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Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released) — Page 378

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I shouldn't be the one to decide the audio format that will be used, since I don't know the first thing about it, I will just say that I will probably be including the DD tracks either way, because I myself have had some compatibility issues with DTS-MA in the past, so if that is a factor, it should be considered as well.

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Well, if it's a factor, using an Arcsoft DLL with eac3to, you can supposedly extract the lossless track to WAV file(s), from the DTS-MA format. So those who want to have the lossless in another format could theoretically do this.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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What's the deal with LPCM 5.1? Does it simply require too much bandwidth/size compared to DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD because its uncompressed?

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The Griff said:

What's the deal with LPCM 5.1? Does it simply require too much bandwidth/size compared to DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD because its uncompressed?

This. Way too much bandwidth. And if we count the three original 77 mixes and the 85 and 92 home video remixes plus a number of foreign language tracks... It adds up. 

With lossless compression you get a perfect copy of the master track in a smaller file size. 

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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As it stands are we looking at a 25 GB or a 50GB disc?

 

Sorry if this has been addressed previously.

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I guess 25 gigs, as the v2.0 mkv was "only" 16 GB with lots of languages included, and Harmy said the BD's bitrate would be slightly higher.

"Let's face it, the Ewoks sucked, dude" -Hurley, Lost 5x13-Some like it Hoth.

Please bear with me if I tend to get too excited about anything or say too much, I have issues.

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The Griff said:


I'd put the DTS-HD MA tracks as standard on the blu, however. If you're rocking blu ray, you should also be rocking DTS of some sort. Any receiver (of worth) made since well before the advent of blu ray should support DTS, surely.
Believe it or not, I've seen 5.1 systems with Blu-ray built in that don't do DTS. I don't understand.

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I actually said that the BD's bitrate will be slightly lower. The rendered video stream is 11.4GB (the v2.0 MKV's video stream was 12.4GB). So, yes, it will be a BD25 (which is actually 23GB).

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Harmy said:

I actually said that the BD's bitrate will be slightly lower. The rendered video stream is 11.4GB (the v2.0 MKV's video stream was 12.4GB). So, yes, it will be a BD25 (which is actually 23GB).

Could I convince you to do a BD50 as well as a BD25 in which you don't compromise on the bit rates and the amound of lossless audio tracks?

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Hm, I misread you then I guess

"Let's face it, the Ewoks sucked, dude" -Hurley, Lost 5x13-Some like it Hoth.

Please bear with me if I tend to get too excited about anything or say too much, I have issues.

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Reading the above, discussion.  My vote would be to adopt a similar approach as taken in the v2.1 release:

Harmy said:

v2.1

Technical Specifications:
________________________

FORMAT: AVCHD DISC (ISO)

SIZE: 7.9GB (DVD9)

VIDEO: 1280x720p H264 23.976 fps


AUDIO: (all Dolby Digital) Special thanks to hairy_hen and Belbucus

TRACK 1) 5.1 1977 70mm six track mix @ 640Kbps

TRACK 2) 2.0 1977 stereo mix @ 256Kbps

TRACK 3) 1.0 1977 mono mix @ 128Kbps

TRACK 4) 2.0 Isolated score @ 192Kbps (music only)

TRACK 5) 2.0 1993 LD Audio Commentary @ 192Kbps (silence filled with 1993 LD 2.0)

TRACK 6) 2.0 2004 DVD Audio Commentary @ 192Kbps

TRACK 7) 2.0 2004 starwars.com Audio Commentary @ 192Kbps

TRACK 8) 2.0 2011 BD Archival Interviews Audio Commentary @ 192Kbps


Subtitles: (Project Threepio) Special thanks to CatBus

English (en)
Chinese (Simplified) (zh-cn)
Spanish (es)
French (fr)
German (de)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IF we drop ALL foreign language audio tracks (while, of course, retaining all the latest/greatest foreign subs from Project Threepio), BUT make v2.5 compatible foreign language audio tracks (supposedly those included in v2.0 would do the trick unless there has been any runtime adjustment to the v2.5 video) available along side the BD25 English audio only v2.5 release (as either an audio only à la carte option OR as part of a trimmed down English, multilingual audio alternate version)…

…update the v2.1 English audio tracks to include *BOTH* DTS-HD MA and TrueHD versions of hairy_hen's much anticipated NEW audio set in v2.5 IF that's not going to be a considerable PITA for either hairy_hen (in encoding the tracks) or Harmy (in mastering the Blu-ray), AND perhaps that may even make sufficient room for Star Wars DE v2.5 video at a same or higher bit-rate (compared to v2.0) while still maintaining a BD25 size?

