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ORIGINAL STAR WARS TRILOGY OUT 09/2006 BY LUCASFILM — Page 13

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Originally posted by: Moth3r
But there's still the mono mix restoration... I suppose audio restorations would be handy, to be timed correctly for the Pal DVD's.
Originally posted by: Doctor M
Citizen
edit: HELL HAS FROZEN OVER!! ALSO, do not forget, by releasing an OT DVD, it now meets the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and probably the Library Of Congress film preservation critera.
Before what we did here was vaguely legal because we were preserving something that did not exist in a digital format. That is no longer the case, no matter how bad the official release may be.
Prepare for a lot of legal notices to be mailed to preservationists.... What's that? I didn't think this was ever legal anywhere, except maybe in countries which don't honour copyrights...
Originally posted by: zaz_fan
P.S. Why the sudden rush to remove all the torrents from MySpleen? Surely, these can stay up till the official dvds are released? Probably cause Rik is honouring his word - which is that he won't distribute films that are released?
Originally posted by: MeBeJedi
It should be enough to suck the wind out of many a preservationist's sails. Keep in mind that the '04 set, despite ridiculous color, audio and content changes, still sold tremendously well. Hell, the O-OT is being sold as an "added bonus". You could look at it as Lucas making sure his loudest detractors are forced to buy his bastardized editions in addition to their favorite version.

I knew he'd never have the balls to sell them seperately. Well he did say in 1995 that it was the last time the original movies would be available (there's a sticker on the box of my VHS trilogy saying that)... I suppose adding them as an "extra" means he's technically not breaking his word on that.
Originally posted by: Metallaxis
Wait a minute: If I have the original LD, I can have as many copies or transfers as I like in my home, provided that I do not sell them or progect them in public places. Backing-up is not illegal. Am I wrong on this one? I think the exact same thing applies to compuer game's no-cd copy protection cracks. As long as you have the original disc, you can copy it and use it with the appropriate crack to use your backup to play it.
I can number a few sites that on that ground continue to provide download links to such cracks legaly. Am I mistaken here?

Sorry for getting out of topic, but there are so many things on my mind right now, I have to share them!
Look I don't know if you can legally, but I certainly can't. Backing up software (not computer games) is the only form of back up that has ever been legal, and that was for provisions of "1 archival back-up only". Since the introduction of more stable and reliable digital media (CD and DVD), there has never been any use for legalizing back-ups as the originals are seen to be of high enough quality to be reliable without needing a spare back-up copy.

NZ is the most beautiful country in the world. Aus are getting changes (damn them!) Their Government has plans to make "format shifting" legal - but this will not legalize back-ups.... so backing up a CD to CD-R will still be illegal, as will backing up a DVD to DVD-R. The laws will legalize "backing up" from VHS or LaserDisc to DVD-R for personal use only, but it will (of course) remain illegal to distribute, or share, these copies with others. If that makes sense, more info here:

MAJOR COPYRIGHT REFORMS STRIKE BALANCE

In no uncertain terms, it says clearly:

Can someone else make a copy in a different format for me?

No. A format-shift copy must be made by the owner of the original copy. It will not be possible for a business to make copies for a customer.

Can I make a 'back-up' copy of a CD in case the original is lost or damaged?

No. A format-shift copy must be in a different audio format to the original.

Will I be able to copy a computer game?

No.

As I've explained these laws are not yet passed, and when they do here in NZ they mean squat… but it's a good basis for change as our government mimics what Aus and UK is doing (f*ck they're sheep sometimes – no pun intended lol).Originally posted by: RATLSNAKE
Furthermore, I do not like that comment about "state-of-the-art of 1993". If this comment has any truth to it, this is stating clearly they are not going back to any original film stock, and that they will return to some archived master they made in 93 for the then LD and VHS releases. If this is the case that is lazy and poor.
This is fine by me, the digital master they made in 1993 is fine. It was extensively cleaned up and restored at the time, and was state-of-the-art 1993 technology - granted they may be able to do a bit "better" now, but they'd probably ruin it by applying that damned grain filter to the maximum level as the did in 2004.Originally posted by: RATLSNAKE
Further to my previous rant, September is still FAR AWAY! Until we get copies of what Lucas is feeding us, and we can confirm he has given us what we have wanted, let's go on as per usual doing what we do.
Oh come on you can't be serious?Originally posted by: Darth Editous
I'm sure someone will have a real answer for you, but as I noted in my ANH thread, if you watch the transition into the Jabba scene on the 2004 DVD, you can actually see, briefly, elements of the 1997 SE Jabba.
Interesting. I hired the 2004 DVD's when they came out, watched with the commentaries and have kept a copy of them on my HDD ever since (which i've not watched since, I've just kept them there in case there's something like this to check out)... i'll upload a pic of this so people can see what you mean:

