BlueCopy

Possessed: Yea I completely understand what you mean. I feel like I have an obligation to do it well though. I have been helped with sources to improve this project. I just want to do the best final product I can produce for people who would appreciate it.

What is the best quality copy of “From Star Wars to Jedi”? All the copies I have seen have a very overexposed look. There is a copy on starwars dot com that is encoded as 720p but I am not sure the source. It looks really overexposed too. I have attempted to correct this overexposure but there is probably a better source out there.

This is only used in a short part where he says “A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing”. I heard this is actually a subtle insult to Star Trek The Motion Picture which was highly criticized for all the long panning shots of the enterprise. Thanks for any help finding a better source though.

Edit: Thanks for the help. the DVD version from HBO is much less washed out/overexposed looking.

I ripped the original intros from the DVDs. They are actually 23.976fps progressive.

I will try plugging in Neverar’s version later when I get home. I am looking forward to just giving it a watch too.

What do yall think would be a good target size or bitrate for a final encode to share?

Is 4+ hours(1hr8min + 1hr30min + 1hr30min) of all 3 reviews too much for a BD-25? I have done some tests with 2 pass x264 targeting a DVD9 AVCHD at about 16000kbit for just the Phantom menace review and thought it looked nice. I was thinking maybe doing an AVCHD target quality for each review and then a single BD-25 containing the 3. A BD can allow for much higher bitrate spikes then a DVD9 could handle so would probably look better. I am not sure what people would be interested in.

Here are the settings I was trying. I have not done many of my own encodes at this quality level so I am just trying to figure out the best option. I would welcome any suggestions.

x264-r2901.exe --level 4.1 --output-depth 8 --bluray-compat --pass 1 --bitrate 16000 --stats "TPM.blip.stats" --open-gop --b-adapt 2 --slices 4 --qpmax 69 --vbv-bufsize 13000 --vbv-maxrate 16000 --output NUL "TPM.blip.avs"

x264-r2901.exe --level 4.1 --output-depth 8 --bluray-compat --pass 2 --bitrate 16000 --stats "TPM.blip.stats" --open-gop --b-adapt 2 --slices 4 --qpmax 69 --vbv-bufsize 13000 --vbv-maxrate 16000 --output "TPM.blip.264" "TPM.blip.avs"

I will look into at getting those. I did use some footage of the sarlacc pitt from harmy’s despecialized ROTJ that was used in AOTC review part 1.

Thanks for this!! Sorry I was ignorant about these versions. This will help a lot.

Edit: Thanks again. I have been revisiting TPM review and updating with the better footage.

I am working from the full 70 min TPM review from blip.tv. It’s video and audio is higher bitrate and sampling (48000hz). I also now know how they cut it together into a single film with out the continued cards. I dropped in the higher bitrate footage and just cut the frames that aren’t in the 70min version. So I will be matching that 70 minute cut and then using its audio.

edit2:
I feel like I messed up with the PM review. I was using a version of “the beginning” documentary of episode 1 that the official star wars channel posted on youtube. It was 1080p and I assumed was from a higher quality source. I inspected it closer and comparing to the mpeg-2 version from my DVDs shows that the web version is lower quality. They used a bob de-interlace so cut the vertical resolution in half and caused alot of shimmering issues. Avisynth with QTGMC de-interlace preserves the vertical resolution and ends up looking much better. Also the web version is much noisier in low light areas then the DVD. I am having to adjust the cuts for the new source because they were slight off.

Yea I don’t think those are available anymore.

Attack of the Clones Part 1 or 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCWP97LyJMo

I am having trouble with the stability of my avisynth scripts as they get longer. this 30 minute part 1 using so many sources caused memory issues on the 32bit version of avisynth even on 64bit windows. It should give it a full 4gb to work with on a 32bit process but it seems to be capped at 2gb. I am going to try to work out these issues before I try to go any further. the 64bit avisynth isn’t compatible with all the plugins I was using but there might be equivalents. It was really annoying having VirtualDub crash or throw an memory error when editing those last few bits together.

