Club Obi Wan

Yeah I know the scene lol...

If you notice it isn't actually at the right hand edge, but almost central to the strap, looks as if it's a scrape more than a groove. I reckon Noodleman (Spelling) Slipped while distressing the strap.

Best regards,

See my original theory of DVD detail loss HERE. (see my Last post in that thread) There look to be grooves in the "Exibit A" link. (VERY light, but there) Invert them if you wish.

Here's probaby the ultimate shot of a groove that I've found. (there are about 3 more you can see it slightly less in this scene frame by frame)
The strap is folded and you can only see about an inch of it and it's about center in this shot. You can see the groove better in the non-inverted pic IMO Left side of the strap has the most pronouced groove.

Very interesting indeed...do any actual bags/straps still exist from the movie? Surely examination of those would reveal the grooves. But I don't suppose Ford would remember.

Do those marks appear in the same place on the DVD version, or is this the DVD version?

that's a shame...i actually like the look (At least in pictures) of straps with grooves compared to w/out.

To be honest that looks like a quick left to right movement caused by the frames jumping (if you know what i mean) at best i would call it blurred movement of the strap moving left to right very quickly between two frames causing the apparent grooves.

notice the blurred edges of both the left and right of the strap if this pic was still and unmoving my vote would be for grooves.

If i'm getting on anyone's nerves i'm sorry but i love a debate like this.

my next debate would be do indy's sidestraps point backwards?

Harrison_Davies wrote:Very interesting indeed...do any actual bags/straps still exist from the movie? Surely examination of those would reveal the grooves. But I don't suppose Ford would remember.

Do those marks appear in the same place on the DVD version, or is this the DVD version?

There's probably some somewhere in the Lucasfilm Archives that they'll pull out for Indy 4.

Those shots are from the DVD version. I'm waiting for Buffelhead to check the Laserdisk as I don't have one and he seems to be about the only one who does.

Hehe, sorry. I should have circled the strap instead of discribing it. What you've color oulined is Indy's finger/glove. The strap is the dark thing below and to the left of the tip of his finger. The groove runs at about a 45 slanting down from left to right.

MY god, you've got some eyes...well there is a faint line there on the left, my gut feeling says it's the edge of the leather i.e. the side, but who knows. Let's agree to disagree, with or without grooves it'll still be screen accurate.

Now abotu my theory on sidestraps, anyone got conclusive evidence of the sidestraps pointing forwards?

Unless I'm mistaken here they appear to point backwards. I Know he coudl have folded them, but I woudl say there woudl have been more material folded than here - I certainly have a lot of material on my jacket.

Go back, break out the dvd and put it in the pc. I just did and the evidence is all there. All of it.



The bag strap had grooves on it, PERIOD.

I see why you have that signature...no point having a debate with you...kinda spoils it

agent5 wrote:Go back, break out the dvd and put it in the pc. I just did and the evidence is all there. All of it.



The bag strap had grooves on it, PERIOD.

I wish I could see what you're seeing. To get back to the original topic I think there might have been a degree of fine detail loss on the DVD release (i.e. the bag strap grooves). Unfortunately I don't have the laserdisc but I found three pictures that appear to have grooves on the strap (OK, two are illustrations but they had to be based on something ) that support this theory.



I think that last picture is a pretty good arguement that at least some of the bag straps had grooves.

Harrison_Davies wrote:Now abotu my theory on sidestraps, anyone got conclusive evidence of the sidestraps pointing forwards?

Unless I'm mistaken here they appear to point backwards. I Know he coudl have folded them, but I woudl say there woudl have been more material folded than here - I certainly have a lot of material on my jacket.

They look to point backwards in those pictures. I'd never heard that they point forward.

Oh and yes it's possible all the straps weren't the same, but looks like there's grooves to me in DCMJs post too.

Cool at least we know there were straps with grooves. I had a sneaky suspicion this would be the case.

