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OMG, Harmy! These look a-frickin-mazing!
-G
“But I was going to Tosche Station to pickup some power converters!”
Harmy's THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK Despecialized Edition HD - V2.0 - MKV & AVCHD (Released) — Page 67
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Harmy said:
OK, I guess I'm gonna have to spell it out :-) The first picture is a comparison between the GOUT and the SE, which means it is a comparison between the ORIGINAL and the SE! The second picture is an HD scan of a 70mm frame from the ORIGINAL version, so while the SE may look better from a certain point of view, it looks that way because it was redone digitally and thus looks nothing like the ORIGINAL version. Now, remind me, which version am I trying to approximate here? ;-)
I understood! :P Looks great.
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towne32 said:
http://postimg.org/image/51fdyzaiz/
Wow. A very nice update.
Workprint version 2? :O
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Harmy, I noticed during the opening crawl that when the letters show up, they exhibit yellow bleeding. The yellow color in the letters bleed to the left. Is this normal?
“But I was going to Tosche Station to pickup some power converters!”
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Yes, this has been discussed before - the bleeding seems to have always been there.
- www.facebook.com/despecialized
Despecialized Editions MUST NEVER BE BOUGHT OR SOLD!!! You can find all the info you need here
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Wow, I have to say you've really outdone yourself here. Fantastic work! Though I do have to agree with the others in regard to the rounded corners.
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This is looking seriously awesome. That shot with the aliased windows is the most obvious improvement, but every one of them shows marked increase in both detail and color accuracy. Excellent work!
New 5.1 mix is nearly done, by the way. The bass sounds way better now than it did before. ;)
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I think of all the things I'll miss the least, it'll be that damned moire pattern. Thanks Harmy.
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BTW, don't you think it's embarassing that those few restored film scans done by amateurs look way better than anything from the BDs? The 35mm scans look sharp and with the right ampount of film grain, whereas the many scenes from the BD look somewhat smeared.
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Well, yeah, actually, these shots in particular definitely do look better than what's left of them in the BD, and I suspect that it's because they were scanned at only 2K in '97 (which also means '97 level of scanning technology) then put back on film and then that film was scanned again (with 2004 level of scanning tech) and then all the DNR and color eff-ups of the 2004 version were added and in between several lossless re-encodes must have been done and then in the end h264 compression for BD, so on the 2011 BD all the shots altered in '97 were probably though more generations of detail degradation, than your average theatrical print could "dream" of. I'll post some comparisons with the BD after this weekend.
As to the rounded corners, they were there from the very first WP and no one's complained about them until now, so they are obviously not a big deal and since I like them and it would be a serious hassle to remove them now, even if I wanted to, I don't see any point in discussing them any further.
- www.facebook.com/despecialized
Despecialized Editions MUST NEVER BE BOUGHT OR SOLD!!! You can find all the info you need here
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CatBus said:
I think of all the things I'll miss the least, it'll be that damned moire pattern. Thanks Harmy.
Oh, did that pattern just not show up in the 35mm scan?
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Looks really great. I love how warm everything is, evokes those first widescreen laserdiscs in my mind.
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DavidMerrick said:
CatBus said:
I think of all the things I'll miss the least, it'll be that damned moire pattern. Thanks Harmy.
Oh, did that pattern just not show up in the 35mm scan?
It's just much brighter in that area, so if the pattern is there, it's not nearly as distracting. Honestly not sure if it was on the original prints or if it was one of the weirder '97 Lowryization side-effects.
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This is stunning work. I'm salivating.
“Alright twinkle-toes, what’s your exit strategy?”
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Does the scene starting at 2:52 (v2.0 new WP, Sources: DB and 35mm scan) look teal to anyone else? Or is it just that I'm viewing on my crappy laptop screen instead of my calibrated display?
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Harmy said:
As to the rounded corners, they were there from the very first WP and no one's complained about them until now, so they are obviously not a big deal and since I like them and it would be a serious hassle to remove them now, even if I wanted to, I don't see any point in discussing them any further.
Well I think it is worth some discussion. It's the one change that goes against the spirit of the project by introducing something that wasn't there originally. Secondly, though a minor concern. In the future if someone was working on an ESB fanedit or any kind of fan project for whatever reason nothing from this project could be used because of it. If it's too late in the process to undo okay, but it just seems like a questionable decision is all.
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The comparisons look amazing.
I can only echo what others have said with this really being the best looking ESB.
I absolutely love the colour timing on Bespin!
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Excellent work Harmy! It looks fantastic! Many thanks!!!
I noticed a shadow at the end of the movie when they are looking at the galaxy. We don't really see it in the picture below but it is at this moment.
http://www.casimages.com/img.php?i=140628021337629705.jpg
I may quibble with the details or maybe it is my medium quality screen but the color is not exactly the same in the millenium falcon's area for 2-3 seconds.
I suppose it is an inevitable consequence of the use of different sources :)
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Harmy said:
As to the rounded corners, they were there from the very first WP and no one's complained about them until now, so they are obviously not a big deal and since I like them and it would be a serious hassle to remove them now, even if I wanted to, I don't see any point in discussing them any further.
Agreed, i watched the all the final WP last night and did not even notice them, and i never noticed them in the first WP like most people here...
As for suggestions i don't have any, the movie looks the best i have ever seen it so im happy, thanks for your dedication to these films :)
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Tobar said:
Harmy said:
As to the rounded corners, they were there from the very first WP and no one's complained about them until now, so they are obviously not a big deal and since I like them and it would be a serious hassle to remove them now, even if I wanted to, I don't see any point in discussing them any further.
