I hope it wasn't mentioned already

http://www.digitalleisure.com/

Looks really cool, but something is a-miss.

You can only make a conversion as good as the sour
ce material. It looks to me like they used processing effects on the best version they had (still not a high enough resolution for hd) and made new text layers to make it look at crisp.

It still looks great mind you, I'm just not sure if I'd call it hd.

Nope, they went to the film vault at technicolor and captured the 35mm film. Any noise you see in the images is from film grain. I never thought they'd ever do this, but I'm glad they did. It makes such a huge difference over the old analog transfer.

Let's keep our fingers crossed they'll do SA and DL2 too.

Look at the bottom question...

HD Faq


Will I get to see Space Ace and Dragon's Lair II: Timewarp in HD?



Exciting stuff!

What are the chances we'll see a conversion tool so we could play it on Daphne? Hmmm...I'll bet w'ell see the an "anniversary" edition in HD a year from now.

Yeah, I think I'd be more impressed if dl wasn't running the games into the ground with constant re-releases. It's almost as bad as star wars.

I would also be more impressed if hd players were actually available.

Even when they are, it won't make a whole lot of difference for daphne fans as you'll probably be playing them via daphne on a mame cab rather than on yoru hd-dvd player on your hi-def tv.

I'll look at making a '4x3' version from it so we can use it with Daphne (as there is a standard version on the disc)

I'm also looking at cleaning up the slates with After Effects/Cleaner

Can't wait for Space Ace

Andrew

I would be interested in a comparison between the LD on a standard resolution TV and this HD release.
Lowering gradually the resolution of your monitor, at which resolution do they match? 648x480?
Use the 4:3, 5:4 or 16:9 version depending on the monitor you have, of course, but do not use the 16:9 one if you have a 4:3 monitor because the resolution won't be the same... or use it but do the right calculations...
THX!

Darn it!! Another $60.00 I get to throw towards DL!! LOL. I can't wait until it comes out! And I also can't wait to see it supported by daphne! *starts drooling*

Well... for sure I won't buy it as soon as it comes out.
First: too expensive
Second: give some time to Digital Leisure and they'll release another version, with much more bitrates... c'mon, 8Mbps is too low... I want a nice 25Mbps!
Maybe they'll introduce some "error", like they did with DL2 (yellowish tint... blah) and then they'll say:" here's the new true HD version, super perfect arcade version, color corrected edition..."
I'll wait until they'll release all the three games, at a reasonable price, and with a higher bit rate, and maybe a better codec... H.264? and ALL the problems fixed.

A conversion tool probably isn't worth the effort at the moment. You'd have to recompress to mpeg2, which would knock the HD quality down quite a bit. Also, I'm not sure what daphne's maximum resolution is, but you'd probably have to knock that back to something around 720 x 480. At that point, why not just use the old dvds?

I'm sure someone could make a tool that would do the job (actually, a tool probably isn't necessary... a Tmpeg script should be enough) but it's probably worth waiting until (if ever) daphne supports HD codecs and resolutions.

As for those of you Digital Leisure bashers, you can't blame them for anything with the image quality with this release. The film was captured by technicolor. Digital Leisure didn't touch it. This is as good as it's going to get for a very long time, if not forever.

EDIT:
BTW, this HD release is what I was referring to here:
https://www.daphne-emu.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2032&highlight=

anyone here? c'mon, don't make me buy a DL LD...

You really can't compare the two. One's digital, one's analog. They will never "match" like you seem to want them to.

Hummm... so do you think I have to buy a LD and see with my own eyes the differences, being them sujective?
Well... also I don't want them to match EXACTLY, I want them to look like more or less the same, and I was curious to know when that happens, at which resolution... at 640x480 it wouldn't be a surprice, but at a lower or higher rsolution, this qould be interesting.
I don't think this is impossible... or is it?
Thank you!

That's very true, but we can blame them for releasing sub-par products. I think you guys mis-understood my criticism. I know they went into the film vaults and re-captured the footage that way. The problem is the stuff in the film vaults isn't hd. Mind you it's better than the dvds but only because they didn't get a good capture when they did the dvds, which is evident by the 5 or so re-releases they made to "fix" errors.