I looked at the Cairo scenes, the scenes where he's wearing the Map Room disguise, the , "Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?", scene (most telling) and the Flying Wing sequence. The grooves can be found in all those scenes but you MUST look at it on the pc or digital tv. The grooves are not very deep at all and sometimes out of focus so that are not so visible all the time, but they ARE there. Go check it out.

I know some people have said some of the grooves seen are just distressed parts of the belt but I made sure to find uniform grooves on both sides of the strap to ensure it wasn't that or that I was just seeing the side of the strap.

Just go and look and you shall see.

Hi, I have been.......Oh and I don't think I ever said there weren't grooves on the straps, just that on the DVD version there is no real conclusive evidence. So i await the results of the laserdisc version.

But...there IS conclusive evidence on the dvd. That's what I'm saying. The grooves are not very deep so they don't turn up in most of the frames, but if you look at every frame, you can spot them without question in many different scenes.

I guess this is the reason why Noel Howard made them with grooves. Cuz' that's how he made them for the film.

Well I bow to your superior knowledge...I just don't see it.

Well, sorry that it took me so long to get enough time to take a close look at Raiders on laser disc, I didn't forget about it.

I never really was able to notice the grooves on the strap while I was watching it on dvd. I know that Agent5 suggested that you had to watch it on a computer to be able to see them. I have a 52 inch, digital, dlp, high definition tv and a progressive scan dvd player, so the only difference in watching it on a computer would be that it would be a lot smaller on the computer. A computer is progressive scan and my dvd player is progressive scan so it is the same thing.

I guess that I might as well say that I think the straps look a lot better with the grooves. I never was sure which one was screen accurate, so since I like the look with the grooves, that is the way that I want my strap.

Since I never was able to see the grooves while watching the dvds, I really wasn't expecting to see them on the laser disc either. What a suprise I had when I began to be able to see them.

Yes, on the laser disc, you can clearly see the grooves. You can't always see them, it just depends on how close the camera is to the strap. It did not matter about the lighting, it was simply the distance. If the camera got close enough, you could see the grooves.

I could see them very well in the Temple scene and the Marhala Bar scene. But, the very best place that I saw them was in the tent, when Indy finds out that Marion is still alive. While he is talking to her and then decides not to untie her, you got a real good close up of the bag strap that he was wearing on the outside of his Arab outfit.

I saw them so well in this scene, that I wondered if I would be able to see them on the dvd. I put the dvd in and went to that scene. Having seen the grooves on the laser disc and knowing exactly where they were, I was able to just barely make them out. They really were hard to see on the dvd. They were a lot clearer on the laser disc.

It was unmistakable that there were grooves. You could see two parallel lines the same distance from both edges of the strap that ran the full length of the strap. At least the full length that you could see. It was very conclusive on the laser disc. I would never have really been sure that the strap had grooves, if I had not seen this for myself.

Woohoo! I guess that makes my theory a fact now.
Now who's LD player and copy of Raiders can I borrow?

Hoorah! The theory was correct LD is better for detail. Which was what this was all about. George you got a lot to answer for in your cleanup methods

How many gear heads are now going DOH! Now I gotta get grooves...

Thanks for clearing, or should that be cleaning, that mystery up.

It wasn't George that did the restoration on Raiders. I believe it was Lowry Digital Images. They are actually experts in this field. I can only assume that the software used in the restoration thought that the grooves were a defect in the film and was trying to eliminate them.

I would not just jump up and down and say that the laser disc has more detail. I did notice that the dvd is a cleaner image due to the restoration than the laser disc is.

I also noticed another difference. While the laser disc really showed the grooves where the dvd showed almost no grooves, the dvd was better in detail in one of the shots in the Well of Souls. On the column beside Indy, you can see R2D2 and C3PO very clearly in the hieroglyphics on the dvd. On the laser disc, you could not make them out at all. You could see that something was on the wall, but you could not make out what it was. I really don't understand why.