Unfortunately, like most here I'm going to be pretty limited in the DOING it end of thigns…but from a "what's going to make for the BEST quality, most compatible final release", conceptually I thought that this idea might fit the bill?

The thing that I and most here should be able to do is help keep this final v2.5 product alive and well on MySpleen (and perhaps other locations) for several months and years to come…and keeping the BD25 size without compromising on quality and compatibility (and hopefully with even a couple/few bonus features sprinkled in) would make that task significantly more feasible and sustainable!

 

THANK YOU Harmy, hairy_hen, dark_jedi, You_Too, CatBus, and ALL OTHERS that have contributed to this amazing preservation project! :D

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michaelkirschner said:

Harmy said:

I actually said that the BD's bitrate will be slightly lower. The rendered video stream is 11.4GB (the v2.0 MKV's video stream was 12.4GB). So, yes, it will be a BD25 (which is actually 23GB).

Could I convince you to do a BD50 as well as a BD25 in which you don't compromise on the bit rates and the amound of lossless audio tracks?

Honestly, I don't think a 50GB disc is necessary for this release. The bit rate will still be fine and there will be plenty of audio tracks on a 25GB disc.

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I think it'll be plenty awesome on a BD25 disc.. besides, the 50GB blanks are still kind of steep in price.

Looking forward to burning a few for some fine folks :)

..as for the audio, I'm cool with what I though was already decided by Hairy_Hen - DTS lossless with DD 5.1, as well as boatloads of others. Personally, I leave it all "as is" and don't bother taking extras out. Doesn't bug me to keep 'em.

On another topic - anyone have any luck authoring any tests with the "making of" clip? Just curious if there's been any progress on authoring, as that seemed like a pain last we were all talking about it.

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I am absolutely not doing a BD50 - just logistically, it would be a nightmare, not to mention, it is unnecessary - the reason I decided to make the bit-rate smaller was that the bit-rate of the v2.0 mkv was overkill considering we're talking 720p from a compressed source - seriously, the encode looks pretty much identical to the lossless source file - making the bit-rate any higher would just be wasting space IMHO.

Now, for the MKV release, I'll probably leave out the foreign tracks but for the BD, I want to make it as complete as possible.

Now, I will have to decide which lossless audio format to use in the end, since I just tried to import a DTSHD track into Encore and it says it's not supported, so I tried demuxing a TrueHD track from one of my Harry Potter BDs and importing it and it seems to work just fine, so it'll have to be TrueHD after all. I hope TrueHD works for 1.0 and 2.0 tracks as well.

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For 720p, a BD50 would be a waste of space, resulting only in an unnecessarily huge download.  As I understand it, with highly efficient video codecs like h264 you eventually get to the point of diminishing returns as the bitrate goes higher, yielding ever-larger file sizes with minimal visible improvement.

Along a similar vein, I could certainly put out my audio tracks in 24-bit resolution if I really felt like it: after all, Pro Tools does calculate all its results in 32-bit floating point for the sake of accuracy.  However, since I'm dealing with laserdisc sources that were 16-bit from the start, there isn't actually any more detail in them than this to begin with.  As long dither is properly applied, any quality difference when converting them back will be quite miniscule.  And since lossless compression schemes seem to work more efficiently on 16-bit material anyway, the choice is clear.

Now, if there were true 24-bit copies of the soundtracks to begin with, or if the video sources were sharp enough to justify 1080p, then releasing them at these quality levels would be worthwhile.  But given the sources that are actually available, playing the numbers game isn't going to create any additional benefit.

