logo Sign In

4K77 - Released — Page 5

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Re is Mike’s revisionist, well it depends how you want to define it.
An IB Tech print cannot block 100% of the projector light at normal projection light levels, there are no true blacks in a cinema, so if you feel that adjusting black levels to be lower than the black levels in a cinema, then pretty much all restorations I’ve seen so far would be revisionist under that definition.

I think with Mike Verta, he has said outright that his is a restoration, not a preservation as such. He is layering prints to end up with a grain pattern that would never have been seen in any cinema, and has effectively re-created the crawl and recomposited other shots in his videos. I believe he is trying to stick to using original elements, but improving them to a level that they theoretically could have been at in 1977.

When it comes to colour, unless you are sitting in a cinema with the print, and doing your colour adjustments based on that, and revisiting them again by watching the print etc. then the grade is going to be revisionist, from a certain point of view.

However if you take a straight scan, and do a ‘one light’ correction to each reel, then the scenes will keep their colour relative to each other. i.e. you can see that the background space colour is lighter in scene 3 than in scene 2, but darker than scene 4. You can see that the Falcon walls are more towards yellow in shot 27 than in shot 14. The presentation will reatin the relative colour and shade values that the original had, so you are closer to seeing how the print looked originally.
Your base might be off, but each scene maintains its relative relationship to each other scene.

Trying to get to the original theatrical presentation colours is a very tricky exercise.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Danfun128 said:

So…is this more detailed or less detailed compared to other major preservations like the Neverar Technicolor version of the 2004/2011 SE? Is every frame that’s in the GOUT accounted for here?

My thoughts on this are here, but the short of it is that it’s differently detailed. The major difference other than the SE changes are that the colors are less consistent in 4K77.

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

Author
Time

NeverarGreat said:

Danfun128 said:

So…is this more detailed or less detailed compared to other major preservations like the Neverar Technicolor version of the 2004/2011 SE? Is every frame that’s in the GOUT accounted for here?

My thoughts on this are [here], but the short of it is that it’s differently detailed. The major difference other than the SE changes are that the colors are less consistent in 4K77.

Psuedo link

Author
Time

If anyone has a link to a .torrent or MEGA please PM me!!!

Author
Time
 (Edited)

dahmage said:

NeverarGreat said:

Danfun128 said:

So…is this more detailed or less detailed compared to other major preservations like the Neverar Technicolor version of the 2004/2011 SE? Is every frame that’s in the GOUT accounted for here?

My thoughts on this are here, but the short of it is that it’s differently detailed. The major difference other than the SE changes are that the colors are less consistent in 4K77.

Psuedo link

D’oh.

Fixed.

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

Author
Time

Wow, tried watching the 4k version and my computer just about had a heart attack. Time to download the 1080p version…

Author
Time
 (Edited)

I watched this a few nights ago and it looks fantastic! Needs some more fixes, but as a whole it was so great and obviously a labor of love. Imagine an official 4k release down the road and this used to correct all the edits like the Harmy Despecialized editions. MMMMMM…

Author
Time

^^ Yes, people are reporting that their PCs are struggling with the UHD version (not all UHD, just this particular file). Why this should be, I’ve no idea.

Author
Time

It’s significantly higher bitrate than most uhd remuxes out there thats for sure.

Author
Time

I think my computer needs a better graphics card for it.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

poita said:

An IB Tech print cannot block 100% of the projector light at normal projection light levels, there are no true blacks in a cinema, so if you feel that adjusting black levels to be lower than the black levels in a cinema, then pretty much all restorations I’ve seen so far would be revisionist under that definition.

Good masking in the cinema compensates for this. The experience I have in my favourite cinemas is a world away from what I get at the “everyday cinemas”. It’s difficult to classify them, as some of the cinemas that have no screen masking and letterbox their projections are chains, and some are independent. In any case though, when the cinema is properly darkened with proper screen masking the black level being a dark grey is no longer an issue. I’m sure you agree, but I want to point that out to others here.

When it comes to colour, unless you are sitting in a cinema with the print, and doing your colour adjustments based on that, and revisiting them again by watching the print etc. then the grade is going to be revisionist, from a certain point of view.

And it really depends on the movie too. Some films are consistent with their black level and colour timing throughout, and others aren’t, and others are 95% consistent and there may be just one or two shots that are noticeably different. That’s my experience anyway.

