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Info Wanted: anyone done a TPM and AOTC colour correction? — Page 4

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I guess it doesn't look so bad after all. People were making it out to look like Predator but this side-by-side looks all right to me. Though, of course, the added grain shot looks best.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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It's funny how you can see where the net of the wig is glued and make-up'ed (made-up?) to Liam Neeson's scalp - sometimes HD shows stuff that was never meant to be seen :-) I recently noticed the same thing but even more visible on Sean Bean aka The Walking Spoiler's scalp,  when watching Game of Thrones on BD.

And yes, I'm seriously considering it as a little side project, as long as someone promises to sync the theatrical DTS audio to it.

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Yeah, the blu-ray is clearly superior. I just wish they had left the natural grain, and thus detail, fully intact (iirc, that's one thing they did right on the Episode 1 DVD, tried to retain the natural film appearance), but there's still much better detail on the blu-ray.

As far as the color problem goes, that can be corrected in scenes where it affects the picture the most, bringing the colors back closer to the natural warmth that should be there. And if every scene has had that same color filter applied to it on the blu-ray, then it's even easier, because it should be simple to counter-act with a color correction value applied to the entire movie.

If one wanted to use the blu-ray as a a basis for a restoration of the theatrical version, or at least get closer to it, since we don't have a 35mm print to scan, then one could use the hdtv capture in certain scenes, to restore the real Yoda and so on.

I'm not sure if adding grain helps that much, though. Since some of the natural grain and detail have already unfortunately been removed on the blu-ray set, adding artificial grain over it might just obscure some of the nice detail that has been retained.

The Star Wars trilogy. There can be only one.

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bkev said:

I guess it doesn't look so bad after all. People were making it out to look like Predator but this side-by-side looks all right to me. Though, of course, the added grain shot looks best.

Oh, it's far from being like Predator. Only an handful of shots have excessive DNR. They could have avoided it all together, but whatever...

Harmy said:

It's funny how you can see where the net of the wig is glued and make-up'ed (made-up?) to Liam Neeson's scalp - sometimes HD shows stuff that was never meant to be seen :-)

Darth Maul's horns are an even more noticeable example.

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Dunedain said:

I'm not sure if adding grain helps that much, though. Since some of the natural grain and detail have already unfortunately been removed on the blu-ray set, adding artificial grain over it might just obscure some of the nice detail that has been retained.

Yeah, it definitely would obscure some detail actually - it's more about the feeling you get from watching it - the way it is now, it feels very digital; adding some grain definitely won't add any actual detail but it would help it feel more warm and authentic and even feel more detailed and I think that is more important than the actual measurable amount of detail resolved.

In that comparison, I added quite a large amount of quite coarse grain because it was just a quick proof of concept - I think with more care, it could look a lot better with some finer grain.

I have to disagree with Alex too, IMHO the entire transfer has excessive amount of DNR, in some shots it's simply even more excessive than in others. Basically, when dealing with a scan from original negative (which the master here should be) any grain removal at all is excessive IMO.

Also before anyone asks, I'm not considering doing anything with the other 2 prequels, because A) I hate them and B) AFAIK, Episode II is the theatrical version in the HDTV broadcast and there are some very decent ones floating around and Ep III is the theatrical version on BD and the only version of that I ever want to see again is also already out there (the Backstroke of the West dubbing synced to the BD).

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Woooo thank you Harmy for considering. I have to admit TPM although terrible makes me very nostalgic. it will be nice having a good Theatrical cut of the film.

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I doubt anything else is as bad as the new predator blu-ray, that's horrible. :)

http://dragonfishfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/2984_2_large.jpg


Arnold looks like he's made of wax and his shirt looks like it was molded from plastic. haha, just awful :)

Harmy: If adding in just a touch of very fine grain helps restore some of the natural film appearance, and perhaps helps the hdtv source blend in a bit better when it needs to be used, while having only a minimal affect on detail, then I agree it's not a bad thing. :)

The Star Wars trilogy. There can be only one.

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Harmy are you going to make TPM 1080p or 720p? Also you should probably open your own thread, we seem to be hijacking Alex's thread.

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Dunedain said:

I doubt anything else is as bad as the new predator blu-ray, that's horrible. :)

Yeah, I think that's one of the worst blu-ray releases ever.

But what's even worse is that the mainstream doesn't understand how bad DVNR is. On discshop, a swedish online shop where I buy my blu-rays, some customers posted their reviews of the Predator ultimate hunter edition:

"Got a little discouraged when there were so many negative reviews about DNR but in my opinion it's a fantastic solution that I'd love to see on more films/releases. Superb picture and sound didn't make this masterpiece worse."

"I read all these reviews about this film but still decided to buy it. I was 9 when the film was released and I must say that this was like watching a brand new film! Really f***ing good picture, impressive!"

"Really good-looking... This is how an old re-released film should look!"

Reading this, it's not hard to understand how film companies like Lucasfilm can easily get away with releasing a heavily DVNR'd blu-ray. Though it's not as bad as Predator of course.

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It's funny that they'll add fake noise to the CGI to blend it better with the film, and then remove it now.

Oh George.

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Harmy said:

Also before anyone asks, I'm not considering doing anything with the other 2 prequels, because A) I hate them and B) AFAIK, Episode II is the theatrical version in the HDTV broadcast and there are some very decent ones floating around and Ep III is the theatrical version on BD and the only version of that I ever want to see again is also already out there (the Backstroke of the West dubbing synced to the BD).

