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Dr. M's Reinventing The Wheel Edition (PAL to NTSC+) (Released) — Page 7

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Moth3r's RotJ was in my mail today... looks like I have a project this weekend :-)

I will NOT be touching up the colors this time from the looks of it, they are beautiful.
There will still be a slight brightness tweak I think, and I might add some sort of sharpening if it doesn't look like crap.

I suggest the last one since the first 2 movies have a nice sharp clarity and the RotJ seems a little softer. I HATE edge enhancement so odds are I'm just talking out of my lower orifice.

Dr. M

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Sharpness - and thus halo effect - has been reduced slightly. Halos are still present as that's the nature of analogue video. I tried eliminating the halos altogether, but the result just looked too blurred in my eyes, so I've settled on a compromise.

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Ok, this may be sad news to some of you, but after spending the afternoon tinkering with RotJ I've decided not to go forward with it.

I do not mean to be criticial of Moth3r's DVD, in fact I love his work. That's why I'm doing what I do here. I just feel the final film has been softened too much to be considered a better alternative to an NTSC sourced laserdisc.
What was gained by the extra lines of resolution just don't come across in any substantial manner.

For anyone looking to finish out their set, I would recommend Citizen's RotJ (when it's done). It will be from a PAL source as well, but hopefully sharper than what I would be able to produce.

Who knows maybe I'll make a disc off of that with the PCM audio just for completeness... but that would be very redundant (and repetitious).

Thanks to everyone who has helped me with this project.

And a teaser... next might be A New Hope Extended Edition... or not.

Dr. M

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Dr. M,

Well, no one can force you to complete your set, but I'm sad you've decided not to. I don't know how complicated a straight conversion to NTSC would be for you, but I'd be happy with just that.

If you do re-consider, I'll be happy to Pif for you.

And what would be included, hypothetically speaking, in ANH extended edition?

Erik

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?

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Quick and dirty conversion: rip the audio and video, make a .d2v project out of it, plug it into something like DIKO which will automatically do a 25 to 29.97 pulldown with a resize (and leave the audio untouched).
The video re-encoded in an OPV quality mode on my PC can take 1 to 2 hours. It'd look and sound pretty darn close to Moth3r's. The runtime would still be short like PAL but it'd be fully NTSC.
Easy, and anyone could do it.

To really make myself only minorly pleased with the output would take a lot more work. Brightness and white point changes (picture seems darker than the first 2), more yellow and green (again), less red, the resize and framerate change of course. There would definitely be edge enhancement for better or worse, and the encoding time would end up being around 20+ hours because of the complicated filter chain and slow-assed-ness of VirtualDubMod (I can use AviSynth but not for projects this detailed).
When it's all said and done it'll either look like a VHS copy of a laserdisc or a crappy oversharp mess.
I don't really like any of the alternatives that's why I'm giving it a miss.

Funny thing is with programs like DIKO, DVDRebuilder, SVCD2DVD, etc. it's really amazing that there is still not a single tool that'll let you do a straight DVD -> DVD recode from PAL to NTSC or vice versa. Lot's of people seem to be wanting one.

As far as an extended edition of Ep. 4, it's a partial joke, but only kind of. I've tossed around the idea of using my DVD and cutting in all the deleted scenes that OCPMovie cleaned up to produce a sort of rough cut with all available scenes. OCP pretty much flirted around the idea with Deleted Magic, but I would go less high-brow informative and straight to the popcorn eating rainy day watching route. Don't know if it's something worth watching, but I don't think anyone has done it yet.

Dr. M

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this has been discussed before but not actually done, recreating the lost cut of star wars. I personally would like to see the fx finished and the deleted scenes be reinstated for a longer cut. Hopefully these finished or raw form deleted scenes will end up on a future dvd release or blu ray/hd dvd.

Since not all of the lost scenes have been released though we are really talking about a hybrid edit of the finished star wars and the lost cut. Which means extensive research would have to be done to re-edit the scenes back into the places they belong like the shooting script, and some of the scenes are actually from earlier drafts of the screenplay since it was being shot and re-written on the fly.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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It would probably be best to hold off on such a project until the upcoming Blu-Ray(?) anniversary edition.
GL claims it'll be a complete pack of all six films with a bonus disc of deleted scenes, if I recall correctly.
That would definitely be a boon to the fan edit community.

Dr. M

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Deleted Magic was done the way it was because the deleted footage just doesn't fit into the movie the way we know it. Not just because of quality, or because the scenes themselves aren't that good, but just in general. The deleted material is kind of silly. So I needed an edit that looked like the movie, but was kind of silly.



And despite your misgivings, you should do Moth3r's Jedi. We'd be grateful. But nobody can force you I guess.
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Actually I was toying with the idea of using a Photoshop sharpening trick (using Avisynth instead) where you create a duplicate layer and use it as a high-pass filter. It non-destructively sharpens and looks great in photos.

It's mostly a matter of figuring out a way to do it.
One site suggested a duplicate layer that is blurred and then subtracted from the image.

Anyway, regular sharpening methods blow, so I need to do some serious net searching (unless some can give me some pointers on this).

Dr. M

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I feel quite foolish.
Searching the net for awhile I was unable to find evidence that anyone has managed a high pass filter sharpen method for video.
The best of what is out there is an unsharp mask. So to humor myself I gave it a spin.
It's slow to process, but the screen captures I made were BEAUTIFUL.
So I encoded the video (23 hours on a 3400+ CPU!), and synced the audio (half an afternoon). That's when I discovered the flaw. Although there is some noise generated in the process, single frames don't look much worse than the film grain in eps 3 & 4. But in motion it looks like a VHS copy of bad cable. Lots of dot crawl, and moving aliasing. Single frames still look great, but the final product is unwatchable (and can induce naseua).
I want my last few days back.

