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Phantom Menace '99 - HD Theatrical Version by Chewielewis (a WIP) — Page 3

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Chewielewis said:

That’s fine, I’m not asking for copies of your work. But you say you have a “True HD” source but as far as anyone is aware this source does not exists. If it does exists I want to know about it. If you want to keep it to yourself thats totally understandable.

I never said that I have a “true HD source” of the entire movie. But yes, there are some “true HD” clips available here and there. You didn’t know about the 2 missing podrace scenes that are available in HD in the bonuses of the Digital Collection a week ago before Schorman told you. So believe me, there are other good surprises in HD. Some of them are already discussed on this forum, so I wouldn’t say that “as far as anyone is aware this source does not exists”.
Your last answer seems to imply that I’m lying, which is not very pleasant.

And I think that’s a fair question when you come into my thread and show how all your work is much better than my work.

I didn’t come to show how my work is better than yours, in fact I even wrote the opposite :

ZigZig said:

anyway, your version is very compelling (based on your latest screenshots), I’m pretty sure that it is better than mine on other scenes that this particular one.

So I truly apologize if you understood my messages in a way that I did not want to give them.

My first post asked you for a collaboration with just 2 examples of what I get, but you honestly didn’t seem very interested and just gave a polite answer.
Then other people showed more interest and asked for other screenshots, and I tried to answer to them.

As I said before, I do not want to walk on your flowerbeds and I won’t even release something before several weeks. I would be happy to go further in this discussion with you through private messages, but I don’t want to continue answering publicly and then make me blame because I would give the impression of praising my work to the detriment of yours.

So this is my last post in this thread.

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Understood.

ZigZig said:
I would be happy to go further in this discussion with you through private messages.

We’ll do just that.

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Quite impressed with how fast you’re getting to the end with a release of this. Gotta have a true theatrical version to compliment my I Am Shark vinyl. If you still need testers, would be up for it.

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Wow! I have been looking for this for a long time. What a work you make, it sounds amazing. I cant wait to watch TPM in its original cut, I hope it will be easy to find a copy out there

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mike_shaman said:

I have been looking for this for a long time.

Yes, I bet you have.

“Get over violence, madness and death? What else is there?”

Also known as Mr. Liquid Jungle.

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Definitely looking forward to this. So many projects of this started here, and finally looks like we’ll see an actual release from someone! We all get caught up in perfectionism, but so many of us here aren’t capable of much of the work that goes into these projects - getting our hands on something tangible is a real pleasure. Please count me in on release candidate checks, and I’m so happy to finally see the Orf make it into a project (one of the few useable things I’ve been able to bring to the site).

Preferred Saga:
1/2: Hal9000
3: L8wrtr
4/5: Adywan
6-9: Hal9000

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Hi all

So I’ve re done a lot of stuff i thought i wouldn’t. Sync is redone, new audio tracks (thanks Schorman). I have a brand new Coruscant sequence that uses some pretty interesting technique that I think might be new to the Fanres community. Will elaborate soon, have to do a write up.

Im stuck on Subtitles again. Timing is all sorted, its just a case of getting the right alignment, character spacing, ect. With only a crummy VHS recording to work with, its not easy. It seems very difficult to get a one size fits all setting, and now I’m not sure if every subtitle uses the same character layout. longer ones seem more condensed. It doesn’t help that we don’t have the exact font used.

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Why is it syncing to the Laserdisc audio and not the Cinema DTS? Just curious.

Nobody sang The Bunny Song in years…

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Danfun128 said:

Why is it syncing to the Laserdisc audio and not the Cinema DTS? Just curious.

It’s got both now. Although I’m not sure which one is better.

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Glad to hear progress has been made! As for subtitles they looked pretty good on the previous version but if you’re worried about character spacing for longer lines I’d suggest looking for a kerning option when you add the text

The user formerly known as “Trillary Dump” (it was the 2016 election…)

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I don’t think you need to worry too much about matching the kerning and such precisely with the sources we have. Get it close, and when Poita’s 35mm scan is completed, we will have a very good reference to use for a v2 upgrade.

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Greetings all. Long time OT reader, first time poster. I anxiously await Chewielewis’s write up on this theatrical reconstruction and would like to know if there is any assistance (i.e. quality check-wise or just a donation similar to poita’s project) that I may provide. I know I’m a bit late to the party, but I look forward to seeing how everything turns out nonetheless. Thanks in advance and MTFBWY.

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Thanks Dusty. Donations to Poitas scanning fund are always welcome. I’ll put you on the list to get the preview when its done.

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As for the coruscant Scene, Ive used a technique known as datamoshing. Its how you get trippy music videos like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvqakws0CeU.

The jist of it is that you remove the I frames from a mpeg video causing a video glitch. What I’ve done is rendered out the last frame of the HD source, a frame of black, then the SD portion of the source with the first frame being identical to that last HD frame. Then using Avidemux I remove the frame of black and the first frame of the SD source so that the following P and B frames reference the HD frame. What you get is basically the SD video wearing the HD video’s skin, not sure the best way to explain it.

Its not perfect and a lot more work could be put into tweaking it, it will only last a second of so but its enough to blend the frames over the gaps. Ive done it for the quigot shot and before and after the tower shot (playing the wipe transition in reverse to get the tower side of it, since the glitches only work one way).

Here are some comparison shots from the SD sources (4 sources blended together: two LD scans, Canal+ TB and ORF1 DVB) Compared with the datamoshed results. Also I did this multiple times with different combinations of sources and add blended several together to make the best looking image. Note the missing or garbled information on the edges, this will all be cropped out or filled in somehow.

