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Humdinger Analysis Thread : Glitch, Cryptography or Steganography? — Page 2

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It could have been in the 1981 or 82 releases though, right?

 

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Harmy said:

Not true, when you look at these 70mm cell scans, there's actually more picture information on the sides than there is in the 2004 SE, which is the least cropped transfer to date.

 That's interesting... the PAL DVNR-free transfer I was referring to was said to have more picture on the top and the bottom to accomodate a less wide ratio of 2:20. I wonder if it also had more side information.

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Wow, I'm so proud I've finally created so much controversy on this board! And, I for one, don't think it's a stupid name. ;)

I will say, that I first noticed it with my naked eye while watching Harmy's Star Wars despecialized at normal speed. I only went back frame by frame to see exactly what it was that made me go, "what the heck was that flash of color on the death star?!" I think the fact that the source used for Harmy's edit has one of the most obvious versions of the glitch (with all the colors) helped me spot it, but I don't know how anyone could NOT see it... It's really obvious. It only lasts for one frame, and certainly isn't going to keep me from enjoying the movie, but a bright rainbow streak flashing across a bleakly gray Death Star stands out pretty clearly...

But then again, I've always been really anal about picture quality and any flaws in a home video presentation jump out at me pretty quickly. (people around me still don't get it if I complain about all the compression artifacts when watching a normal dvd, and my wife didn't know what I meant when I mentioned seeing the real change markers as we left the movie theater recently. She said she's never noticed them in any movie).

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canofhumdingers said:

and my wife didn't know what I meant when I mentioned seeing the real change markers as we left the movie theater recently. She said she's never noticed them in any movie).

I learned about those back when I was in high school, from a Columbo episode!

"Close the blast doors!"
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Canofhumdingers, see my signature, it's yours if you want it. I made it with that intention.

"Well here's a big bag of rock salt" - Patton Oswalt

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see you auntie said:


Canofhumdingers, see my signature, it's yours if you want it. I made it with that intention.


Hey, thanks. Though I feel my newfound fame is starting to go to my head... I've already started charging for my autograph (which makes paying with a card much more difficult, btw...).

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I don't see what the big deal is. This isn't about analyzing the glitch itself--the glitch is just a glitch. But its useful as a fingerprint that its the same HD master that was downconverted in 2004 for the DVD and shown on television in HD in years since then. That's significant, when there are all these apologists saying we'll have a new transfer and wait and see. Well, no, we can see now--it's the same master. That's why this is a big deal. It gets its own thread because the BD thread here is over 100 pages long and this piece of news has already gotten a bit buried over there.

So, this makes it visible for people wanting to know--new transfer or no new transfer? This glitch shows--no new transfer.

Now, I will also throw out there that not having a new transfer doesn't necessarily determine no improved colours. As other screencaps show, the colours have been subtly altered from the 2004 master to increase the brightness with a gamma boost from that original transfer. This creates its own set of problems, like boosting milking the mid-range out and you still don't recover detail that the crushed blacks never contained, so it's unfortunately not a particularly great solution, although the results seem to be an improvement. So, the colours aren't fixed, but they seem to be mildly improved.

Anyway, this is nothing more anal than anything else we do here. The BD release is a big deal and one of the biggest issues is whether Lucas did a new transfer or a new restoration. They didn't and this glitch shows it. If this is not a significant finding, then people can stop talking about "wait and see if its the same master" all the time.

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I think the real shot that'll reveal if LFL has learned something since 2004 is the one in Jedi with the two sabers crossing. If that looks the same as before, then the Blu is an official failure.

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none said:

Have started checking out the versions which used one of the above to see how their recompression affects the Humdinger. 

In the Wookiegroomer X360 and Ewokgroomer versions, the Humdinger disappears.

Is it know for a fact that recompression caused the humdinger to disappear? Is there any possibility that the Wookiegroomer release was based on a different master?

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?

