I finally got this last night (I was also having problems with part 2, but it eventually worked). Like Star Wars, I haven't had a chance to sit down & watch the whole thing (I have guests in town & I probably won't get to watch either of these in full for another week... :sadface:).
BUTTTT............. I did throw it into the PS3 late last night after everyone went to bed & skipped around to spot check it. Un-FREAKING-believable! I still think Star Wars is your total masterpiece, but this is a fantastic companion. I was really happy with Adywan's Theatrical restoration, but this takes it over the top. I know Adywan had to hurry to meet the deadline of the 30th anniversary he had set & thus left a few SE things unrestored. But most of them didn't bother me. The one thing that did was the lightsabers on Cloud City. I could barely contain my excitement when I saw you had fixed them! Add to the fact that this is HD and there's just nothing to compare it to. The wampa cave is spectacular & I honestly struggled to tell which parts were not HD, even under scrutiny. I was also very impressed with how well the "zoomed back out" shots of the Falcon cockpit (where you added the edges back to the frame using the GOUT) came out. Seriously, I wouldn't have known how you did it if not for your slideshow.
I'm so impressed. I was actually telling my brother about your work over the phone & I told him how I'm not even that upset about the lack of the OOT on the upcoming blurays anymore. Your work is that good (& my brother was shocked to hear me say that, responding, "geez, these must really be fantastic if you're saying that..."). Don't get me wrong, I still want the OOT to really be properly restored & be released in all it's glory, but as others have said, what you've done has taken so much of the "sting" or "guilt" out of watching crappy, smeary, low res versions of the OOT that I don't long for official blurays like I did before.
&, while I understand if you prefer not to answer, but I just have to ask. Are you a professional in the film or video industry in some capacity or is this all completely amatuer? I know you've pulled resources from projects by other members here, but everything is just so well done (their work as well as yours) that I find it hard to believe that all of this is completely amatuer...