Quigon Shot http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/K7KLNNNX
Tower shot (last frame before cut) http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/F9CCNNNU

I suspect that this is pretty close to the method that ZigZig is using. His look a bit better and he’s used a bit of edge fill in as well. Apologies if I stole your thunder… again.

Right now im working on redoing the subtitles, another pass at them might get them looking more accurate. I swear this release is comming out soon.

And in an unrelated note, I’ve started working on a new project that may be of use for star wars restoration. Imagine, if you will, being able to create whatever version of star wars you want, all with a simple formula.

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Nice work Chewielewis !

Chewielewis said:

I suspect that this is pretty close to the method that ZigZig is using. His look a bit better and he’s used a bit of edge fill in as well. Apologies if I stole your thunder… again.

Actually, I didn’t use this datamoshing method at all. In fact, I had never heard of it. My method is more based on modeling. Indeed, it can probably give better results than yours, but it takes a lot longer than your method because I have not managed to automate the whole process. So my method can be useful only for short scenes (like the missing ones in TPM), but I guess that your method is more “universal” since it can be used for longer scenes, even if the final result is maybe a little less good.

No secret, I’m preparing a short tutorial about mine technique too.

Anyway, thank you for your technical explanation, it’s this kind of message thanks to which I learn things, that makes me really like this forum!

Chewielewis said:

Right now im working on redoing the subtitles, another pass at them might get them looking more accurate. I swear this release is comming out soon.

Good luck for your upcoming release !

Chewielewis said:

And in an unrelated note, I’ve started working on a new project that may be of use for star wars restoration. Imagine, if you will, being able to create whatever version of star wars you want, all with a simple formula.

Is it something similar to this idea posted a few hours ago: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Fan-Editor-Script-File-Universal-Project-File/id/61376 ?

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ZigZig said:
Actually, I didn’t use this datamoshing method at all. In fact, I had never heard of it. My method is more based on modeling. Indeed, it can probably give better results than yours, but it takes a lot longer than your method because I have not managed to automate the whole process. So my method can be useful only for short scenes (like the missing ones in TPM), but I guess that your method is more “universal” since it can be used for longer scenes, even if the final result is maybe a little less good.

This is really only good for a handful of frames too, I suspect it will be useful for replacing missing single frames from 35mm prints, hdtv streams ect. Its something I’ve had in my mind for a long time, surprised to see it actually worked to an extent.

Chewielewis said:

And in an unrelated note, I’ve started working on a new project that may be of use for star wars restoration. Imagine, if you will, being able to create whatever version of star wars you want, all with a simple formula.

Is it something similar to this idea posted a few hours ago: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Fan-Editor-Script-File-Universal-Project-File/id/61376 ?

Oh Goddamn it. I swear this has been invading my mind for the last two nights now, keeping me awake. Yeah similar but like most things, different approaches.

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Amazing progress! I imagine those shots will blend in nicely with the rest of the movie. Did you end up doing something similar with the bridge shot/Senate scene? IIRC the changed area was a bit fuzzy so maybe that would make it blend in seamlessly. Also thanks for doing this, I know not many people would care to restore this film but I’m just glad that someone is

The user formerly known as “Trillary Dump” (it was the 2016 election…)

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trillary dump said:

Amazing progress! I imagine those shots will blend in nicely with the rest of the movie. Did you end up doing something similar with the bridge shot/Senate scene?

Not quite, the technique really only works to extend HD frames over SD frames. Not quite applicable here.

Working this close to the film really gives me an appreciation of how hard people worked on it. Also how not hard people worked on it. There are a heck of a lot of silly mistakes dotted all through this. CGI errors, sound errors, background talent, art department, you name it.

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Ah gotcha. Don’t get me wrong I love this movie…it has a weird charm for sure. But I think they set the release date and rushed to get it done and that’s why there’s lots of sloppy mistakes…at least that’s what it seemed like in the behind the scenes doc as shown in this pic.

https://i.imgur.com/I3vElGT.jpg

The user formerly known as “Trillary Dump” (it was the 2016 election…)

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trillary dump said:

Ah gotcha. Don’t get me wrong I love this movie…it has a weird charm for sure. But I think they set the release date and rushed to get it done and that’s why there’s lots of sloppy mistakes…at least that’s what it seemed like in the behind the scenes doc as shown in this pic.

https://i.imgur.com/I3vElGT.jpg

Well, what are my chances of running into you again? I agree with the rushed production flaws, and I would like to add that I felt like they spent a little to much time without Anikin in the film considering he is the main character in the Prequels.

I’ve gone batshit several times over for the sake of historical preservation…

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ChewieLewis, your datamoshing results look good. Do you have the latest version of Photoshop? The reason I ask is because I took your Coruscant frames into PS CC 2018 and ran the Shake Reduction filter on it and I think it made your image even better. The only issue is that it does create some weird artifacts on some edges, but if it’s only used for a few frames, it’s not too hard to make a Layer Mask and paint out the artifacts. That, plus using maybe less than full opacity of the Shake Reduction layer might help.

If you’re interested, send me a Private Message. I can either tell you how to run the filter, or since I’m a CC subscriber, I can do the process for you. Just a thought; you don’t have to take me up on it. Either way, keep up the good work. 😃

What can you get a Wookiee for (Life Day) Christmas when he already owns a comb?