Hurin

Well, I prep-ed my girlfriend for Episode III by forcing Ep I and II on her. And it's got me in the mood to discuss Star Wars again. But I don't want to inflict this upon you fine folks here (cuz we've discussed much of it before and some here just plainly don't like some of the debates). So, a question for some of you Star Wars fans: I realize there may not be a fully mature and/or good Star Wars discussion forum on the web. But, if you had to pick one, which would it be? Which one, as far from it as it might be, is the closest to the MW atmosphere here which we all know and love? Thanks! H

Okay, even though I am known for typing too much, even I can't read everything that has been written so far. . . However, I think it's pretty clear that the song found in DYRL was merely a pop song that was found by chance. It wasn't magical and wasn't "engrained" in the Zentraedi genes like some sort of time bomb. It just happened to be on the plate that Misa found. . . and was also so popular and ubiquitous at the time of the Protoculture's decline/destruction that B'Dolza also had obtained a copy from some protoculture ruins somewhere! H

Well, if it's going to be a 1/48, there's the slight lack of a 1/48 CF as an obstacle. H

From the last time someone decided to save us all by starting a banning movement. . . Now, I'm clueless as to the particulars of this case. Banning may in fact be warranted. But what is certain is that this thread isn't the proper way to go about it. Threads like this are just fodder for the drama queens. H

. . . and the thread comes full circle yet again. H

Great post Nightbat!

I'm probably giving this too much thought. . . but I wouldn't say that the song saved mankind either. Mankind had been pretty brutally destroyed at that point (only the Macross is left). The song, to my mind, really saved the Zentraedi and Meltrandi by restoring culture to them.

Well, they sorta acknowledge this at the end where Misa admits that it was simply a "pop song" about love. Nobody ever claimed that they had discovered a masterpiece by the Protoculture's Mozart. Also, if you had never heard any music before. . . and had no concept of any culture, I would think that any music would be shocking. Possibly even Ashly Simpson. H

The fx DVD is not a direct copy of the Bandai DVD. They are two seperate encodings of different original video sources. The Bandai DVD has a higher bitrate as well. The fx DVD also has the long 30-second black nothingness chopped off the beginning of the movie as well as the Bandai/Emotion logo screen. I'm not sure what you mean by "where" it synchs up. On DVD, the subitles are hard-encoded with a "show" time and a "hide" time. There isn't any ongoing "synching" that takes place. Whereas, when using external subtitle players on computers, the video player and the subtitle player can get out of synch. For the record, the subtitle stream provided does not work with the R2 DVD. Both because of the changes mentioned above and because different bitrates and encoding differences make the timings of the lines subtley different throughout the movie. It's unfortunately, not just a simple case of finding the intital "offset" between the fx DVD and the R2 DVD, and then applying that difference across the board to each subtitle. At this point, I'm actually working on re-timing each subtitle for the R2 DVD by hand. But it's a long and furstrating process considering I'm already partially burned out by all the work I did on the fx DVD. And, well, I'm moving into a bigger apartment with my girlfriend this month. . . so time is short. I would see HG getting upset before Big West. Big West isn't allowed to sell to us here in the US, so they're not really missing any money from us. H

Hmm, my replacement DVD 9 of the Animeigo set arrived and it decrypted correctly. So, it looks like not all DVD 9s are screwed up. H

Can I ask a semi-related question here? When people refer to "fansubs". . . are they referring to actual videos that can be downloaded with subtitles "embedded" into the video? Or are they referring to just timed scripts that subtitle players then play back on top of an already existing video source? Or, does the term "fansub" cover both and is used interchangably? I'd love to find some good timed subtitle scripts for M Zero so that I could re-master my DVDs with better subs. H

Macross World = Classy.

For the rest of the scene, the arms are out. So I think it's safe to assume that those screencaps represent the beginnings of the process of transforming to full gerwalk. H

Congrats! Obviously, you know what you're doing! One word of caution, though: DVD Decrypter is nice because it extracts things bit-for-bit with no compression. If any other programs are used (DVD Shrink comes to mind), makes sure that you turn off any compression. Otherwise, I can't vouch for the "no image quality loss" feature above!

Wow. Sorry that you bought a new DVD! Maybe you can donate it to a needy MWer! If another computer doesn't work, you might try another program. I think DVD Shrink will demux a DVD, but I'm not sure. But then you'd need to rename its output to exactly what I have specified in the project file. My Animeigo #9 comes on Monday or Tuesday. I hope it too doesn't continue to give me trouble! H

Nathan, I would be more careful saying such things so matter of factly when you . . . well. . . wrong. The valkyrie is in fighter mode while sitting on the ground. I took the screen capture. . . so I know this. And, were you even correct that the valkyrie began the scene hovering (which you're not), by your own logic: If it can hover, you'd think it could exert just 1% more thrust and actually gain enough altitude to put it's legs out and transform to gerwalk. Which, of course, is exactly what it does. . . Now, if you want to be a total anal weenie about it, you could say that it's technically not on the ground when it tranforms to gerwalk. But, I think the argument here is whether a valkyrie can transform to gerwalk from fighter without first taking off in a traditional way (runway, carrier/catapult launch), etc. Best Regards, H

what is borked? A poster above was having trouble extracting/demuxing his DYRL DVD to his hard drive. We all surmised that the cause was a defective or scratched DVD. Ironically, later that evening, I tried to extract all my Animeigo SDF Macross (TV Series) DVDs to my hard drive. When I got to Disc 9, DVD Decrypter gave me the same error. I then tried to use DVD Decrypter on the same DVD on a different computer, and the error persisted. At that point, I diagnosed the DVD as defective and/or borked (old slang for "screwed up"). I hope that is now clear. H

Amen.

Here's irony for you. I was transferring my Animeigo DVDs to my home theater hard drive last night. . . and got the exact same error on DVD #9. I tried cleaning it. . . then I tried it in my laptop. It's just borked. Had to order another one from TMP Anime. H

Sometimes certain drives are more sensitive to these types of problems as well. If possible, maybe you could try decrypting/demuxing the DVD on another computer, then copy the files over (via a network would be best since it's going to be a lot of data). But, I agree, you've got a DVD disc with a defect that may or may not manifest itself on other drives. H

That would be my first guess too. Either a smudge or a scratch on the DVD. Of course, this is during the extraction part, so he can't really use another one! But, as a test, if the problem persists, try to decrypt/extract another movie and see what happens. H

Hey Max, Even though a lot of it is probably now superceded by however Lucas has decided to rewrite things, the old-school novelization of Return of the Jedi really delves deeply into Vader's motivations, secret desires, and his overall plan for the emperor's eventual demise. It really is an excellent book. It even makes ewoks palatable. Stay away from the ESB novelization though. It's got nothing extra to it. It's practically just a script. H

We're still missing a few translations. . . what's shammy saying in the upper-most bubble? That's Shammy right? Of course, never let a lack of context and information stop you from saying something is incredibly stupid! H

Tam from Twin Moons just announced a sale on their Animeigo individual DVDs. He's still got each one available. Here you go. H

Hmmm, I knew regular glass blocked some. Matter of fact, I have argued with my gf in the car. . . she thinks we can get sunburned while driving with the wndows up! But I didn't realize that they blocked that much. I guess a regular case would be enough. Though, for a few dollars more, I'd be willing to pay for piece of mind. I've always had pretty good luck with my toys not yellowing (as those who bought my Joke Machines and old Bandais will attest). But, the though of these Yamatos yellowing now that we can't get any more of them (easily). . . the horror! The horror! H