4K restoration on Star Wars — Page 44

moviefreakedmind said:

Regardless of how horrendous the quality was, he still gave people an opportunity to see the unaltered versions; as long as they don't replace the Special Editions then he won't care.

The quality wasn't horrendous, it just wasn't nearly as good as it could have been. The old homespun LaserDisc transfers ("TR47", etc.) used to get nearly universal praise on this forum, even into 2006 just before the GOUT was released. In fact, people here were still gushing about the recently-released (at the time) Cowclops/TR47 v.2, right as the GOUT was being announced. The GOUT blows all of those LaserDisc transfers out of the water, at least in terms of video quality (its 192 kbps AC-3 audio is nothing to write home about though).

The GOUT was the ultimate "LaserDisc transfer" (so to speak), given that it skipped the LaserDisc and went straight to the masters that were the source of the most commonly transferred LaserDiscs ('93 Definitive and '95 Faces).

I loved the original "TR47" when I first discovered it in '05. However, I played it side by side with the GOUT the other day on my PC and it was horrible in comparison. Not only is the TR47 less detailed/clear, but the brightness and borders of the letterboxing constantly and rapidly flicker in it as well.

If the GOUT had been released by an OT.com forum member in 2006 instead of by Lucasfilm, it would have set this place on fire, and said forum member would have been an instant OT.com "celebrity".

moviefreakedmind said:

Sure, but because of the resources Lucasfilm has available the laserdisc was the worst source available for an OUT, and was completely outdated.

I know, which is why I said it wasn't nearly as good as it could've been (i.e., it could have been an anamorphic 16:9 transfer from a new 4K film scan, had they invested the time and money). However, it was still a lot better than anything else we had at the time (in terms of the video stream, which is the critical part, because better quality audio streams have long been available and are easily added).

I think the GOUT looks great on the type of display that 4:3 DVDs were intended for (4:3 CRT TV, preferably one with component [YPbPr] inputs).

MaximRecoil said

I think the GOUT looks great on the type of display that 4:3 DVDs were intended for (4:3 CRT TV, preferably one with component [YPbPr] inputs).

 Yeah It does. When the GOUT first came out I had a 4:3 CRT so it wasn't really a problem for me until I got a flat screen tv.

Beatleboy99 said:

MaximRecoil said

I think the GOUT looks great on the type of display that 4:3 DVDs were intended for (4:3 CRT TV, preferably one with component [YPbPr] inputs).

 Yeah It does. When the GOUT first came out I had a 4:3 CRT so it wasn't really a problem for me until I got a flat screen tv.

They'll get my CRT when they pry it from my cold, dead hands. I'll take the visual qualities of a CRT over any digital display currently on the market, any day, even if the CRT is lower resolution and a smaller screen.

There are only two display technologies that look right to me: CRT (direct-view, and especially rear projection; Barco 909 and Sony G90 being the ultimate examples) and projected film. It sucks that SED displays (the same visual qualities as a direct-view CRT)  never happened.

MaximRecoil said:

If the GOUT had been released by an OT.com forum member in 2006 instead of by Lucasfilm, it would have set this place on fire, and said forum member would have been an instant OT.com "celebrity".

 But why? It was essentially the same laserdisc we had for 13 years up to that point. 

SilverWook said:

A nice sentiment, but when was the last time you saw a tv repair shop? Even replacement CRT's for vintage arcade games are drying up. The technology to make them will be lost in a few more years, if not already.

The Ms. Pac Man machine at my local movie theater looks weird with an 16:9 LCD panel mounted in the cabinet.

It was a little sad when I saw one of those Sony CRT HD sets sitting on curb destined for the scrap heap a while back.

Any classic arcade machine with a digital display = blasphemy. And I'm my own TV repair shop. When I got my Super Punch-Out arcade machine in 2006, its original Sanyo 20-Z2AW CRT monitors were in sad shape. One of them had a cracked flyback transformer, which was arcing, and both of their tubes had severe screen-burn. They both needed all of their electrolytic capacitors changed too (the Nintendo/Sanyo chassis is the biggest pain for doing a "cap kit"). I've done the "cap kit", replaced the flyback transformers (new reproductions are being made, and they work perfectly), and found like-new burn-free 510UTB22 tubes from some otherwise dead Nintendo/Sanyo 20-EZV monitors (I've since revived those monitors as well, albeit with the old tubes sporting Punch-Out screen-burn swapped onto their chassis).

My other arcade machines (Ikari Warriors, Missile Command, Street Fighter II) all have Happ Vision Pro monitors (standard 15 kHz RGB CRT arcade monitors; the same as they originally came with), which I bought new around 2007/2008, which was around the last time that you could still get them new. They are still like new, since I don't use them anywhere near as much as they would be used in a commercial arcade. The Missile Command came with its original numbers-matching Electrohome G07 monitor (a legendary arcade monitor), and it still works fine. It has severe screen burn though, so until I can find a new or like new tube for it, the Happ Vision Pro is going to stay in there.

Harmy said:

CRTs make my eyes bleed...