This still may not solve the debate about grooves versus no grooves. In all honesty, unless someone can prove that they have all the bagstraps that Harrison Ford wore in Raiders and show that all of them had grooves, we may never know for sure.

Who is to say that more than one strap was used and that some of the ones that were not seen in close up shots had no grooves, thus making both grooved and non grooved screen accurate? Since I saw grooves in all of the close up shots, I will now believe that the strap had grooves. Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

This viewing of Raiders on laser disc was also interesting for another reason. In another thread recently, there was a big debate about what Indy says to Satipo right before he is chased by the boulder.

The soundtrack on the dvd is technically superior to the soundtrack on the laser disc as the dvd is a discrete digital soundtrack and the laser disc is a matrixed surround track.

However, in this one scene, the mix on the laser disc has the sound effects track at a lower level and the dialogue track at a higher level making this one line by Indy more intelligible on the laser disc.

I always thought that Harrison Ford had mistakenly said, "Sapito" instead of the character's actual name, "Satipo" from listening to this line on the dvd. It is hard enough to hear on the dvd that it has caused some discussion and disagreement. Well, you can hear the line clearer on the laser disc as the sound effects are not as loud and they do not cover up the dialogue as much. On the laser disc it is very easy to hear Indy say, "Adios, Sapito".

Another mystery solved for me. As always, your opinions may vary.

Don't call me Junior,

Is there anyway that you could reduce the size of those images so that we don't have to scroll side to side on each line while reading a post. I can't stand having to scroll like that, and quite frankly, sometimes I skip a whole thread and don't bother reading any of it if I see that I have to spend all my time scrolling just to read it. I think there is enough interest in this thread that it would be a shame if someone skipped it just because of the image size. Thanks.

Well i guess we all agreed that he said Sapito. Whatever is the reason for it i guess now we all accepted it. although everyone will keep on hearing what has always heard for AGES (like me)

One thing I forgot to mention is that I was watching the pan and scan version and blowing the images up on PowerDVD.
I figured most of us are not as fortunate to have the incredible sounding set-up that Buff has so the rest of us lowly t.v. people would most likely be watching it on normal t.v.'s, thus the request to watch it on the pc. When I tried watching this on my t.v. I get nothing but @#$%-vision compared to my pc.

I think that this closes the book on the bag strap grooves. As I said, it's noticeable in 3 scenes that I looked into. There are grooves on both sides of the strap, so there is no way it can be mistaken for the side of the strap instead. I have yet to go through the rest of the movie, but I'd say it's a safe bet that the bag had grooves throughout the film, just as Noel Howard made them.

Agent5,

I agree. In all of the scenes where the strap gets close enough to the camera, it has grooves. It could have been the same strap all the way through the movie, but it is more likely that they had extras in case they broke it or something. Also, they may have had duplicates for the stand ins and stuntmen.

While it is theoretically possible that they used a strap without grooves that just never made it in a close up shot, I doubt it. I think all of the straps in Raiders had grooves. I am actually glad, because I think the strap looks better with the grooves and now I am convinced that it is screen accurate to boot.

That's interesting that 3PO and R2 didn't show up well in the LD but the grooves did. Maybe they were trying to hide them in that transfer? Or brought them out in the DVD as the "cat was out of the bag" and people were looking for them so they made an effort to keep them/bring them out in the DVD transfer.

Bufflehead Jones wrote:Don't call me Junior,

Is there anyway that you could reduce the size of those images so that we don't have to scroll side to side on each line while reading a post. I can't stand having to scroll like that, and quite frankly, sometimes I skip a whole thread and don't bother reading any of it if I see that I have to spend all my time scrolling just to read it. I think there is enough interest in this thread that it would be a shame if someone skipped it just because of the image size. Thanks.

Sorry I'm still rathar new to this forum and I absolutely HATE having to scroll side to side also. I never realized that it was large photos that made this occur. I'm at work now and don't have the time to fix the pics but I will shrink them when I get home. Thanks for pointing that out to me. Learn something new every day!

