The Anniversary Collection: GOUT's Last Stand - NTSC DVD Set (Work-in-Progress)

Since, I finished the Hyperspace Collection AVCHD last year, I'd been intending to release a standard-def DVD of that set, especially given all of the playback problems experienced by some users.  But, life got in the way...weeks turned into months...and I had "misplaced" the raw AVI masters.  So, I decided to leave things as they were.  Between Rebellion and Hyperspace, I was ready to move on to other projects.

About a month ago, I saw a video with political commentator Bill Whittle explaining the motivations behind Lucas' "Greedo shoots first" decision, as well as highlighting a few other comments Lucas had made comparing the Ewoks to the Viet Cong.  Well, it got me even more p***ed off about the official Blu-rays and lit a brand new fire under me to try my hand at GOUT one more (hopefully last) time.

After scouring through my backup hd, I found the raw AVIs for Hyperspace, but down-scaling them wasn't enough.  I wasn't happy with the color correction decisions I'd previously made and I really wanted to fix some of GOUT's bizarr-o problems (missing scanlines on the Emperor and split sabers).  Oh, and I wanted to try and reduce the aliasing a bit more.  But, Hyperspace was a better source to start with than straight-GOUT.

Anniversary Collection is currently a work in progress, though it should be available before the year is out.  If not, I'll need to rename it for obvious reasons ;)

Final specifications are far from being fully determined, but it will be NTSC DVD format, 16x9 enhanced.  Audio will be the same mixes used on the Rebellion and Hyperspace collections.  And, like Rebellion, it will include both the '77 and '81 cuts of Star Wars.

As for special features, I'm undecided...but it will at least have the same extras found on Hyperspace.

So far, I've completed the downscales of the Hyperspace material, improved (slightly) the anti-aliasing, and finished the bulk of the revised color timing (stil tweaking).  Obviously the color changes won't please everyone, but they do please me ;)

Early color comparison screenshots:

I share your like of the color changes you are working on.  I am glad to see you giving this another go....I still enjoy the Rebellion Collection and am glad I stumbled upon it by accident......Cheers!!!!

Definitely looking forward to this!! Screenshots look great btw

bkev said:
I kind of wish you would do your more recent corrections on an AVCHD...

I had thought about it...and I may still opt for a separate AVCHD companion set.  After all of the playback problems so many people had with Hyperspace, AVCHD left me a bit uncomfortable.

I too would like an AVCHD version if possible.  I personally had no issues with playback.

Not criticizm, just a couple tips for you: If you're aiming for a balanced look, the new screenshots are slightly too green and a bit desaturated. All three movies in the GOUT are desaturated, but after a lot of analyzing of it during my project with dark_jedi, I came to the conclusion that SW might be about 25% less saturated than ESB and ROTJ too.

Good luck with your project!

I agree about the green look (kind of reminds me of the Lord of the Rings Blu-ray debacle).  One good test is to try to find things that should be white and compare them to actual white.  Do they look white or green? 

I agree with not over-saturating the colors though.  Good luck with the project!

Thanks to everyone for the input.  Yeah, the current settings are a bit too green.  I'm still tweaking and will post revised samples later this week.

Although, I am still leaning towards increases in both the cyan and yellow ends of the spectrum instead of going purely white-balanced.  When I look at both GOUT and Hyperspace, that's what my eyes tell me are missing.

Here are my latest tweaked samples for the previous screengrabs.

Also, here are some early samples of the repaired Emperor hologram (with scanlines) in Empire.  The new source for the hologram is the luma from the "Faces" LaserDisc merged with the chroma from GOUT.  It's then integrated into the Anniversary video master via very generic rotoscoping (cookie cutter effect).  The lastest color revisions have also been applied.

@msycamore: Interesting! I actually hadn't noticed those things but now that you mention it, the lights on Vader's belt are indeed red when he first appears. Very weird. Could it be some color-noise reduction applied on the films that caused this?

You read my mind, msycamore.  I'd been planning on fixing the Tie lasers in Empire, but wasn't aware of all that stuff in Jedi.  Nor had I seen those lights in SW behind Threepio.

Unfortunately, I don't have the TBs of Empire or Jedi, just the Flunk edition of SW.  I was planning to use the '04 discs, since I'd just be borrowing from the chroma channels while leaving the luma untouched.  But, I'll have to see about hunting down the TBs.  The more sources, the merrier ;)

Thanks for posting all of these screengrabs, msycamore.  I hadn't spotted anywhere near this many color problems.  The guys at Lucasfilm who worked on these original transfers should be embarrassed :/

I just started downloading the TBs on MySpleen.  I'll post some fixed samples whenever I'm able.

msycamore said:

Also, if you have access to the PAL discs of the GOUT, you could restore the few missing frames in the NTSC transfers and get rid of a few interlacing errors

Yes, I ordered the 6-disc PAL trilogy to use with my Hyperspace set, mainly for Jedi.  At the time, it was the same price as importing Jedi on its own.

I knew about the interlacing error in Jedi with the few frames of the Ewok, but hadn't spotted those two from Empire.  I wonder if my manual IVTC eliminated them.  I'll go back and check my Hyperspace masters to be sure.

Not sure if I'll fix the missing frames, since I was planning to sync the video up to the audio tracks I used on my Rebellion and Hyperspace sets.  Since I only have the AC3s and not my original WAVs, I really don't want to redo all of my audio from scratch.  A lot will depend on how quickly I can fix the various color and scanline problems.

Just checked my Hyperspace master for Empire and it does have both of those interlace errors.  Can't believe I missed them.  Thanks for pointing out that thread, msycamore.

By the way, it's probably going to take longer than I thought to get some new samples posted.  Been trying to download the TBs of the '97 trilogy from MySpleen, but seeding has been sporadic at best.  At this rate, it'll probably be a several days before I'm able to start working with them.