You've got to remember this animation was made with a tiny 19 inch monitor in mind. They didn't hold it up to theater quality standards when they transferred it to film originally, so there's no way you could ever do a hd release because it isn't in hd.

It's hard to blindly buy anything from dl anymore because it's a flip of the coin as to if it'll be any good or not.

I know I'm totally going to get bashed on this one, but my prime example is the thayer's quest dvd they just released. I was all excited because of the console-style interface. That is until I saw the footage. I have really bad laser disc rips that look better than that. And yes I know that it wasn't their fault beause good source footage isn't available, but wouldn't the responsible thing to do be to release the disc at a reduced price or not at all?


Mind you it's good what dl is doing, I just wish they'd stop wasting time getting blood from a stone with Dragon's Lair and Space Ace and move on to aquiring different liscenses.

I haven't seen the DVD, but I believe that footage was captured through the cooperation of Warren, Chip, and Dave Hallock, all of whom I trust to do the best job possible. I have seen the raw footage and I think it looks excellent. The saturation seemed a little high, but that may have been intentional to preserve the detail; saturation can be toned down in software after the fact. I really don't see how a bad laserdisc rip could compare...

I'd have to agree with HowardC. Ideally I'd rather thay re-released copies of the master laserdiscs themselves. This way the conversion/capture process troubles and artifacts would be elimated and they'd be keeping the original format and medium in circulation. As it is now they are milking the same content like Electronic Arts loves to do. FIFA Soccer/Dragons Lair 2000, Dragon's Lair 2001, 2002, ....2007...2008... Always coming up with something like 'removed greenish tint with ultra-expensive improved capture process' or 'now in 1080i hi def'. With an actual copy of the original LD master preferably, or just a good reproduction from a working clear machine, it is preserved in original format and you'd have 1 definitive source to replace aging scratched copies currently in circulation - and doing so would be more of a service than a money grabbing excercise.

While Dragons Lair 1, Space Ace, and perhaps DL2 were the 'most popular' - other less known games that didn't get the same wide exposure fall by the wayside, become much harder to locate, and get lost. Aside from word of mouth and old memories, who can really say if that odd limited production title was better than dragon's lair unless you can see it for yourself? And they are cheating gamers by giving so much attention to the same first games.

It would be like running for 10 years with improved versions, more exact copies of Space Invaders, and entirely forgetting about E.T. Space Invaders eventually is perfect in every way, down to the last detail, but ET was a real fine game, and many people didn't like it, but I'll never know if it was good for myself as it's not ever made available. (Just a fictitious example - I like ET - there, I said it, lol!)

I do think it would be much much more profitable to say "$300 for exact copy laserdisc of Freedom Fighter" - than to say "$60 for revised rerererelease #26 of dragon's lair to go with the other 25 copies you bought that were better than the previous rererelease of dragon's lair - and it looks nicer now"

ANother thing that bothers me a bit with this entire concept they have, is it's no longer the 'original' quality. 5.1 surround sound didn't exist back then. So while it may sound better, it's not the same.

Hold up now. With everything else we are in agreement, but don't put words into my mouth. My complaint wasn't that Dragon's Lair will be released for hd dvd, my complaint is that they are billing it as hd-dvd, they'll probably give it the usual price of 29.95 or higher when really the only reason such a release is required is because some of their past dvd-releases have come from really poor transfers.

The lasderdisc was a horrible format when it was new, there is no need to go back to it. Laserdiscs rot, they warp and they break. And on top of that they are analog, meaning the picture quality will degrade over time.

I do agree that the best possible copy of the footage needs to be preserved though. Probably this hd dvd format we are arguing over (ironically) is the best possible storage format or it would be if the hd format wars had ended and it was the winning format (too soon for a release imho). Now I need to point out that NONE of the laserdisc games use the "resolution" of their archival films ot their fullest, but when you want to preserve something overkill is sometimes best. In all honesty, a really good dvd encoding of the footage should be able to preserve full quality, more than was even originally intended, but still.