This development is very interesting. Can someone post definitive captures from various scenes of the lines on the Raiders bag straps from either the dvd or the ld or promo photos? I'm a "seeing is believing" type and I haven't seen anything definitive yet. Thanks!

Can someone post definitive captures from various scenes of the lines on the Raiders bag straps from either the dvd or the ld or promo photos? I'm a "seeing is believing" type and I haven't seen anything definitive yet. Thanks!

There is one nice one up above.

Why don't you just go and watch the film yourself and find them? Not trying to be a jerk about it but you have just as much of a chance to find them as anyone else does. They are there. You just have to do a framexframe.

The best shots I've found are in this thread.
Also, I've updated my picture above to point out the distinct groove and the less distinct one.

what i don't understand is how the grooves where cleaned out and yet that mark/slice/cut onthe strap i highlighted managed to stay in....

well i for one have ordered a grooved strap...Thanks for everyone's input...a good debate is good for the soul.

agent5 wrote:One thing I forgot to mention is that I was watching the pan and scan version and blowing the images up on PowerDVD.
I figured most of us are not as fortunate to have the incredible sounding set-up that Buff has so the rest of us lowly t.v. people would most likely be watching it on normal t.v.'s, thus the request to watch it on the pc. When I tried watching this on my t.v. I get nothing but @#$%-vision compared to my pc.

Agent5,

This is very understandable and you are correct if you do not have a digital television set. A digital tv and a computer are capable of progressive scan. The traditional NTSC tv that we have watched for the last 50 years uses interlaced scanning.

A normal NTSC tv has a vertical resolution of 480 lines. It scans these lines once every 1/30 of a second. But it is interlaced scan which means that it scans all the odd numbered lines in 1/60 of a second, and then it scans the even numbered lines in the next 1/60 of a second. At the end of this 1/30 of a second, it has scanned all 480 lines. But, this means that at any given moment in time, you are only seeing half of the 480 lines or in other words, you are only seeing 240 lines of resolution.

A digital tv or a computer is capable of progressive scan, which means that it scans all 480 lines in order in 1/30 of a second. This means that at any point in time, you are seeing all 480 lines of resolution.

If you have a traditonal tv, this explains why you see more detail when you watch that dvd on your computer instead of on your tv. That is why I pointed out that I have a digital tv and a progressive scan dvd player. On my tv, I am seeing a progressive scan image just like the one you are seeing on your computer, only on my tv, it is a lot bigger.

I think the key to the grooves is that they are very shallow. My only thought is that whatever cleanup software they used must have thought they were scratches in the film. Whereas the "slash" on the strap in that scene is much more prominent so it stayed. I recently got two bags (Both Mk VIIs, one Canadian one the "real deal" W&G) and I'm going to try to get leather straps for them locally. I was debating over grooves or no grooves before this thread so it was helpful for me. I will go for the grooves, but not very deep ones like on some of the straps I'vs seen.

Thanks for the info on the Laserdisc version Bufflehead!

Quote:
Can someone post definitive captures from various scenes of the lines on the Raiders bag straps from either the dvd or the ld or promo photos? I'm a "seeing is believing" type and I haven't seen anything definitive yet. Thanks!


There is one nice one up above.

Why don't you just go and watch the film yourself and find them? Not trying to be a jerk about it but you have just as much of a chance to find them as anyone else does. They are there. You just have to do a framexframe.

You keep saying the grooves are there but no clear photos have appeared. Yes, Indy Doc's photo is better than the others thus far, but, as I said, I'm not convinced yet. One shot with a small ghostly line is not proof. And as this is a forum where the point is to share information publicly, I would prefer that those who are making this claim to a new gear discovery offer some indisputable proof before everyone goes off to find grooved straps. That's usually the way it works. I could spend the time looking at the movie but I'm not the one making the claim nor do I know exactly in which shots the grooves appear. And wouldn't that defeat the purpose of this forum? All I know is that I've never seen the grooves in a publicity still and those are usually clearer than the movie frames. If the grooves exist, it is a new discovery and it should be documented with visual proof here and hopefully later archived in the indygear site should they ever update it. I remain open to the possibilities.

