logo Sign In

Star Wars coming to Blu Ray (UPDATE: August 30 2011, No! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!) — Page 144

Author
Time
 (Edited)

zombie84 said:

dark_jedi said:

zombie84 said:

Yeah, I think Fellowship had a lot of DVR or something applied, because the resolution is very bad. Part of this has to do with the fact that it wasn't done as a DI or something like that. I've seen some screens and it didn't look very nice. I thought they corrected it though?

You must be thinking of the TE version, the EE versions that were just released do not suffer from this at all, not at all.

 Right. But the TE version does, which was the original point, and so it stands. The EE is a separate release and a separate film. What's with all the defending of perfectly valid complaints?

Also, I did mean DNR, I just typed it wrong. I don't know if that's what the issue is, but I've the screenshots and the film looks pretty bad. The HD broadcast versions are more or less correct looking and show way more detail.

You are right, the TE version does, BUT, the original poster was talking about the newly released EE's, and defending valid complaints? The TE has nothing to do with what was said, I don't get it, well anyways, this surely is not SW related.

OK, I looked over what I wrote and if by defending, you mean me talking about the "supposed" fucked up color, you are right, I have the set and it was grossly exaggerated to say the least, read what I wrote in my other posts, all I am trying to say is give the new BD version of FoTR EE a chance, the color is great, we are not discussing the TE, never were.

Author
Time

My mistake, he did say EE, I guess I didn't catch the parenthesis there. I haven't seen the EE myself but I have heard, as you said, that they look good. Shame about the TE though, I generally prefer that cut for Fellowship. Maybe they will correct it if they do a TE+EE boxset.

I never noticed though, is the contention that the EE looks more green-biased than the TE? Because on the DVD version they looked identical in colour, to the point where they were both branched from the same common video in the 2006 release.

Author
Time

I think they used the same master for both versions of LOTR on DVD, only adding the new scenes to EE and that same master was used for the TE Blu-Ray, while FOTR was remastered for the EE Blu-Ray.

Author
Time

TV's Frink said:

So I take it the mono mix will be on the Blu? :p

*raps Frink on the head*

Think, Frink, think!

The Blu-ray won't even have the original film on it, so  the original mono mix can't be included. (If it did, the sound would go very badly out of sync during the added Jabba scene...)

Guidelines for post content and general behaviour: read announcement here

Max. allowable image sizes in signatures: reminder here

Author
Time
 (Edited)

zombie84 said:

captainsolo said:

adywan said:

i guess they got a bunch of people they knew would say how good the transfers look, but really haven't got a clue what they are saying. Clueless statements, like the above mentioned and the following, invalidated anything that they say in that review for me:

While the newer Star Wars films were ready made for high definition, the older films will obviously suffer a little from the all scrutinizing eye of HD. (The only pre-digital, color sci-fi film that holds up spectacularly well to date is 2001: A Space Odyssey; and to quote Malcolm McDowell out of context, you’re talking about Stanley fucking Kubrick. No offense, Mr. Lucas.)

 

 

Of course 2001 looks great. It's been well taken care of and was shot in 70mm for later Cinerama projection! It's not your standard 35!!!!

And I take it these people didn't see the Blu-rays of Forbidden Planet, CEoT3K, and the fantastic looking Planet of the Apes and The Day the Earth Stood Still.

 Also, I don't believe 2001 had optical composites, it was done (at least mostly) in-camera. So, the VFX sequences have no generational loss and are in 65mm to boot. There isn't going to be anything that rivals that in terms of resolution.

As for Avatar--yes, Avatar was shot in 1080p. Avatar is also a primarily animated film, whereby the 1920x1080 live action elements constitute either a small portion of a larger, digital composite, and the purely/mostly live-action sequences constitute only a small portion of the completed film. Also, Cameron filmed it with much better cameras than AOTC/ROTS, which basically used the very first HD motion picture camera. The resolution of digital video is less important than the number of lines it can resolve, the dynamic range, how it handles highlights and black levels, the depth of colour, and other such issues.

