Wookie Groomer's 1080p Star Wars Saga project (Released) — Page 16

Well i've just downloaded the triscreen sample that was posted. a 2GBapprox sample? bit of overkill on this because a lower bitrate could easily have been used for this and knocked it down to a couple of hundred MB instead because this doesn't show the quality of the encode.

i was actually a bit surprised by the colour correction. I would love to know what method of colour correction you used WG. was it a script? some shots look good indeed while others have me puzzled. his shot for instance , there is no colour change at all. in fact the WG version has a lower white level causing the image to be slightly darker ( which i noticed in the other scenes too)

As you can see the 2004 & WG have the almost the same colouring, with WG white level being lower, but WG red saturation is much higher and Landos shirt now has green tinting to it where the cyan hue has been shifted towards green.

Now i know just how messed up the colours were in the 2004 transfer. the main problem is the blue tinting. well thats not entirely true. he picture has more of a cyan tint with the blue hues being shifted too much towards cyan. the main problem when you try to eliminate the tint is that you destroy the colouring of the sky and blues that need to be there. It is impossible to colour correct these movies by applying a uniform colour correction or by using a script. it has to be done shot by shot and by using masks for certain areas. Some shots in the 2004 look almost perfect while others are just unbelievable bad. it even changes between shots. one example is in the Hoth command centre when Han goes back for Leia. just watch the shot of 3PO as the explosion happens behind him. the picture is totally green. Also in most shots 3PO is a little too yellow. which brings me to my next snapshot. the colour correction has shifted 3PO's colour in some shots giving him a greenish tint

here is some more snapshots;

adywan said:

I was ready yo mention that shot in ESB:R topic and its bad coloring. Look how good and correct shadows appeared in the 1980 version. With these redish ones looklike is ROTJ at its bad.

-Angel

Yaa...FANBOY02 shouldn't be asking reasonable questions like that...

...it could drive a person into madness, I tell you... MADNESS!!!!!!!!

Color correction aside, can anyone say how much better the picture is than the AVCHD version? Thanks.

I can't download this beast.  No one has more of a review of the picture quality VS the previous avchd or the the 12gig version?

balsho said:

I can't download this beast.  No one has more of a review of the picture quality VS the previous avchd or the the 12gig version?

If you can't download it then what do you care? What difference would it make?

Ahhhhh cause then, if it seems worth it, I can take the necessary steps needed to get myself a copy.

skyjedi2005 makes many good points in his post. Lucas made a big mistake using those HD cameras for the most recent movies. Sometimes I think he does stuff like this just because it's new and "cutting edge", just for the sake of it being so, even if the end result is inferior in quality. Just because something is newer, doesn't mean it's better. Ironically, it's The Phantom Menace, the first of the prequels, that looks the best. And it will always have vastly more resolution than Episodes II and III.

And The Phantom Menace will look better on Blu-Ray when it's released, since they will be scaling it down from a much higher res scan. When they do the new archival scan in preparation for the Blu-Ray release, it will probably be a 6k scan (4k minimum), maybe even an 8k scan (hadn't heard of those before, must be the very latest super high-end scanner for films :) ).

Thank God at least The Lord of the Rings trilogy was shot on real film. That would have been a catastrophe with an HD camera. :)

As for the Wookiegroomer sets, the 12 gig HD ones already look great and I thank him for making them. :) Even taking into account adding in the extra soundtrack options and the tri-screen comparison video's inclusion, I don't see how color correction could account for the video going from 16 or 17 gig up to 45 gig. I mean, the video was already 1080p to begin with (not Blu-Ray quality, of course, but the best quality 1080p broadcast version so far), so there was no need to up-res it for watching on a high definition TV.

So I'm not sure what good it would do to crank up the bit-rate really high and get a huge video, as you can't get more detail than the original source video had. You'd think a 25 gig single-layer Blu-Ray disk would be plenty large enough to handle the color corrected video along with the soundtrack options and the tri-screen comparison. Maybe the video and all the soundtracks went just a little long to 26 gig or something, and he figured, "What the heck, I'm already into the second layer, might as well really crank the bit-rate and make full use of that 50 gig disk."? :) Or perhaps he felt a really high bit-rate was necessary to prevent any further compression artifacts from being introduced to the original video when he did the re-encode to have the color correction in place? Maybe it was necessary. You certainly wouldn't want to deteriorate the excellent quality of the source video.

They can always re-scan the source at 4k or 6k. :) With an HD camera, you're stuck with HD because that's what you shot the movie at.

Dunedain said:

They can always re-scan the source at 4k or 6k. :) With an HD camera, you're stuck with HD because that's what you shot the movie at.