Here's a photograph of the video displayed by a Barco 909 (CRT projector) on a 12-foot screen:

http://i.imgur.com/4A6G6c6.jpg

Baronlando said:

MaximRecoil said:

If the GOUT had been released by an OT.com forum member in 2006 instead of by Lucasfilm, it would have set this place on fire, and said forum member would have been an instant OT.com "celebrity".

 But why? It was essentially the same laserdisc we had for 13 years up to that point.

Not exactly. LaserDisc = 425 lines of composite video (1 channel), while DVD = 480 lines of component video (3-channel, YPbPr). On top of that, component video has enough bandwidth to support 480 lines (and more, though 480 is the most you get from NTSC DVDs) of progressive scan (~30 kHz rather than ~15 kHz), meaning 480p is possible rather than 480i.

Prior to the GOUT we only had the LaserDiscs, which were stuck at 425i composite video, or LaserDisc-to-DVD transfers, which were inherently worse than the LaserDiscs themselves, due to inevitable loss in the transfer and encoding process. The GOUT took those masters which were used to make the 1993 and 1995 LaserDiscs and transferred them directly to DVD (a higher quality format than LaserDisc).

SilverWook said:

I admit I used to lust after some Sony broadcast monitors back in the day. The colors were beautiful.

There is an old trick to burn out a screen burn, but I don't know if you can run another video source into an arcade monitor.

The GOUT bypassed the problems inherent in an LD transfer. (A couple low rent outfits like Full Moon have allegedly released some of their films straight off an LD capture.) With a non anamorphic letterbox master, you have to take into account how many scanlines a 2:35.1 movie is actually using. Those larger letterbox bars are wasted dead space in a DVD encode.

The best CRT displays ever made still set the standard for overall picture quality. But regardless of that, I simply hate the look of digital displays; I feel like I'm looking at a glorified calculator or digital watch. 

Mild screen burn can be evened-out, but it is destructive (i.e., you burn other parts of the screen to even things out). Screen-burn is a result of depleted phosphors, and it is irreversible for all intents and purposes (the tube would have to be remanufactured; recoated internally with phosphor to fix it, which isn't particularly feasible).

And yes, but the 1993 and 1995 LaserDiscs were also 4:3 letterbox, which is inherently worse than a 4:3 letterbox DVD (all else being equal), due to LaserDisc's lower resolution and inferior color separation. The LaserDiscs did have better audio, though they could have fit uncompressed PCM audio on the GOUT as well had they wanted to (and it is easy to do yourself if you have a rip of the LaserDisc PCM audio).

The GOUT was as good as it gets given the source they used (D1 tape, the same or nearly the same resolution as NTSC DVD). They didn't skimp on the MPEG-2 bitrate either; the video streams alone on all three of them are over 6 GB.

"Given the source" being the key phrase here. If we forget the whole letterboxing issue, that is.

From what I've read people here generally acknowledge that considering the source the GOUT could've ended up worse, and that it's the best LD transfer available, but the reason they complain is that the GOUT should've never been sourced from an ancient LD transfer to begin with.

Not to mention that fan transfers are one thing, but an official release is a different matter altogether. The GOUT would've been great for a fan effort, but as it stands it's quite terrible. And useful for obvious reasons.

m_s0 said:

"Given the source" being the key phrase here. If we forget the whole letterboxing issue, that is.

It is going to be letterboxed on DVD no matter what (unless it is a pan & scan version), because it is a ~2.35:1 movie. On a 4:3 NTSC DVD you end up with about 272 lines of picture and 208 lines of letterboxing, and on a 16:9 NTSC DVD you end up with about 366 lines of picture and 114 lines of letterboxing. If your TV was only 480p, those additional ~94 lines of picture resolution would be a big deal (relatively speaking), but most TVs these days are 1080p, which makes the difference less significant (i.e., they both have to be enlarged a lot to fill the screen).

The complaints from widescreen HDTV owners about 4:3 DVDs mostly boil down to a convenience thing. A 16:9 DVD fills the screen as-is (even though it is enlarged a lot in order to do so), while a 4:3 DVD will get "windowboxed", meaning additional enlarging is needed to fill the screen. But either way you have 195,840 pixels of picture (Star Wars 4:3 letterboxed) or 263,520 pixels of picture (Star Wars 16:9 letterboxed) trying to swim in a sea of over two million pixels (1080p TV). 

From what I've read people here generally acknowledge that considering the source the GOUT could've ended up worse, and that it's the best LD transfer available, but the reason they complain is that the GOUT should've never been sourced from an ancient LD transfer to begin with.

It wasn't sourced from a LaserDisc transfer, nor is it a LaserDisc transfer itself. It was sourced from the master tapes which were used to make the 1993 and 1995 LaserDisc releases in the first place. Because DVD is a higher quality format than LaserDisc, it can retain more of the information from the master than LaserDisc can.

The D1 master tapes have the same resolution as an NTSC DVD, the technical difference being that the D1 master has 4:2:2 uncompressed video, while a DVD has 4:2:0 compressed (MPEG-2) video. If you watched the D1 master tapes side by side with the GOUT DVDs I doubt you'd be able to tell the difference, because the DVD format is capable of retaining nearly all of the quality of a D1 tape (while a LaserDisc is not).