Old Jabba ElementsOriginally posted by: andy_k_250
Could it be that the material released in September is going to be what was originally extracted from the original old theatrical master film reels for the 1993 Definitive Edition Laser Disc's? My reasoning is this - they keep mentioning 1993 technology - maybe they are talking about the first digital encoding done back in 1993. That first encoding was then compressed to fit a LD's space parameters, I assume. Maybe they are going to use the 1993 encoding and transfer it to DVD, which by should by definition create less compression from the digital source made in 1993 from the masters, as well as allowing more lines, which would let each image be able to breathe more than it did in the constraints of the LD format.

It's fully possible for this release to be what was hinted at by the OT (unaltered) scenes in Building Empire. Those few scenes, in my opinion, looked great.

The fact that they mention the original crawl for SW makes me wonder if they are using a theatrical master reel, since this would include the original crawl. However, as many here have demonstrated, it's not that hard to make your own crawl.
I would say that their digital master was transferred using way outdated technology to Laser Disc. If they were to transfer it from the same master at the same resolution using today’s technology I'm sure the end result will be much better. It wouldn't be difficult to capture just the opening crawl from a theatrical reel to insert onto the DVD release.Originally posted by: Zebonka
I did have one thought about it though. If they do screw this up (and I'm not for a moment saying they definitely will - I will offer up my trust until September) then it really will be the end, you know! It's not like one can start a new petition saying : "Well... ok, we've got the OOT now. But can we have it in better quality?". That'd probably get 12 signatures and not even 1/10th the publicity that the current petition got.
True, and any imperfections in the transfer will be minor at worst.

Anyway to quote my alleged irish roots... oh f*ck it... the rest of you who think you were drunk here... you're sober by my standards. I've had about 12 standard drinks over the last half hour (thank you Vodka!) and I bet none of you can tell this is written by someone who's so drunk he probably would knock on the wrong door getting home! Anyway until I visit this site next, which may not be for many months, stay well, enjoy this release, remember what I said in my previous posts and I do encourage you all to buy this release, or else you are liar too - because you've all said that you would buy the O-OT if released...

-BORiS!!!
Some were not blessed with brains.
<blockquote>Originally posted by: BadAssKeith

You are passing up on a great opportunity to makes lots of money,
make Lucas lose a lot of his money
and make him look bad to the entire world
and you could be well known and liked

None of us here like Lucas or Lucasfilm.
I have death wishes on Lucas and Macullum.
we could all probably get 10s of thousands of dollars!
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I do encourage you all to buy this release, or else you are liar too - because you've all said that you would buy the O-OT if released..


Sure, but did we expect the father of THX to just crap out a set of Original Trilogy when we said that?


Interesting about the whole format shift thing.
Recently Circuit City has announced a mp3 ripping service where they will convert your CD to mp3 for you. I wonder what the RIAA will have to say about that?

Dr. M

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Originally posted by: Doctor M
I do encourage you all to buy this release, or else you are liar too - because you've all said that you would buy the O-OT if released..


Sure, but did we expect the father of THX to just crap out a set of Original Trilogy when we said that?
I'm looking forward to the release, one way or another. I may not agree with how Lucas has done it, but I'll buy the movies, and by the sound of it, enjoy them! It certainly sounds like they'll be great quality! And at least he's doing better then Spielberg did with E.T. ... that is he is doing a global release. I had to buy an R1 E.T. just to have the theatrical cut (though it should be noted that we get so little released on DVD anyway, even Australia gets like 4 times as many DVD's released - or more). But let's not beat about the bush, the copy I bought was the Special Edition... but on disc 2 it has the theatrical version.

