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Thought on de-SE'ing the DVD — Page 2

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I believe the Garrindan sequence is a cross fade, not a blind transition. I have been able to restore this using the DVDs by hand painting the missing frame elements back in on a frame by frame basis. I'll upload an mpeg if anyone is interested.

The idea of posting clips of problem areas is a very good one though. I am particularly after the "how long have you had these droids?" shot, which is now completely obscured by a ronto. Furthermore, if anyone has the german HD rip, perhaps they could post the discrepancies between the 1997 and 2004 versions. I know Grisan has posted Anakins ghost, but how about the old emperor, and the finale minus Naboo?
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Well, for one, the speeder now looks far too wide to me, and it drivesme nuts every time I see it...too each their own though

I was almost positive from the various LD transfers I've got that the transition starts in several places, vertically, across the whole image. I'll look again though. Yeah, when and if I get to Empire, McDiarmid HAS to go, as do the crappy new wampa shots...that's pretty far in the future for me though, dunno how the rest of you guys are getting on. I've almost finsihed getting the Reivax ANH DVD though, so I'm looking forward to seeing if any of it can be used to fix some of the DVD specific issues.
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Originally posted by: El Lono

I know Grisan has posted Anakins ghost, but how about the old emperor, and the finale minus Naboo?


Give me a list of scenes from the 1997 SE versions of ESB an ROTJ you need and I'll upload these.

greetings
Grisan





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How about a copy of the receeding "Star Wars" logo from the title crawl. I had hoped to be able to use the Reivax SE LD transfer to repair the screwed up timing on the DVD titles, but it has a great big freakn' french subtitle burned in across the bottom of the frame! Has anyone tried and been able to get the video stream (angles 1 and 2, I think) to extract properly from the DVD? The title receeds at a proper pace on the foreign language angles (spanish and french), but every attempt to extract that angle from the VOB has resulted in a video stream that flicks back and forth between the turbo-charged english logo and foreign logos while it plays. Thoughts?
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Grisan:

I would be very grateful if you could upload the Emperor sequence in Empire, and the finale (mos eisley, coruscant etc) from Jedi.

Also, I have ripped the alternate angle with no problems. This was done with osex.
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Okay, I'll try osex, I've been using DVDShrink so far in these efforts. Thanks.
Hmmm, or not..Mac only, eh?

...Later...
Okay, seems to have been a weirdness with DVDShrink. Smart Ripper works nicely, though.
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If you really want to go down the path of DE-SEing the DVD, first just take a listen to the soundtracks, whole sections of the films were *completely* re-scored. This is the biggest challenge, the music is completely different, and runs for different lengths of time, and is going to be near impossible to sort out to be seamless for some scenes.

Also, anyone that thinks they are going to drop Laserdisc footage into the DVD release and not have it noticed is nuts. anyone that thinks it won't instantly look like crapola is nuts too.
We are not talking a small drop in quality here, we are talking a major major chasm between the two. You would probably be better off running the old 'super 8' versions through a high end film scanner than using the laserdiscs (lol). Really though, the difference is so great that it is instantly jarring to the viewer.

However you could make the DVD look just as crappy as the laserdiscs and then insert the footage, but what does that gain?

