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Star Wars Prequels 35mm 4K Filmized Editions by Emanswfan (a WIP) — Page 34

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ChainsawAsh said:

Well, the AOTC Blu-ray colors are all fucked up and there’s a ton of DNR and other processing done to it. That’s why 95% of all fan edits and other fan projects for AOTC are done using the high-bitrate HDTV caps, which have the right color and, even after some processing to reduce compression artifacts, more detail than the Blu-ray.

I’d be more surprised if your scans resembled the Blu-ray at all.

interesting and kind of ridiculous as no way HDTV should be able to beat blu

so does the HDTV stuff look like my scans in terms of color and luminance curve?

the more I compare to my scans the more I can see they did various bits of DNR and digital noise smoothing and even hidden sharpening and so on with the filtering hitting areas of low contrast more

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when the supposed Disney Insider supposedly working on a new 4k Star Wars UHD said that they were redoing some CGI to 4k for AOTC/ROTS but that the 2k shooting meant the live action could not be made to look any better than on the current blu… that would seem to be false, even just from my scans I can see that all of AOTC could have been done better on the blu even with CGI as is

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MonkeyLizard10 said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Well, the AOTC Blu-ray colors are all fucked up and there’s a ton of DNR and other processing done to it. That’s why 95% of all fan edits and other fan projects for AOTC are done using the high-bitrate HDTV caps, which have the right color and, even after some processing to reduce compression artifacts, more detail than the Blu-ray.

I’d be more surprised if your scans resembled the Blu-ray at all.

interesting and kind of ridiculous as no way HDTV should be able to beat blu

so does the HDTV stuff look like my scans in terms of color and luminance curve?

Yep, absolutely.

It’s funny, being a member of this forum so long I kind of take it for granted that people are aware of how God awful the BD of AOTC is and how much better the HDTV broadcast was. Schorman made excellent preservations of all the pre-BD HDTV broadcasts for the first 6 films, and he’s coming out with updated versions of these releases very soon. I’d urge you to check out his work.

The BD of TPM is similarly God awful (DNR’d to hell and iffy colors), but the HDTV for TPM isn’t as clearly superior since it’s plagued by pretty rough sharpening/edge enhancement from a subpar 35mm scan and different color issues than the BD. Also burned-in generic-looking subtitles instead of the theatrical subtitles the AOTC HDTV had.

Thankfully, other than some a couple very minor alterations, ROTS’s Blu-Ray is pretty excellent, with accurate colors and no DNR, so unless you really want to restore the pre-BD Wookiee hut rooftops on Kashyyyk, the HDTV of that one is kind of redundant.

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It would be fantastic to have high bit-rate 4k scans of 35mm TPM and AOTC. Even the HDTV AOTC has horrible motion artifacts from however it was encoded. Those scans look so good.

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Thanks for the references. I’ll make some comparison shots of those shots with two grades: my current and a theatre print accurate version. It definitely sounds like people are interested in versions with colors accurate to the theatre prints, so I really think I should release those as soon as I can, as those can be achieved with the same grade applied across the entirety of a film. So likely there could be three versions of this project: 4K theatrical 35mm colors recreation, 4K filmized singular grade, 4K filmized shot-by-shot grade.

I’ve been away from my personal computer for a month and a half due to health issues, but I should be returning home in about 2 weeks. Though as I’ve said before, I can really only make small clips and screenshots until I can purchase or build myself a new computer since my deaktop broke down last year. I’m also still heavily interested in potential official 4K releases, though I’m quite worried they’ll still be screwed up.

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ChainsawAsh said:

MonkeyLizard10 said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Well, the AOTC Blu-ray colors are all fucked up and there’s a ton of DNR and other processing done to it. That’s why 95% of all fan edits and other fan projects for AOTC are done using the high-bitrate HDTV caps, which have the right color and, even after some processing to reduce compression artifacts, more detail than the Blu-ray.

I’d be more surprised if your scans resembled the Blu-ray at all.

interesting and kind of ridiculous as no way HDTV should be able to beat blu

so does the HDTV stuff look like my scans in terms of color and luminance curve?

Yep, absolutely.

It’s funny, being a member of this forum so long I kind of take it for granted that people are aware of how God awful the BD of AOTC is and how much better the HDTV broadcast was. Schorman made excellent preservations of all the pre-BD HDTV broadcasts for the first 6 films, and he’s coming out with updated versions of these releases very soon. I’d urge you to check out his work.

The BD of TPM is similarly God awful (DNR’d to hell and iffy colors), but the HDTV for TPM isn’t as clearly superior since it’s plagued by pretty rough sharpening/edge enhancement from a subpar 35mm scan and different color issues than the BD. Also burned-in generic-looking subtitles instead of the theatrical subtitles the AOTC HDTV had.

Thankfully, other than some a couple very minor alterations, ROTS’s Blu-Ray is pretty excellent, with accurate colors and no DNR, so unless you really want to restore the pre-BD Wookiee hut rooftops on Kashyyyk, the HDTV of that one is kind of redundant.

now that I think about it I have vague memories, I think, of thinking things looking sort of washed out when blu-rays came out for AOTC and parts of TPM (and rather smooth for TPM), compared to what I had recalled at the theaters. I know there is one scene in TPM with Amidala in Palp’s office, which had storng contrast and cool colors in some release and then looked very muted in other releases. Can’t recall at this point which releases I was referring to. Maybe theatrical vs. all home or maybe it was even say 35mm theatrical vs all others or digital theatrical vs all others.