Depending how many tracks are included and how much disc space is available, using redundant copies in Dolby and DTS together may be impractical.  I've done a bit of testing and have found that TrueHD gives a significantly smaller file size on its own, since it contains lossless audio only, where as DTS-HD MA includes a lossy core as part of the same file; but since the Bluray format requires TrueHD to have an accompanying AC3 track as well, the total ends up being about the same.  That is to say, the total file size of TrueHD + AC3 ends up being approximately equal to DTS core + extension, depending what lossy bitrates are used.

Therefore, using both DTS-HD MA and AC3 together would require significantly more disc space.  Whether this would be a problem or not remains to be seen.

Since not as many people are able to hear DTS properly, due to their equipment or software not fully supporting it, my general inclination is to say that Dolby is the way to go.  The only thing that could potentially be an issue is that not all Bluray authoring programs support TrueHD in the same way.  It isn't a problem with the audio itself, but rather with how the authoring software handles it: the TrueHD and AC3 streams are supposed to be interleaved with each other for compatibility with the Bluray format, but the Dolby encoder creates them as separate files, so results may vary.  It looks like tsMuxer used to have a problem with this, but it may have been fixed.

I will continue to investigate these matters, and report back on my findings.

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You could also provide downloads for alternate formats/lossless WAV/FLAC versions.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

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Hi, I haven't been on the forums before, but I just downloaded, then watched V2.1 of Harmy's Despecialized Edition. Star Wars is my second favorite movie of all time (The Shining is first.) But I hadn't seen Star Wars in years, because I despise the Special Edition, because it completely wrecks the tone of the movie. Here are my thoughts on V2.1.

I noticed so many details I had never seen before, such as readouts and costumes. And I had no idea there were so many power droids in the background of shots. Harmy, this is a fantastic version, very close to the original.

I am sure I'm going to point out many things that have already been mentioned in the forum, but I haven't read all 300+ pages yet. I apologize if I repeat too much. These aren't all complaints about the version, some are just observations after not having seen the movie for a long time.

0:00 - The registered trademark over 20th Century Fox appears to be superimposed after the fact.

13:07-13:22 - The Jawas look blurry and superimposed, probably due to limitations on the source that was available, because of compression. Probably the best that it can be.

29:03 - Are there chalk drawing behind the landspeeder as the Sandpeople sort through the landspeeder? The detail is incredible in this edition.

33:24 - As Ben lets go of the lightsaber, there is a frame with damage behind Ben's back (blue burn look). This should be fixed.

42:19 - It really sounds like Ben is saying "You will never find THE more wretched hive of scum and villainy." Notice THE, not A.

43:14-43:17 - The red astrodroid the landspeeder goes past is incredibly blurry, and quite distracting to me. Actually, it's the only thing in the entire v2.1 that I find highly objectionable. I understand it's due to the source available, with compression on a detailed scene with movement, but I don't think the original screenings were this blurry. I guess it could be due to the smear from the landspeeder. I looked up this scene in the special edition, and the droid is very sharp. Not sure if it's from the original source, or redone. But of course their version is pure crap. Is there any way to sharpen it slightly using that?

43:37-43:40 - The green lizard in the background is a little too sharply focused compared to the rest of the scene. Yeah, yeah, I know I just complained about a scene being too blurry.

49:06+ - I'll assume Greedo's subtitles in color and font resemble the original release?

53:14 - The mysterious green person behind Han is even more obvious in this HD version, haha.

55:39 - Tarkin has a stray hair on his left side. Kudos on how sharp this image is. The stray hair reappears at 1:50:36. They must have filmed both scenes at the same time.

55:50-55:52 - Tarkin is visually clearly still talking, though there is no sound.

1:00:38 - And here Vader makes hand gestures clearly showing he originally had dialogue, though he is not speaking.

I actually miss C3P0's tractor bean description and the stormtrooper's close the blast doors lines. Hope you have an alternate audio track with them. It's already not the original soundtrack because of Aunt Beru, right?

1:08:39-1:08:55 - Mark Hamill seems to not have dubbed his lines very accurately, his lips seem pretty far off to me.

1:19:54 - Was the stormtrooper hitting his head that obvious in the original soundtrack?