What is possible is with software like combustion and Mokey is to reconstruct and paint out some of the horrible added features using just the DVD as the source, and removing the awful added scenes, and running a bit of colour correction to it, to come up with a 'less offensive' Special edition, but you will never end up with an original trilogy out of it.
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Well, as has been repeatedly said, yes, it's noticeable. By the way, did I mention it's noticeable? Oh, you know, I find the drop in quality noticeable. Hey, the drop in quality is noticeable! OHMYGODthereisanoticeabledropinqualitybetweentheDVDandLD! It's been pointed out over and over and over again, there's no reason to rehash it. It's not a stunning revalation you're making. Most of the people working on these projects do not have access to a post house, guys, so we do what we can with what we have. Most of us ALSO do not have a crap load of downtime waiting for renders to finish, and so, work on it when we can. And since the whole purpose of this site is the OT, and the whole purpose of this part of the forum is OT preservation and restoration, why on earth would you be surprised and derisive that this attempt to put together the OT is being attempted? While I respect your efforts, Laserman, please try to do the same.
Yes, there is a sacrifice to be made, having to accept drops in quality in a few spots. However, this is a definite choice to be made between working exclusively with lower resolution LD transfer (and, despite your expertise, you will NEVER cull more detail out of it than the DVD transfer...it's just not there), making more Franken-shots up in Combustion, Avid, Jaleo, or whatever you choose to use, to add to LFLs butchering of some sequences, and accepting drops in quality for a few seconds of footage over the course of a 2 hour film, but retaining the higher quality DVD transfer overall. That's really what we're talking about here; a couple of seconds overall, which, when colour balanced to the rest of the DVD, are just honestly not as offensive to me personally as newly manufactured footage which tries to improve the existing product (wait, isn't this where it all started going wrong in '97?). You're more than welcome to try whatever works for you, especially if the momentary quality drop is more of a problem for you than the integrity of the editing, photography, and pacing of the film as a whole, (and probably, it's the particular attitude which should be expected from someone who's a post professional - me, I prefer the '97 Jabba sequece to the DVD version, because while the thing LOOKS better on disc, the animation is not as good...go figure, I'm an animator...we've all got our own ideas of what's important) but so far, I'm fairly happy with the results. Again, let me stress that my project at least, is NOT a complete DE-SEing of the film, and will retain some SE shots; some becuase it's just too much work for not enough gain to fix them, some because I like the new shots.
As for the audio, for the sections I'm working on, it honestly has not been a huge problem so far. I've had to do a few splices, but generally, the 2.0 mix works once you put the problem areas back together the way they originally ran. And while some people are dead set on having a 5.1 mix, it was only created this year for the DVD, so I've got no problem loosing it.
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Originally posted by: El Lono
Grisan:

I would be very grateful if you could upload the Emperor sequence in Empire, and the finale (mos eisley, coruscant etc) from Jedi.

Also, I have ripped the alternate angle with no problems. This was done with osex.



rotj_97_SE_ending.m2v 29 MB
esb_old_emperor.m2v 27 MB

These are muxed mpeg files with 2.0 english audio. File ending "mpg" was not allowed by the host.
Get it fast, it will probably be removed soon.

Unfortuantely the opening crawl (inlcuding star wars logo) is in german in my version so it is useless for you.

Greetings.
grisans

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Originally posted by: grisan
rotj_97_SE_ending.m2v 29 MB
esb_old_emperor.m2v 27 MB

These are muxed mpeg files with 2.0 english audio. File ending "mpg" was not allowed by the host.
Get it fast, it will probably be removed soon.


Where did you get these? The quality is awesome! Is this a LD transfer?

Also, could you please upload the original jedi ghost scene? Thanks!

EDIT: Nevermind, I've found this scene (and answers to my questions) in that other thread. Thanks for uploading these files, grisan.

Han: Hey Lando! You kept your promise, right? Not a scratch?
Lando: Well, what’s left of her isn’t scratched. All the scratched parts got knocked off along the way.
Han (exasperated): Knocked off?!

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I was fooling around and did an A/B comparison of the OT TR47 DVD and the 2004 DVD.

The 2004 DVD adds 19 frames of Greedo shooting first, Han shoots back twice and 2 frames are removed that are on the TR47 DVD.

Closing my eyes and listening to the 2 different scenes, I can barely tell any difference between the 2. So I'm wondering why you simply can not remove the 19 frames added and add back 1 of the the 2 missing frames. (you really do not need the 1st of the 2 missing TR47 frames).

It was mention earlier in the thread that you can not do this, please explain in a little more detail why???

Thanks
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I'm not dissing the attempt, everyone has their own take on this stuff, and does their own thing - that's cool.
Its just that to me, the difference between the DVD and the laserdisc is SO drastic, that blending the two, you end up with something that is much much further away from the original trilogy 'preservation' than the straight laserdiscs currently are.
I agree that the original edit is the important thing, but to hash the two together looks so bad, that the only way to make it look not obsecene is to dumb down the DVD footage so that it is closer to the awful quality of the laserdisc. Its more than a few seconds, I calculated 14 minutes of changes - that's quite a bit. I did a quick run at this when the DVD came out, and the inserts are so jarring that it totally spoils the experience of watching the film.