This is why modern films shot in 1080p look very good, as detailed as most or all modern 35mm films which you see theatrically. When you see a 35mm film theatrically you aren't likely to be seeing more detail than a 1080p projection anyway because of generational loss, and in the home you aren't likely to be able to resolve more lines than HD video is capable of displaying on a screen that is less than five or six feet wide. 4K home theatre would pretty much be a waste of money. I don't know if they will ever propose such a thing, but one would be foolish to buy into it unless you had a bona fide screening room (and even then the difference might be minimal). This is different than 4K scanning of 35mm film though, because you want that high resolution so that the HD downconvert has all the information possible--I don't know what exactly the science behind it is, but there doesn't seem to be true "lossless" HD scan to HD projection, whenever you scan from HD and project in HD it looks worse than when scanning from 4K and projecting in HD.

To be honest----digital(2K/1080p) looks better than 35mm(Ok--with generation loss)---they even did side by side comparisons as far back as 1999 with the Phantom Menace itself:

 

Electronic Cinema Debuts in Beautiful Downtown Burbank
By Scott Wilkinson • Posted: Jun 20, 1999

So how is the quality of the digital image? During a press conference held on June 17 at the AMC Burbank 14 multiplex, a short clip was shown in a split screen: Half the image was from a new, high-quality film print, and the other half was from the digital "print." Once the two images were manually synchronized, the difference was remarkably clear: The digital image was much sharper, with much better color fidelity than the film print. For example, the Jedi council room has large windows through which the sky is visible. In the digital image, the sky and clouds were clearly delineated, but they were blurred into a bluish blob on the film side of the screen. Rick McCallum, one of the producers of The Phantom Menace and a press-conference panelist, said the digital version is a much more accurate representation of what they shot than the film version.

http://www.ultimateavmag.com/content/electronic-cinema-debuts-beautiful-downtown-burbank

 

 


 

 

I saw Star Wars in 1977. Many, many, many times. For 3 years it was just Star Wars...period. I saw it in good theaters, cheap theaters and drive-ins with those clunky metal speakers you hang on your window. The screen and sound quality never subtracted from the excitement. I can watch the original cut right now, over 30 years later, on some beat up VHS tape and enjoy it. It's the story that makes this movie. Nothing? else.

kurtb8474 1 week ago

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=SkAZxd-5Hp8


Author
Time

Moth3r said:

TV's Frink said:

So I take it the mono mix will be on the Blu? :p

*raps Frink on the head*

Think, Frink, think!

The Blu-ray won't even have the original film on it, so  the original mono mix can't be included. (If it did, the sound would go very badly out of sync during the added Jabba scene...)

I guess you missed the ":p"

Author
Time

144 pages of this? When we know we aren't getting what we want?

Dark times friends, dark times.

“It is only through interaction, through decision and choice, through confrontation, physical or mental, that the Force can grow within you.”
-Kreia, Jedi Master and Sith Lord

Author
Time

Moth3r said:

TV's Frink said:

So I take it the mono mix will be on the Blu? :p

*raps Frink on the head*

Hello?  McFrink?  Anybody home?!?!

Think, McFrink, think!

 Fixed.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

Author
Time

http://www.bigpicturebigsound.com/A-Destiny-Revealed-Star-Wars-Media-Day-Brings-Blu-ray-to-Town.shtml

 

I saw Star Wars in 1977. Many, many, many times. For 3 years it was just Star Wars...period. I saw it in good theaters, cheap theaters and drive-ins with those clunky metal speakers you hang on your window. The screen and sound quality never subtracted from the excitement. I can watch the original cut right now, over 30 years later, on some beat up VHS tape and enjoy it. It's the story that makes this movie. Nothing? else.

kurtb8474 1 week ago

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=SkAZxd-5Hp8


Author
Time

UGH

It looks uglier in real life.

YUCK.

<span style=“font-weight: bold;”>The Most Handsomest Guy on OT.com</span>

Author
Time

At least there are real cases for the discs. The studios have come up with some awful gimmick Blu Ray packaging lately. As if those painfully flimsy eco cases weren't bad enough!