Does anyone happen to know of a freeware Bluray authoring program that can do seamless branching?

Full test for final version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cagzS-BWnjA

I inserted 2 seconds of black silence between each part so it isn’t a jarring transition.

Give it a watch if you are interested. Let me know if you think there are any issues.

Thanks again for the help finding those clips/photos. I meant to say thanks again the other night but got back into editing and forgot.

Part 7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DadfbaLxXUc

I am putting together a single video with all parts with corrections since I posted those first encodes. If you guys want to watch and see if there are still any issues when I post it. I think I have gone through them pretty well though.

I think I am gonna take a break before jumping back into the AOTC so I don’t burn out. I never really wanted to look at the phantom menace that long. I might actually pivot to those TNG reviews because they are relatively simpler and just want to look at something other then star wars for a bit.

Excellent. Thanks for the help. I will look through Empire of Dreams some more. Sometimes its harder to find a specific short clip in those documentaries. I might just re-watch it tonight. It is so much easier in the movies because it they have continuity.

I am having trouble tracking down some footage in part 7. It is 2 photos of a younger George Lucas at 6 minutes. I thought it might be in Empire of Dreams but I can’t seem to find the moment. Here is a link for where it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIWKMgJs_Gs#t=6m0s
Does anyone recognize it?

Part 6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vpWrBZGoHY
might take a minute to process the 1080p version

I am actually going to adjust the levels on that Star Wars to Jedi interview footage. The best source had weird levels.

I would like to do the TNG reviews too. I would need to get the Blurays of the series and movies though. I have my old dvds and just haven’t been motivated to upgrade them when i can stream the series on netflix. I am a big fan of the series.

Just finished writing the avisynth script for part 6 and doing an encode now. I will try to post it later.

I just checked and the original and remaster both have 203 frames shown of the #9 card. I think its correct.

He cuts himself off. He doesn’t finish reading it in the original either.

I haven’t actually touched the original audio. I just use the original and remux into my new video track.

Thanks. I did miss that. I will double check all those jedi council scenes.

Part 5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkiMC4hYnck

Part 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7SmguNe4yU
over half way done with the PM review.

I had seen the idea of recreating the theatrical experience by using the same movie trailers when the movie was released. I wanted to make some playlists to try this out with star wars.

Does anyone know where I could find this info so I could star collecting the trailers? I did some searching but couldn’t find what I was looking for.

I kinda wish I would have used some of these.
https://imgur.com/a/03VDO

Expired at various points in 95-96. Its just cool to check out the old merchandise. I forgot they have micromachine star wars toys.

I just thought it was funny. I will scan the coupons later if anyone is curious.

Part 3 Test Encode
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POhCX8gWkdY

vs

Original

I think I found a good compromise for blowing up those low res interviews to a larger resolution. Here are screen shots of the layout of both versions and the original.

I think it is better to resize the lower resolution interviews to only 704x528 and then have the rest of the right side of the frame is a 1216x528 movie clips resized from a cropped 1880x816 to maintain the correct aspect and fit the space. This way it shows more of the movie frame and resizes the interview window to a lower resolution window. It makes the interviews look better rather the blowing them 960x720 to take up half the screen. I think this works better then the complete split screen format.

Good idea. Rich, Jabba and Boss nass need to all hang out together.

I had looked at the interview outtakes but didn’t realize there was overlap with what was used. I will look and see what i can use.

Edit: I am not liking the blurring effect caused most of the noise filters I have been trying. I set up a test of several filters and encoded them all into one video. I found the best looking version was just bilinear resized (sharper resizing methods cause too much noise) and then a filter to remove the color banding. The interview splits screens in part 1 is working from a cropped 240x170 frame of a 480x360 lowish bitrate web video and blowing it up to 960x720 in the frame and that won’t ever look that great. It is like working from a postage stamp. The other parts that can use the full frame look better.

I haven’t seen that. I have mostly collected the OT stuff.