I fully understand the "A" point :-)

However a small correction to B - E2 is not the theatrical version in the HDTV broadcast, it is the DVD version which has a lot of very small changes (see the dvdactive.com article).

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You_Too said:

Reading this, it's not hard to understand how film companies like Lucasfilm can easily get away with releasing a heavily DVNR'd blu-ray. Though it's not as bad as Predator of course.

I don't think this was about demand (because the one that exists is a clear minority), specially when Episode III has added grain. I believe it was for the 3D conversion, where the grain gets in the way.

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Alexrd said:

I don't think this was about demand (because the one that exists is a clear minority), specially when Episode III has added grain. I believe it was for the 3D conversion, where the grain gets in the way.

Speaking of that, might have been asked before but did the 3D version have the same DVNR in the cinema?

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Also, regarding that shot of Qui-Gon that is usually given as an example of really bad DNR in the new transfer, I don't think that's actually the case - it actually looks more like an upscale or maybe a sharpened out of focus shot - and it seems like it always was - check it out next to the shots that directly precede and follow it; BD top, HDTV bottom:

The shot seems to have much less detail compared to the neighboring shots, even in the old HDTV transfer, only there it's not as striking, because the neighboring shots aren't so detailed either and it has the dupe grain from the I.P.

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I thought about that as well. But although it wasn't focused from the beginning, that particular shot got an excessive amount of DNR. That, the soft nature of 35mm, and the attempt to sharpen it made the shot very noticeable. I'm surprised they haven't an alternative shot, since Lucas usually films a scene with various cameras so that he can choose later on editing.

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This picture was just posted on Star Wars Facebook page, and it shows another example of the original, warmer colour timing.

Here's a quick comparison (couldn't get the exact frame):

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Jetrell Fo said:

Caps from my Japan LD .....

The Laserdisc, like the DVD, is useless thanks to that pinkish filter (and low resolution).

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Harmy said:

So, I had another chance to give the TPM BD a closer look and it isn't really that bad - both available HD transfers are bad in their own way but in direct comparison, the BD definitely wins over the HDTV/DVD master - it may have some of the grain removed but it has quite a bit of fine detail left in it and it definitely has tons more fine detail than the HDTV captures, so I think that if an HD theatrical reconstruction was to be attempted, the BD should be used as the main source.

Check this out:

Look at the detail on the tunic and Qui-Gon's hair and beard - I only have an 8GB 1080p HDTV capture of TPM, so the higher bitrate raw capture is likely better but I doubt it would make a huge difference in a low motion shot like this. I also tried adding some grain to the BD footage (3rd picture) and as you can see, it does give an illusion of more fine detail and I think it should be considered for a theatrical reconstruction using the BD as the main source.

The problem I actually find worse than the grain removal, is the color banding n the out of focus areas but there unfortunately isn't much that can be done about that.

  The Blu-ray with the grain looks the best, at least there is no Edge enhancement because you sharped it. 

One day we will have properly restored versions of the Original Unaltered Trilogy (OUT); or 1977, 1980, 1983 Theatrical released versions (Like 4K77,4K80 and 4K83); including Prequels. So that future generations can enjoy these historic films that changed cinema forever.

Yoda: Try not, do or do not, there is no try.

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Harmy said:

Also, regarding that shot of Qui-Gon that is usually given as an example of really bad DNR in the new transfer, I don't think that's actually the case - it actually looks more like an upscale or maybe a sharpened out of focus shot - and it seems like it always was - check it out next to the shots that directly precede and follow it; BD top, HDTV bottom:

The shot seems to have much less detail compared to the neighboring shots, even in the old HDTV transfer, only there it's not as striking, because the neighboring shots aren't so detailed either and it has the dupe grain from the I.P.

  I see what you mean.

One day we will have properly restored versions of the Original Unaltered Trilogy (OUT); or 1977, 1980, 1983 Theatrical released versions (Like 4K77,4K80 and 4K83); including Prequels. So that future generations can enjoy these historic films that changed cinema forever.

Yoda: Try not, do or do not, there is no try.

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Alexrd said:

This picture was just posted on Star Wars Facebook page, and it shows another example of the original, warmer colour timing.

Here's a quick comparison (couldn't get the exact frame):

  Yes the original dose look warmer. I would say increase the yellow in this shot or adjust the White balance. 

One day we will have properly restored versions of the Original Unaltered Trilogy (OUT); or 1977, 1980, 1983 Theatrical released versions (Like 4K77,4K80 and 4K83); including Prequels. So that future generations can enjoy these historic films that changed cinema forever.

Yoda: Try not, do or do not, there is no try.

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Look at Jabba in the BD cap... his skin is almost blue.
>The DVD master always bothered me because it looks scanned from a 16mm source. 

"Yeah and... and... and I'm gonna be back to talk about them Rolexes."

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Harmy, What kind of processing did you use in the "heavly processed" example?
Looks like you used the "Add Color Noise" in the Obi-Wan shot. 

Anyway, I loved your Qui-Gon "grained" and a little sharpened example. Did you used Photoshop filters for these images?

"Yeah and... and... and I'm gonna be back to talk about them Rolexes."