I nearly saved the screen caps for posting April 1st (yeah they look that good).

So, I once again surrender. If ANYONE finds a way to apply a high pass filter mask to video (VirtualDub or AviSynth), please PM me. Otherwise...
Really sorry guys.

Dr. M

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If you end up holding off on the video for a while due to lack of adequate sharpening methods, would it still be possible to eventually share the synced audio file itself (maybe via a.b.starwars) since you already put so mich time into it? I will be converting Jedi to NTSC anyway, and I know I would prefer the original PCM to the pitch-shifted track on Moth3r's PAL discs. If not, that's cool... just a humble request from a lazy guy...
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Your request as some merit drjimmy526. It's the same reason I've been tossing around the idea of an unsharpened release.
I have all the filter chains for the color, white point and resize (including a fix for the shifting aspect ratio), audio synced and authored DVD all set, I would just need to recode the video, plug it in and burn.
I have not yet convinced myself wheather to release it as a v0.1 or something. Several people have expressed interest in me continuing, but frankly it's not a version I would keep for myself to watch.

Dr. M

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Sooooooo.... the circle is now complete.
I'm about to start burning discs. RotJ will be in the mail early next week (contact your usual sources). I still hope to see these torrented at some point.

I finally found the balance of sharpening that I was pleased with. I attempted to achieve as close a level of sharpness to the first 2 films without making a mess.

I will be the first to admit that there ARE artifacts, but it was a good trade off. ANH and ESB both had some haloing so if you didn't notice it there, you probably won't here. On the whole it's a subtle difference yet absolutely worth the 25 1/2 hours of encoding (frameserved with VirtualDub. Be smart kids, learn to use AviSynth).

For those keeping track: Unsharp Mask, Lowered white point 4% (to brighten whites), Yellow/Green increased 10%, and Red/Blue/Cyan LOWERED 15%.
The cropping change that takes place in the last 1/4 was repaired by cropping the left/right margins and enlarging the frame. This keeps the aspect ratio consistent throughout the film.

Now what you really want, the screenies (pictures are postfilter pre-recoding):
Top = moth3r's screen, Bottom = RtW
http:\\adventureclub.postrock.net\jedi\1p.jpg
http:\\adventureclub.postrock.net\jedi\1n.jpg
http:\\adventureclub.postrock.net\jedi\2p.jpg
http:\\adventureclub.postrock.net\jedi\2n.jpg
http:\\adventureclub.postrock.net\jedi\3p.jpg
http:\\adventureclub.postrock.net\jedi\3n.jpg
http:\\adventureclub.postrock.net\jedi\4p.jpg
http:\\adventureclub.postrock.net\jedi\4n.jpg
http:\\adventureclub.postrock.net\jedi\5p.jpg
http:\\adventureclub.postrock.net\jedi\5n.jpg

And if you act now, clippie:
http://rapidshare.de/files/13601412/rotjrtw.mpg.html

(If you haven't seen my version of ANH and ESB, please don't judge them on this clip, they are much better. )


Btw you can also grab the SFV checksum file here (but it will be on the disc too): RotJ's SFV.
For those unfamiliar with SFV it is a way of verifying the integrity of files. I used Easy SFV Creator, but there is other software that can read it.

I'm still looking for a volunteer to do cover art for this set.

Dr. M

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huzzah! i had lost all hope. the screenshots look beautiful, dr. m! can't wait for this to be in my grubby hands.

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Beautiful, man. Just beautiful. Great work--thanks so much for creating and sharing these!
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Ok this has been coming in a lot lately, and I will answer everyone who has PM'd me individually, but here's the deal:

Distribution is going through the same routes as ANH (hopefully everyone has v1.1) and ESB.
That is, Pay It Forward is primary. If you received a prior disc from someone else, I suggest you contact them in regards to RotJ.
SegaFlip will have a copy so you can keep an eye on the Newgroup posting thread: http://www.originaltrilogy.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=9&threadid=2934&STARTPAGE=19
Finally I dream at night about a torrent release, and maybe now that the set is complete that will happen.

I've contact those who previously got discs direct from me, and I have yet to hear from a couple. If I do not by the time I'm ready to ship I will contact a few others who have already been in touch just to keep the balance.

I'm sorry, I know the PiF system isn't the best, but I don't have the ability to send this to everyone.

Dr. M

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To all interested, I will be helping Dr. M with the PiF effort. The first three people who contact me will get copies of ROTJ, once I receive mine from Dr. M.

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?

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I am very interested in all 3 of these. (IV V VI) I have none. Can anyone help me out? I will gladly help out any way I can also. This is all new to me, so please be patient in explaining how this works. You can PM me, or email me here

Thanks.
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I'm in the same boat as Mark. I'd love to get the trilogy set of this. Could anyone hook me up as well? I've got discs to share if I get these...
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Hey GANG!

I should have this set in its SPLENDID completeness and will be sending out copies to my seeder team in the next few weeks for a torrent upload on MYSPLEEN!!

CHEERS to Dr. M!!!

RiK

“My skill are no longer as Mad as the once were” RiK

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Sorry for the lateness, but the first few discs went out today. (Hey, you can't always have all the blanks you want on hand...)
So hopefully we will shortly be seeing it on a.b.starwars, myspleen and in a huge honkin' parade with circus animals.
Ok not the last bit.

Dr. M

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I tool would love to get a set of these. I would appreciate it if someone could PIF me on it. I would of course PIF in return. Thanks for all of the work on this.

Greg
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This release will be put at the top my list to post.