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Mr. Plinkett's Prequel Reviews Remastered in HD? (TPM & AOTC - done; ROTS - a WIP) — Page 3

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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?

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Looks great, BlueCopy, didn’t really notice anything off, though I guess judging by the 3 part structure, RLM must have deleted the original 8-9 parts from Youtube?

FINISHED Projects: Chronologically LOST HD

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Yea I don’t think those are available anymore.

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I have the original files that were hosted on blip.tv before it shut down. (They can be found on archive.org). They are in a higher bit-rate than the youtube uploads, with the original cut for episode three with the Nadine bits. I will pm you links.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture DE - The Anti-DNR Fanedit
Duel (1971) - The Hybrid Cut
The Phantom of the Opera - 1925 Version Reconstruction - Rare Scores Collection - Roy Budd Score

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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.

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Sounds great! Glad I could be some small help.

Have you considered using a color corrected version of the OT blurays? (at least for when he isn’t specifically criticizing the special edition). The BDs have notoriously bad colors, and better color would let them compare favorably to other films. I know you’ve already done all the hard editing work, but Neverar’s A New Hope Technicolor Recreation is in sync with the bluray, so potentially you could drop it into your edit without too much trouble.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture DE - The Anti-DNR Fanedit
Duel (1971) - The Hybrid Cut
The Phantom of the Opera - 1925 Version Reconstruction - Rare Scores Collection - Roy Budd Score

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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.

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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"
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BD25 shouldn’t be pushing it too much, especially if a good chunk came from DVDs and from a 360p source.

FINISHED Projects: Chronologically LOST HD

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

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Seeing as its not actually the movies, but just YouTube reviews of the movie, I think one bd25 would be enough.

Not at all knocking this or what it is or YouTube reviews, just saying that for myself and I imagine most people having video quality slightly below that of a feature film for a video of this nature would be perfectly acceptable.

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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.

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I know of a laserdisc transfer someone did but has Japanese subtitles on it, but I had another look and there looks to be a French one too but no idea how that is.

FINISHED Projects: Chronologically LOST HD

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There might be one or two on MySpleen I can snag for you if you don’t have an account. They have freeleech right now so it won’t kill my ratio. I can check when I get home later tonight.

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I really like Neverar’s Technicolor Recreation. I had to trim one frame on the beginning of it and then all my cuts were correct. It can kinda looks strange when jumping between clips of technicolor A New Hope to bluray Empire and Jedi. The colors are noticeably different and it almost looks distracting to me. Maybe I am looking to close at it. I am not sure if I should go for consistency between the sources or 1 for 3 on a better looking source for the original trilogy.

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I don’t think there is a similar project for empire and jedi that is in sync with the blurays.

JawsTDS did some one pass color regrades for the blurays. You might ask him for the color settings for empire and jedi and see if you can apply something similar in avisynth.

You_Too actually posted avisynth scripts way back in 2011, but the curves are now offline, and he hasn’t been around here in a while.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture DE - The Anti-DNR Fanedit
Duel (1971) - The Hybrid Cut
The Phantom of the Opera - 1925 Version Reconstruction - Rare Scores Collection - Roy Budd Score

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I might just re-cut all the non-special edition parts from harmy’s editions to just give it a consistent feeling for the Original Trilogy clips. There aren’t that many clips from the OT so it shouldn’t take that long.

I was trying to match the fonts used in the original video so far. I am going back and replacing when Arial subtitles were used and using AlternateGotNo3D used for OT star wars subtitles. It makes them feel more integrated to me. Arial is just kinda ugly as a subtitle font to me.

I also have been going through and doing little retouches like adding a transparency to glass parts of the gin bottle overlay so it looks like a more realistic bottle. I know this wasn’t done in the original but I think it looks better.

Sources I am currently using in the TPM review.

  1. Star Wars Blurays for Episode 1-6 Footage.
  2. Schorman’s version of Episode 1 for changed scenes from DVD (Mainly Puppet Yoda)
  3. Episode 1 DVD Menu Intro
  4. Episode 1 DVD Extras
    A. The Beginning
    B. Web Documentary Part 1 - All I Need is an Idea
    C. Web Documentary Part 6 - Prime of the Jedi
  5. OT DVD Documentary “Empire of Dreams”
  6. Episode 2 DVD Extras
    A. Action Featurette
    B. From Puppets To Pixels - Digital Characters In Episode II
    C. State Of The Art - The Pre-Visualization Of Episode II
  7. From Star Wars to Jedi - The Making of a Saga (HBO to DVD capture)
  8. Bluray Movies for Protagonist Examples Segment
    A. Spider-Man
    B. Spider-Man 2
    C. The Matrix
    D. Gremlins
    E. Back to the Future
    F. Die Hard
    G. The Terminator
    H. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
    I. The Rocketeer
    J. Starship Troopers
    K. Tremors
    L. Rocky

I will upload another test encode to youtube sometime when I finish re-editing the OT parts.

The Episode 2 Pre-viz documentary is actually annoying to edit from because it is a variable frame rate mpeg-2. They mix 29.976 interlaced footage with 23.976 with a 3:2 pulldown.

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BlueCopy said:

I might just re-cut all the non-special edition parts from harmy’s editions to just give it a consistent feeling for the Original Trilogy clips. There aren’t that many clips from the OT so it shouldn’t take that long.

Since Harmy’s using my project for V3 of Despecialized, doing the Tech version for ANH and Despecialized for the sequels would be a bit of future-proofing.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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NeverarGreat said:
Since Harmy’s using my project for V3 of Despecialized, doing the Tech version for ANH and Despecialized for the sequels would be a bit of future-proofing.

Thanks that is probably the best plan. I will do that.

I switched over to the French LaserDisc of “From Star Wars to Jedi” because it looks better then the hbo capture. Luckily only the movie scenes are subtitled and the Lucas interview is all dubbed.

I am trying out applying a noise filter to only the low light scenes in “The Beginning: Making Star Wars Episode I”. I think it was shot on a late 90’s DV camera whose ccd didn’t handle low light very well. The noisiness kept bothering me.



I am using a script called mClean. It isn’t perfect but I will keep playing with the parameters and see if it can do better.

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This is a fantastic idea, thanks for the project!

I just started watching and the only thing I’ve noticed so far is that the font for the title card recreations doesn’t quite seem to match up (title card number one, the “1”, “E”, “C”, “R”, etc. are different). The original seems to use a smaller kerning as well.

The change from vertical to star wars scrolling is also a little jarring (to me).

It’s hard to get used to watching these in such pristine detail after watching the grainy, washed out versions for so long 😃

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I was using the wrong font on the early single part versions. I switched to a font I found called Han Solo. It didn’t match some characters like the number “4” for some reason. I was not sure what to do about it though because I couldn’t seem to find one that matched exactly.

I also I had to use an uppercase Y rather then the lowercase Y to match the shape from the original. I am not sure why that is exactly.