And not only that, but some films look GREAT on 35mm, and others looked shocking. To give an example, I recently saw Batman 1989, and, The Untouchables 1987. I was absolutely stoked to see both. Batman was amazing - it looked great, and if memory serves me right what I was saying about consistency it may have had just 1 or 2 shots that looked a little off in colour timing/contrast levels. The Untouchables looked like utter shit, flickering throughout the entire movie. Yellow skin-tones. It was horrible, I never in my life want to see the film look like that again - it well deserves a better presentation than the 35mm theatrical prints afforded it. And yes, flicker is present in most films - but sometimes there’s none at all, and usually there isn’t a lot of it, and usually it’s not very obtrusive. (edit to add) and in case anyone is wondering this was in cinema with proper masking, and both films I saw in the same cinema.

Trying to get to the original theatrical presentation colours is a very tricky exercise.

I think that’s in vein. It’s not what people want, they want the film to look and feel the same, but they certainly don’t want flicker and other inconsistencies inherent in the original prints. And they certainly don’t want to see what The Untouchables prints looked like transferred to digital - you would definitely need to de-flicker the film and then do some modest colour timing to makes the presentation more palatable. It only makes sense to talk about 100% theatrical accuracy when the film’s theatrical presentation itself was 100%. Which is often the case actually, but just as often there are issues like colour timing, inconsistent black levels, flicker, and with IB prints as they are dye-transferred channel misalignment.

[ Scanning stuff since 2015 ]

Author
Time
 (Edited)

timemeddler said:

I think my computer needs a better graphics card for it.

Yes, without official x265 hardware acceleration you are probably out of luck (unless you have a powerhouse workstation). I would rather go for buying a 4K UHD player and a 128GB USB 3.0 stick and playing that movie via your TV or preferably a projector. The Panasonic UHD players are very good at converting HDR to SDR and 4k to 1080p, so you can watch Star Wars 4K on any regular TV/projector and still have the benefit of better grain compression via the x265 codec and maybe even better colors.

Some UHD Players are getting cheaper already these days. The Panasonic UB-404 was under 200 Dollars the last time that I checked. Mine included 2 movies, “Passengers” and “Life”.

@deep blacks:

A projection cannot show really deep blacks. E.g. Christopher Nolan (of Interstellar fame) color-times all his movies with raised blacks for home-cinema to replicate the theatrical experience. For this reason he uses an IP for all his movies as the starting point. So colors and the grain are closer to theatrical prints then a scan from the OCN would have been.
Mike Verta on the other hand color-timed for rather deep blacks to hide the matte boxes in space. Because matte-boxes wouldn’t have been visible projected in cinema as well. So he was in a bit of conflict: Raised blacks as projected or visible matte boxes as not seen projected. I think that hiding the matte boxes was a wise choice. Because most people will watch Star Wars on the TV Screen and wouldn’t care that those black levels wouldn’t have been possible projected.

“People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians”

“In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be “replaced” by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.” --George Lucas on March 3, 1988

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Even with a GPU that can easily handle it, some people (including myself) ran into problems with the file. I don’t think there’s any way to play it back properly with VLC, for instance.

In MPC, make sure to install and enable MadVR for proper playback. I went from 16 FPS to full speed (and apparently being able to decode a few hundred fps), so it makes a difference.

Others have reported that the latest PowerDVD works fine.

Author
Time

NeverarGreat said:

I’d argue that there’s more detail overall in 4K77 than in the Blu-ray. The Blu-ray has been degrained, sharpened, and regrained so that the resulting image is very ‘flat’, meaning that fine details in already in-focus areas are distorted, whereas out-of-focus elements are sharpened. So whereas the impression upon seeing the Blu-ray is that it is sharper, you’re losing the natural depth of field from the original photography. 4K77 retains this.

The most noticeable issue with 4K77 is the inconsistent color grade, but that’s just how it looked on a Technicolor print.

Funny, I was just comparing 4K77 to Despecialized last night, and although there’s more textural detail in Despecialized (visible in characters’ skin, fabrics, etc.), I couldn’t help but feel that the overall image felt “flat” compared to 4K77. Thanks for explaining why this is.

“It’s a lot of fun… it’s a lot of fun to watch Star Wars.” – Bill Moyers

Author
Time

Had a chance to peruse this last night and this morning. I am stunned. It’s hard to imagine a print in better condition. And I really agree with the minimal color tweaking and method in which it was done. The transitions between the sources are nearly flawless, and are so necessary to maintain GOUT sync. Willarob and the rest of TeamNegative1 should be given medals. This is obviously a labor of love, and I’m so happy that they were generous enough to share it with us. Thank you!