Good point Belloq...no pics have been produced that 100% show the grooves.

I for one trust Bufflehead will find a way to get pictures to us.

I bought the grooved strap cos I like it.

Pity nobody understood what I meant by my sidestrap addition. I'm 50% doubtful my jacket sidestraps point the right way...but hey one debate at a time.

I remain open to the possibilities

The possibilities that others will do all the work and let you sit back to gain all the rewards? Yeah.
Dude, you can throw in your dvd just like the rest of us and do a little frame x frame. Why you think that only those who started the thread should be doing this is not understandable. After all, you want to be part of the thread and of course, debate any conclusions, so why not help come up with some of your own, just like the rest of us?

ANYways, here's the best cap I could find. Although I saw the grooves in all the scenes he's wearing the bag, I suppose a good ammount of people here may still see those frames as 'unconclusive'. This shot, along with the one already posted above (which is totally conclusive to me) are the best I could find.



Notice how you can see the grooves on not just one, but BOTH sides of the strap. It's a done deal. Finished. The end of discussion. Over. It's a wrap. Cut. Say no MORE!

Period, kids.

Sorry, I'm still not convinced.

Agent5, I've done my share in the past (and on a thread you started in which everyone posted screen caps which provided clear proof!) when I thought I could support a new discovery. viewtopic.php?t=9942&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
http://members.aol.com/jfm3200/gloves-comparison.jpg

However, I've looked for this bag strap groove proof in the past in the movie and publicity stills and I've never seen clear proof. If I had something which could finalize this discovery, I would gladly help out. That's why I need you all who claim to see it to provide clear proof. I've not seen anything conclusive yet. It still looks like it could be random marks by the pocket knife or other things that Deborah Nadoolman and co. used to distress the costume.

You do not see the lines running perpendicular to each other on both sides of the strap? If you just break out the dvd and look for yourself, they appear in other scenes as well. Which production photos are you talking about?
Doesn't it make sense that Noel Howard made his straps with the grooves since it seems apparent (at least to me) that there were grooves on the strap?

On my dvd, the grooves appear just like they did in Agent5's screen caps. Very faint and hard to see. Agent5 must have very good eye sight. On the laser disc, the grooves are much more prominent and easy to see and are indisputable when the camera is close enough to the strap.

I can only imagine that some of the detail of the grooves was eliminated during the restoration process as we have been theorizing. I wish that I had some way to post a screen cap from the laser disc, but I don't. If someone has that capability that lives near me, I would be willing to take the laser disc to them and give it a shot. I guess the only other way that I can prove to you that you can see the grooves is for you to come by my house and watch the movie yourself.

I decided to start looking through the bonus disc for some irrefutable proof on the bag strap grooves. My logic was that there is a lot of "behind the scenes" shots which might show a better view and also other footage that hasn't been "touched up". Unfortunately I didn't find the "holy grail" of shots. There are however a couple of shots in the trailers for Raiders that look like they might have something, but I don't have the equipment to do grabs. So if anyone out there has the ability and/or inclination, consider this a lead. The 3 traliers only total a few minutes.

I would be convinced about grooves only when we will find a clear clear (really clear!) picture of them. Sometimes our mind jokes bad tricks. Did you ever see those black and white drawings used in psychology where you see black lines where they actually dont exist? The mind sees them anyway.
I keep believing there are grooves only because my strap have them

Sorry, but I'm gonna put up and shut up and not say a peep as agent5 obviously wants. Obviously the art of conversation and debating is too evil, we must take the word of one man. Well fine, thanks for the kind welcome to the forum. PERIOD!