1:22:49 - 1:22:55 and 1:24:13-1:24:16 - This matte is pretty bad, when Ben is on the catwalk. Was the coloring this far off in the original screenings? Other than that astrodroid, this is the only other thing in the entire V2.1 I find distracting. I have an old issue of Starlog, about issue 8, that would show how far off it actually was.

1:46:36 - Noticed the y-wing farthest to the left blinked. When slowed down, saw that it just disappears when it hits the bottom border. Was this in the original release like this? If so, leave it, I guess.

1:54:19 - Did they show a y-wing surviving during the attack? Yes, I know one returns, but who?

Also, I really noticed a couple boxes around TIE fighters until I barely adjusted my contrast, then they completely disappeared, and I don't remember where they were. No, not suggesting a change, but surprised they were still there.

Finally, the chapter stops are terrible, they should be between scenes, not just every five minutes.

I want to congratulate Harmy on an incredible job, finally being able to see a version of Star Wars that lived up to my expectations, and that I can enjoy. Thank you so much!

?

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Wumpusroom- this gallery will answer some of your questions:

https://plus.google.com/photos/102542760950977079734/albums/5514974191245813441

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Wumpusroom said:

0:00 - The registered trademark over 20th Century Fox appears to be superimposed after the fact.

Yes, it was (in the original, of course) :-)

13:07-13:22 - The Jawas look blurry and superimposed, probably due to limitations on the source that was available, because of compression. Probably the best that it can be.

Only the sky was changed here, so the Jawas are exactly as they appeared on the BD and in the original.

29:03 - Are there chalk drawing behind the landspeeder as the Sandpeople sort through the landspeeder? The detail is incredible in this edition.

Cool, huh? :-) I only noticed this recently myself.

33:24 - As Ben lets go of the lightsaber, there is a frame with damage behind Ben's back (blue burn look). This should be fixed.

It shouldn't be fixed, since I actually put it there as it was originally there and seems to be some kind of compositing mistake of the lightsaber element and should therefore be preserved.

42:19 - It really sounds like Ben is saying "You will never find THE more wretched hive of scum and villainy." Notice THE, not A.

As a student of English linguistics, I can explain this phonological phenomenon quite thoroughly - it is called linking and it causes the speaker to link the words ending in a consonant with words beginning in a vowel - in this case the normally unstressed "D" sound at the end of "find" gets linked with the schwa sound standing for the indefinite article "a" in fluid speech and together they create a sound which is one of the ways of pronouncing the definite article "the" in English. I hope that explains it :-D

43:14-43:17 - The red astrodroid the landspeeder goes past is incredibly blurry, and quite distracting to me. Actually, it's the only thing in the entire v2.1 that I find highly objectionable. I understand it's due to the source available, with compression on a detailed scene with movement, but I don't think the original screenings were this blurry. I guess it could be due to the smear from the landspeeder. I looked up this scene in the special edition, and the droid is very sharp. Not sure if it's from the original source, or redone. But of course their version is pure crap. Is there any way to sharpen it slightly using that?

Yeah, it's caused by the smear from the original effect and since it was put into the v2.1 shot from a 2K scan of an original print, I can assure you that it was like this in original screenings. Only this shot was always incredibly crude and dirty, so cleaning it up unfortunately makes thing like this even more obvious.

43:37-43:40 - The green lizard in the background is a little too sharply focused compared to the rest of the scene. Yeah, yeah, I know I just complained about a scene being too blurry.

Here I simply disagree, it is as sharp as it's supposed to be, or maybe even a little less, given that it was partially sourced from the GOUT DVD.

49:06+ - I'll assume Greedo's subtitles in color and font resemble the original release?

Yes, while not a 100% perfect match, they are pretty darn accurate.

53:14 - The mysterious green person behind Han is even more obvious in this HD version, haha.

Yeah - it seems to be Obi-Wan :-)

55:39 - Tarkin has a stray hair on his left side. Kudos on how sharp this image is. The stray hair reappears at 1:50:36. They must have filmed both scenes at the same time.

Yeah, that's the magic of high definition - gotta love it.

55:50-55:52 - Tarkin is visually clearly still talking, though there is no sound.

1:00:38 - And here Vader makes hand gestures clearly showing he originally had dialogue, though he is not speaking.

