camroncamera said:
The GOUT image... It's like the original telecine process was transfered at 16:9 anamorphic and was converted to 4:3 letterbox at the mastering stage (and caused all of that awful aliasing) by throwing out every other scanline like yesterday's bagels.
Close, but the process was significantly simpler (and 100% analog) than you describe: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Star-Wars-GOUT-in-HD-using-super-resolution-algorithm/post/771079/#TopicPost771079
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
DrDre said:
Here are a few more 1080p screenshots without dehaloing:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/130594
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/130595
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/130596
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/130598
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/130599
Very Nice!
I would not have believed that much detail was there to recover.
AntcuFaalb said:
camroncamera said:
The GOUT image... It's like the original telecine process was transfered at 16:9 anamorphic and was converted to 4:3 letterbox at the mastering stage (and caused all of that awful aliasing) by throwing out every other scanline like yesterday's bagels.
Close, but the process was significantly simpler (and 100% analog) than you describe: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Star-Wars-GOUT-in-HD-using-super-resolution-algorithm/post/771079/#TopicPost771079
Thanks, I now remember reading this a couple weeks ago.
By the time I started to work in Telecine (circa 1999), CCD scanners (Philips Spirit 2K) had taked the crown of "best image" away from flying spot telecines (Cintel). The facility where I was employed had one of the first Spirit installs in the US. Virtually all of our clients were commercial (advertising) or television, so there was almost never any anamorphic (features) film on the machine.
Although non-anamorphic letterbox projects were very popular (especially with Super 16 DP's), the occasional anamorphic 35mm print Indian Bollywood movie that we'd be hired to transfer would be telecined as either 4:3 letterbox for our first few jobs, or 16:9 anamorphic SD for all the subsequent transfers. In the case of the 4:3 letterbox transfers, the CCD Spirit "datacine" would continuously scan at 2K internally, and would beautifully downconvert/de-anamorphize on the fly with it's high-end scaler, no special anamorphic lens gate required. TV scanlines were never simply tossed away, as seems to be the case wth Star Wars. I've never worked with a flying spot telecine, though I understand that Cintel and others eventually caught up with (and in some cases surpassed) CCD datacines.
Man, what a difference 7-8 years made in telecine technology.
If your crop is water, what, exactly, would you dust your crops with?
dave88 said:
DrDre said:
Here are a few more 1080p screenshots without dehaloing:
.....
Holy shit! The amount of detail gained by simply using a resizing and frame interpolation? Especially that one, where C3PO's arm is damaged.
What kind of sorcery is that!
I've seen the devil, the lord all mighty!
This is really, really impressive. I would've NEVER believed such thing to become possible, that it actually uncovering true detail.
Antialiasing seems very impressive. All in all, I prefer this over Team Blu's results. But both look miles better than the source.
If someone would even do some (non-linear) contrast enhancement (but without brightening up the image overall, because that leads to detail loss) and some color correction the improvement over the GOUT would be even more shocking. I know it's not the goal of the project, just noted.
Thanks for the positive feedback!
Back to the aspect ratio mystery. Here's two comparisons with Harmy's DE. Some aspects of the frames seem to suggest that the AR should be wider, while others suggest to opposite. Anyone?
Probably frame distortion is the explanation for that.
(I mean, distortion within frame.)
I say, go with the one that has the most image. That distortion of the AR is so minute, it hardly matters to me personally. Plus, its really easy for people afterwards to change the AR in their own time. Up to you of course, but I think it looks fine the way it is. The more image, the better!
Would I be silly to assume the Blu Ray has the correct AR? I cant imagine they got that wrong? But, I got a sneaking suspicion they did. :/
If you are unsure about the Aspect Ratio you could analyse the capsule ejection scene. A trained eye should always be able to spot any unnatural warping in the dimension. Or a Death Star shot of course, I just know it's not entirely circular.
DrDre said:
Thanks for the positive feedback!
Back to the aspect ratio mystery. Here's two comparisons with Harmy's DE. Some aspects of the frames seem to suggest that the AR should be wider, while others suggest to opposite. Anyone?
I'd probably compare against similar frames from Negative1's project. Harmy's projects, while wonderful, are based on the Blu-rays, which can't be considered definitive references for anything at all.
Based on what I've seen, the Blu-ray is at least free from warping and has good aspect ratio. Compared to Team Blu's '97 edition, the blu-ray, and other 35mm frames (which pretty much agree with each other), the GOUT is the odd man out in terms of image warping, although it is a pretty good match in terms of cropping. It has a very unusual warping pattern that very tricky to reconcile with the blu-ray (believe me, I've tried), so you would need some advanced distortion controls to fix it. If that could be fixed however, that would make it the go-to version for me at least ;)
You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)
I just saw this thread today, I haven't had a chance to read the previous 30 pages yet. Is this something that can be applied to still photos in photoshop? I looked at your samples and I'm intrigued. I have a ton of old negatives that I've scanned and I'm curious if this technique will work. Keep up the great work! -Brooks
Brooks said:
I just saw this thread today, I haven't had a chance to read the previous 30 pages yet. Is this something that can be applied to still photos in photoshop? I looked at your samples and I'm intrigued. I have a ton of old negatives that I've scanned and I'm curious if this technique will work. Keep up the great work! -Brooks
As I understand it, this technique works by combining detail from surrounding frames, so no, not really.
You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)
Thanks Brooks! There is such a thing as single frame super resolution, which uses the fact that images are often self similar. However, these results are generally not as good as multi-frame/image super resolution.
DrDre said:
Thanks for the positive feedback!
Back to the aspect ratio mystery. Here's two comparisons with Harmy's DE. Some aspects of the frames seem to suggest that the AR should be wider, while others suggest to opposite. Anyone?
Both look like they need to be vertically stretched to me. Look at the circle on C3PO's neck. It should be round but it is short and fat.
That is in the same lower part of the screen as R2's grill so maybe the lower part of the frame needs to be stretched more than the upper part.
His head seems skinnier than it should be so probably the upper half needs to be squished a bit and the lower half needs to be stretched a bit, so the resulting picture area ends up being around the same size.
In the end, it is probably good enough as it is and nobody would know unless they compared it to see the differences.
Great work DrDre. Maybe Harmy can benefit from this as well on possible future Despecialized Edition updates, just in case he can't go completely GOUT free in certain portions of the film.
Thanks StarWars4Ever!
Well at least the AR is consistent with any official release of the OT since 1993. ;-)
DrDre said:
Thanks Brooks! There is such a thing as single frame super resolution, which uses the fact that images are often self similar. However, these results are generally not as good as multi-frame/image super resolution.
Aaah, that makes sense, thanks guys! :)
Tomorrow I expect to put up the 10 min video sample for SRV12. Yep, we're skipping SRV11. Here's a single screenshot comparison at 720p (because it is easier to see the entire frame):
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/131202
The video will be 1080p.
Awesome! Cant wait!
The screenshot looks extremely good, those Tatooine scenes are by far, the grainiest and worst looking parts.
Also, do you have any screenshots from Empire on Hoth? I recently watched the GOUT of that and the grain is pretty heavy during scenes with snow on it.
Looks nice. Any progress on the gate weave front?
That screenshot is stunning!
I will attempt do the gate weave after I have posted the video sample. The video sample will be a good test case.
Totally looking forward to the new sample. :)
I've just stumbled upon the thread and I am amazed by those upscales.
I haven't read the +30 pages yet, but I'm interested on all of this process and I'll be sure to follow the posts.