Sample is up! and it is almost 19 minutes long.
Also want to give a Special Thanks to ABC for the tracks used on the sample, so Thank You, You are truly an Audio Maestro!
OH, and did I say I made it Free Leech for a week!
Awesome!.;)
HOLY S***
I have a puddle of drool on the floor from how good that video looks. It's like some sort of voodoo magic that you got that out of the GOUT discs. I am so very excited for the full V2 blus.
dark_jedi this is truly spectacular. You and You_Too have done a great job with this especially considering the source. My only issue is during the opening I can see some blocking and changes in brightness as the camera pans down. The film looks very grainy but I am a fan of grain since this originated from film. The color looks spot on and I am astonished with the amount of detail that you pulled from the non-anamorphic DVD. Loved the music.;)
I must unfortunately recant my opinion that Project Blu V1 takes the GOUT to its maximum potential. Judging from this clip, Project Blu V2 has done so much more!!! Dark_jedi and You_Too, your work on this has been superb judging by the sample clip.
Great, great, great job. The contrast and sharpness are better on this than V1. Everything is very clear now. I'm really loving the whiteness of the Tantive IV halls. It has an even more "Technicolor" feel to it now with You_Too's corrections. The red levels seem to really be at a better level than the base GOUT, making for an even color palette. Skin tones never get too red for me; they always look pretty natural albeit pleasantly saturated. The detail mustered out is astounding too. Your script shows a definite improvement in getting fine things out. The grain structure is pretty intact... there's no sign you over-scrubbed it. It never looks coarse as one might expect it to for such an old master. Tatooine's dunes never looked better; an inherent problem with the Lowry restoration was the removal of the grit and dirt from some of these scenes which made it feel like a Western (in Space, that is). The Death Star interiors are pleasantly saturated but never sickly. Stars are visible in space but not blooming or off-white. If I were to have one criticism, it would be that the GOUT's inherent DVNR is visible, though remarkably less so then in Project Blu V1. Something you did must have helped this.
It's worth mentioning that the audio sounds nice. I definitely enjoyed the music. Kudos to ABC for that. All in all, this sample seems like a fun little demo disc to use to display the quality originaltrilogy.com users can produce. Keep up the good work, gentlemen. You've done fantastic jobs.
Ditto what everybody else has said, but I am especially curious what the next two look like...I can't wait.
Very nice you guys well done.
I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.
The Aluminum Falcon said:
I must unfortunately recant my opinion that Project Blu V1 takes the GOUT to its maximum potential. Judging from this clip, Project Blu V2 has done so much more!!!
I am right there with you on that, while running tests and then a render or 2, then finally a test encode I was blown away lol, but it took me a bit to get used to all the color at first, I actually was switching back and forth between V1 & V2 and what a difference lol, what a difference!
1 thing I would like to mention though, I am hoping to get the guys that made my cover art for the V1 Set to modify the covers to add in the subs now, I am pretty sure that is all that is needed, I have already been in contact with the guy that did up those real nice 3 cover Sets and he has agreed to fix his covers and possibly even make up yet another new Set, also waiting on a response from ABC because I would really like to include his as well, and then the covers harmy did would need fixing, I will see what I can include and what I can't.
Just PM me the info you want to add and I'll dig out those work files (they're on an external HDD somewhere) and modify them :-)
Thanks for your efforts, dark jedi and you_too. These experimentations are very valuable in the pursuit of making the best version of the GOUT available to OT fans. Many have stated here how much they love the new colours of your blu v2's. I have to say that, personally, I feel the contrast is far too extreme for my tastes. Using this classic shot as a comparison really highlights the "sunburnt" look to your version:
http://aptirrelevance.com/otscreenshots/screenshots.php?shot=4
I hope you don't take this as a damning criticism from me as everyone appears to favour your colours, but for me it's too much. I'm clearly in the minority but I thought I'd add my voice and say thank you for your efforts all the same.
For those few people who may be in the same boat as myself who may wish to create their own remastered video to their own tastes, would you possibly be able to create a torrent of all of the OT soundtracks you have collected so we may sync them to our own version of the GOUT? You have done an incredible archival job in collecting all of these OT GOUT-synced soundtracks and I would really like them for my own video, but would prefer to not have to download the entire blu-ray release so I may obtain them.
Thanks again.
@pupil: We are well aware of the skintones being off or too "sunburn" in some spots. This has to do with the source we're using. The GOUT has a very bad balance of skintones compared to other things with a lot of red in it. So bringing up all other colors and balancing them always left something looking like that one shot. There are no pure miracle cures for the GOUT.
And with no offense, I want to say that the thing you mentioned is not contrast, it's saturation.
And to everyone else, thank you so much for your compliments and feedback.
You_Too and Dark_Jedi,
The latest preview is really impressive. It's remarkable what you managed to dig out of the GOUT. Seeing the color for the first time is a "wow" moment. Has there ever been a better time to be a fan of the Original Trilogy?
Like I said earlier I think in this thread, it took me a few seconds to get used to seeing all this color, I have been so used to the washed out GOUT look for so long that this was just really weird at first, but now messing with it some and seeing it on my 65" HDTV I am really, really liking it a lot!
and as I said several times before, and I think I have it on my first post, this set is not for everyone, and I am just fine with that, because I can spot strange color correcting choices made on anyone's project, no ones is perfect and they never will be.
I second You_Too also, thank you guys for all the feedback and comments.
@you_too, yes, sorry, contrast. I should have checked my post, that's what I meant to say.
I think I'm used to seeing and prefer seeing a 70s/80s film with a more subdued colour palette. It's like the recent Back to the Future Blu-ray remasters, they're far too colourful for my eyes. Maybe I'm just being old fashioned ;) Modern films have everything cranked up to 11 these days: volume, colour, contrast... older films like Star Wars have a certain style of presentation to them which I don't believe works when remastered to try to emulate a modern release.
