Topper Harley

The german Star Wars PAL DVDs are not pitch-corrected. Means, the sound is faster and the voices higher.

I know exactly, because I added the german GOUT soundfile to Harmys Despecialized Empire and had to slow it down for 24p. After that it had the right pitch and I probably heard the german voices the way they were heard at the cinemas for the first time.. (well, ok.. I watched the special editions in the cinema in 1997, so let's say for the second time ;)

Harmy said:

New video. I was originally just going to use DJ's Blu (GOUT sourced) for these two shots but I didn't like the blinking starfield, which was worsened by the increased contrast, so I decided to try and quickly do something about it... and well, I ended up staying up all night working on it, but I think it was worth it. Please check it out and comment :-)

Very very great!

Harmy said:

You mean like this one for example?

Hm.... I love your process, but that one looks quite odd. For the original, you need to use the low-rez falcon, I understand that... but it seems you used a still of the low-rez falcon. The thing is... the small grain won't make it appear lifelike or part of the picture, especially if there are small hi-rez stormtroopers on it's side... is there any way to use the moving GOUT image for this thing, and not a still, or will it jump around the screen?

Maybe it would also be possible to loose resolution of the HD-image, so they fit better together.

Anyway, I believe it's more important to have the shot work in itself, even if the resolution is lower, then have the old elements stand out. I think you make marvelous work with the rotoskoping, but using still images can stand out very fast and call attention to the effect.

Thumbs up!

Also for returning the cell block scene to original. It's a change that could be left in, because it doesn't really "change" the picture.. but going for the way it looked, but not for the faults (like mattelines), gives us the original version in the best possible way! So again, I'm really looking foreward to this one!

Harmy said:

Just to be clear, I used Ady's 14GB mkv as a high quality source but the colours are substantially different from it. There isn't a single shot where the colour stayed the same as in Ady's version. I'm just saying this so that any problems you may find with the colours aren't assigned to Ady, he's completely innocent :-D

Ok, so you are to blame!! ;)

No, that's great work overall. The color will be always an issue, because the 2004 editions started changing it around, and now everyone has some kind of opinion, what's best and most true.. And you can't just do everything with the material you have. I'm curious if they will change the colors again for the blu-rays...

Thanx again!

Hi Harmy,

I just watched the Despecialized Version, and it was a great great pleasure... It looks beautiful, and most of the times the jumps from version to version are not even recognisable. Also, your work with the mattpaintings shines through and I see the effort in making the transitions as smooth as possible.

Basically, this is The Empire Strikes Back, how it is supposed to be, in a quality that makes the GOUT DVDs something of a bad nightmare...

My beamer only works at 720p, so I can't tell, if there is much loss from the 1080p versions. The picture is sometimes a bit on the soft side (also the special edition material), but overall you're decision to render in 720p seems to be right for the material, since the jumps in quality are not as big.

My only two nitpicks are more about the color correction, which is as far as I know based on Adywans version anyway: 1. Is the always discussed blue Hoth.. the problem with blue taken out of the picture shows in some shots, were the shadows of Tauntaun and Han Solo appear blue, while the background is neutral. So for my taste it's too much corrected into neutral for that kind of material. 2. The lightsabers.. everyone is so concerned about them being bright and white, that those scenes suffer in picture quality, and so the overblown "shine", doesn't look very nice. But I know, it's a compromise between having them wrong or bright..

Anyway, I am very thankful for giving us back the experience of the original Version in HD quality and am very looking foreward to your future projects!

Best,

Topper

Harmy said:

I put in both CZ dubs simply because there was space for them. This gives anyone space to replace them with any desired soundmix.

Hi Harmy. Maybe it has been written elswhere, but is there a way or a program to exchange sound-files in an AVCHD project, without doing any recoding to the rest?

I'm so thrilled for this version! Would be very happy to get a pm!

Looking foreward to it!

Usually I would only need two Versions of Star Wars: The Speical Edition, like George Lucas sees his movies now, and the Original Version, as I have seen it back in the day.

I appretiate much of the work that has been going on here, creating the different versions, and I have looked at some of them, since I "arrived" here.

But frankly, the one version I was looking for and thinking about, does not yet exist: The original unaltered Trilogy with as much HD-Footage as possible.

Yes, Adywans and Harmy's Theatrical Versions of Empire and Jedi do definitely a good Job at recreating the versions on a DVD-Quality Scale (havent looked at Jedi yet).

With the partly despecialized Editions, Harmy recreated the exact edit of the old versions (Greedo shots first, no Jabba in ANH, etc..) but left a lot of the special edition shots in it. While a version like this is really nice quality-wise, it's edit is dependent on personal choices and with every cgi-shot I think I am watching the special edition again.

