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THX 1138 "preservations" + the 'THX 1138 Italian Cut' project (Released) — Page 52

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THX11384EB said:

AntcuFaalb said:

SilverWook: Is the Japan LD of THX 1138 better than the US LD? Is it a different transfer?

Hi there. If you jump back to page 21, you'll find that msycamore posted a great deal of information regarding this:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/THX-1138-preservations-Italian-Cut-available-see-1st-post/topic/11741/page/21/

Make sure you check out msycamore's other link:

http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=541751

Cool, thanks!

Edit: Wait, I can't find it. Can you link to the specific post, please?

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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AntcuFaalb said:

Is the Japan LD of THX 1138 better than the US LD? Is it a different transfer?

The same master was used for both. The black level is different on the Japanese LD compared to the US counterpart and based on SilverWooks' captures, the US is superior, much less chroma noise for example but if that's just down to a different setting when they were captured or not I don't know. But I think Silver captured them with the exact same setting.

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

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msycamore, are you still having technical problems? Been too quiet on this front lately...

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Where were you in '77?

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Anybody heard from msycamore lately? Two weeks is long time for him not to post around here.

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Where were you in '77?

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SilverWook said:

Anybody heard from msycamore lately? Two weeks is long time for him not to post around here.

I haven't heard from him and I agree that two weeks is a long time to not see a post from him.

I hope he's OK...

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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Hi Silver and Antcu!

Thanks for your concern, I'm OK. Sorry for the radio silence, my internet has been down for a few weeks and I have been very busy with the boring "real life." Had been telling you in advance if I knew what was coming...

As for the question on our THX project, I'm sorry to say I haven't had the time or the motivation lately to continue where I left off, just thinkin about it gives me a headache, due to all the roadblocks along the way, I have gone through this film frame-by-frame now for an insane number of times. I imagine this may sound like I have given up, but no way. I'm gonna do this bad boy justice. It's just that lack of time and motivation that gets in the way.

But like I've said earlier, when the project has taken me this long, I am of course also willing to do what you guys think are necessary, (send Silverwook's captures to someone that can make a DVD out of it faster than I have been able to do) I'm only saying this because as an observer I would probably have suggested this.

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

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This is what I get for doing mod stuff before checking out the regular threads! Glad you're okay!

Maybe you ought to take a break, and tackle one of the other projects we've talked about? They've got to be easier than THX has been at this point. ;)

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Where were you in '77?

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I'm glad to hear you're OK, msycamore. Welcome back!

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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Hi msycamore!

Don't worry about it, real life (in the desert sun) frequently gets in the way of this stuff.

Just to clarify, where does the project stand? I knew you were doing averages of the captures Silver did and had had some trouble trying to sync audio and IVTC.

VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader

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With Lucas out of the picture its too bad we cannot get the real THX, star wars or American Graffiti on blu ray.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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Someone around here at least has a scope print of AG.

I still wonder if Warner's could release THX in it's original form through their Archive label?

Anybody got a Twitter account?

https://twitter.com/WarnerArchive

I'd be sneaky about it, and also ask about the other Lucasfilm production they're sitting on, Twice Upon a Time. ;)

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Where were you in '77?

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That someone with the AG scope would be me - I'm still working on getting it transferred! :)

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Why do we need that? Isn't the BD version of AG the same except the title card at the beginning? I saw it and I certainly didn't have any complaints about the transfer.

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Not to drag this too far off topic, but wasn't the BD pretty crushed as far as blacks and heavily DNRed?

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Harmy said:

Why do we need that? Isn't the BD version of AG the same except the title card at the beginning? I saw it and I certainly didn't have any complaints about the transfer.

There was a slight chance the original theatrical cut might be out there on 16mm.

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Where were you in '77?

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So, the BD version isn't the theatrical cut? And as for the transfer, I'm looking at it right now and while the blacks do look a little crushed, it sure as hell doesn't look DNRed - it's very grainy. And the contrasty blacks seem more like a part of the original cinematography, because while you can't see much detail in the dark areas, you can see different shades of black in them and a lot of grain. But having never seen a different version, I could of course be wrong.