Well I think it is worth some discussion. It's the one change that goes against the spirit of the project by introducing something that wasn't there originally. Secondly, though a minor concern. In the future if someone was working on an ESB fanedit or any kind of fan project for whatever reason nothing from this project could be used because of it. If it's too late in the process to undo okay, but it just seems like a questionable decision is all.
I think Harmy has made himself clear. And they're only noticable after someone points them out! I'd sure as hell rather Harmy finish TESB 2.0 and then ROTJ 2.0 instead of wasting time tweaking the corners.
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If the corners are so bothersome for fan-editors, they can just crop them out.
http://postimg.org/image/4v9vrr8uj/
As you can see, it makes little difference. I'd rather Harmy not waste his time with it.
Also, what is the plan after 2.0 is released? I imagine Jedi will be worked on next, but will there be any more work on Empire, as there was with Star Wars?
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I'm not here to argue, and I'm not going to turn this into a flame war, so I'm going to say my piece and that's that.
I can't get behind the rounded corners thing. Some of the things Lucas changed you wouldn't notice until someone pointed them out, but that doesn't make them right.
Strictly speaking, it moves the project from a preservation to an edit. That's just how it is. The change is intended not to preserve the look or feel of the original film, but instead it's willingly cropping out picture information to alter the feel of the film to the editor's liking. This is no different than Lucas willingly cutting out (or covering up, as the case may be) picture information, however tiny and "inconsequential", to insert some 3D dinosaur or what have you. The argument that we can just "crop them out" after the fact is even worse, as it requires the loss of even more picture information, which is unacceptable.
We only just regained the uncropped scenes of the Millennium Falcon from Empire, and the fact that a community that was elated to see that regained picture information now think it's suddenly acceptable for a fan editor to turn around and cut out further picture information, however small, is absolutely ludicrous (not to mention a double standard). I think we can all agree that the picture information lost in the 'Falcon scenes was not a "major" change, but was no less egregious than the revised Mos Eisley entrance.
I acknowledge that the change is a very small one, but it is not inconsequential; it completely flies in the face of a preservation effort when you make a change other than one to preserve the film, especially if that change is intended to alter the viewer's perception of the film.
I love Harmy's work and appreciate his hard work and incalculable contributions to the Star Wars preservation effort as much as the next person, but if this change makes it to the release version, this project can no longer be considered a preservation, unfortunately, and the topic should be moved to the Fan Edit section of the site.
Keep Circulating the Tapes.
END OF LINE
(It hasn’t happened yet)
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It's probably a good idea to acquaint oneself with 35mm cropping/framing in general before making any sweeping judgements.
There's a fairly lengthy discussion about it here. The quick version is that cropping isn't a binary thing - cropped vs. uncropped - but rather a sliding scale affected by a number of factors from photography through to printing through to projection (and more if video transfers are factored in).
Cropping is right and proper, because you aren't supposed to see every grain of information on the 35mm frame. TServo2049 posted some excellent comparison frames in that thread which show the SMPTE aperture standards - 5% and 10% - and their effect on the 35mm image when properly projected.
The new 35mm scans being used will certainly need such cropping, unless the intention is to show parts of the image that were never expected or intended to be seen. I expect that the effect of the curved mask on the Blu-ray footage is also comfortably within that 5%-10% range, since it's a fairly conservative scan.
So, is this an accurate preservation of every possible piece of picture information in ESB? No. Is it an accurate preservation of a projected, cinematic experience? Yes, and though that won't be enough for some people, I for one am very happy with it.
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Im using vlc.
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The level of nitpicking that goes on never ceases to amaze me.
If Harmy is going to be called out for something so miniscule, then I might as well be taken to task for the 5.1 tracks that accompany these releases. In several respects I make creative edits that don't necessarily duplicate the original audio mixes to 100% accuracy in all technical respects. But what I do sounds damn good, and replicates the spirit of the original work very convincingly. For its intended purpose, it's far and away the best that can be done with the source material available, and nobody has ever really had a problem with it that I'm aware of. I stand by what I do—just as I support Harmy's judgement in the visual aspects.
As it happens, film prints actually do have rounded corners, and given that these movies were shot on film, it's not like such a thing is coming out of nowhere. As has been mentioned above, cropping of the image is always going to occur to some degree on any presentation, and each copy will be cropped slightly differently, for a variety of reasons. There is nothing to suggest that the Bluray version is somehow a completely reliable record of every single scrap of sacred picture information, or that losing a miniscule amount at the edge to accommodate the needs of the venue somehow violates the sanctity of the movie experience.
At the end of the day, this is not a complete restoration as such. The stated goal is to recreate the experience of watching the original versions of the movies, starting from the special edition and working backwards. It isn't the actual untouched original in every aspect (and neither are my audio tracks, for that matter). With the advent of 35mm sources for some shots, the project has evolved into taking on a more film-like appearance, which I think is awesome. But sometimes the film-like qualities have to be replicated digitally (which is now possible with recent developments in analog modelling), and as such a certain degree of creative judgement is called for in applying them. But to call this project a fan edit is very misleading, and inappropriately dismissive of its nature and intentions.
When all is said and done, we want to be able to just sit down and watch these movies like we were kids again. If anybody is going to let a tiny part of the very edge of the frame ruin that experience for themselves, then they are in a strangely confused state of mind and ought to re-examine their priorities.