Fox released the most recent Narnia flick in this tri fold cardboard thing, in which some people found the discs hotglued into the paper sleeves! Walmart has the movie in a regular case, but zero extras.

The original Back To The Future BR set had it's own horror packaging...

Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

Author
Time

Seconded to what SilverWook said. I heard bad things about the BTTF trilogy box, have they fixed it? I really want the big Alien Quadrilogy Blu-ray set, but from what I have seen it comes in a weird cardboard book like case. Anybody have it? Is it as bad as I am making it out to be?

Author
Time

CP3S said:

Seconded to what SilverWook said. I heard bad things about the BTTF trilogy box, have they fixed it? I really want the big Alien Quadrilogy Blu-ray set, but from what I have seen it comes in a weird cardboard book like case. Anybody have it? Is it as bad as I am making it out to be?

The BTTF is already been fixed, the new packaging had already been out, I plan on buying this soon, and the Alien Set is not that bad LOL, it is like a book, but they slide in and out freely, plus it would be very hard to damage or scratch a Blu-ray disc surface, with that hard coat and all, I like the Alien Set myself, but I did read that the BTTF box was terrible.

Author
Time

Anyone in London, 12-14 August 2011?

http://www.seenit.co.uk/more-films-confirmed-for-empire%E2%80%99s-weekend-of-film/069023/

Following the news that the Muppets and DreamWorks’ Real Steel will be featured during Empire’s BIG SCREEN weekend celebration of film, it’s been confirmed that key members of the team from Industrial Light and Magic will be discussing some of the new content on the upcoming Star Wars Blu-Ray release.

Official site: http://www.empirebigscreen.com/

Author
Time

dark_jedi said:

CP3S said:

Seconded to what SilverWook said. I heard bad things about the BTTF trilogy box, have they fixed it? I really want the big Alien Quadrilogy Blu-ray set, but from what I have seen it comes in a weird cardboard book like case. Anybody have it? Is it as bad as I am making it out to be?

The BTTF is already been fixed, the new packaging had already been out, I plan on buying this soon, and the Alien Set is not that bad LOL, it is like a book, but they slide in and out freely, plus it would be very hard to damage or scratch a Blu-ray disc surface, with that hard coat and all, I like the Alien Set myself, but I did read that the BTTF box was terrible.

I have what I believe to be the old BTTF packaging.  It's an odd/new way of storing the discs, which isn't exactly bad... but it's not something that I knew how to handle right away.  I've never actually broken a disc getting it in or out of any packaging, but I'm sure the stress of flexing discs isn't good for any of them.  Once I figured you had to slide the disc against some springy tabs first, then the disc would come out, it's not been a big deal.  But if some overentusiastic friend (neighbour, wife, kid, etc.) borrowed the set, I wouldn't be shocked if they broke a disc or the package just trying to get them out.

IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!

"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005

"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM

"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.

Rewrite the Prequels!

 

Author
Time

A bit late, but I wanted to jump in and say a couple things about mono:

First off, the folks at Dolby and others in the film industry all agree that the centre channel of any audio setup is ideally supposed to be exactly the same type of speaker as the rest of the audio system.  If you have stereo towers for the left and right, then the centre speaker should be a tower of the same kind.  Of course it is recognised that this is not always possible, particularly in home environments, so making compromises for the space of a particular room has become common practise.  But even so, for best results the speaker must be of similar tonal quality and power handling, so that there is no disparity of voicing anywhere in the front soundstage.  Since the centre channel handles the majority of sound in any film mix, including the all-important dialogue, it would make no sense whatsoever to do anything else.  Any system in which the centre speaker is markedly inferior to the left and right speakers is not worthy to be playing film soundtracks.