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Yeah, I had forgotten whether it was DNRed or grainy. I can tell you that the 16mm I have is not grainy, and there is loads of detail in the shadows - no crushed blacks.

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Really? That'd be interesting to see. To be honest, I have serious doubts that a 16mm copy of a film could be less grainy than a BD sourced from 35mm (likely earlier generation than a release print) but I'm open to being surprised :-)

All I can say is that I enjoyed the movie on BD and didn't think the transfer was bad (it reminded me quite strongly of the Close Encounters BD transfer) but having no frame of reference for it I can't judge beyond my initial impression.

Edit: Oh and sorry about being off topic here. As for THX, I'm really looking forward to seeing msycamore's LD transfer, as I've never seen the film before and don't want to watch the butchered 2004 version first but at the same time I'd like to watch it in some at least decent transfer. But I of all people understand that real life comes first and sometimes this type of work can get really frustrating and it's hard to keep oneself motivated, so I just wanna say, msycamore, that your work on this is greatly appreciated and you just take as much time as you need! :-)

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Harmy said:

So, the BD version isn't the theatrical cut?

The original 1973 theatrical cut a.k.a. the studio cut have never been released on home video, the BD contains the 25th anniversary edition which is basically the 1978 Re-release cut but with new opening titles and some retinting of the portraits in the epilogue (they were originally in sepia). The differences between the cuts are nowhere near as drastic as with THX 1138. Lucas was able to restore a few scenes that had been taken out by the studio in its original release after his success with Star Wars, and create his director's cut that got a limited release in '78 (the same thing happened with THX 1138 that same year). They also took the opportunity to remix the audio in Dolby Stereo for the reissue.

Scenes that was inserted:

  • The Louie, Louie sequence at the hop.
  • Terry's exchange at the used car lot just before the first hop sequence.
  • Bob Falfa singing Some Enchanted Evening from South Pacific after he picks up Laurie. 

 

According to IMDB:

"In the original release, John Milner is listed as having been killed by a drunk driver in June of 1964 in the closing segment just before the final credits. When the movie was reedited in 1978, the date of his death was changed to December of 1964, most likely in anticipation of the release of its sequel, More American Graffiti."

I personally think both the 2004 NTSC DVD and BD release are perfectly fine transfers, I don't own it myself but recall the BD had the warm color palette back that was missing on the previous DVD transfer.

captainsolo said:

Just to clarify, where does the project stand? I knew you were doing averages of the captures Silver did and had had some trouble trying to sync audio and IVTC.

Thanks for the support guys! At this rate we might have an official release before I'm done. ;)

Besides my own technical issues along the way, there was some weird hiccups in the captures causing different frame counts between them, one part was actually impossible to IVTC in the one capture I'm using for the main bulk of the transfer but I restored those frames from one of the other captures.

Due to this weird video glitch I didn't want to use the audio from that capture for fear of it being affected in some ways like the video. So I took the audio from one of the other captures but couldn't get it to sync for some reason. But then I was reminded by these odd frame differences between captures. So what I need to do is locate these points where this capture differ or just use the audio from the main source that is used and be done with it.

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

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msycamore said:

... my internet has been down for a few weeks and I have been very busy with the boring "real life."

I just hate when that happens! :D

Did you ever post a statement of exactly what was going into the final build of your project? I only ask because of something I recently stumbled across that may suggest it's inclusion (if you originally weren't thinking so).

I've been considering George Lucas' incessant tinkering (which I thought was limited to Star Wars but now see it's across all his works) -- he just can't let go and move on. In quick compare of his "Director's Cut" releases of THX 1138, I noticed that the same 1971 trailer is different in the Blu-ray from the DVD (stop it, George)!

                              2004 DVD region 1                                                2010 Blu-ray region A/B/C

These 720x480 caps, from both releases (here reduced 50% w/ black-bars trimmed), show that not only did Lucas crop the 1971 trailer from "Cinemascope" (2.35:1) to "Widescreen" (16:9), but also added insult to injury by turning up the brightness and blowing out white detail! Not only that, he's changed the playback speed -- I can't play them in sync!