Yeah, those are known mistakes, which I'm frankly quite amazed weren't fixed in the SE (but I'm not complaining, since they would have been really hard to restore using sources other than the BD or HDTV SE).

I actually miss C3P0's tractor bean description and the stormtrooper's close the blast doors lines. Hope you have an alternate audio track with them. It's already not the original soundtrack because of Aunt Beru, right?

v2.1 contains all three original mixes - the lines you're looking for are in the original mono mix, which is audio track number 3.

1:08:39-1:08:55 - Mark Hamill seems to not have dubbed his lines very accurately, his lips seem pretty far off to me.

1:19:54 - Was the stormtrooper hitting his head that obvious in the original soundtrack?

Must have been, since this is for all intents and purposes the original soundtrack (or one of the three original soundtracks to be exact).

1:22:49 - 1:22:55 and 1:24:13-1:24:16 - This matte is pretty bad, when Ben is on the catwalk. Was the coloring this far off in the original screenings? Other than that astrodroid, this is the only other thing in the entire V2.1 I find distracting. I have an old issue of Starlog, about issue 8, that would show how far off it actually was.

You can't trust the colors of printed pictures. Ever. Especially not in old magazines. The color difference was always there.

1:46:36 - Noticed the y-wing farthest to the left blinked. When slowed down, saw that it just disappears when it hits the bottom border. Was this in the original release like this? If so, leave it, I guess.

Not only was it originally this way, it was actually fixed in the SE and "unfixed" in the Despecialized Edition.

1:54:19 - Did they show a y-wing surviving during the attack? Yes, I know one returns, but who?

I honestly don't know :-)

Also, I really noticed a couple boxes around TIE fighters until I barely adjusted my contrast, then they completely disappeared, and I don't remember where they were. No, not suggesting a change, but surprised they were still there.

It's possible, some of those survived - those bitches are really hard to get rid of sometimes :-)

Finally, the chapter stops are terrible, they should be between scenes, not just every five minutes.

Yeah - TS Muxer does this automatically - it will be fixed in the v2.5 MKV and BD.

I want to congratulate Harmy on an incredible job, finally being able to see a version of Star Wars that lived up to my expectations, and that I can enjoy. Thank you so much!

Always nice to hear that my work made someone happy :-)

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I'll add to that list of 2.1 nitpicks, I still think the color timing of the background seems too green when Luke is cleaning R2, which you did think was necessary to address later when Luke walked out of the room.  It isn't very consistent, IMHO.

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yoda-sama said:

I'll add to that list of 2.1 nitpicks, I still think the color timing of the background seems too green when Luke is cleaning R2, which you did think was necessary to address later when Luke walked out of the room.  It isn't very consistent, IMHO.

Color timing in the pre digital age was never consistent. Nowadays we can make minute changes in contrast, brightness, curves, shadows, etc.

Back then, you got your shot as best you could in the can and left it at that. If you wanted to make changes you could only plop in some filters in the printer between the negative and the IP, up or down the brightness, perform a bleach by-pass... But that was about it. 

You kids are really spoiled. 

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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Seriously? I say that v2.5 is finally rendered (it took two days during which I was virtually unable to use my computer for anything else) and you guys start nitpicking v2.1 now? No f*cking way :-D

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First off, HOLY CRAP this is awesome. Thank you sooo much to Harmy and everyone else that put in such an effort to make this possible to enjoy.

I'm seeing things here I've not seen since...

Anyways, I don't know if this is known or even correct, but I was going through the list above and noticed something about the "mysterious green person" behind Han at 53:14. Just pause it there and look at the shot.

Now go to 54:24, right after Han tells everyone to strap themselves in for light speed and you see Obi-Wan walking out of view behind Han. 

The 53:14 cut seems to be the last little snip of the 54:24 shot.

Chawl think?

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Actually, wumpusroom is starting to nitpick, I'm just reiterating an unaddressed prior complaint.  Slight difference there, hehe.

Whatever you've made will still be closer to perfect than anything we should honestly be able to hope for without you (and certainly less green than the Blu-rays).

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I don't think some people understand what "Despecializing" means. It's not about fixing mistakes, its about restoring the original version.

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