It’s pretty bizarre how often studios muddle home releases. I mean, what, they sent some poor versions to theaters that needed to be fixed up later? That makes no sense. So if the ultimate theatrical presentation doesn’t need lots of DNR and so on, why on Earth do home releases suddenly ‘need’ DNR, new colors and other crap?

Ironically, I sometimes find bargain basement titles, so long as not too, too low ont he pecking order, end up with the best home releases, just big enough to get top quality scans, but not big enough titles that the studios bother spending money ‘fixing’ them and paying for photoshop monkeys to fiddle with things.

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ChainsawAsh said:

so unless you really want to restore the pre-BD Wookiee hut rooftops on Kashyyyk, the HDTV of that one is kind of redundant.

I never knew about this. What an odd thing to change.

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There’s also a couple minor audio changes, but the DVD/HDTV audio is the same as the theatrical as far as I’m aware, and it can be synced to the Blu-Ray without an issue. Plus we have the theatrical DTS audio for all three prequels.

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So something I still need to figure out is the source for TPM. I was planning on the blu-ray, but with schorman’s updated HDTV preservations coming out I’m debating about using that as the source. I’ll be comparing them and seeing what works better and share some results.

If any of you have any wishes, opinions, or ideas regarding TPM (or the other two for that matter), I’d very much appreciate the extra discussion.

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My personal opinion is that you should use the HDTV preservations.

Reading R + L ≠ J theories

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TPM’s HDTV is extremely flawed, though. But it’s flawed in different ways than the Blu-Ray.

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Yep, pretty much.

Plus, you know, all the extra Special Editionizing of the Blu-Ray.

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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.

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How I wish we could have a 4K99 project going on right now.
I think forum member ZigZig is working on a 4k scan of TPM theatrical cut? But he said he was busy and wouldn’t update us on his progress too often.

I kinda get the hate many people carry for this movie in their hearts, but personally I just like this film. It has great nostalgia factor to me and I honestly think it’s not nearly as bad a film as most would have us believe. And that legendary soundtrack!

It’s long been my wish to own at least a nice 1080p version of the theatrical cut without the terrible DNR and awful colors as seen on the BD release and with no upscaled, ugly and blurry extended scenes/shots like those inserted into the pod race sequence.

Oh well, keep dreaming, I shall.

“The ability to speak does not make you intelligent.”

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Vladimon said:

How I wish we could have a 4K99 project going on right now.
I think forum member ZigZig is working on a 4k scan of TPM theatrical cut? But he said he was busy and wouldn’t update us on his progress too often.

I kinda get the hate many people carry for this movie in their hearts, but personally I just like this film. It has great nostalgia factor to me and I honestly think it’s not nearly as bad a film as most would have us believe. And that legendary soundtrack!

It’s long been my wish to own at least a nice 1080p version of the theatrical cut without the terrible DNR and awful colors as seen on the BD release and with no upscaled, ugly and blurry extended scenes/shots like those inserted into the pod race sequence.

Oh well, keep dreaming, I shall.

As version of TMP included with Disney+ is not a new scan from what we have on Blu-ray, a 4k scan of a print of the film would be of great value and might contain some additional details than what the 4k official release will have (assuming they don’t rescan it in the coming months).

And frankly, it is in many ways the best of the prequels. It has the best music and has a truly unique story and gives a glimpse of the Republic before Palpatine started tearing it apart. It shows us what the Jedi used to be. I am rather fond of it and I think Qui-gon Jinn is the best Jedi of the entire Saga.

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Well, actually, and not surprisingly, the comparison of the print scan and the Blu-Ray posted in the TPM thread clearly shows that the Blu-Ray has more fine detail than the scan.

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I’d take a bit less fine detail with much better colors and no excessive DNR over the the amateurish blue-ray version any day. Whose idea was it to create such inconsistency in one film? It’s like it was done by a person who was experimenting with various features of a video-editing software and then at some point left it at what it was and passed on as ready for release. It’s truly unbelievable. The more u think about the DNR decisions and color grading of the blu-ray, the more confused u get how anyone thought that was what the film deserved. I get the point of trying to match it with the other two prequels but if that is the case, it went terribly wrong.

“The ability to speak does not make you intelligent.”

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Harmy said:

Well, actually, and not surprisingly, the comparison of the print scan and the Blu-Ray posted in the TPM thread clearly shows that the Blu-Ray has more fine detail than the scan.

At the very least, the reduced detail and grain should do a better job integrating the CG.

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That it definitely will. My point was simply that there’s little point to 4K when even the 1080p Blu-Ray has more fine detail.

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Harmy said:

That it definitely will. My point was simply that there’s little point to 4K when even the 1080p Blu-Ray has more fine detail.

I think the reason that 35mm film is scanned in 4k so it captures the most amount of film grain not so much for its detail since it’s expected to have a softer image than the original negative.

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

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Harmy said:

That it definitely will. My point was simply that there’s little point to 4K when even the 1080p Blu-Ray has more fine detail.

That was only one section scanned, maybe other parts of the film will look better.

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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.

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

deleted scene upscale and basic regrade with film grain