Why, George, why? Was it just to make your new Blu trailers look better?
:O

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Those are obviously just using different masters. Why did they use a clearly inferior master for the BD release beats me but I wouldn't call it tinkering in the same way as with the movies.

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That's funny, I assumed they just ported over the same content found on the DVD release. Why they decided to suddenly dig up a worse quality trailer is weird, what about the rest of the BD bonus features? same material?

I doubt Lucas himself is responsible, but you never know, I guess it's a good thing to show the kids how awful the quality of the original film really was. ;)

I first aimed high, and wanted to include a lot of material but at this stage I will just be glad if I can finnish the main feature. I own a copy of the 2004 reg 1 DVD, I don't know, I could perhaps drop the LD transfer into its menu structure and modify them and include the radio spots posted on starwars.com etc, I also received some very nice hi-res scans of that original trailer some time ago.

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

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@ Harmy & msycamore

GL "tinkering" and "responsible"? That's a great big affirmative!

George Lucas is a third-world-like dictator with communist-like revisionism (and smaller ambitions, fortunately). He has that right, of course (but so have we ... to say "the emperor has no clothes" when he walks around naked). What he says at Lucasfilm, gets done at Lucasfilm -- if he doesn't do it himself, it gets done by others to his approval.

BTW, I don't know him personally, just from his public statements and the biography Skywalking: The Life And Films Of George Lucas by Dale Pollack, journalist & film writer for the L.A.Times.  ;)

@ msycamore

I hadn't checked the other extras. My interest at the time was in the original production material, this trailer specifically, not "Director's Cut #2" extras, so that was a far as I went. If you'd like me to look into something specific that you can't, let me know. (But I'm guessing your preservation project, too, is limited to the earlier "DC1" releases & sources.)

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msycamore said:

I'm gonna do this bad boy justice. It's just that lack of time and motivation that gets in the way.

And here I've thinking up new ways to make more work for you! Better swallow hard before reading on ...  :)

When I first came across Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda's Puggo GRANDE project using a WorkPrinter 16 for 16mm film capture ...

... I noticed color fringing on his samples and on samples from the manufacturer's (MovieStuff) website. Unfortunately, the capture he made for you suffers from the same color fringing:

Notice the bluish color (typical for "chromatic aberration") showing at the high contrast, outer edges (the boy's shoulder and SEN's neckline & the back of his head). The suspect of this crime is the huge lens on the WorkPrinter that focuses the film frame into the capture camera. This "simple" (single-element) lens focuses the colors of the light spectrum at fractionally different distances, causing the aberration:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chromatic_abberation_lens_diagram.svg

A multi-element lens would correct this but it would also be much more expensive, especially with a lens that big.

The problem is the R/G/B components of the picture are no longer the same size. Like Goldilocks And The Three Bears, the RED is too big (and slightly out of focus), the BLUE is too small (and slightly out of focus), but the GREEN is just right (and in focus). In this R/G/B separation ...

... notice that the RED edging seems to be the reverse of the BLUE edging (the GREEN, of course, has no edging). This indicates the GREEN is in focus and the proper size. The other 2 need correction.

The solution is simple -- resize the BLUE and RED separations to create a chromatic aberration correction. I did this by

  • SEPARATING the captured frame (720x480) into R/G/B components
  • RESIZING up the BLUE to 726x484 and CROPPING the larger result back to 720x480
  • RESIZING down the RED to 718x478 and BORDERING the smaller result back to 720x480
  • COMBINING the new R/G/B components into a corrected frame


                       CHROMATIC ABERRATION                                                       CORRECTION

For this "proof of concept", I worked on the full-sized frame. However, it should be applied to a double-sized frame to allow for "single pixel" resizing while keeping the picture elements centered. Otherwise, you may end up with a single-pixel-shift error (as I did here on the RED separation -- producing a RED fringe at the farthest right edge of the picture).