideal bitrate would be before
compression would begin to alter the image. It calculated 6500 MBPS so any differences
from the DVD compression should only be a result of the MPEG-2 or TMPGEnc
limitations, not bitrate.

NTSC

Because many people cannot use PAL DVDs, I thought it would be best to create an
NTSC version too. This will have slightly lower quality at 720x480 and a converted frame
rate of about 30 frames per second, but using the source video transfer will get the best
possible result, much better than converting the PAL DVD later and compressing twice.

Converting from 25 to 30 frames per second is not easy. Most hardware and software
that simply duplicate frames make very stuttery video. So for the PAL -> NTSC transfer
I used Canopus ProCoder. This is a highly respected transfer program that converts the
frame rate, blends frames when necessary, and creates very smooth running film.

However, my personal opinion is that the MPEG-2 tools in ProCoder alter the source too
much so I again sent the lossless result from ProCoder over to TMPGEnc for DVD
compression at 8000 MBPS.

Authoring

There are many programs to author DVDs and although I know it is not the best, I use
DVD Workshop because it is very compatible and I am used to using it. I created a great
custom menu with motion buttons, film motif, and background music to go with the
credits.

Conclusion

I have worked on more than 15 film transfers and countless video transfers. Honestly,
this project has taken much more time than I ever expected and had many more film
problems than any I have seen. But my goal was not to have a perfect DVD nor is this
possible. There are 1000 ways to do things and it would take years to explore them all.

What I wanted was a film transfer that was significantly better than any that came before
and one where I didn’t say, “I wish I would have done…” So I read a lot, did everything
I knew how to do, and talked to several experts. I give you the Holy Grail…’s older brother.