I read part I and part II, also I read another preview of Blu-Ray:
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/starwarsbds/preview.html
Some of you may recall that on the 2004 DVD, when the X-Wings begin their dive down to the Death Star, the familiar John Williams trumpet fanfare was buried in the mix so you could barely hear it. No longer! The trumpets ring true in the Blu-ray mix loud and clear. When I heard this, I couldn't help thrusting my arms up in the air in a bit of happy relief. I then turned to Matt (Wood), who as it happens was standing right next to me, and saw him give a little smile and nod - he knew exactly what I was reacting to. When I leaned over to thank him for fixing it, his simple reply made me smile as well: "Trust me, I read the blogs too..."
I think he is visiting OT.com and maybe he is hiding under some nickname.
Why Didn’t You Ask About the Original Series?
I did, and I was politely given the answer I expected, the same one that has been given before: This is the vision that George Lucas has for his films….
Q: On the DVD, the orchestra for the surround channels was swapped, was that fixed?
A: It’s funny, because it never really was an error --- what happened back then was that the music master we had at the time didn’t have any surround information. One of the techniques that has been used previously from mixers is to give it a bigger soundstage---they would have flipped the back channel to give it a different kind of reverb. And that was done on the THX 1138 remaster, which I didn’t work on. For this go-round (6.1) we decided not to do that, so the surround information is direct to the back, no longer flipped on the music track.
Yeah, deliberate creative....
So, I came to a conclusion: BIG, BIG THANKS to ADYWAN, HARMY AND OTHER OT Artist for forcing Lucasfilm to make this changes. Really. Without you, they would say everything is all right with 2004 DVD. BUT with your edits, they saw that they cannot lie anymore and they have to do something. GREAT!!!
Ady - You were worried about cyan tint over Hoth - there is still hope they fixed that:
While I am fairly sure that they originated from the digital files, they should not be used to look for DNR, crushed blacks, resolution levels, or to find Waldo, but they should be used to see that there is no longer a puppet pole showing, that light sabers have changed, that there is more picture information on Episode I, and to represent the concept that a lot of work has gone into this release to fix issues from the previous DVD release. Any other use is not recommended or implied. Hopefully that will squelch any controversies, but since this is Star Wars, I may be expecting too much.
There is still a chance they fixed the "colars".
I'm waiting for "our" members to deal with those new informations, because I'm very exited now.
We also learned that TPM was done from digital files (we were all wondering if there was a DI from TPM).
There are also some sad things:
Q: Was there any thought given to archiving previous tracks like the 6-track master from the 70mm prints or the 78 mono remix? Any thought given to putting them on the Blu-ray?
A: Yes, we have those and they’ve all been digitized. I don’t know if they considered putting those on the Blu-ray. That might be more of a question for Marketing, it may be an issue of space. It’s funny because I play those other audio tracks, like the scene when R2 and C3PO have been left on Tatooine and they walk through the canyon. I just love that on the current mix, you can actually hear the quiet, when R2 is lonely, going through the canyon. I played the original mix and it’s FULL of hiss and totally brittle, so it’s fun now to hear it like George wanted it to really be, what was intended.
So they have the restored 1977 70mm sound. Now all we need is that they scan the original elements from the negative, incorporate them into SE negative and release it on BD with lossless sound. Sadly, this will probably never happen.