You shouldnt take it in a bad way Harrison Davies, discussion was the favourite way for ancient greeks to proove their skills with words, philosophers used to do great and HOT debates for hours and hours, days and days, just for the pleasure of the discussion. We must take it that way and never get angry or ticked for WORDS.
Just enjoy the discussion and keep saying what you think

As an aside, I have a theory that Noel worked on Temple but not so much on Raiders, so I have questions as to the accuracy to Raiders of his strap and clothing patterns, but that is another matter. (Don't get me wrong, I still think he had the most accurate Raiders pants and Indy shirts because he sourced the correct fabrics and colors.)

Anyway, I have both full-screen and wide-screen versions in both DVD and LD. I will take a look at some point in the next few weeks. I was thinking about purchasing a DVD recorder this week so this may be a good opportunity to transfer the LD's to DVD and then I can make captures of everything we need to prove or disprove this. I also have many Raiders trailer cel frames and two versions of press kits with many publicity stills, which can be scanned. I just don't want to go too far or spend too much time when the proof could be in any scene! So to start, I should look at the airplane fight, Marion's rescue and "why'd it have to be snakes" scenes? It may take a few weeks to get something together though...

belloq,

You have the laser disc yourself and yet you were not convinced and wanted me to go to the trouble to post screen caps to prove it to you, and all you had to do was go pop the laser disc in the player and look for yourself? Give me a break!

Yeah, that is pretty silly to be asking people to post more conclusive shots when you have MORE ability than most of us (as you have a LD player and the disk) to add a second to opinion about the quality of the LD (and the grooves) to Buffelhead's. What'll that take, like 5 minutes to pop it in and look at the above scene or two that some seem to be pretty conclusive? You don't have to frame by frame the whole movie. (hopefully you have a HDTV to watch it on or it may not show up untill you transfer it to watch on DVD on a computer) Make sure to take of your eye patch when watching also. I'd certainly like a copy of that LD to DVD if you make one.

We're all entitled to our opinions on what we see, but they certainly don't look like random scratches to me. They run down the edges and are spaced evenly from the edges. (when they can be seen) They are usually pretty hard too see and as Agent5 said the ONLY way you'll see them on DVD is watching it on a computer. These posted pics are the best you can get/find on the DVD.

I didn't think it had grooves for awhile when I first joined and for awhile after that untill I started to look CLOSELY. Very closely. Fullscreen on a 19" monitor and sometimes zooming in 1 level helps too.

Don't clam up on us HD. Add something if you have something you want to contribute. This kind of thing happens if you mention grooves, gray/brown fedora, Wested vs. Flightsuit, white socks, etc.

Just thinking...Hey Bufflehead, do you have a digital camera? I wonder if it would pick up the detail by taking a REAL "screen shot".
(camera on a tripod, no flash, dark room)

Oh, here's something else.

See the grooves? No? Just slightly? They are there. They aren't deep but they are there. Pagey pointed this out on a photo of himself with a new strap he had with full grooves.

To me that picture is very telling of how hard the grooves are to see. I have come to the conclusion that they do exist.

Good one IndyDoc

IndyDoc, that photo is very telling. Good point.

Guys, I'm out. I actually don't have the time to find my LD's, locate the right scenes, transfer them to DVD, get caps, post them here... and no, I don't own an HD monitor- that's what the PC is for... all to prove something that others are claiming to see. I believe I (and everyone) should put up or shut up. I thought it would help to show some really conclusive photos for archiving this discovery for inclusion on the informational portion of this site if it's ever updated, (isn't that what this is all about anyway?) but no one seems to agree. Sorry I thought this was a discussion which would end up with some conclusions, but without clear photos, as just one indy gearhead, I am not convinced yet. My one opinion doesn't matter in the long run. Consensus is king. Between the apparent view of a few members against true dialogue and the pointless posturing, I recall why I don't visit this board much anymore. (We all should support and argue about new discoveries and help out by providing conclusive proof!) And I guess this thread has gone way off-topic anyway (laserdiscs and loss of detail on the DVD!) and should actually be moved to General Gear where more people may chime in. I'll keep an eye on this but I'm done arguing on this point. Good luck to all.