Second, it is generally agreed among audio professionals that mono film tracks are meant to played from the centre speaker only, and as a listener I agree with this.  It is for the same reason the dialogue is nearly always centrally located even in multichannel mixes.  Doing so firmly anchors the sound to the screen, and allows it to emanate directly from the speaker to the listener without interference.  (There is certainly a case to be made for dialogue panning in multichannel mixes to reflect the position of characters onscreen--Pixar films notably often do this, and apparently it was a common practise in older 70mm films--but it is ideally restricted to specific artistic purposes only.)  In mono mixes, everything is centrally located, and it stands to reason that it should be heard as such.  Playing mono tracks from the left and right speakers creates a 'phantom centre' effect, and while this is effective enough if the listener is positioned in the right place, moving very far in either direction will cause the imaging to collapse to that side, which spoils the illusion that the sound is coming from the screen.  Worse, with identical sounds being emitted from multiple locations, they will interact with each other in unpredictable ways according to the acoustic properties of the room, nearly always resulting in phase cancellation and smearing, and in general causing a disembodied effect that is usually considered undesirable.

Done properly, signal processing can create interesting effects through phase tricks to more effectively wrap the audio around the room even in mono, which some listeners may find pleasing, so there is a place for it.  But regardless, the majority of the track should still be coming from the centre speaker.

Dual mono encoding is unnecessary, and is probably done mainly to accommodate those with analogue stereo setups.  Using Prologic II or a similar algorithm will cause a dual mono track to be diverted to the centre speaker instead of the left and right.  Depending on the receiver, a track encoded as true mono will go to the centre if put into 'direct' mode.  It is helpful if the receiver is able to remember to switch formats with each type of incoming signal.

It is entirely understandable that some may not wish to listen to mono mixes, because 5.1 sound can be very appealing and going back to flat-sounding older mixes may leave a sense of disappointment.  The Academy mono optical format was a pretty low fidelity system, with a very limited frequency response and a tonal characteristic that often comes across as harsh and biting, especially with music.  As far as I'm concerned, the advent of Dolby Noise Reduction was one of the best things that ever happened to the world of film audio.  However, I do have major problems with many modern remixes, because they take broad liberties with the source material that do not reflect the original mixers' artistic choices at all, and there is definitely something to be said for hearing a film exactly as it was when it was released.  Also, a lot of old films don't warrant being remixed in the first place, because there is no real improvement or benefit to doing so, either for technical or artistic reasons; in other cases a remix may be more acceptable in order to improve the sound quality and so forth, but only if no changes to content are made and the general balance remains faithful to the original version.  Sadly, this happens far too infrequently.

Although I appreciate the Beatles, I've never been a particular fan, so I can't comment on their music with any real authority.  But I have heard some of their stuff in both stereo and mono versions, and without fail the mono mixes were superior in every case.  The stereo versions were missing many background instrument tracks, and the hard panning of elements to one side or the other was a very gimmicky and unsatisfying mixing choice.  There was no proper stereo imaging at all.  Even from eliminating this absurd panning alone the mono versions already sound better, and the much better mixing and artistic choices in general make them the versions any Beatles fan should want.  Any concern about whether to play from a centre speaker, dual mono, or any other mode becomes almost irrelevant compared to just having the properly mixed version of the music in this case.  ;)

Author
Time
 (Edited)

danny_boy said:

zombie84 said:

captainsolo said:

adywan said:

i guess they got a bunch of people they knew would say how good the transfers look, but really haven't got a clue what they are saying. Clueless statements, like the above mentioned and the following, invalidated anything that they say in that review for me:

While the newer Star Wars films were ready made for high definition, the older films will obviously suffer a little from the all scrutinizing eye of HD. (The only pre-digital, color sci-fi film that holds up spectacularly well to date is 2001: A Space Odyssey; and to quote Malcolm McDowell out of context, you’re talking about Stanley fucking Kubrick. No offense, Mr. Lucas.)

 

 

Of course 2001 looks great. It's been well taken care of and was shot in 70mm for later Cinerama projection! It's not your standard 35!!!!

And I take it these people didn't see the Blu-rays of Forbidden Planet, CEoT3K, and the fantastic looking Planet of the Apes and The Day the Earth Stood Still.

 Also, I don't believe 2001 had optical composites, it was done (at least mostly) in-camera. So, the VFX sequences have no generational loss and are in 65mm to boot. There isn't going to be anything that rivals that in terms of resolution.

