Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:
I will be happy to test them on my 52" plasma :)
Me too...I'll PM you my address so you can send me your plasma ;-)
msycamore said:
As I earlier thought could be the case, it was on a single line. :) Theater Performance Edition it is, sorry, Fritz. ;)
You'll have to wait at least a week for it d_j.
That is OK, like I said, I can get the other 2 done and have ALL files ready to go for Jedi when the subs are done, better to get it right now instead of wishing we did it later, know what I mean?
Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:
I will be happy to test them on my 52" plasma :)
PFFF! little 52", I have a 65" LOL.
dark_jedi you have a PM.
So we finally have a proper reference for the Jedi subs? That is awesome. I'd definitely hold out for that, DJ!
ChainsawAsh said:
So we finally have a proper reference for the Jedi subs? That is awesome. I'd definitely hold out for that, DJ!
I am, and in the meantime I just finished the Theatrical PCM for ESB, so now ALL audio files are done for SW & ESB now onto Jedi.
dark_jedi said:
I just finished the Theatrical PCM for ESB, so now ALL audio files are done for SW & ESB now onto Jedi.
I like the sound of that.
Thanks for the hard job you're doing syncing these beauties to the GOUT, much appreciated!
We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions.
Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com
OK, a while back I got a little tutorial on how to encode with x264(from ChainsawAsh) to make MKV files and such, well now I can't find it, does anyone have a how to on this? maybe while waiting on the Jedi subs, and I will have the Jedi Theatrical audio done today, I will try an encode for an MKV.
1 more thing, hopefully this will be in the how to, but when you make these MKV's do you crop out the black bars or are they left? and how are they made anamorphic?
I use BD-RB ALL the time for my BD's and stuff so I know the x264 codec is the shit! really GREAT results.
Great, I would take an MKV over a DVD any day!!! But the resolution is the same problem I was facing with my ROTJ reconstruction MKV. You have a few choices:
1) Leave everything as it is for the DVD (720x480 with the black bars) -
Advantages: It should scale properly to 16:9 and it will be full anamorphic resolution
Disadvantages: The black bars will eat up bitrate.
2) Cut the black bars and leave the resolution as is (720x366 no black bars)
Adv.: Full anamorphic resolution of the actual picture area and no black bars.
Dis.: Probable problems with playback and scaling.
3) Cut the black bars and resize to 2.35:1 by down-rezing (720x306 no black bars) -
Adv.: No black bars and probably no problems with playback and scaling
Dis.: Non-anamorphic resolution of the actual picture area
4) Cut the black bars and resize to 2.35:1 by up-rezing (854x366 no black bars)
Adv.: No black bars and no problems with scaling. Full detail of the original anamorphic picture.
Dis.: Possible problems with playback + the added resolution will eat up bitrate without really adding picture information.
5) Cut the black bars and uprez to 720p (1280x544 no black bars)
Adv.: No black bars and no problems with playback and scaling. Full detail of the original anamorphic picture.
Dis.: The added resolution will eat up even more bitrate without really adding picture information.
There you have it, none of them is perfect - take a pick. I went with 1 because I wanted to keep all detail and leaving the black bars should eat up considerably less bitrate than adding resolution to the actual picture area.
Thanks for the info on the borders, but how do you encode these? can a lossless avi file even be encoded? this is what I need to know as well, I have not messed with this kind of encoding in a long time, and it was back on my older Win XP machine, now I have a way more powerful machine and Windows 7 Pro 64 bit.
Sorry, I can't help you with that, I encoded x264 straight out of Power Director for my ROTJ. But I'm sure that you can definitely encode a lossless AVI to x264. I use a program called RipBot x264, which is pretty easy to use and should be able to handle uncompressed AVI and can do any cropping/resizing you may want, but I'm not sure that that's exactly a professional solution.
Oh and btw. out of the black border and resizing solutions I listed before, I would personally actually prefer no.2 because it's best for both bitrate and resolution and I'll be playing it on a computer but people playing it on a standalone player might have trouble with aspect ratios.
when encoding with x264, leaving the black bars doesn't adversely effect the overall bitrate as much as it does when encoding with mpeg2, or so I've heard.....
I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.
Here's some links that might be helpful
http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/MeGUI/Basic_DVD_Ripping_Guide/Video
http://forum.doom9.org/archive/index.php/t-137494.html
It seems that MeGUI has a function called "smart anamorphic encoding"
I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.
Ultimately it's up-to you what resolution you use to generate your encodes....
Some people prefer to generate cropped encodes with "non-square" pixel (ie: anamorphic) resolutions, such as: 720x432. Others prefer to generate cropped encodes with "square" pixel resolutions, such as: 1024x432.
When the video decoding chip-sets within hardware players were limited to support a maximum resolution of 720x576 (total 414,720) pixels, you had to generate anamorphic encodes if you wanted the image pixel area of your encode to match that of the source.