Author
Time

corellian77 said:

NeverarGreat said:

I’d argue that there’s more detail overall in 4K77 than in the Blu-ray. The Blu-ray has been degrained, sharpened, and regrained so that the resulting image is very ‘flat’, meaning that fine details in already in-focus areas are distorted, whereas out-of-focus elements are sharpened. So whereas the impression upon seeing the Blu-ray is that it is sharper, you’re losing the natural depth of field from the original photography. 4K77 retains this.

The most noticeable issue with 4K77 is the inconsistent color grade, but that’s just how it looked on a Technicolor print.

Funny, I was just comparing 4K77 to Despecialized last night, and although there’s more textural detail in Despecialized (visible in characters’ skin, fabrics, etc.), I couldn’t help but feel that the overall image felt “flat” compared to 4K77. Thanks for explaining why this is.

I wonder if there’s a way to achieve more detail by overlaying one over the other.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Octorox said:

corellian77 said:

NeverarGreat said:

I’d argue that there’s more detail overall in 4K77 than in the Blu-ray. The Blu-ray has been degrained, sharpened, and regrained so that the resulting image is very ‘flat’, meaning that fine details in already in-focus areas are distorted, whereas out-of-focus elements are sharpened. So whereas the impression upon seeing the Blu-ray is that it is sharper, you’re losing the natural depth of field from the original photography. 4K77 retains this.

The most noticeable issue with 4K77 is the inconsistent color grade, but that’s just how it looked on a Technicolor print.

Funny, I was just comparing 4K77 to Despecialized last night, and although there’s more textural detail in Despecialized (visible in characters’ skin, fabrics, etc.), I couldn’t help but feel that the overall image felt “flat” compared to 4K77. Thanks for explaining why this is.

I wonder if there’s a way to achieve more detail by overlaying one over the other.

Well, if you tint one red and the other blue, and then you wear these glasses…

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

Author
Time

Okay just ordered a 4gb 128 bit gtx 960 video card for 25 bucks from ebay, which is basically the next step up from my current one and supports h265, I’ll let everyone know if it makes a difference.

Just my two cents on the detail level from watching my re-encode, it may not be what some people expect of blurays, but having watched tons of older films on bluray, this is very comparable and in many ways far better than some films I’ve watched. The grain is hardly noticeable for most of the movie, it’s like a comprimise between silver screen and despecialized, minimal grain and plenty of detail and still has the appearance a 70’s film.

Author
Time

Very excited to finally watch this! Looks like the Despecialized Edition is a bit outmoded these days.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

This is glorious!!! I already started working on the next DeEd using this and Neverar’s regrade of the BD as a source. (I know I said I would do ESB v2.5 first but this makes me a lot more motivated 😄 )

I would just say though, that I wouldn’t rush to buy an expensive new video card, if you don’t need it for anything else, because for normal viewing, the benefits of the 4K version over upscaling the 1080p version are negligible, since the detail just isn’t there in the prints.

Here are a few comparison screenshots:
https://i.imgur.com/oABAiva.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/RiFs4wO.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/o5kSdDU.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/5rsTD7d.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/1AK3isK.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/jE6WvED.jpg

As you can see the only thing that is visibly sharper in the UHD version are the scratches on the print. Not even the grain is sharper.

Author
Time

Williarob said:

The DNR version is coming along quite nicely I think:

Imgur

Imgur

Looks great so far! Here’s the non-DNR release for comparison.

Imgur

Imgur

Do you have an estimated release?

Author
Time

Harmy said:

the benefits of the 4K version over upscaling the 1080p version are negligible, since the detail just isn’t there in the prints.

But what about the HDR colorspace? It won’t matter for me since I have no equipment capable of displaying 4K resolution or HDR color, but surely less color banding would be a nice an improvement (though maybe not nice enough to warrant dropping lots of cash on new hardware, in which case your point stands)

Just finished getting the 1080p copy. I’ll be uploading it to my iPad tonight so I can get a preview glimpse, but I’ll have to order some dual layer BD-Rs and find a time when I can visit my friend and mooch his Blu-ray burner before I can properly view this on my big tv at home.

So pumped! Great job to all involved!

Also, totally random thought… Willarob (or anyone else who knows), is the “negative-one” moniker a reference to the character of the same name in the “Countdown” episode of The IT Crowd? I rewatched that one recently and did a double-take when I caught that guy’s name.

Author
Time

The 4K release is 10 bit color, but it’s not HDR.