But, like you say, dj, these aren't for everyone, and it seems I am in the minority with my views, so congrats on the completion of this project and I totally respect your efforts :) I hope that you may take my suggestion of torrenting just the soundtracks, though, as I'm very excited to be able to add these to my own video remaster.
Thanks again.
I really think our shot of this guy looks better than all those in that link, this just has great color.
About the color thing and old movies:
Check this comparison I made from ESB.
First pic is a scan of an original print. Second is raw GOUT. Third is our version.
Notice how pink/magenta tinted the original scan is, with unnatural skin tones, but also how colorful it is. Anyway, all three movies have a kind of similar tint in the GOUT, so we ended up balancing the colors in the same way in all three movies. See how much more natural that shot looks now. And the colors look just as strong as in that print.
I like the comparison, but I will say something about that overly blue 70mm frame.
I'm not sure if that 70mm scan is accurate to how the film would have looked in a theater. Though most of them don't seem to have visible fading (possibly LPP?), we don't know what kind of post-processing was done by the person who scanned them. If they were auto-corrected in the scanner software or some other image editing program, then the brightness, contrast, gamma, saturation, and/or color balance may not reflect the colors on the actual film.
For example, here's the Jedi1.net scan of the bacta tank wide shot:
Now here's an image of a cell of a different frame of the same shot, which I found on eBay:
Notice how the ceiling isn't as green. To me, the lower image looks more balanced. I think the Jedi1.net image had some kind of auto-correct or something. And I'm not sure if even that reflects the "correct" color balance of the film - this was taken by a digital camera, and I'm not sure how the film cell was illuminated (though the light behind the clear areas *looks* correctly white...
Since this really doesn't have anything to do with this project, I'll talk more about the film cells in the Color Timing and Cinematography thread.
You_Too said:
About the color thing and old movies:
Check this comparison I made from ESB.
First pic is a scan of an original print. Second is raw GOUT. Third is our version.
Notice how pink/magenta tinted the original scan is, with unnatural skin tones, but also how colorful it is. Anyway, all three movies have a kind of similar tint in the GOUT, so we ended up balancing the colors in the same way in all three movies. See how much more natural that shot looks now. And the colors look just as strong as in that print.
As a photographer, the top image of the sample looks like it was shot under fluorescent lighting, the middle one is a little washed out on colours and the bottom one has returned the colours, but looks a little more towards tungsten lighting. (I'm not saying that they are that, simply that they seem to lean in those directions..)
I'm curious, there's been a lot of talk about saturation and contrast, but has there been any changes related to white balance, and if so, care to explain a little?
EDIT: Sorry, for those who might not know, changing tint and colour balance IS related to white balance, but white balance refers specifically to using white (or a suitable grey card ;) as a control point...
@patkhoo: What I did to find the balance in the movies was to take lots of frames from each movie, put them in photoshop beside each other in one big file, and let photoshop auto find the mid-balance of the greyscale.
Also, keep in mind that the movies were projected with warmer bulbs back in the day, as Mike Verta discussed in Harmy's thread. This would make them look more warm than the 70mm scans, which I bet were scanned using today's standards.
And this shot was just one of very many in that movie. Some shots still have a very cold feeling to them. The GOUT does not do a good job in representing the original color but I think we did the best we could to bring some of it back.
And about the sample on myspleen: I know some people saw artefacts in dark scenes, and that's because it's much more compressed than the final blu-ray will be. Some dark details you haven't seen before are also brought up a bit from the increase in saturation.
Right now me and DJ are discussing something more important though, that I noticed in the sample, and that's the strongest reds bleeding color to the left from where they should be. This was caused by the encoder it seems, so we're trying to find which setting caused it.
Well here is something a little off topic, here is my PC I built not to long ago(the top pic) and the next pic is the one I just built last week for my 11 year old Son(bottom pic).
Also for those that want to see the SW BLU V2 sample grab it soon, I am taking the torrent down sometime tomorrow(Sunday).
*****
Sorry the image is a little blurry, I can't take a new one, he is on it all the time playing Diablo and Diablo II.
Your son has a great dad.;)
Yeah, nice build! And it really is a mini-version of the other rig.
dlbsyst said:
Your son has a great dad.;)
lol, He also has a Wii, PS3, and an Xbox 360, as well as a BD player and HDTV in his own room, so he is just a tad spoiled lol.
I've just had a chance to see the sample. I had to watch it a few times because i just couldn't believe that this was actually GOUT sourced. Yes, some of the jaggies and problems inherent with the GOUT are still there, but these are a LOT less noticeable and have been greatly reduced. The colours look great. Seeing colours, especially blues, that were thought lost from the faded GOUT, finally make an appearance was outstanding.
I did notice the reds bleeding somewhat, but that has been mentioned that is a problem with the encode.
My only criticism would be that the reds are slightly too saturated. If you could knock the saturation of the reds back slightly, this would be prefect. I just popped it into after effects and reduced the just red saturation slightly:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/109786
It's such a sad state of affairs when people with a PC at home can do a much better job than the half assed effort of Lucasfilm. Its sad to think that there are so many Star Wars fans that truly think that the 2004 DVD/ Blu-ray versions are how Star Wars should look colourwise. These fans should be forced to watch this version as THIS is how Star Wars should look.
Great job guys.
Thanks a lot for your feedback adywan!
We're looking into the red bleeding thing right now.
And the reds being too saturated, well, believe it or not but I've reduced them greatly already! Using selective color in the avisynth script we're basing this on, I took them down as much as I could without leaving the less saturated red objects looking too desaturated.
Maybe you could do a final colour pass in After Effects as this could possibly give you more control when adjusting the reds.