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Wookie Groomer's 1080p Star Wars Saga project (Released) — Page 10

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Dunedain said:

Yeah, Lucas was crazy to use a digital camera instead of real 35mm film for Episodes II and III. In doing so, he cut the resolution of those two prequels to around 1/4 of what The Phantom Menace has (that's a massive loss), plus there are other image quality deficiencies with an HD camera compared to a 35mm film camera.

Sometimes I think Lucas does things like this just to be on the "cutting edge", even if it gives inferior results. The problem is that newer is not always better, in this case, it's definitely not better.

Other than someone who is making a small budget independent movie where he just can't afford to use 35mm, everyone should be using film. And even if the guy can't afford 35mm, apparently it would be better to use 16mm film than go down to a digital camera. Zombie could offer more details, he's knows all about that stuff. :)

Yea its just so disappointing because the rest of the movie looks great.

 

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Dunedain said:

Actually, The Phantom Menace has far more resolution than Episodes II and III. The Phantom Menace was shot on real film, which has enough detail to easily support a 4k scan, even tough they only scanned it in at 2k at the time. The other two prequels were shot on a HD camera with it's fixed resolution of only 1920x1080 (you can think of this as sort of the rough equivalent of what we might call a 1k scan), so they are stuck with that. You can try to upsample that, of course, but you can't add in resolution that wasn't filmed.

On the other hand, Lucas can go back any time and scan in The Phantom Menace master prints at 4k and double the res and detail of their scanned copy, which then is down-sampled for use on VHS, laserdisk, DVD, HD, etc. for home video. But Episodes II and III will always be stuck with the fact that they only have 1920x1080 worth of resolution in their source picture. This was a really dumb thing to do, but that's what Lucas decided to try. So, ironically, it's the first Star Wars prequel that will always look better than the latest two prequels. :)

Just a nitpick, but isn't 1920x1080 actually 2K, more or less?  2K is (2048×1080) and 4K is (4096×2160).  The higher resolution might make a difference for the month or two a film is in the theater, but it lives forever at ~2K in our homes.

 

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Actually, if I recall correctly, 2k is 2048x1536, so that is well beyond the mere 1080 vertical res of HD. And the higher the source detail/res, the better the quality when you down res it for home video. And the movie should look the best it can at theaters, that's the ultimate way to watch any Star Wars movie and I certainly look forward to seeing them again at some point in theaters. :)

Also, if one day we have 2k-capable televisions, The Phantom Menace could easily deliver that level of resolution, whereas Episodes II and III would be stuck with HD and you'd have to up-sample them. Sort of like trying to up-sample a DVD while watching it on a HD t.v., sure, you can do it, but it's not the same as having actual HD res on the disk. :)

And there are other image quality losses you get hit with (not just resolution) when using a digital camera as opposed to real 35mm film. Again, zombie could go into details if he posts, as he knows a lot about that kind of stuff. :)

The Star Wars trilogy. There can be only one.

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 (Edited)

(2048 x 1536) is 2K full aperture at 1.32:1.  Remember, we're talking fixed pixels.  Digital cinema doesn't use anamorphic.  Digital Cinema 2K is (2048 × 858) at 2.39:1 or (1998 × 1080) at 1.85:1.  HD television is essentially the same thing as 2K Digital Cinema.

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Wait, this is a download for 360? Gimme a hand here! I've got a 360, now what's this 1080p edit about? What's the filetype? Where can I download? How big are they?

Star Wars Renascent

Inspired by the Godfather Part II and a revamp of Star Wars: Reborn

View the discussion thread

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Asteroid-Man said:

Wait, this is a download for 360?

no, unless you want to stream it

Gimme a hand here! I've got a 360, now what's this 1080p edit about?

the SE versions

What's the filetype?

WMV

Where can I download?

alt.bin.starwars

How big are they?

 

mine are here...(but i think there are the full 16gig versions also)..

06/12/2007 07:01 PM 13,673,254,048 Star Wars IV A New Hope.wmv
06/14/2007 09:28 PM 13,768,803,666 Star Wars V The Empire Strikes Back.wmv
06/01/2007 11:06 AM 12,884,645,844 Star Wars VI Return Of The Jedi.wmv
01/04/2008 10:00 AM 12,889,680,200 Star.Wars.Ep.I.The.Phantom.Menace.1080p.12gb.wmv
05/24/2007 04:27 AM 12,984,261,659 Star.Wars.Ep.II.Attack.of.the.Clones.1080p.12gb.wmv
06/04/2007 09:15 PM 13,799,832,121 Star.Wars.Ep.III.Revenge.of.the.Sith.1080p.13gb.wmv

