I was the first person to notice these things in You_Too's color-adjusted screenshots. Basically, the 3PO/R2 image seems to have the weird waxy artifacting indicative of overzealous grain removal. Look at the exposed cables on 3PO's torso, or the panel detailing on R2. Also, look at Vader's entrance on the Tantive - specifically, look at the Stormtroopers' helmets.

I'm not saying don't do it, just pointing out some things that make me feel uneasy about using the Blu-ray as a source. (As I and others have said, perhaps these artifacts were in the '04 transfer, we just couldn't see them clearly until now.)

I will also say, however, that there are some other shots from the Blu-ray that look astounding. So I'm not sure whether the good will outweigh the bad or vice-versa.

You must do what you feel is right, of course...

What about Vader's entrance, how does that look to you?

It's your project, so if you think it looks fine, I won't get in the way. :)

One thing to watch out for is that even though the flash frames are no longer pink or purple, the reflected light on the walls of various explosions and so forth usually still is.  In the original the reflections were the same colour as the flashes, and in the SE they are still the same shade as each other, just the wrong shade.  But the Despecialized version now has a strange effect whereby the flashes and reflected light are entirely different colours, which makes them stand out oven more and call greater attention to the incorrectness of certain parts of the colour.

That said, there are still some flashes in the opening corridor shootout that haven't had their colours fixed.

I think Harmy's thought of a 2.0 release using the BR is a great idea, though probably a lot of work. I think there must be a source by now that lists many of the changes made for the BR release, so Harmy wouldn't fall victim to accidentally including some subtle change. Assuming they can be tamed via color correction, I think they can really have potential to look great and improve what was already accomplished. It's a marginal upgrade from the HDTV caps, but it's an upgrade nonetheless... for my two cents, I'd love to see it. 

The one scene which I think could profit largely from re-sourcing it from the BluRay would be the Bespin Lightsaber Duel in TESB, as the HDTV compression was quite noticeable in that steaming environment.

Harmy, there is still one rather important point for your upcoming 1.2 or 2.0 versions.

- The alien dialogs are subtitled in a wrong font. You use the Franklin Gothic font (which was used for the textcrawls as well as in the SE editions) but in the original theatrical versions Trade Gothic was rather used (it's less round). Laserschwert had found the correct font for his German version, so you might ask him which font he exactly used.

Actually I've even done the subtitles both in English and German, so I could povide Harmy with my AfterEffects project if he wants it.

Anyone have any  info on how to successfully burn the DVD9's onto dual layer DVD ?

 ok, thanks ill give it a go

Atlantis said:

I'm ok with using the Bluray as a source and starting with a new version. I would even suggest you output a 1080p output. It would be easy in premiere. You just replace your video with the 1080p source for the final render.

I think Harmy chose 720p because it blends better with stuff taken from GOUT and other sources that are not 1080p. Also, it helps to reduce whatever oversharpening and DVNR which seems to be present on the Blu-ray.

About the "watercolor-effect" thing at Vader's entrance, here's a comparison. (Harmy's on top, mine on bottom, downscaled to 720p)

And a closeup comparison which I've brightened a bit for it to match. Harmy's on left and mine on right.

Harmy's version is slightly blurrier, but I'd say the watercolor-effect is there on the HDTV version too.

I didn't really think the degraining was new; I assumed it was part of the Lowry degraining job. Shots like this and that Tatooine shot (which Harmy didn't see anything wrong with) are grainier than other shots, compounded by smoke and haze and other stuff, so when Lowry's algorithms were applied, it's no surprise that they got messed up. It's Harmy's decision on what to do for these problem shots (if he sees any problem with them, that is).

Not as bad as the BDs of Star Trek III-VI or the latest Predator release - I'm actually more surprised at how *few* of the shots you posted have these kind of egregious degraining artifacts. As I've said before, I love the look of shots like "Look sir, droids" and "I suppose you're programmed for etiquette and protocol" (even though I think I can see a teeny bit of the purple-shadow-detail problem on the Sandcrawler?).

The crushed blacks and weird color timing are a bigger issue than the degraining. Oh, and that other problem, the one that this whole project is dedicated to undoing...:)

TServo2049 said:

Not as bad as the BDs of Star Trek III-VI or the latest Predator release - I'm actually more surprised at how *few* of the shots you posted have these kind of egregious degraining artifacts.

Compared to Predator ultimate hunter edition, the DVNR in SW is almost unnoticeable. That movie looked like everything was made out of wax!