Today however, the video decoding chip-sets within hardware players are able to support a maximum resolution of 1920x1088 (total 2,088,960) pixels. So you're perfectly able to generate encodes at say, 1024x432 (total 442,368) pixels
So maybe encoding to a anamorphic size doesn't matter all that much anymore with latest hardware players/ computers? The media tank I use seems to be able to handle the high resolutions that he talks about, so I wouldn't need a anamorphic encoding....
I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.
vbangle said:
So maybe encoding to a anamorphic size doesn't matter all that much anymore with latest hardware players/ computers? The media tank I use seems to be able to handle the high resolutions that he talks about, so I wouldn't need a anamorphic encoding....
Yeah, but if you're encoding from an anamorphic source, then you have to resize the video to make it the correct AR with square pixels, so you have to either have lower resolution (bad because it's lower resolution ;-) ) or higher resolution (bad because you need more bitrate while you don't gain any additional detail).
Harmy said:
(bad because you need more bitrate while you don't gain any additional detail).
"bad" is a relative term here... your not trying to fit a mkv file to a dvd or other type of size restricting disc...so who cares if the final mkv file is 2.4gb rather than 2.1gb for example?
I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.
Well, yeah, that's the thing though, I for one am trying to fit it on a disc, so, the bitrate and the size aren't really the variable quantity here, it's the resulting video quality, because ideally, the final mkv file will be 4.37 GB (or maybe 2.18 to fit 2 films on a DVD5 or 2.6 to fit 3 films on one DVD9 but the file size should always be fixed) and if the resolution is higher, you'll get more compression artefacts at the same file size.
But I totally see your point, it's just that I don't take x264 mkv as a way to not need discs, it's a way to have better quality on the disc of the same size.
Sorry to stray from the current topic of encoding, and especially sorry to bring the issue of video quality for ANH back up (especially because I'm the only one seemingly of this opinion), but...
<flogging a dead horse>
I was reviewing the tweaked pics and vids from a few pages back, and I can't help but feel the tweaked images are too dark. Aside from feeling that the overall image looks a bit "off," I find there's a loss of detail from the darkened image (see circled portions below):
I've looked at these on at least 3 different monitors now, and I keep seeing the same thing. If I'm alone in thinking this, I'll gladly shut up and trust in everyone else's judgement, but I just wanted to throw it out there again for consideration.
That said, I'd just like to reiterate that I still think the image quality is leaps and bounds over any other GOUT version. And, seeing as how you're the one actually doing all the work DJ, I realize it's your opinion and no one else's that matters at the end of the day.
</flogging a dead horse>
“It’s a lot of fun… it’s a lot of fun to watch Star Wars.” – Bill Moyers
Not to sound like an ass, which I am sure you are not either, but these will NEVER be to everyone's liking, plain and simple, I will look into this and see if it is really that bad, or if I even want to do another render\encode, I am not going to keep doing these over and over and over, if it gets to the point where people are going to pick apart everything, then I will just go with the original as is version that was done a while back, but keep in mind that version will have the crisp subtitles, not the blurred out new ones.
The loss in detail is minimal, in my opinion, and more than offest by the gains provided by dark_jedi's latest tweaks. I think it looks fine as it is.
Although you are losing some background detail, the brighter ones have washed out flesh tones. That suggests, to me, that the tweaked ones are more-correct, and that those background-details, brought out by the brighter versions, aren't really supposed to be visible. It's not about having every detail visible, it's about having a good balance and a good visual look - something which obviously doesn't include washed out flesh-tones.
It could very well be that I'm just used to the original desaturated look of Star Wars, accurate colours or not. Seeing it 100+ times as a child on VHS (which, in turn, was taped from TV) is certainly causing me to be biased, and probably not in a good way. Maybe the colours I'm used to seeing are bad, and the tweaks are good... I don't know, hence why I just wanted to get everyone's input one last time. But I just can't help thinking of Star Wars as a bit brighter, visually-speaking.
Honestly, if I'm alone in thinking the "as is" GOUT colours are better, then you really should trust in the majority's opinion/your gut DJ. Maybe my eyes are just shot :) Plus, as you said, you'll never please everyone, and I'm sure you'd like to put this project to rest before you're old and grey.
Regardless of whether you go with the tweaks or not, I'm sure this is going to look fantastic when you're done.
“It’s a lot of fun… it’s a lot of fun to watch Star Wars.” – Bill Moyers
P.S. What, exactly, was altered in the tweaked shots, out of curiosity? Just brightness/contrast/saturation? Or were hues tweaked as well? Maybe it's just that particular scene (Hand and Luke in the Yavin hangar), but Han's shirt seems a bit greenish to me.
Maybe I'm just colour blind, in which case ignore me :)
“It’s a lot of fun… it’s a lot of fun to watch Star Wars.” – Bill Moyers
LOL, I already have some gray, and I will look at it again soon, right now I am working on the Theatrical audio for Jedi, so I will report back later tonight or tomorrow.