7 File(s) 80,000,477,538 bytes

 

later

-1

[no GOUT in CED?-> GOUT CED]

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Hold up, so I can stream them from my 360!? Like without downloading? NICE! How do I do that? (Sorry, I just got my 360)

Star Wars Renascent

Inspired by the Godfather Part II and a revamp of Star Wars: Reborn

View the discussion thread

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Asteroid-Man said:

Hold up, so I can stream them from my 360!? Like without downloading? NICE! How do I do that? (Sorry, I just got my 360)

 

you're going to need a pretty good wireless connection.

go to this site, and download the program:

---------

http://www.tversity.com/

 

READ ALL THE INSTRUCTIONS IN SETTING IT UP FIRST!!!!!!!

 

later

-1

 

[no GOUT in CED?-> GOUT CED]

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I doubt anyone's up to this Herculean task, but if anyone would be kind enough to upload all 6 WookieGroomer 12GB movies to torrent, I'd seed until my computer died.

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So, pardon my ignorance here if I'm not getting it, but are you guys basically saying that what we see quality wise for Ep2/3 on HD is the same as what was shown in digital theaters, just blown up (screen size wise)?

 

When I saw Ep2/3, they were in regular theaters, so the image had been converted to film stock.

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There are 4K (4096×2160) cinemas, but the projectors are extremely expensive.  Most digital theaters have 2K (2048×1080) projection, which is about the same as HD television (1920x1080).  The pre-show advertising typically uses the older 1280×1024 resolution.

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I know I'm way late to the party, but is there any chance of a reupload of the 12GB 1080p versions of episodes 4-6?

 

I'm downloading episodes 1-3 as we speak from a.b.starwars, but episodes 4-6 aren't anywhere as far as I can tell.  Even a torrent would be nice, albeit a little slow.

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Is the HD version for The Phantom Menace any better than the official DVD does it still have edge enhancement and bad dvnr?

IS it the theatrical version?

Or is the best quality for that version the DVB standard def from pal land or as it has been called the TB release.

 

Just wondering since the Phantom Menace was shot on 35mm motion picture film at a 2:35:1 anamorphic cinemascope aspect ratio.  There should be lots of fine detail and film grain.

The transfer of Episode 1 Theoretically should yield four times the resolution of The crappy HDCam shit they did on Episodes II and III.

I'm surprised Nobody has used the 14 gig version and recut it to the theatrical and rip the ac3 from the japanese laserdisc for the theatrical audio.  The dolby digital EX track. 

Hell even the standard 2 channel stereo mix on that disc blows the dvd's mix out of the water, as it is uncompressed PCM and the original mix and superior to the home audio mix they cooked up for the dvd release. 

Lucas never gives the fans what they want if he did the 1997 versions of the trilogy would be on dvd with the 6 track dts mix heard in theaters.

I have read him  talking about the superior Magnetic soundtrack release on the 1977 version of Star Wars.  The 70mm 6 track.  This was in the future of the Movies book by Siskel and Ebert.  Yet that is not on dvd, makes me so irrated and furious.  Imagine if we got the originals restored from the O-neg used for the 70mm versions and the 6 track mag tracks for all three films.

“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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skyjedi2005 said:

Just wondering since the Phantom Menace was shot on 35mm motion picture film at a 2:35:1 anamorphic cinemascope aspect ratio.  There should be lots of fine detail and film grain.

 

*sigh* I wish the film industry would drop that misnomer, already. This is nothing against you, SkyJedi, this is just a personal rant of mine:

From 1957 to 1970, the SMPTE standard for 35mm anamorphic widescreen cameras yielded an aspect ratio of ~2.347:1, or ~2.35:1, depending on how you round it. From 1970 to 1993, this was changed to a standard that yielded an aspect ratio of ~2.394:1. A slight alteration in 1993 changed it to ~2.391:1. The 1993 change is negligible (both it and the previous standard come to ~2.39:1 when rounded to the hundredths), but the two-demical-place rounding system makes the "2.35:1" title completely inaccurate. Why DVD cases use this number for new films when a movie hasn't been made in that aspect ratio for almost 40 years is beyond me. I guess it's like the "Statue of the Three Lies" at Harvard: everybody's either too lazy or too proud to fix it.

In short, the OT and TPM were shot in a 2.39:1 AR (although the former is about an eighth of a percent longer than the latter). As for AotC and RotS, I'm not sure what the aperture for HD cameras are (is it the same as for 35mm cameras or not?), and God knows what numbers they punched in to get CW's aspect ratio.