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Put Captain Solo in the Cargo Hold said:

I think the real shot that'll reveal if LFL has learned something since 2004 is the one in Jedi with the two sabers crossing. If that looks the same as before, then the Blu is an official failure.

I'm not sure if this was accurate to the Blu-Ray, but Amazon's trailer shows this:

 

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 (Edited)

This isn't about analyzing the glitch itself--the glitch is just a glitch.

This thread IS about analyzing this 'item'.  Which might not be a glitch, as i've notated in the thread title.  There is the possibility that someone working on the 2004 transfer decided to leave a message.  Having experimented in creating glitch stuff in the past, the nature of this 'item' doesn't ring out 'glitch' to me.  Another reason why glitch doesn't feel right is a glitch would generally show up on the first frame of a quick moving item showing up on screen.  This glitch occurs 2 or three frames in. 

I can't stop people from stating their anti-inquisitive mind opinions, or off-topic'ing into why some people feel this 'item' is important to other issues.  That will happen continuously.  But I ask that you keep that to a minimum and focus on the 'Humdinger' itself and try to figure out why it's ended up in the 2004 release, and why it looks like it will be in future releases.

Erikstormtrooper wrote: Is it know for a fact that recompression caused the humdinger to disappear? Is there any possibility that the Wookiegroomer release was based on a different master?

This is a good question, and I don't know.  Am attempting to contact Wookiegroomer to see if he was aware and removed the Humdinger on purpose or did the recompression really remove it.  If the recompression did remove it, that will tell us something about the LFL versions.  I'm leaning toward Wookiegroomer having found it an removed it, he might not have realized it was an official thing, he might have  thought it was just his digital copy.

Have also reached out to someone who worked on the color correction of the 2004 DVD.  Am awaiting a response.  My initial contact might have sounded a little odd, so might have to try in an alternative way.

Thanks Harmy added the PAL screencap.

 

So I started this thread to talk about the Humdinger, from how it was created to why it has continued to exists.  Discussion of the Humdinger's relationship to the blu-ray transfer can continue in the blu-ray thread.  I hope this thread will get more into the features of the Humdinger, is it glitch or crypto or steganography.  Could it be a message from someone inside LFL, or the color lab or Lowry or some other department?  If it is steganography, what does this person want to let us know?  The evenly spaced lines almost seem matrix'y. (vertical lines of characters)

Here are the various Humdingers: 2004DVD - 2006 HD Cinemax - 2005 & 2007 HD German

So just looking at these version tells us something about how the Humdinger reacts to recompression.  It changes.  Cinemax seems like a full size 2004 DVD, but it's lacking in color somewhat.  The German 05 and 07 could be the same except broadcasted at a different rate.  And these German ones seem to be half the size, the 05 one even seems to 'find' the missing Death Star lower half, after the 'item'.  The 07 looks like real glitch.  vibrant color zones which are hard edged and lack a uniform size.

If you haven't seen it, mikrosopht's 'Lone Star Destroyers' is an example of glitch: http://mikrosopht.godxiliary.com/LSD/

From what I remember, he told me there are two main types of glitch creation methods in the video.  Primarily he downloaded the movies on BT and would stop and play the half downloaded files.  Another method was to remove keyframes and only play the 'updates'.  These methods don't look anything like the Humdinger.

The uniformity of the Humdinger for me points to something else, elusive.  Here's a blow up of the first 10 bars:

If you look at the Cinemax, second down, the Humdinger almost seems to be in two halfs, the upper is more colorful the lower is washed out.  Which conforms somewhat to the German 05 which somehow 'figures' out the lower Cinemax grey zone.  What's also odd about the German 05 is the bottom edge seems almost faded down, which could be a sign of the compression being used.  But I don't know enough about that at the moment.

The space between the lines look like the Death Star.  Why would a glitch alternate over pixels?

*EDIT* The hard edge of the top of the Humdinger is a sign of the recompression which these versions went through, the 2004 went though a lot, the Cinemax a little less, but significant as there is some bleeding.  But the German's are top hard edge.  Which says to be that they are close to the source.  The person who worked on the files said the source scan was 2048 x 1556, so all the versions we've got have some recompression in play.  and the Humdinger remains.

