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Dreamaster

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Join date
4-Feb-2016
Last activity
16-Apr-2019
Posts
291

Post History

Post
#1256382
Topic
Project <strong>4K80</strong> (a WIP)
Time

Williarob said:

The 16mm scan will be used to guide us with some of our color choices - it’s not a perfect reference by any means, but it’s bound to carry more weight than the bluray. It can also be used to repair missing or damaged frames.

While we would love to add Poita’s Empire scans to our mixing bowl, the logistics involved in copying TB of data is quite an imposition on his time and resources. It’s no exaggeration to say that it would require days of his time to restore the scans from LTO tape to hard drives (and at least three 8 TB Hard Drives would be needed for each scan), which would then have to be shipped to us. Even if we requested Prores versions, which could cut the file size down by about two thirds, it would tie up his computer for several days or even a week or two of encoding, a computer that then can’t be used for doing work on any of his own projects. The files are too big to download, and even if we tried it would still tie up his computer for weeks and weeks.

So, if you’re reading this Poita, and you can think of an easy way for us to access any of your Empire scans, by all means let us know, but in the meantime we certainly have enough to keep us busy. Indeed, it might be wiser to wait and see what we need - perhaps there will be a handful of shots that we just can’t fix, and then we can request just those shots from you - if that’s easier than just sending everything…

Road trip to Poita’s house in the Outback!!! Shouldn’t be too hard to rig a car for the ocean, right? 😃

Post
#1256321
Topic
Project <strong>4K80</strong> (a WIP)
Time

Handman said:

Dreamaster said:

Handman said:

You mention the 16mm has great color. Do you suppose you will utilize one of Dre’s color matching algorithms to match the 35mm print to the 16mm color?

Also, you’ve got a donation from me 😃

That could certainly be done, yes… but do you really prefer the 16mm colors as a reference?

I was under the impression that our 35mm sources were in much worse condition than they are. I really like the 16mm colors, but the 35mm looks good enough. I just grew wistful remembering an instance where color matching tools were used to reobtain original color from high quality black and white footage and a very low quality NTSC videotape.

That’s good to hear.
Dre’s tool while maybe not necessary for 4K80 has been nothing short of magic for some sources that were super faded. I used it extensively for my ESB Grindhouse shot by shot recoloring.

Post
#1256250
Topic
Project <strong>4K80</strong> (a WIP)
Time

Williarob said:

Dreamaster said:

Handman said:

You mention the 16mm has great color. Do you suppose you will utilize one of Dre’s color matching algorithms to match the 35mm print to the 16mm color?

Also, you’ve got a donation from me 😃

That could certainly be done, yes… but do you really prefer the 16mm colors as a reference?

Unless somebody comes up with a way to automate, or batch the color matching process, this would be a nightmare.

To be fair, we’ve only seen previews of the 16mm print - I don’t know if they were color corrected at all, but if not it’s certainly possible that a single correction could make it all look fantastic - it all looks very blue in the previews, but if we dial that back it might look great. I don’t know, but I hope that’s the case. If not, the Fuji print looks very nice on it’s own.

I was just trying to guage interest in those super blue versions of ESB. Yes… the color potential in the Fuji print is almost unreal. Here’s a denoised shot I made of a frame over a year ago (4K80 initially won’t be denoised, it will be full movie grain but this is just an idea)

I did some color work early on in 4K77 but since I never saw that movie in theaters my confidence levels were very low. I’m much more confident in ESB colors… this print yields incredible reel by reel colors. I’m even thinking we could do a white snow and a blue snow version near the end, but that’s really jumping the gun, gotta get it cleaned up first.

Post
#1215244
Topic
Denoise, Regrain And CC of ESB Grindhouse (Released)
Time

Guys it’s SO hard for me to spend more time on the Grindhouse given the glimpses I’ve seen of other potential sources coming on the horizon. The sad part is… I did a total cleaning of reel 4… and I can tell you with even with the rough grain intact (maybe BECAUSE it’s intact) it looks phenomenal (in my not so humble opinion, LOL).

However, when I started cleaning reel 1, that didn’t go as well for the intro crawl as I would have liked, and then I got pulled into the 4K77 project and that kept me busy for several months. Since then I’ve been focusing on losing weight and building strength up in the gym with some serious dieting so that I can be a healthier dad for my kids.

The original posts I made above promised something for Christmas at the end of the year, so let’s just see what happens between now and then. Worst case scenario I could release something incomplete that has 2 or 3 reels cleaned right? There’s a crowd here that would prefer grain and great colors, but with the caveat of dirt and scratches? But like I said… if TN1 and Poita perhaps join forces the Grindhouse print will seem like such a moot point.

Post
#1214026
Topic
Empire Strikes back 35mm restoration feedback thread (POUT) (a WIP)
Time

poita said:

I don’t know yet as I haven’t watched this print projected. LPP from 1983 tends to be grainier and lacking shadow detail, so hopefully this Eastman print will be much better, but I will know more once it has been cleaned and scanned, then I will risk projecting it.

The LPP was made a few years later, so may not be the same colour-wise as the 1980 release, but we will soon know for sure.

These are the frames I’m most curious about, can’t wait!


