Aspect ratio flag has been corrected for this v2 release.
Project Manager: Tanks
QC: Quazza, Nemu
Subtitle Conversion: Yume, MartyMcFlies
Special thanks to A&C for offering their subtitles from their prior release!
Description taken from the YT video release:
"Surprise! With Christmas just a week away, we’ve got a surprise and a big first from us! Join Luffy and crew as they tackle their first animated outting! Originally shown in 1998 during the Jump Super Anime Tour, this VHS is the only home media release of Defeat the Pirate Ganzack!
This VHS Domesday restoration project is thanks in-part to an anonymous Kineko Video fan! They hit us up in Spring 2023, asking if we could work some magic with the Domesday/VHS-Decode on this semi-obscure One Piece OVA. While there’s a 720p stream capture available from a few years back, this particular fan was disappointed in the frame blending and its general low quality, wanting something a little more definitive to enjoy.
We’ve always been a bit iffy about the quality of using the Domesday for VHS. Even with a clear increase in detail, our team was concerned about the crosshatch noise and other artifacting that came with it, which made the VHS-Decode impractical for our needs. After some brainstorming, we decided to experiment with manually “stacking” five different tapes of the OVA. By frame-aligning each capture, we were able to counteract and reduce most of the noise, leaving behind clean detail. A totally impractical and time-consuming process, but absolutely worth it as a proof of concept! Outside of the stacking, some additional filtering was required to reduce some stubborn, leftover artifacting and a mild color tweak was applied.
We finished this project up over summer and have since streamlined our VHS-Decode output processing (which no longer requires anything this intense…), but our anonymous fan agreed we couldn’t just let this sit on the shelf! Of course, huge props to the VHS Decode team for making all this possible and we’re looking forward to seeing where this solution goes next.
Enjoy!
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