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 (Edited)

I don't know enough about the arri lenses and arriflex Cameras used on the Phantom Menace but Star Wars in 1977 was shot on the 8-perf VistaVision system.  This was mostly the composite opticals and some live action plates.  The rest of the film was shot on 4 perf Panavision i believe.  only on Return of the Jedi during the original trilogy was the Panavision system not used.  Lucas wanted to buy 2 cameras but they would only let them rent them so they used a different camera on Jedi.

 I had always thought that was a 2:35:1 Anamorphic image.  Obviously the negative area may be bigger than what is chosen to be actually shown as desired by the cinematographer.  Negative width and Chosen aspect ratio are 2 seperate things. 

Yes i know some modern films are like 2:40:1 or wider.  And there are some Early examples of a wider selected aspect.  Usually it was for films that were to be shown in the 70mm format.

The only info i can find on the cameras used on episode 1 is here

 

http://www.theasc.com/magazine/starwars/index.html

It is under camera lenses on the Episode 1 section.

 

“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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skyjedi2005 said:

I had always thought that was a 2:35:1 Anamorphic image.  Obviously the negative area may be bigger than what is chosen to be actually shown as desired by the cinematographer.

 

Prior to 1970, it was a 2.35:1 anamorphic image. But after that, PanaVision cameras conformed to the 2.394:1 standard. The same film stock was used. Only the cameras changed. Of course, it's possible that he used 7+ year old cameras, but I wouldn't bet on it. The film for the 8-perf Vistavision camera, however, had a full negative AR of about 2.25:1 after being "unsqueezed". Exactly how much of that they matted during filming, I don't know.

I don't pretend to know everything about camera, apertures, and the like, but I'm confident in what little I do know... until someone proves me wrong, anyway.

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 (Edited)

Interesting that widescreen.org lists this:

Cinemascope - 2.35:1 to 2.55:1

This was once the most commonly used method of filming movies because its only major requirement was a special CinemaScope projector lens. This lens was and still is available at many movie theatres. CinemaScope was originally created by 20th Century Fox, but it is no longer in use in its original format.

The 2.55:1 ratio was pretty much dead by 1957 when the last holdout, Fox, adopted magoptical over mag-only prints. From that point until the early 1970s a standard of 2.35:1 was used; however, there is usually slight matting in theatres which results in a theatrical aspect ratio closer to 2.40:1. All of the Star Wars movies and even the 1997 animated version of Anastasia were filmed in CinemaScope, as were classics like The Robe and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

 

Panavision - 2.40:1 (anamorphic) / Various (flat)

The Panavision company is now the most successful maker and distributor of lenses and filming equipment. In the 1970s their Panavision lenses became the "standard" for widescreen and non-widescreen movies. Panavision still makes or sells the lenses for most of the major studio productions today, including lenses for films made with matting as opposed to true widescreen. These matted films are not necessarily 2.40:1, but are most likely 1.85:1.

Because Panavision now represents the manufacturer and distributor more than the filming process, it is not uncommon to see that many television shows are filmed with Panavision lenses. Therefore, it is important to note that "Filmed with Panavision cameras and lenses" does not automatically constitute a widescreen process.

 

VistaVision - 1.66:1 / 1.85:1 / 2.0:1


This system was more flexible than others, allowing for more aspect ratios. But Paramount's specs always referenced a preferred A/R of 1.85:1. All VV prints were hard matted to around 1.66:1 to allow some flexibility in framing.

VistaVision movies were filmed with a specially designed camera that was mounted on its side. This special filming method required a special projector, but its image quality was better than standard 35mm.

Movies that are shot in VistaVision were photographed on a double-width frame of 35mm running right to left horizontally. The films were generally "reduction printed" to 35mm 4-perforated (four sprocket holes per frame) in dye-transfer Technicolor and projected with a 1.85:1 ratio. The image area was extracted optically from the full frame. For some special venues the double-frame 35mm film was cropped to 1.85:1 during projection. VistaVision movies include Vertigo, North By Northwest, and White Christmas.


 

“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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ehal256 said:

I know I'm way late to the party, but is there any chance of a reupload of the 12GB 1080p versions of episodes 4-6?

 

I'm downloading episodes 1-3 as we speak from a.b.starwars, but episodes 4-6 aren't anywhere as far as I can tell.  Even a torrent would be nice, albeit a little slow.

Can I get a link to eps 1-3 to download? I got the 720p but 1080p sounds so much nicer

 

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Could somebody reupload thes wonderfull edits to the newsgroups?