If you want a less offensive version of the film, while retaining the quality of the DVD transfer, then just plain scene removal, and recreating other scenes using elements the DVD source footage to exactly match the laserdisc footage where possible would be your best bet. will work for a lot of it, except for Jedi, which personally I think is a lost cause. ESB is an easy one though.

I agree that the 97SE Jabba scen is way better than the 04 one, what's up with that (Though I detest both scenes), I still think its a botch job in animation though, looks like it was done in truespace lol.
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And I totally went off on you for no real reason, Laserman, sorry about that dude. Yes, to totally do the job is quite alot of footage, which I'm not even gonna TRY and tackle...again, partially because it's too much work for too little gain, partially because some of it I like, so for me, it is just a few seconds here and there, so no biggie. Anyways, good luck with your job, It'll be interesting to see what everyone who tries this comes up with
Oh, and the problem with Jabba 2004? Plain and simple. ILM had North York Steve Williams (that's basically Toronto to you Yanks) who was trained in traditional animation and art before ever touching a computer, head the Jabba animation. Better skills, better foundation, and an understanding of weight as it applies to animtion, better results. Rush CG from the "B" team...floaty, crappy movement, with no sense of mass...dreadful. An they did that ('97 SE), I THINK in either Maya or XSI...it was something totally off the shelf though, with a couple of custom plugs written at ILM. But just a lesson that software doesn't make the animation better




Grisan...GOOD GOD THOSE ARE AMAZING! Great quality video in those clips, thank you SO much for sharing them!!!
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LOL, I remember Steve Williams being passed out on my hotel room floor after he (and other ILMers) finished drinking the entire contents of my mini bar at Siggraph back in the mid/late 90s. I had to explain the bill when I got back to work , I put it down to a 'Business Lunch' with ILM Employees. Yep he knows his stuff, but was a burnt out wreck that year!
It was done in SoftImage in those days, if you could still call it SI with all of the ILM bolt ons that they added to the base package, they modified the crap out of that software.

Ahhh I don't mind being on the receiving end of a bit of a rant, I do enuf of it myself, and after re-reading my post I do come off as a bit of a tool Having directors stand screaming at you after not sleeping for a week is much worse. I guess I just didn't understand what was trying to be achieved?

BTW, has anyone checked the PAL DVD version to see if the Star Wars opening crawl is the correct speed? It would be easy to rip it and drop it into the NTSC release if it is...


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The crawl on the PAL DVD's is also the wrong speed, but correct on the alternate languages.
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Heh, from what I've heard abou tthe guy, doesn't surprise me a bit
The title on the foreign language angles on the DVD are in fact the correct speed, so what I've done is create a garbage matte around them ("Star Wars") and comp them on top of the title crawl footage. Gonna render it out today and see how it runs, but looks good so far.
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"The title on the foreign language angles on the DVD are in fact the correct speed."

The foreign crawl is correct, the foreign surround soundtrack is correct - does Lucas hate Americans now? LOL!

(If any foreigners are offended, please understand I wasn't referring to you specifically - I was referring to the other foreigners. If they are offended, then I was referring to the Dutch. )

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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That's been my argument all along in my correspondence with LFL. They claim "deliberate creative decision" so in that case, they're deliberately screwing over the foreign language viewers. Or, as we all KNOW, they screwed up the english language ANGLE/Track streams and aren't owning up to their mistakes.

I'm surprised that sites like DVDReview.com and TheDigitalBits.com haven't been holding Lucas accountable. Those sites incited a boycotting campaign on Back to the Future for far less offensive errors and they got the doggone thing replaced.

Getting back to the topic at hand, regarding the PAL xfers that were posted earlier, will they be problematic when trying to replace the NTSC video with those rips? I know my 5-star SE doesn't look close to the clarity of the DVD and these rips look much better, but if there is a problem with the frame rate not matching up, then what do we Americans need to do?

I myself want to create a watchable 2004 SE with the following changes:
- Correct the title card in ANH
- Han shoots first (and only)
- Correct Luke's green saber
I'm cool with the rest, including the new Jabba. His pulling of a punch on Han for stepping on his tail put the whole thing into a more believable perspective.