As for arcade cabinets in need due to aging discs, I think the solution to that one is suprisingly clear... conversion kits. The laserace kits that came out a few years ago were nice and all, but the flaw with them is they used laserdiscs. A kit would be fairly simple... a dvd player (or hd-dvd player or what have you) with a serial interface and internal software translation of all the popular laserdisc commands of the day. The pcbs always did the heavy lifting and laserdisc players are fairly dumb. Play, loop, jump to frame, ect... all of this stuff could be done on a modern format.

And yes my point stands, on an arcade cabinet these new formats won't make a difference. But that is a good thing. Use analog out on the dvd conversion kits and magically all those digital artifacts/film grain/ect are gone due to the crappy analog translation and the crappy analog monitor.

The key to this would be a responsible company willing to make a "master dvd" for the arcades that has the exact same sequencing and scene division as the laserdiscs, so a "dumb" dvd player would work. See it's digital leisure's opportunity to do somethign good with the properites, rather than trying to scrape a few more bucks out of the super-fans.



I would really love to see dl get some of these odd-ball game's master footage and do them proper. Many are made from clips of old anime series, so somebody has the footage archived somewhere. Cliff hanger, and astron belt series comes to mind.

I have to disagree with a lot of comments here. It sounds like people aren't getting what this actually is. Here's the main points:

- Film grain has a finer resolution than a DVD can produce. Film is 'HD' in the sense that it contains more information than standard definition (regular NTSC TVs, DVDs) equipment can produce.

- DL HD is a brand new transfer from the original film negative of DL. Technicolor housed the film all these years and did a high definition digital transfer while cleaning the film and restoring the color balance.

- This film negative is the best transfer of Dragon's Lair anywhere. The only way to get a better film would be to scan the original cels and backgrounds, but those are scattered all over the world, lost, or destroyed.

- The original and reproduction laserdisc and all the DVD releases thus far are produced from a standard definition analog transfer. Video quality is determined mostly by the quality of the transfer, so we were seeing just about the best that the old transfer could look on DVD.

- This new DLHD release has nothing to do with HD-DVD or Blu-ray. The comment was made that it was released too early since there are no standards. While it is true that there are no standards for the HD optical disc yet, this is irrelevant here because this is a PC release only. The medium is just a plain old DVD-Rom. The video is, however, using standards for HD resolution that were defined years ago, and used by many people that have HD tvs. Just because were are only now getting HD optical discs doesn't mean that HD video is brand new.

- This new transfer has around 4 times more pixel information than the old transfer. It allows you to see details in the picture that was lost with the lower resolution transfer. Watch it for yourself. If you don't think it's a huge step up you need to get your eyes checked.

- This transfer isn't affected by analog noise like the old transfer, since it was scanned digitally from the film itself. Any "noise" you see in this new release is from the 35mm film grain.

- Laserdisc was not a crappy fromat when it came out. It's almost 30 years old and it had video quality close to DVDs almost 20 years before they came out. It was the format of choice for people that cared what movies looked like at home. HD and DVD is making it obsolete now, but don't put present viewpoints on past events.

- Dragon's Lair was animated and filmed on 35mm film, just like any other Don Bluth production. Even though it was never show in movie theaters it was transfered to film first and then to video. The film transfer could have been shown in movie theaters and it would have looked great.

- Digital Leisure went to a lot of time and expense to make this release possible and I'm glad they did. It will ensure that we will have Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, and Dragon's Lair 2 preserved in quality that rivals the original film. I'm also glad that Digital Leisure makes other things available like the prototype footage, old TV clips, etc. I really don't believe they hold things back just to make more releases. But when new footage and new technologies come along, like HD, I'm glad they will do thier best to preserve these games.

I guess the bottom line is if you don't think this is worth the $60 then save your money and play your old DVD. There's no one forcing you to upgrade. And complaining about it will not change the fact that people who understand what this is are very happy to see it.

excellent post, Mark.

I wanted to say all that stuff, but the thought of organizing my thoughts and writing it all down seemed too daunting.

I'll throw in my $0.02 with a resounding "me too!"

As for the TQ comments, I'd like to see a "bad laserdisc rip" (I assume you meant capture, since LDs can't be ripped) of the halcyon footage that looks better than what we pulled off. It doesn't exist.