Also, LordVader, if you format your harddrive to HFS+ with Macdrive you can store HD films on the disk then if you connect the disk to the Xbox via USB you can watch HD movies. This is not possible with FAT32 (2 gb filesize limit) and NTFS (Not supported by Xbox)

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ehal256 said:

I know I'm way late to the party, but is there any chance of a reupload of the 12GB 1080p versions of episodes 4-6?

 

I'm downloading episodes 1-3 as we speak from a.b.starwars, but episodes 4-6 aren't anywhere as far as I can tell.  Even a torrent would be nice, albeit a little slow.

 

With all due respect to Wookiegroomer, his HD versions of the original trilogy have been superceded by Adywan's 1080p versions in my opinion.  Mainly due to the excellent colour correction Adywan has done on his releases but also due to the laserdisc audio.  You're probably better of getting these, there are torrents available right now.   You can convert them WITHOUT reencoding the video for playback on a 360 too.

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maggot_brain said:
ehal256 said:

I know I'm way late to the party, but is there any chance of a reupload of the 12GB 1080p versions of episodes 4-6?

 

I'm downloading episodes 1-3 as we speak from a.b.starwars, but episodes 4-6 aren't anywhere as far as I can tell. Even a torrent would be nice, albeit a little slow.

 

With all due respect to Wookiegroomer, his HD versions of the original trilogy have been superceded by Adywan's 1080p versions in my opinion. Mainly due to the excellent colour correction Adywan has done on his releases but also due to the laserdisc audio. You're probably better of getting these, there are torrents available right now. You can convert them WITHOUT reencoding the video for playback on a 360 too.

you are correct...but a couple of things

1) adywan has only done ep 4/5 and not 1/2/3/6 so you don't really have a choice

2) adywan has included his own edits, so if you want the original SE versions, you'll

end up getting the wookiegroomer versions anyway

3) adywans sound mixes are there also..

4) adywans versions are compressed down to DVD9

 

so it depends on what you want, if you want a higher quality encode, and the

ORIGINAL SE versions, you're better off with the wookiegroomer versions...

(and yes, i know wookiegroomer has his own edits also)

later

-1

 

[no GOUT in CED?-> GOUT CED]

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maggot_brain said:
ehal256 said:

I know I'm way late to the party, but is there any chance of a reupload of the 12GB 1080p versions of episodes 4-6?

 

I'm downloading episodes 1-3 as we speak from a.b.starwars, but episodes 4-6 aren't anywhere as far as I can tell.  Even a torrent would be nice, albeit a little slow.

 

With all due respect to Wookiegroomer, his HD versions of the original trilogy have been superceded by Adywan's 1080p versions in my opinion.  Mainly due to the excellent colour correction Adywan has done on his releases but also due to the laserdisc audio.  You're probably better of getting these, there are torrents available right now.   You can convert them WITHOUT reencoding the video for playback on a 360 too.

Can you tell me what software I would use to do that? (convert them without reencoding)

 

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I recently got all 6 of the WG versions, but they are the PS3avchd presents ones.  I very happy with the picture, but I've noticed a problem with the audio.  The REAR RIGHT surround of the DD 5.1 seems to not fully be there on Episodes 1 and 2.  This isn't life shattering, but it does really throw off some of the surround effects.  I'm just wondering if this is in the original WG releases, or is it a problem that happened when they got converted to ps3 dvd9s.  Anyone else come across this?

Tobor is robot spelled backwards.

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You are correct regarding the missing rear audio channel on episodes 1 and 2 of the PS3AVCHD Presents releases and I agree, it is an irritation. But, I don't believe that the proper 12GB Wookie Groomer transfers have this fault - I don't recall it last time I watched them. Are you certain that PS3AVCHD used Wookie's transfers as their source material? If you look at Adywan's AVCHD thread, he's working on HD transfers in this format too but he's not using Wookie's work as source.
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I didn't keep the notes that came with the rar files, but I'm pretty sure thats where the poster said that they made them from.  And my Ep 1 has the german subtitle mistake at the kids scene that was talked about earlier as being in the WG release.  Lithiumus seems to be the maker, or knows the one who did these versions.  PLEASE help?  Its just an error that seems to have been corrected by episode 3, cause it and the OT seem fine.  It was just a harsh jolt of too good to be true.  They're still great to have, but the flaw is kind of major.  

And although I appreciate Adywan's versions and the work he has done I find, so far at least by comparing 4 and 5, that these PS3AVCHD versions have slightly better pictures.  Im assuming thats from having just the one smaller dvd audio track.  And besides I can deal with Han's shot, but I prefer the updated 2004 versions.

Any help here would be hot, but I guess this isn't a small fix.

Tobor is robot spelled backwards.