- Re-integrate Boba Fett's original voice in ESB (I'm holding out on editing the Emperor's dialogue until I see how it fits with Ep III)

- Restore Lapti Nek into Ep VI
- Restore Sebastian Shaw as the ghost

I thought about trying to edit some of the "Jedi Rocks" video into the "Lapti Nek" CD version for sh!ts and giggles. But I still haven't even gotten a working software solution to do frame-accurate editing, so I'm merely thinking aloud in this thread. I've gotten some good help from MBJ, but if any of you have additional advice on how to get frame-accurate editing on my system, please PM me. I tried the trial download of Premiere Pro, but it only installs on XP and I'm a Win2K dinosaur.
I am fluent in over six million forms of procrastination.
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@adigitalman

if you want a frame accurate cheap solution get virtualdubmod from here http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/

you can do all the color correction you want with filters and it's especially useful when assembling shots in a sequence, you can't edit like you can in premier, but it allows you to make precise cuts from footage, and output certain selection as a file which you could then reassemble back in premier.

regarding combining pal and bntsc footage, the aspect will be different,

widescreen non anamorphic NTSC is 720 x 272ish, pal is 720 x 325ish

now as the width is the same, it makes it hard to just vertically squash the footage down because it's just that, squashed.

I don't know of a way to convert a widescreen item from PAL to NTSC 'and' keep the correct aspect ratio. normally when I do something quick and dirty for work, I just crop some of the black bars off top and bottom to change 576 to 480 without losing any of the image.

When a woman says yes, she means no - when she says maybe, she means no.

http://www.auky37.dsl.pipex.com/falconlogo_web.jpg
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Re. the title crawl - Maybe they just thought English speaking people are impatient from a diet of Hollywood action films and fast food, so sped up their version?
Yeah I matted the title crawl from the foreign version, it works a treat.
If you really want a frame accurate solution , bite the bullet and go to Windows XP, then you can choose from premiere pro, combustion, Avid Xpress etc. and really get moving.
If you need help then PM me.
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That is by far the easiest way, just crop some of the black bars.
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Thanks guys. Some good things that I'll get to trying ASAP.

One other thing, do any of these programs edit M2V viles? I assume the correct process is to demux my discs to their individual streams, add the streams into an editing project, and then make my edits where necessary? I've found that nothing seems to edit M2V. Will virtualdubmod edit the VOB files or the M2V files? Or should I be converting demuxed M2V into another format before editing?
I am fluent in over six million forms of procrastination.
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virtualdubmod will allow you yo edit m2v files but won't save them, you have to save as an avi. then re-encode as an mpg or m2v file using the likes of CCE or TMPGenc
When a woman says yes, she means no - when she says maybe, she means no.

http://www.auky37.dsl.pipex.com/falconlogo_web.jpg
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I'm testing out Womble's MPEG Video Wizard and it seems to be doing the trick fairly well. I'm working on reinserting Shaw at the moment. The software is reading the M2V and appears to be writing its ouput in the same format. The little that I read on this tool did tout it as having M2V editing capabilities.

Are there any captures of the LaptNek sequence out there? I'm even considering and experiment, using the album version of LaptiNek and re-editing the special edition Jedi Rocks video footage over it. However, I'd prefer to just find a good transfer of the movie version of LaptiNek and reinsert it as it was originally presented.

Update:
I screwed around with this for several days, dealing with a strange A/V sync that I couldn't figure out. Finally, I ran the "Fix GOP Errors" utility and it brought the video stream back in sync with the audio streams. From there I used MPEG Video Wizard to do some frame accurate editing, cutting out Hayden and replacing Shaw from the rip that was posted earlier. I output the video stream and it stayed in sync. Because I only used the actual 3 shots of Shaw & company, if there is any color drift, it isn't noticible. The in-between shots of Luke & Leia still come from the DVD and thus look nice, and the "ghost" effect on Anakin, Yoda and Obi-Wan masks any color difference, at least to my eyes.

I didn't pull out "Wesa Free" yet because I didn't want to dork around with the 5.1 audio yet. That said, I may tackle reinserting Lapti-Nek next in a custom fashion. I'm looking into the feasability of using the album version of the song (since it's the only one available) and re-editing the "Jedi Rocks" video around the audio. It may make for a unique way to see the movie. It should be fun, if nothing else. I think it'll be easier to pull and replace an entire segment like this instead of the heavy-sound-fx laden "Wesa Free" ending.
I am fluent in over six million forms of procrastination.