Maybe you should go watch the DVD on your tiny 19 inch monitor and then compare the two. Or better yet, watch the LD on whatever you were using to watch the DVD.

Let me just pause for a moment to think this out......... By 'preservation', I would think most people would think of that as keeping the original article as it was seen on location.

The original and reproduction laserdisc and all the DVD releases thus far are produced from a standard definition analog transfer. Video quality is determined mostly by the quality of the transfer, so we were seeing just about the best that the old transfer could look on DVD.

Thereby, the original actual laserdisc - the first one they made for Dragon's Lair, was created with analog transfer process from the original 35mm film, cels, etc etc. It was sold to arcades and people played it in the arcades that way. It looked imperfect compared to the original film. It was still a great game. And people like me who played it a bunch got used to it looking at way.

What you're saying here is this is like Star Wars Special Edition - ditially remastered, much better sound quality encoding, from the original material used to create those on location imperfect discs. Therefore this is not the game that I grew up playing - it has been enhanced, improved upon, and is a whole lot better. Therefore it's no longer the original product as seen on location at arcades around the country - it's better. How can anyone say they are preserving the original game when dragon's lair 5.0 (extreme) edition in higher than tv definition is now available? A small section of the populace must see it the same way as me, but luckily most people won't have any issues with the idea. They see a better, cleaner, nicer sounding game in a convenient package to load up and start playing a dragon's lair like they've never seen before. I'd rather collect the original vinyl records to hear them as I originally did with all the errors, imperfections intact.

And I still think their time and money could have been much better spent recreating one or two of the more rare laserdisc games that have no accessible copy in any current form except for the original fim...if it still exists.

Des,

Then stick with Daphne and the DVD and don't worry about what Digital Leisure releases. Why complain?

I'm a fan of the animation of Don Bluth, and I believe this is the most accurate representation of the animation that he did for Dragon's Lair that we'll ever see, and the closest to the original cells. And since it is digital it will be preserved when all the original film rots.

That's the sense I intended when I used the words "representation" and "preserved."

Special Editions aside, what if you originally saw Star Wars in a poor theater that used an extremely small screen and only one speaker, would it be wrong to watch it years later on a large screen and surround sound? Wouldn't you be happy to see and hear all the things you missed before because of the inferior presentation? That's how I feel about the new Dragon's Lair. Watch the HD demo. There are details that Don Bluth put in that I never noticed before with the DVD or Laserdisc. He intended for them to be seen when he did the animation or they wouldn't be there.

Yep, just what I was thinking. All the glitter in the Lair from the gold/jewels is amazing.

I for one, am really looking forward to this edition (and I have ALL the other releases)

Perhaps when Space Ace comes out, I might capture the video and add it in for a HD Daphne SA cab

Andrew

I think that was kind of my point. The original film wasn't of that great of a quality. We are talking about a 25 year old, low-budget animated feature-ette. Mind you the animation itself was great because it was a bluth flim, but the colors, film recording, ect... not so much. Better than saturady morning cartoons at the time, sure, but it's not disney. Ramping up the res to capture all the grainess on a grainy film doesn't make a lot of sense to me.


Don't insult us here. I know exactly what this is. Dl is trying to squeeze another 60 bucks out of it's very loyal fans who have practically kept the company in business by buying the same two titles multiple times. Like I said, I think it's great that they are finally getting around to making a nice, true to life transfer, but that doesn't excuse the 10 or so imperfect attempts they release literally once a year.

I could see the orignal cdrom releases, and then again when dvd came out (due to the fact that cd-roms can't hold enough data) and then a third time now that pcs can handle hd video. If this is the last Dragon's Lair release they ever do you'll never hear another word from me on this. Come on though, you know they'll release it again a year after this version comes out, buy doing something sneaky like intentionally not making it vista compatable or something. I'll say it once more, this release by itself, if you were to ignore all the re-hasing they've been doing in the past, it's great. But come on, even you've got to admit they are kind of wearing out the titles.