So the way Lucas is releasing it as a 2-disc set, is fine really. At least he's not using seamless branching (which I really don't think would work as so much of the movies has been edited), and at least it will be a global release.
Some were not blessed with brains.
<blockquote>Originally posted by: BadAssKeith

You are passing up on a great opportunity to makes lots of money,
make Lucas lose a lot of his money
and make him look bad to the entire world
and you could be well known and liked

None of us here like Lucas or Lucasfilm.
I have death wishes on Lucas and Macullum.
we could all probably get 10s of thousands of dollars!
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Originally posted by: boris It certainly sounds like they'll be great quality!
Your idea of "great quality" is WAY off from the other 99% of people on this board.....since when was non-anamorphic laserdisc considered great quality?

I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.

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Originally posted by: vbangle
Originally posted by: boris It certainly sounds like they'll be great quality!
Your idea of "great quality" is WAY off from the other 99% of people on this board.....since when was non-anamorphic laserdisc considered great quality?
Just because its non-anamorphic doesn't mean it'll be laser-disc quality. It'll be much better then the laserdisc, which I'm sure 10 years ago everyone thought was amazing quality anyway.

Some were not blessed with brains.
<blockquote>Originally posted by: BadAssKeith

You are passing up on a great opportunity to makes lots of money,
make Lucas lose a lot of his money
and make him look bad to the entire world
and you could be well known and liked

None of us here like Lucas or Lucasfilm.
I have death wishes on Lucas and Macullum.
we could all probably get 10s of thousands of dollars!
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Originally posted by: boris Just because its non-anamorphic doesn't mean it'll be laser-disc quality.
What? You are not making much sense..... Most laserdiscs were "non-anamorphic"! (for the most part anyway) So I have no idea what you meant by your statment....



Originally posted by: boris
It'll be much better then the laserdisc, which I'm sure 10 years ago everyone thought was amazing quality anyway.

Time will tell if it is "much better then the laserdisc" but who cares? This is not 10 years ago, and I don't own a laserdisc player...I own a DVD player....
You know this statement, " which I'm sure 10 years ago everyone thought was amazing quality " reminds me of something....10 years ago I had bought my first PC....it was pretty sweet at that time too.....today that thing is the biggest piece of crap....
Now I ask you, if Dell tried selling 10 year old computers touting them as just as good as today's computers, selling them at today's prices, and telling us that we're lucky to have them, would anybody with half a brain buy one? No way, not on your life.....Think about that.

I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.

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There was a bunch of talk earlier about what pieces of the original film elements survive. Here's a question -

Why was it so easy to add in the Biggs footage prior to the Battle of Yavin for the SE release, and why does it look so great? This was obviously not part of the original film, but it was spliced in seamlessly and looked perfect, despite being 20 years old.

How is it that a single cutscene could be in better shape than the rest of the OT?

Forgive me if I'm being naive.
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Time will tell if it is "much better then the laserdisc" but who cares? This is not 10 years ago, and I don't own a laserdisc player...I own a DVD player....


On the last page (I know, what a pain to read back a page, hehe), it was brought up that Spaceballs wasn't an anamorphic transfer and was from the laserdisc master. Sure enough, it isn't anamorphic.. I decided to watch it to see what I thought. While the movie isn't perfect quality, it looks great (and definitely better than any of the laserdiscs I have, you can see the black scan lines on them, this you cannot). The Spaceballs DVD was released in 2000. Star Wars will look at least as good as that thing.. it has to!

IMO, you guys cannot be satisfied.. even if Lucas had the discs pressed in gold, you'd be complaining it wasn't high enough karat.

The quality will be fine. I for one am very glad for this release and will be snatching it up ASAP. It will rock. After December, anyone who didn't buy it will be wishing they did.
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Make up your mind. Will it be "great" or will it be "fine?" The two have vastly different meanings.
"It's the stoned movie you don't have to be stoned for." -- Tom Shales on Star Wars
Scruffy's gonna die the way he lived.
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Originally posted by: vbangle
Originally posted by: boris
Just because its non-anamorphic doesn't mean it'll be laser-disc quality.
What? You are not making much sense..... Most laserdiscs were "non-anamorphic"! (for the most part anyway) So I have no idea what you meant by your statment....
I'm gonna have to go with boris on this one. All VHS tapes were non-anamorphic but that doesn't mean it'll be VHS quality either. Anamorphic vs. letterbox has nothing to do with Laserdisc. The digital tape masters which these DVDs are made from have nothing to do with Laserdisc either.
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Originally posted by: THX
I'm gonna have to go with boris on this one. All VHS tapes were non-anamorphic but that doesn't mean it'll be VHS quality either. Anamorphic vs. letterbox has nothing to do with Laserdisc. The digital tape masters which these DVDs are made from have nothing to do with Laserdisc either.
Just to point something out:

“If Lucas can't be arsed to do the original trilogy justice, then I say, hand whatever he has over to Criterion and let them do the rest.”
see this link

I have some criterion DVD's... most of them were mastered form their laserdisc masters, for instance Robocop and Life of Brian. Silence of the Lambs was too (audio commentary lifted from the LD release too for both Silence of the Lambs and Robocop). When comparing Robocop to the MGM release I think Criterions looks much better... I think the guy who wrote that really doesn't know what he's talking about... if he hates DVD's released from LD masters Criterion should be on the TOP of his hate list!
Some were not blessed with brains.
<blockquote>Originally posted by: BadAssKeith

You are passing up on a great opportunity to makes lots of money,
make Lucas lose a lot of his money
and make him look bad to the entire world
and you could be well known and liked

None of us here like Lucas or Lucasfilm.
I have death wishes on Lucas and Macullum.
we could all probably get 10s of thousands of dollars!
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Post link
Originally posted by: calamari
The quality will be fine. I for one am very glad for this release and will be snatching it up ASAP. It will rock. After December, anyone who didn't buy it will be wishing they did.
The quality undoubtedly *will* be fine. Until you buy a widescreen TV. Then, and most certainly then, you'll notice that it's not fine anymore as other films fill up your screen nicely and the OUT plays in a little window in the middle of your screen. You can zoom in on it, but quality will suffer.

I don't have a widescreen TV yet myself, but I know it won't be long before I do. And that's why I have a major beef with the non-anamorphic transfer.

--SKot

Projects:
Return Of The Ewok and Other Short Films (with OCPmovie) [COMPLETED]
Preserving the…cringe…Star Wars Holiday Special [COMPLETED]
The Star Wars TV Commercials Project [DORMANT]
Felix the Cat 1919-1930 early film shorts preservation [ONGOING]
Lights Out! (lost TV anthology shows) [ONGOING]
Iznogoud (1995 animated series) English audio preservation [ONGOING]

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It's all a matter of what you expect from a DVD.

I have a lot of DVD's from the early release days and most of them were laserdisc masters re-used.
It's pretty much a hit or miss prospect. Sometimes it's pretty nice, sometimes it is foul and unwatchable.

Ever see John Wayne's the Quiet Man? The Anniversary laserdisc looked nice (for laserdisc), the DVD transfer from the same master is unwatchable because of grain that looks like a black snowstorm. Sometimes modern transfers from these laserdisc sources aren't a good thing.

In 90% of these cases the films are later re-released struck from a better quality source in anamorphic because it IS better and modern viewers find the older quality unacceptable. George Lucas has to expect that we would too.

Edit: Can someone clear something up for me? Are laserdisc masters a film source or some sort of analog magnetic tape? If it's still on film, can't they scan it at a higher resolution and digitally resize it to anamorphic like the rest of us do?

Dr. M

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And what of the DVNR? Will it be as bad as what's in evidence on the Laserdiscs?

“I love Darth Editous and I’m not ashamed to admit it.” ~ADigitalMan

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Originally posted by: boris
Originally posted by: THX
I'm gonna have to go with boris on this one. All VHS tapes were non-anamorphic but that doesn't mean it'll be VHS quality either. Anamorphic vs. letterbox has nothing to do with Laserdisc. The digital tape masters which these DVDs are made from have nothing to do with Laserdisc either.
Just to point something out:

“If Lucas can't be arsed to do the original trilogy justice, then I say, hand whatever he has over to Criterion and let them do the rest.”
see this link

I have some criterion DVD's... most of them were mastered form their laserdisc masters, for instance Robocop and Life of Brian. Silence of the Lambs was too (audio commentary lifted from the LD release too for both Silence of the Lambs and Robocop). When comparing Robocop to the MGM release I think Criterions looks much better... I think the guy who wrote that really doesn't know what he's talking about... if he hates DVD's released from LD masters Criterion should be on the TOP of his hate list!


Criterion ceased doing this in 1999 or so. It was common back then for any company. No one will deny this. But we are not living in 1999 and Criterion has not done this for many years.

