emanswfan

Fated-Dualist said:

‘Skywalker Saga Boxset - Disney Star Wars 4K is a ZERO Sum Game’:-

Star Wars on Disney 4K in a huge box? Is it worth it? Find out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TE5OTopl5A - on the RetroBlasting YouTube channel. (5 mins long)
 

Some decent information on the boxset - and a reminder of the quality and limitations on offer in it.
 

Nope, there is a lot of misinformation in that video not to mention how he’s so rude. The biggest one being is that all three movies of the ST are in native 4k.

More details here about the rest of the set:
https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/022120-1130
https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/111519-1700

Ahh, felt much nostalgia tonight watching this new episode. This Disney+ Star Wars content continues to remind me that there is still good SW stuff out there, despite my gripes with TROS.

Also nice surprise to see that this new season is available in 4K HDR too!

MaestroDavros said:

Looks lovely!

Emanswfan are you planning on varying the emulated stocks based on their intended use conditions (daylight stocks vs artificial lighting stocks, etc.) or just one blanket stock across the whole film? Just curious.

In an eventual scene by scene or even shot by shot grade, stocks will be different depending on the case.

This is actually exactly why creating one grade for the whole movie for any of them hasn’t worked well, but I still want to do that as to get a version that maintains the relative color timing.

Forgive the compression artifacts given this is from the Disney+ version. This is with AI Sharpen, a HDR to SDR conversion, Kodak 5219 emulation, and some custom grading. This is what I would say would be a vivid modern film look grade option without film grain.

Trying to mess around with the Disney+ versions at least a little until the physical 4K discs come out.

I’m going to be trying out the new video AI upscaler from TOPAZ sometime soon and I’ll let you all know how the results turn out. It definitely seems more efficient of rendering time, but from what I’ve seen it seems like the neural network isn’t as experienced as the one for the main gigapixel, but of course I can’t be sure until I try it. Theoretically it could be better if it is able to extract extra detail by analyzing motion across multiple frames, but I’m not sure it really does much of that.

A full 4k scan of a 35mm print of TPM would be perfect for my PT color grading project. I’m very much looking forward to this. It would work as just the right color reference for regrading the new 4K master, which I believe is just the same colors as the blu-ray but in 10 bit HDR.

Meanwhile the new 4K versions of AOTC and ROTS are accurate colors to the original 2K DCP’s, with the exception of it now being 10 bit HDR, and it’s easy enough to throw on a print emulation lut of the correct stock onto those to create 35mm print accurate colors of those. Still it would help to have 4K scans of 35mm prints anyhow just to make sure that I can tweak the emulation just right to match.

I’m thinking when the 4K discs come out, I can create essential versions of this project that would try best to recreate the look of their theatrical prints, and I would likely list these as a separate project.

The grades would be blanket and be in SDR, but still 4K. No AI sharpening will be done to the footage, and neither will upscaled deleted scenes be included.

This will simply emulate the Kodak print stocks and accompanying grain.

This will not be replacements for the full blown editions, but will help at least have more pleasing versions to view and base fan edits off until I one day get this massive project complete.

Are people here interested?

I don’t remember the GOUT being that compressed…are you working with the source file or a re-encoded RIP?

You can batch process it in photoshop using the plugin version, but Topaz did say they may be adding batch processing directly in the app at some point this year.

So likely I will plan out the rough plan for grading each film and then move on to sharpening all the shots. From there I will do the shot by shot color grade followed by film grain application.

For now, I’ve just been using the standard AI Gigapixel as I do many of my tests based on lossless screenshots to save unnecessary rendering times, but I’ll be working on using the video edition as soon as I can get windows up and running again on my laptop.

Standard AI Gigapixel doesn’t produce bad artifacts in motion from what I’ve tested but the advantage the video version is that it takes multiple frames into account and is able to recover more true detail via the motion.

I still have to test for motion consistency in Sharpen AI on video as that is what I will be using for creating the appearance of native 4K from the official 4K upscales of the PT coming in a few months.

It works better with close-ups such as this, but as you can see the DVD deleted scenes will look better than ever!

I watched the 4K HDR version on Disney+ and it was beautiful, would love to see it without all that compression.

Still tho, I just want all those damn deleted and alternate materials. Considering how long it took for some OT deleted scenes to release, it could be one hell of a wait still.

Hmm, that doesn’t really seem to follow the idea that Ep IX was supposed to be Leia’s movie, as TFA’s was Han’s, and TLJ was Luke’s. Makes me doubt its legitimacy.

While the plot sounds more interesting and respectful of TLJ, it’s impossible to make a judgement without reading it directly. Some of the best movies have the worst plots, and vice versa.

So while I wait for the 4K blu-rays to release, I’m going to go back and rework the deleted scenes from the DVD releases. So you can look forward to screenshots from those in the coming weeks.

Unfortunately though, I think it will be a while till I can get a new Desktop setup for this project. While I can generate previews and do tests on my laptop, it’s not really feasible to actually complete this project entirely on there. But I’ll be doing some research and hopefully I can build a new PC at some point in this new year.