An a final note... 60 bucks? Holy crap 60 bucks? You've got to be kidding me. I'm a hardcore laserdisc game fan, I wouldn't be here if I wasn't, but 60 bucks for a glorified choose your own adventure game? And a 25 year old one at that. Remember, this isn't a feature film we are talking about here, this is a little over 20 min of footage. For that price Bluth would have to come in personally and re-draw all the frames by hand.


p.s. On that star wars note:

Actually, to me at least, it is wrong. As you said, special editions aside. People didn't see Star Wars in crappy, one speaker theaters. Lucas literally re-built theaters across the nation with his (then new) thx, multi-channel sound systems. Star wars is a bad example in that respect because it was shown in high quality originally and an occasional re-release due to the fact that home technology wasn't as good as the original experience is expected. That is, up until now when lucas starts releasing super-duper special editions, once a year, not to restore the movies, but to run them into the ground and steal every last buck from the poor loyal fan, who can't control himself.

You can't compare it to any laserdisc game, because they aren't a film, they are games. You don't sit back and watch em, you play em.

I don't think you get what Des said.
Star Wars is just a movie, and you could see in any theater, good or bad.
But DL came with its "theater", the cab, designed by the creators, that was the way they wanted it to be played, and if this theater was good or bad... well... it's of no importance to those who grew up with it, that was the ORIGINAL form of the game.

I think I fall in the middle of this discussion... I LOVE to see the extra details in these games... but I also don't like the idea that a different, even if better, product will survive the ages in its non original form...

Because, as you said, we could go further in the process and rescan the original cells of Don Bluth (or what is left of them) in ultra high definition and get an even better product, but the "orignals" are not the cells of Bluth, but what's on the laserdisc.

I will for sure buy these HD releases form Digital Leisure, no doubt... but ... well... DL+SA+DL2=$180.
I'll definitely wait for a anniversary edition with all the three games at a reasonable price, as I have already said.

Could someone correct me if I'm wrong? All I'm aware of is

- Original Digital Leisure CD rom version using .avi's
Came out before DVDs (1996 era)

- Original DVD-Rom/Video versions
These were the original DVD mpeg2 versions. They released both versions to get at both markets. The Xbox/PS2/Xbox360 versions were just the same disc as the DVD-Video with a different sticker on the front. (around 1997/98)

- Arcade Authentic version
I think it was made just before the prototype footage was found. It was intended to exactly replicate the gameplay of the arcade machine. (2002)

- 20th Aniversary Edition (one for PC, one for set top players)
When the prototype footage was found they put out new versions. Makes sense to me. (2003)

That's all the versions I'm aware of for the last 10 years. It seems to me like they put out a new version when something warrants it, like DVD technology, or prototype footage found.

I just don't see the conspiracy.

I don't buy the argument that Dragon's Lair was a cheapy featurette. Don Bluth doesn't seem like the type who would make an inferior product just because he could get away with it. This game was drawn, inked, painted, and filmed on 35mm film just like any other of his productions. And the quality of the HD transfer, with it's level of detail that was unseen before supports that it was and is a high quality piece of animation.



THX wasn't invented until 1983 to make sure the soundtrack for Return of the Jedi would be replicated accurately. Lucas was disapointed in how his earlier films were being presented. He didn't have the kind of power you are suggesting in 1977, since most people thought his movie would bomb. After the enormous success of the first two films he could then make demands like this.

I know you guys are passionate about the preserving these games. I am too, or I wouldn't have ever worked on Daphne. The sad fact is no one will ever manufacture laserdiscs again. If I remember right the DL reproduction disc was the last disc 3M ever made. The only way to preserve what the video on a laserdisc looked like is to digitally capture it. That's what we've done with Daphne. Most laserdiscs are captured, and the ability to play many of these games are provided through Daphne. Eventually the circuit boards will fail, and no replacement parts will be available, but as long as there are digital copies it will still be around. We've tried our best to preserve the gameplay and spirit of the original machine with Daphne.

But the heart and soul of Dragon's Lair to me is the animation and not the medium through which it was delivered. And I believe that this HD transfer will be the closest thing to what Don Bluth intended when he animated the game that we will ever see.

Ok, I'm done arguing about it. As TonyV says "End of line."

PS
I'm sorry if I was insulting in any of my posts to anyone. I got a little bit too heated about this.