Post
#1213953
Topic
4k77 - shot by shot color grading (a WIP)
Time

Dr. Dre I love that you’re doing both the blu ray and 4K77 simultaneously in the same colors. There is kind of a crystal clarity to the blu ray in places… when you’re finished it might be fun to do a “Harmy style light” rendition mixing and matching the two to make something even more than the sum of its parts.

These are good times for fans of the original films are they not?? We’ve come a long way from having to upscale the GOUT DVD’s. 😃

Post
#1211981
Topic
<strong>4K77</strong> - Released
Time

The most amazing part of this post is that no two examples are even CLOSE to looking “similar” in color grading. But I definitely know which one is my favorite. 😃

ZigZig said:

To be able to compare 4k77 with other editions of Star Wars, I took the frame 5032 (GOUT-synced) of 13 versions: 4k77 (2160p), SilverScreen Edition 1.6 (1080p), BluRay (1080p), Despecialized Edition 2.7 (720p), GOUT DVD (720p), 16mm (480p), LD 1995, LD 1993, LD Mitsubishi, VCD, 8mm, HBO broadcast, VHS.

I adjusted the proportions of each version so that they fit and the comparison is visually effective.

The result is available here : http://www.framecompare.com/screenshotcomparison/FBMFNNNU and here: https://imgur.com/a/cJpgzaJ

4k77
4k77

SSE1.6
SSE 1.6

BR
BR

DeEd 2.7
DeEd 2.7

GOUT DVD
GOUT DVD

16mm Puggo Grande
16mm Puggo Grande

LD 1995 THX
LD 1995 PAL THX

LD 1993
LD 1993 PAL

LD Mitsubishi
LD Mitsubishi SWE

VCD
VCD

8mm
8mm

HBO broadcast 1983
HBO 1983

VHS
VHS

In my opinion, the accuracy of the 4k77 version is similar to Blu-Ray. 4k is not really sharper than 2k (4k does not help much given the grain on the film).

This new 4k77 version has very natural and less aggressive colors than the BR or the DeEd 2.7, but the SiverScreen Edition(TN1) is still my favorite because it is less cropped and keeps the full width of the film (there is 11% more image than on the 4k77 version).

Post
#1134629
Topic
Denoise, Regrain And CC of ESB Grindhouse (Released)
Time

I’m really sorry Alex but I’m just not seeing any compression artifacts in that video. I see a ton of other issues, LOL… but not compression issues. ESB Dreamastered is denoised with non-matching grain on top. Whatever you’re seeing that is offputting probably has a lot more to do with the process than bit starvation.

A guy named Skydude has shown me it’s better to blend the denoised with the original, but of course that didn’t make sense here because the original is so trashed up.

Reel 4 cleaning is finished. I started with that one because I’m a big Yoda fan and it’s probably the easiest of the reels to clean. When the whole project is done I might do a raw “noisy” version and then another version with Skydude’s technique. For the noisy version a BD50 release would make more sense.

Post
#1127600
Topic
Denoise, Regrain And CC of ESB Grindhouse (Released)
Time

It’s funny this thread got resurrected as I’ve since learned how to manually clean the film… but the process is very time consuming… I keep asking myself if it’s worth two years of work, just to essentially get a noisy version of the film. But I’ve also seen another source for colors, and with two scene exceptions have luts that seem to work across a reel by reel basis, partially because I’ve also since learned to read and use lumetri scopes to color match.

I just don’t know.

Post
#1106044
Topic
Color matching and prediction: color correction tool v1.3 released!
Time

DrDre said:

It isn’t really a problem, if you don’t use the algo to adjust colors you didn’t train it to in the first place. The algo shifts high/low saturation areas to how they appear in the reference frame. This is what it is designed to do. Artifacts are usually caused by extrapolation of the curves adjustment to colors it wasn’t properly trained to deal with. If you train the algorithm on those highlights, it will work just fine, and you have the smoothing option to further smooth the gradients where necessary. Like any method it takes experience to use it correctly. If you expect you can use it like some magic wand with zero effort, you’re going to run into trouble. I’ve rarely come across a source and reference that couldn’t be accurately matched with zero artifacts by carefully tuning the parameters.

I would advice everyone who experiences artifacts or other problems, to post the source and reference frames in this thread. I will then create a correction model, which will hopefully have none of these issues, and tell you exactly how I did it.

Interesting. I found I could kill 99% of the highlight glitches from the algorithm by putting a white block in both source and target images. I had reasoned that it was somehow overblowing out the highlights and clipping into black or something like that, so giving a white block let it know that in both images keep the whites white. (since white matches in both images, don’t let the correction exceed and clip) 😃

Post
#1100964
Topic
Neverar's A New Hope Technicolor Recreation <strong>(Final Version Released!)</strong>
Time

I woke up with a startle at 5:30am. I got up and checked on my downloads. One piece left, 5 minutes left to go. 30 minutes later I’ve got everything assembled and copied to the right place. And then for the next hour and a half I enjoy this stunning work of art. Excellent attention to detail! Thank you again! And thank you for leaving in the Jabba scene! Though I own the blu ray I wouldn’t allow my kids to watch it… no need to hurt them with those terribad colors. Now I’ll let them see the new stuff too. 😃