 

Of course there might be an easy explanation for this being actual glitch, but don't know the ins/outs of compression algorithms to explain this one.

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It may be some sort of anti-piracy "watermark". That's why its so useful in identifying the 2004 transfer, because it was intended as a sort of code to differentiate authentic from inauthentic transfers, perhaps applied in the final stages of the master (ie. after Lowry, etc.) as a way to guard against in-house leaks of all the copies floating around servers and such.

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Erikstormtrooper wrote: Is it know for a fact that recompression caused the humdinger to disappear? (in the Wookiegroomer releases)

Here's his response:

Wookiegroomer wrote: That particular scene has several interlacing issues that were corrected. However, I do not remember most of the work I have done since it has been several years. :)

So the recompression most likely did not magically fix.  It was hand corrected.

 

The individual who worked on the 2004 DVDs, his impression is it's a chunk of missing data.  Either in the digital file or a HDCam-SR submaster tape.  Not knowing what that format is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCAM  The format had an initial introduction in 1997 (Special Edition timeframe) and a SR version in 2003 (just before the DVDs)  this is a possibility for the loss of data.  Maybe the tape they used got a crinkle and the Humdinger came into being.  But if LFL did work 100% with harddrives then this theory is incorrect.

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Yeah, it does look like the sort of glitch you could find on a magnetic digital tape.

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This is another one of those "can't unsee it" things!

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none said:

The individual who worked on the 2004 DVDs, his impression is it's a chunk of missing data.  Either in the digital file or a HDCam-SR submaster tape.  Not knowing what that format is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCAM  The format had an initial introduction in 1997 (Special Edition timeframe) and a SR version in 2003 (just before the DVDs)  this is a possibility for the loss of data.  Maybe the tape they used got a crinkle and the Humdinger came into being.  But if LFL did work 100% with harddrives then this theory is incorrect.

That would make perfect sense. Lowry doesn't work with tape now, but they may have used tape at some point in the workflow process back then as they weren't as high up as they are now. Or maybe there was some tape transfer at LFL since they must have bought all of the HDtapes in existence for shooting EP. II and III.

If the glitch was introduced in tape form then it would go onto the master stored digitally and that would be why it is still there.

I freaking hate those HD tapes. All of the pains of digital video tapes magnified x1000.

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Humdinger (2004 - 2011)

Questions were proposed to LFL about the blu-ray and it is being reported that the Humdinger will be no more.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/313950/chance-to-talk-to-lucasfilm-about-the-new-star-wars-blu-rays-what-do-you-want-to-know/60

They used the digital files from the 2004 release as a starting point for the Blu-ray release.  They then made a lot of tweaks and fixes:

  • Light sabers?  Check. 
  • "Humdinger Glitch"? Check 
  • Color timing?  Check
  • Other effect cleanup? Check
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Additional comments about the Humdinger demise:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/314106/lucasfilm-on-star-wars-the-complete-saga-blu-ray-part-ii-matthew-wood

Tidbits and “But I saw it at Comic-Con…”

I reported earlier that the “Humdinger Glitch” has been fixed.  There have been a lot of people inquiring as it was in the footage that was seen at Comic-Con.  I was told that someone from Lucasfilm overheard an attendee at Comic-Con comment after seeing the footage that “the glitch is still there”.  They tracked it down and had it fixed.  It was one of the last if not THE last change made prior to the discs being locked down for final release.

Feels like they are throwing out a bone.

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Huh... I wonder if the Humdinger-spotting attendee was from this forum or reads it. Was the Humdinger ever spotted earlier by another site?

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Repost:

The Humdinger has gone big time (via The Digital Bits):

I'm told that little visual issues like these throughout the films have been addressed - a fairly extensive list. [Editor's Note: The so-called "Humdinger" glitch in Episode IV was also apparently fixed.]