Not to mention that fan transfers are one thing, but an official release is a different matter altogether. The GOUT would've been great for a fan effort, but as it stands it's quite terrible. And useful for obvious reasons.

It isn't "terrible". It contains enough quality that Harmy was able to make use of it fairly seamlessly in his 720p "Despecialized" versions. Let's see him do that with something that truly is "terrible", such as VCD, VHS, Betamax, or CED. Calling the GOUT "terrible" or "horrible" = hyperbole, considering it exceeds every OUT home video release we've ever had by a significant margin, and in most cases by a huge margin. Only some of the LaserDisc releases come close, and even then, you need a very high-end, expensive LD player for them to come somewhat close.

ray_afraid said:

MaximRecoil said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Regardless of how horrendous the quality was, he still gave people an opportunity to see the unaltered versions; as long as they don't replace the Special Editions then he won't care.

The quality wasn't horrendous...

False.

I'm dismissing your mere gainsaying out of hand, but I will of course consider any actual arguments on the matter that you may have.

By LD transfer I meant transfer for the purpose of LD. Still, that transfer was ancient in 2006 and the point isn't how good a job they've done with it. The point is that they haven't chosen a better source. And I hope you're not going to argue that there wasn't one.

m_s0 said:

By LD transfer I meant transfer for the purpose of LD. Still, that transfer was ancient in 2006 and the point isn't how good a job they've done with it. The point is that they haven't chosen a better source. And I hope you're not going to argue that there wasn't one.

It was also used for the 1995 "Faces" VHS release, and could have been used as a television broadcast master as well, though I don't know if it ever was.

Also, I've already said:

"I know, which is why I said it wasn't nearly as good as it could've been (i.e., it could have been an anamorphic 16:9 transfer from a new 4K film scan, had they invested the time and money)."

I don't know what they had for OUT sources in 2006. There are obviously various film sources, but there is no way to know if they had any better digital masters of the OUT than the 1993 ones. But either way, that's beside the point; the quality of something isn't determined based on what could have been done, it is based on what was done. The GOUT is pretty typical quality for a 4:3 DVD, and it is also better quality than any previous home video release. There is no reasonable standard by which they could be considered "terrible" or "horrible"; words which denote the bottom of the barrel. In the context of home video, the bottom of the barrel is already occupied by e.g., VCD, VHS, CED, Betamax.

ray_afraid said:

MaximRecoil said:

I'm dismissed...

 Ok...
But M_s0 has already said everything I'd have to say. I'd just be repeating at this point.

So you admittedly have nothing to say. Why, then, did you reply to me in the first place if you had nothing to say?

ray_afraid said:

MaximRecoil said:

Also, consider your intellectual dishonesty (i.e., changing the words of quotations) noted.

 When did I do that?

You didn't. My mistake. I made a typo, and when you quoted my post it included the typo and I thought you had changed the quote. Sorry about that. I'll remove that false charge and fix my typo.

SilverWook said:

The bottom line is, Lucasfilm took the cheap lazy way out in the hopes fans would put up and shut up. The "bonus disc" designation being part of the excuse.

A non anamorphic DVD did not meet the minimum standard for a release from a major studio in 2004, and it's sure as heck doesn't meet it now. It was roundly criticized on all the major home theater websites at the time, and not just by fans.

It's been a running joke on this site noting all of the low budget obscure cult films that have gotten better treatment on DVD/Blu Ray than the OT.

Fox itself cheaps out on it's Made On Demand releases today. Ancient letterbox and even pan and scan masters are being foisted on movie collectors. Thankfully, Warners does an excellent job with their MOD program.

As for the convenience issue, I can't even zoom a letterbox image coming through HDMI inputs. I have to have the Blu Ray player do it, and I'm not certain all models do that. And there are some early DVD's that look much worse than the GOUT. Even more so when zoomed in.

Maybe one can zoom via component inputs, but players with component output have been phased out, thanks to the MPAA.

16:9 was settled on years before DVD came out. That's why there were widescreen tv's and even anamorphic Laserdiscs in the 90's. (And forward thinking tv shows began to shoot in 16:9 as well.) For the studios to save a few bucks, and use old masters on DVD was disingenuous at best.

 I don't disagree with any of that, but none of that makes the GOUT "terrible" or "horrible". If we place the GOUT on the "horrible" scale, then all of the LaserDisc releases were what? "Extra horrible"? And all of the LaserDisc transfers (TR47, Moth3r, Dr. Gonzo, etc.) were what? Extra extra horrible? And all of the VHS releases? Extra, extra, extra horrible?

A good word for the GOUT is "disappointing", i.e., at the time of its release, it didn't meet general expectations from a major company releasing some of the biggest movies of all time. And George Lucas is to blame for that, obviously. However, given that its quality was better than anything else we had prior, it makes no sense to call it "horrible" when a lot of the stuff we had prior was held in high regard (i.e., the 1993 and 1995 LDs, and some of the LD-to-DVD transfers from those LDs; all of which are inferior to the GOUT in terms of video quality).