So I’ve been looking at the new 10 bit 4K releases on Disney+ and given that these will release on 4K Bluray this Spring, this will be the new source to use likely. The extra bit depth and flatter image (when HDR is not applied), will be incredibly useful when it comes to allowing for strong regrading. Unfortunately there is still DNR with TPM and AOTC to deal with, but from my analysis, the pros outway the cons.

In terms of the whole AI upscaling, I am instead going to be using AI sharpening. I’ve tested Topaz Sharpen AI on several 4K Blu-rays that are upscales from 2K DI’s, and it does a fantastic job at adding detail to the already upscaled image.

So this is the ranking from Metacritic and I have to say that I think I agree with this for the most part.

1- A New Hope
2- The Last Jedi
3- The Empire Strikes Back
4- The Force Awakens
5- Revenge of the Sith
6- Rogue One
7- Solo
8- Return of the Jedi
9- Attack of the Clones
10- The Rise of Skywalker
11- The Phantom Menace

What do you guys think?

I’ll hopefully be seeing this tonight with my girlfriend. My expectations are quite low, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy it a lot even if it is a complete mess. JJ movies are always fun, but they never hold up to much scrutiny.

TFA was a nostalgia trip, TLJ was the most original SW movie since ESB, RO was a hyper-realistic portrayal of SW77, and Solo was a low stakes adventure. They’ve all offered something enjoyable even if they have all had their issues.

I just got my first 4K HDR tv (65 inch 2019 TCL 6 series) and to be honest I haven’t spent enough time to really tell the difference between the HDR formats. If there was somehow a comparison mode, that would be useful.

I’m frustrated tho that Disney+ doesn’t always opt for Dolby Vision and sometimes just selects HDR10.

I’m sure it won’t be anything larger than what happened in Endgame, but I’m still happy to hear some progress towards LGBTQ inclusion in the Star Wars movies.

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/star-wars-rise-skywalker-director-j-j-abrams-hints-lgbtq-n1095496

So with having Disney+, I’ve finally been able to work on watching the last season and a half of Rebels, now I’m wondering why in The Manadalorian is everyone so obsessed with keeping their helmets on? No one seems to do that in TCW or Rebels.

As someone that’s worked with the 4K Blu-ray of Solo, yes you can get a 10 bit flat image. It allows for a ton more flexibility in grading. There are ways of chroma upsampling and flattening footage yourself which I’ve had to learn for regrading the prequels, but having the real thing will always be better.

Hence, I’m definitely waiting for the 4K Blu-rays to work with for my prequel regrades.

So I got Disney+ today and I scrolled through the prequels and they don’t look too much different to my eyes at first. TPM would still be the best looking prequel if it wasn’t for the heavy DNR. AOTC still seems to have that DNR like the blu-ray which scrubs detail away too although the colors do look somewhere between the theatrical and blu-ray. ROTS is still really the only one that looks correct to it’s theatrical presentation. Either way all these films need heavy regrading to look as good as the newer ST movies, not to mention image enhancement techniques to resolve issues related to older digital equipment.

I was watching in 1080p on my Macbook Pro. I’ll have to go back later to see what it looks like in 4K HDR to see if the upscales and HDR grading are decent.

Honestly tho in terms of fine detail research, I’ll be waiting for the UHD Blu-rays.

I also scrolled through ANH, and while the grade is much better than the blu-ray, it still doesn’t look right to my eyes. Too dark and dull. The color pallete is mostly pleasing. I still think Adywan’s regrade of the blu-ray for ANH:R HD looks the best, albeit with the noise and banding issues of the old transfer. The new transfer definitely has smoother gradients and less noise, as well as more fine detail. I’m hoping Ady considers using these as the basis for Revisited, as they have the superior color resolution similar to 4K77 but the fine detail of being sourced from the negative. Mike Verta’s work tho is still my favorite when it comes to restoring the original colors, tho I’d rather the film look it’s best than be pure to the theatrical experience. (although ideally we should have both)

I’ll take a look at ESB and ROTJ hopefully tomorrow.

FreezingTNT2 said:

emanswfan said:

Adywan is definitely not doing anything more than 720p for his edits still, but I’m planning on creating 4K versions of Revisited via AI upscaling along with a 10 bit upsampled HDR color grade.

I would love to see Harmy do 4K Despecialized however if he’s up to it. Although I’m still wondering about if the detail level is really greater in these new 4K masters.

Which ANH:R are you going to be doing? The original ANH:R, or ANH:R HD?

I’m waiting for ANH:R HD, in fact I’m waiting for the BD-25 releases of all three HD Revisited edits because of the higher bit rate. I will post some example screenshots and clips tho for ESB:R based off the MKV.

Adywan is definitely not doing anything more than 720p for his edits still, but I’m planning on creating 4K versions of Revisited via AI upscaling along with a 10 bit upsampled HDR color grade.

I would love to see Harmy do 4K Despecialized however if he’s up to it. Although I’m still wondering about if the detail level is really greater in these new 4K masters.

Are The Clone Wars series in 4K HDR? I remember MSW saying they were remastering the series in 4K a few years back.