You could rescan the source, but you would have to redo all of the effects if the digital intermediate was 1080p.

Hmm, but you would think the effects would have been done at really high res for the master render files, and then down-res'd for use in the film. So couldn't they go back and this time just use the full res master renders to match the higher scan res of the film?

And why wasn't all this done at 4k right from the get go, the scan, everything? For a mega budget super high quality trilogy like this, it shouldn't have been a problem. :)

doubleofive said:

Dunedain said:

They can always re-scan the source at 4k or 6k. :) With an HD camera, you're stuck with HD because that's what you shot the movie at.

You could rescan the source, but you would have to redo all of the effects if the digital intermediate was 1080p.

I though the effects were usually upscaled from 2k to 4k, or was that just the case on spider man 2?

How do they deal with films with cgi on blu ray in the first place.  They must have to upscale the effects or they remain at 2k.  The film footage would then look way better than the effects.  What the hell is the purpose of doing cgi if it is not future proof like effects created on film?

Digital should be used in its proper context as a tool to augment film and do shots that you could do no other way, it should not be used to replace film.  It will always remain second best.  Cheaper to produce and cheaper turnaround and everyone these days can shoot video, not just anyone can handle film right though.

It is like those self publishing book deals these days.  Anyone can write a book or screenplay.  Anyone can shoot HD Video.  Even kids and soccer moms have access to the technology, if not on the same high level of quality.  Still it makes it less of an art form and opens movies up to anyone.  And you no longer need film school cause you can just shoot right from anywhere.  Do they even use film anymore in film school why not call it what it is "digital video movie making without any frackin film"

There were actually respected cinematographers who worked on the original star wars and indiana jones trilogies.  They were true artists and craftsmen. 

Yes indy IV was shot on film but the cinema style does not match Douglas Slocombe's like they promised it would and there  is way too much cgi where practical stuntwork and models, and matte paintings would have done fine.

David Tatterstall has done tons of work outside of star wars, i don't understand why he could not have done a better job.  and no cinematographer worth his salt would have shot on HD Video for clones and sith, period,  They would have turned the job down as it is a disgrace to ones own craft to aim lower.

Things might change if those red cameras are adopted that can do film resolution and over supposedly, i wonder if we would have gotten to this point without lucas pushing the technology. 

But he certainly got on the bandwagon quite a few years short of the goal of film quality in an easier to manipulate form like video.

It is truly sad that most movies and films these days look like videogames than films.  CGI has overtaken everything including good storytellling and acting.  Most movies look like hyped up cartoons for crying out loud.

There are sometimes exceptions but these cases are few and far between.  Idiocy and in your face cgi action sellls to the mainstream who are dumbed down on bad reality shows.    But this is the age of bad popcorn movies and the blame mainly lies at spielberg and lucas feet.

skyjedi2005: Yeah, I suppose you could just up-sample the 2k CGI effects to 4k, assuming they didn't do the effects at over 2k in the first place and then just down-sampled them to 2k for immediate use in the film, with the higher res CGI source files being held in reserve until needed later (when they do the 4-6k film scan).

I find it hard to believe they'd be dumb enough to make all these fancy CGI effects and then not have enough res in the source CGI files to handle possible future requirements for more res. What are you going to do, have to go back and completely re-render every single frame of CGI to exactly match the existing CGI, except at higher res this time? Why do it twice, that would be stupid. Anyhow, if they just up-sample it from 2k to 4k, I guess that would be adequate.

I agree, digital effects should used when and where something can't be done any other way, otherwise all effects, scenes, etc. should be done for real. It's *so* much more convincing and believable that way. Especially with big-budget movies like Star Wars, there's no excuse for cutting corners.

They have meticulous notes on all that stuff, and if they have any sense they still have all the 3D models, shaders and such. They can re-scan the film, re-edit to the same time-code numbers, then re-time the files using the same specs, and then re-render the 3D stuff at a higher res if they want to. I can't believe they didn't do a 4k scan right from the beginning on films of this importance if it's this much trouble to make a higher than 1080p version available for home video sale later, not very smart if that was done. If for no other reason than making a regular HD home video release look better they should have done it.

In any case, they need to re-scan it just so there is an archival-grade digital master backup of the film in a finished state.

For TPM one or two whole scenes and certain vfx elements were shot using an earlier version of the digital camera, so those parts are locked in 1080p too.  I just never liked that for menace they scanned the film, then did everything digitally, then made the dvd from a print master instead of directly from the digital files.  I guess they thought it would make for a more uniform look, but if they were going for preserving the film look then why not do the same for 2 and 3.  It will be interesting to see what is done for the official bluerays.