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2024.11.14

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In 2021, dym2005 produced a 720p AI upscale release of Star Fleet by combining the picture from the French DVD release with the audio from the UK/US release, which is a painstaking process.

There is more information about the making of the upscale here:
	Star Fleet / X-Bomber - Upscale Project (Released) - Original Trilogy

Megaupload Links
	Original | Updated version with Japanese audio and subtitles by Spoutnik

I would like to thank Antony Leach for generating the below comparisons, which illustrate the difference in quality between the UK DVD release and the upscale versions, and Dan Hitchin at SFFB for sharing them.

Comments

Jack 2024.12.07 | 05:03

Unfortunately the only downside is the fact that episodes 8 and 12 are still censored

Crash 2024.12.07 | 20:35

Hi Jack!
Thanks for your comment!

I remember that Ep.8 had a few cuts in the Western versions around the point where the mon-mons needed to be scared away from the ship.

I'm not sure that there are any non-Japanese releases that contain the full footage, and, even if there were, there would be no English dubbing to accompany it.

Anonymous 2025.03.13 | 15:24

After I got the upscaled episodes I took on the task of making a dual-audio version of X-Bomber. 
I got to episode 9 before my PC decided to die. As part of that project, I managed to reedit episode 8, mixing the upscaled episode with the relevant missing bits (mostly scenes of Monmon's being shot, probably considered too graphic for the time and target audience), as well as reediting a sequence at the backend of the episode where a couple of shots were switched to accommodate the edits. 
All this while also editing the Japanese audio into the episode and replacing the OP and ED sequences with the ones from X-Bomber. It took a bit of doing (added to the fact that my PC decided to die and all the edits I had done were lost, requiring a redo) Though the missing bits were not upscaled, a bit of fiddling with some filters managed to make them good enough to clear the bar. 
That someone went to the trouble of making a dual audio version is going to make the rest of the process much easier. 
All I'll have to do is replace the OP and ED sequences and restore the original Jikai, since the ones in the upscale use clips from the episodes while the originals had some unused bits and sightly different edits from the Star Fleet previews. 
And of course, I'll have to tackle the censored scene in episode 12, but that's basically adding about 10 seconds of Cap. Kuster/Carter just standing there after being shot, a much easier task than episode 8. 
Only other edit I had to do, was add a small clips of Gelma fighters flying over Pluto Base as it explodes, right at the end of the attack sequence. 
For some reason it cuts to black in the French DVD and ended up in the upscaled episode.

Crash 2025.03.14 | 11:32

This is very interesting detail around how the upscale was done!
I know that it cannot have been at-all an easy process.

People have tilted at the windmill of fan-remastering Star Fleet a number of times since the DVDs were released and all the little but important differences between versions: credit sequence lengths, PAL v NTSC etc, made it impossible before this. 😀

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