As for Avatar--yes, Avatar was shot in 1080p. Avatar is also a primarily animated film, whereby the 1920x1080 live action elements constitute either a small portion of a larger, digital composite, and the purely/mostly live-action sequences constitute only a small portion of the completed film. Also, Cameron filmed it with much better cameras than AOTC/ROTS, which basically used the very first HD motion picture camera. The resolution of digital video is less important than the number of lines it can resolve, the dynamic range, how it handles highlights and black levels, the depth of colour, and other such issues.

This is why modern films shot in 1080p look very good, as detailed as most or all modern 35mm films which you see theatrically. When you see a 35mm film theatrically you aren't likely to be seeing more detail than a 1080p projection anyway because of generational loss, and in the home you aren't likely to be able to resolve more lines than HD video is capable of displaying on a screen that is less than five or six feet wide. 4K home theatre would pretty much be a waste of money. I don't know if they will ever propose such a thing, but one would be foolish to buy into it unless you had a bona fide screening room (and even then the difference might be minimal). This is different than 4K scanning of 35mm film though, because you want that high resolution so that the HD downconvert has all the information possible--I don't know what exactly the science behind it is, but there doesn't seem to be true "lossless" HD scan to HD projection, whenever you scan from HD and project in HD it looks worse than when scanning from 4K and projecting in HD.

To be honest----digital(2K/1080p) looks better than 35mm(Ok--with generation loss)---they even did side by side comparisons as far back as 1999 with the Phantom Menace itself:

 

Electronic Cinema Debuts in Beautiful Downtown Burbank
By Scott Wilkinson • Posted: Jun 20, 1999

So how is the quality of the digital image? During a press conference held on June 17 at the AMC Burbank 14 multiplex, a short clip was shown in a split screen: Half the image was from a new, high-quality film print, and the other half was from the digital "print." Once the two images were manually synchronized, the difference was remarkably clear: The digital image was much sharper, with much better color fidelity than the film print. For example, the Jedi council room has large windows through which the sky is visible. In the digital image, the sky and clouds were clearly delineated, but they were blurred into a bluish blob on the film side of the screen. Rick McCallum, one of the producers of The Phantom Menace and a press-conference panelist, said the digital version is a much more accurate representation of what they shot than the film version.

http://www.ultimateavmag.com/content/electronic-cinema-debuts-beautiful-downtown-burbank

 I agree, but only to an extent. It depends on the projector. A "digital image" says nothing about the resolution it was projected at (HD/2K/4K) and what type of projector was used. Some digital projections I have watched in theatres are the best visual presentations I have ever seen (i.e. Blade Runner), while in others the 35mm was much better (as was the case the second time I saw Inception). In an ideal situation using good equipment, digital projection wins, but this is not necessarily what every theatre is using. It also depends on the quality of the digital master as well. So there is no single answer to the question. It all depends on the variables of what you are comparing.

Author
Time

hairy_hen said:

{a lot of sensible stuff about mono sound}

Thanks h_h, that's exactly what I was thinking but I wasn't sure of the facts. While searching at various home cinema forums I found this:

which suggests that although mono should come from the centre speaker, some people prefer to use the front left & right. But I also saw this thread where someone who describes himself as an acoustical engineer says that this can cause unwanted effects.

Guidelines for post content and general behaviour: read announcement here

Max. allowable image sizes in signatures: reminder here

Author
Time

I listened to mono films on Laserdisc with a plain two channel stereo system for years with no unusual effects. I would think most modern amps still have plain old stereo settings?

Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

Author
Time

Moth3r said:

While searching at various home cinema forums I found this:

which suggests that although mono should come from the centre speaker, some people prefer to use the front left & right. But I also saw this thread where someone who describes himself as an acoustical engineer says that this can cause unwanted effects.

I wonder which release of The Terminator that is? My NTSC DVD released in 1997 or '98 have basically the same info but instead of the last third segment it just says: "It is compatible with all current playback equipment." The audio on it is actually something so rare as a 2.1 mono track, and it sounds fantastic on my system, if only the video quality was that good. ;)

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

Author
Time

Looks like LD to me.

And what the heck is 2.1 mono? That doesn't make sense to me.