The question is, what is your main goal you want to achieve: Is it important for you, that you never see a quality-jump? Then probably you will be better served with a theatrical reconstruction in DVD-resolution or the partly despecialized edition. For me on the other side it would be the main goal to watch a movie that is completely despecialized with as much HD footage as possible.

I wouldn't mind so much, when the GOUT shots, are revealed as being lower quality. Sure, they would need to be color corrected, to fit in. I am also not so sure about all the cleaning for the GOUT that has been going on, because if done too excessive, the picture can appear very lifeless and too clean.

There should basically be a HD version of ANH, were Wolfman is back were he belongs, and even the original model shots have been inserted back into the Death star battle.

Well... we'll see about that.. ;)

The Aluminum Falcon said:

Also, if you make a second attempt at despecialized editions, have you considered completely despecializing the movies this time around. You obviously possess the technical ability now, as shown by your great work in restoring the whole Mos Eisley sequence. A complete HD version seems to be the holy grail...

Signed! ;)

Harmy said:

I'm glad you said that too, because no.1 is exactly what I did in this clip and no.2 is exactly what happened.

I see ;)

As far as I can see, you integrated some HD-Elements from the SE, like one of the poles in the background, etc.

That's a lot of effort, but I believe it can come off, looking a bit odd... because one sees the picture as a whole, and when certain elements have more definition, it makes the background (like the building) appear even more blurry...

And also the perfect clean up of the old picture is dangerous, since it can take all life out.

For a movie I did, were I had to uprez certain shots I experimented with grain, and it works quite well for the eye.. in this example, if you try to integrate an SD shot into an HD film.. and this shot is very clean, you could put a little bit grain on it, but in HD.. so the grain parts and their movement will be very small and work in 1920x1080 and make the picture appear more detailed than it really is.

But an effect like that will get lost on youtube, since the compression cleans it up again. But for a Blu-Ray file it could work..

So my personal feeling is: rather take the whole shot in SD, and rezise it, maybe with a little bit grain in HD, before putting in single HD elements, that stand out.

But maybe others see it differently?

The scene looks really great!

I don't have such a big problem with a jump of quality from scene to scene (HD to SD), since it is still way better, than watching the whole GUOT in shoddy SD. But with the new material it's almost seemless.

I think when the official Blu-Ray's come out it will be one of the most important projects, having a "real" as good as possible version of the UT in HD.

Looking foreward to the developments...

Topper

The German Version of the "Limited Edition" 2006 DVDs with Special Edition Version and the GUOT DVD holds also the German and Spanish Soundtrack.

Yes, maybe ;)

I'm more of a Filmmaker and editor, and also know quite a lot about color correction. But I am no VFX-Artist, so rotoscoping, etc, is not where I can serve.

I wrote a PM to Hamy. So let's see...

 

It's a nice idea but Harmy has done most of all of this in his edits and Adywan to some extent with his theatrical versions. Unless you are prepared to go all the way, and roto most things back more than these two, I don't see how it's going to be much different.

Yes, I agree. I just wanted to do this for myself and startet also looking on the web till I found this page.

I would like to see Harmy's version soon, but as far as I can tell, he still left some of the Special Edition VFX in.

Like I said before, probably the only thing that would be worthwile, is to take his version and restore it to completely original.

The SE color is terrible, especially the lightsabers.

The lightsabers are definitely just bad and annoying. I was alredy thinking about restoring those scenes too...

But since already so much work has been done, like in the "partly despecialized" edition, it probably only would make sense to build on that, for a completely despecializied edition in HD...

I just saw, that there is the "partly despecialized" edition that does that... well... partly.

Hi!

I’m new to this site, so I haven’t had a chance to check every posting to find out if the version I am thinking about, already exists.

I have the 2004 Special Edition Versions on DVD and as 720p HD Broadcast Versions, and I own the official unaltered DVD-Version from 2006 (ported from the Laser-Discs).

Since we know, that the upcoming Blu-Rays won’t include the original Versions, they will probably never be seen in true HD.

So I (and probably many others) are usually confronted with the choice to either watch the Special Editions with great quality and bad new CGI or the Original Cuts in bad quality.

So I wanted to create an edit, were I take the HD-Material from the Special Editions and only insert the original SD-Material, were it was changed. Furthermore I would restore the original length and timing (using the Soundtrack from the 2006 original version DVD).

I’m not so much against the colorcorrection of the special editions, so I would rather lightly color correct the original footage, to match with the HD-Version.

I would come out with an HD-Version of the original Cut, with some jumps in Picture Quality, were the Scenes from the original Version are put back in. In the editing decisions I would stay completely true to the original cut.

I already started with the project, so my question is:

Does an (HD)edit like this already exist?

Would anyone be interested in this version?

Best!

Topper