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I'm sure the quality will be acceptably watchable for SD television owners. However, "Acceptable for SD" is not what DVD is designed for. Anyone with a widescreen set, an HD, LCD, Plasma or a DVD-ROM will quickly discover the poor quality of the transfer.
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Originally posted by: Doctor M
Can someone clear something up for me? Are laserdisc masters a film source or some sort of analog magnetic tape? If it's still on film, can't they scan it at a higher resolution and digitally resize it to anamorphic like the rest of us do? In the case of these masters, they are digital video tape. If film were being used, it would certainly be scanned at a higher resolution and the DVD would be anamorphic rather than letterboxed (if wishes were horses).
Originally posted by: boba feta
And what of the DVNR? Will it be as bad as what's in evidence on the Laserdiscs?
This is what concerns me. It all depends whether the DVNR was applied during telecine or at a subsequent mastering stage. Either is possible. We have to hope for the latter.Originally posted by: zombie84
I'm sure the quality will be acceptably watchable for SD television owners. However, "Acceptable for SD" is not what DVD is designed for.
DVD is an SD format, so I'm pretty sure that's what it was designed for.
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Criterion has (quietly) gone through it's back catalog and retransfered most of their older releases as new anamorphics.

Most of what was letterbox laserdisc master material originally is now 16x9 (although the packaging on many of their titles doesn't reveal this except in the small technical info at the bottom).


I would guess the DVNR was done digitally by computer, sooo... wait I don't know a thing about the process. Is it some sort of telecining where the film is taken directly to a digital video camera or is it processed by computer?
Ok I'll shut up now, if the tapes were digital the DVNR could have been done before or after I suppose.

Dr. M

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You know, people at Lucasfilm could just as easily put the source video into VirtualDub and resize it and get better anamorphic results than any line doubler or the inevitable fan rip and resizes that will result. Any fan results will be post compression. And I doubt LFL will give the "bonus" films much of a bit budget in the first place.

They could do better, they just won't. Nothing must compete with George's Frankensteins.

Star Wars will preserve the 4x3 TV like it did for laserdisc players. These DVDs are simply planned obsolescence! Remember the SE versions are those for posterity!

Bleah


Where are the private collectors with prints?
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Yes, they could, but they would be making things worse for the vast majority of consumers, who will be watching on 4:3 TVs. By the time HD 16:9 is standard, all SD discs will be outdated, whether letterboxed or anamorphic. Given the source, the letterbox release will actually be better for most people during its lifetime.
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Originally posted by: andy_k_250
There was a bunch of talk earlier about what pieces of the original film elements survive. Here's a question -

Why was it so easy to add in the Biggs footage prior to the Battle of Yavin for the SE release, and why does it look so great? This was obviously not part of the original film, but it was spliced in seamlessly and looked perfect, despite being 20 years old.

How is it that a single cutscene could be in better shape than the rest of the OT?

Forgive me if I'm being naive.


I think it is cuz GL as ever cut scene and OOT master and SE master and stuff taken care of very very very carefully. He will jsut never admit it.
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Originally posted by: Darth Richard

I think it is cuz GL as ever cut scene and OOT master and SE master and stuff taken care of very very very carefully. He will jsut never admit it.


That's what I was trying to get at, but I couldn't put it into words. It is just irritating that there are all these little hints that there are pristine copies of the OT floating around, but nothing is done with them. Hmmph.
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I KNOW *grrr* I mean how was the Jabba part remastered so nicely and stuff. Cuz ever damn thing is kept in Pristine quality but nothing is ever done with it. Hell I watched the part from Emprie Of Dreams today with the original crawl jsut so I could see OOT dvd quality. It jsut pisses me off so bad.
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Originally posted by: andy_k_250
There was a bunch of talk earlier about what pieces of the original film elements survive. Here's a question -

Why was it so easy to add in the Biggs footage prior to the Battle of Yavin for the SE release, and why does it look so great? This was obviously not part of the original film, but it was spliced in seamlessly and looked perfect, despite being 20 years old.

How is it that a single cutscene could be in better shape than the rest of the OT?

Forgive me if I'm being naive.



I've been wondering this myself. The Empire of Dreams shows outtake footage that would be based off the original camera negatives--the footage is scracthed to hell and faded.

One possibility is that he had ILM hand paint out each scratch and nick. This would have been pretty time consuming but it is very possible.

The other is that there is Empire of Dreams footage is taken from some kind of dupe print and the actual original camera negatives are more or less well preserved.
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That blooper/outtake stuff is probably trims from the workprint, not negative.