Team Negative1 - The Empire Strikes Back 1980 - 35mm Theatrical Version (Released) — Page 45

Here is the preview for Reel 2:

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Video clip

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http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k1s8IyXdvPZzqPc5YyF

Team Negative1

There will be a private screening of the DCP version of this tonight. Details will follow.

Team Negative1

The screening of the DCP went as planned. Everyone in attendance enjoyed it thoroughly. The new workprint was not ready yet, but there was a brief preview of parts of it, which looked great.

Team Negative1

It sounds like many of us missed something great. :)

Sounds great! Empire is my favourite movie. It's also the first I saw back in the early eighties on VHS. 

Status update:

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Progress on the workprint continues, and an early version with 4 of the completed Reels, and two partially completed reels should be done in a week or two.

Team Negative1

Some shots of the screening along with a few videos have been posted here:

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http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Private-Screening-of-The-Empire-Strikes-Back-1980-35MM-East-Coast-USA-Sept-2013/post/782023/#TopicPost782023

Team Negative1

Cleanup work continues on the remaining Reels. There was a sequence in Reel 3, where Luke is walking around the X-wing, after it comes out of the swamp, where some leaves and dirt were accidentally removed. Those were returned back to their original state.

Team Negative1

SS4DarthPayne said:

Loving the updates. I'm sure you guys here it a lot, but it's worth repeating: thank you so much for the work you're putting in. I have been following this project for years, and I cannot wait to it all come to fruition. I don't comment a lot, but I'm sure I speak for a large number of other similarly silent observers that I know are just as excited as I am. Keep up the great work

I would like to echo the above!!  I'm a fairly silent follower as I have little by way of expert knowledge or opinion that I can contribute - simply that I follow the work on this project across the three films and am so grateful for everything being done for the fans.  

As SS4DarthPayne said - "keep up the great work" 

Just rewatched the Grindhouse and I have a question about audio.  These prints would have originally had Dolby Stereo Lt/Rt audio encoded with Dolby A on the optical track, correct? It sounds as if the grindhouse version had not been put through the Dolby A processing when captured, is that just my ears or is that the case? Also, for the final release will you include both the Lt/Rt tracks and the decoded matrix or just the Lt/Rt?

If the soundtracks are recorded from a film print without going through a Dolby A decoder, then both the level of hiss and the overall EQ will be inaccurate to the intended sound by a significant amount.

Dolby B is not compatible with Dolby A.  And if I remember right, Satin has some issues with how it decodes.

U-He Satin is probably the only digital version that exists.  I discovered this capability yesterday while researching the issue—I'd been aware of its existence as a tape emulation plugin before, but hadn't had a reason to look more closely since I already have the Ampex ATR-102 and Studer A800 from Universal Audio, which are extremely accurate reproductions of popular studio tape machines from the 70's.  (The Ampex was a 2-track mastering deck, while the Studer was a multichannel machine, very similar to the one used to record the score for Star Wars.)

It looks like the U-He plugin is a more general 'tape effect' rather than an exact recreation of all the electronic nuances of one particular machine, like the UAD plugins.  But it does appear to be the only software solution for decoding a track that has been recorded with Dolby noise reduction.  Dolby themselves have never made a digital version, so either their hardware or this plugin would have to be used to get the right sound from the film prints.

Assuming the Wikipedia article on Dolby A is correct, it shouldn't be terribly difficult to recreate the exact multiband processing necessary for decoding; it's simply a matter of setting the thresholds and attack/release times for the compression and expansion to the right values.  The U-He plugin is well viewed for its quality, so in all likelihood its reproduction of the Dolby process is an accurate one; and given its high rate of internal oversampling, any aliasing distortion should be virtually nonexistent.  It would, however, be necessary to ensure that the analog signal from the film print has been digitized at the same reference level that the plugin operates at (ie, 0 VU = -18 dBFS, or however the plugin is set; looks like it has a variable calibration capability).  Otherwise the thresholds of the processor will be incorrect, and frequencies will be boosted or lowered at the wrong levels, yielding an inaccurate sound.  The input to the plugin can be trimmed to the appropriate level easily enough; but the importance of using proper calibration cannot be overemphasized.

Satin doesn't have Dolby SR capability, so it wouldn't be any use for film prints encoded with that, but I'm not sure how useful that would be anyway.  SR is much more complicated than Dolby A, and hardly ever used for music recording since digital was taking over around the same time, so I expect it wasn't worthwhile for U-He to try to implement it.

kpmgeek said:

Dolby B is not compatible with Dolby A.  And if I remember right, Satin has some issues with how it decodes.

What issues?  I haven't seen anything about this . . .

Thought I heard of some issue with it still sounding too bright compared to most hardware decoders, but quick googling shows praise.  Probably a solid option if a cinema processor isn't available to do things properly.

Wideload said:

SS4DarthPayne said:

Loving the updates. I'm sure you guys here it a lot, but it's worth repeating: thank you so much for the work you're putting in. I have been following this project for years, and I cannot wait to it all come to fruition. I don't comment a lot, but I'm sure I speak for a large number of other similarly silent observers that I know are just as excited as I am. Keep up the great work

I would like to echo the above!!  I'm a fairly silent follower as I have little by way of expert knowledge or opinion that I can contribute - simply that I follow the work on this project across the three films and am so grateful for everything being done for the fans.  

As SS4DarthPayne said - "keep up the great work" 

I third that! I don't post here as I also have little to contribute, but I have been following this with mounting excitement for about 5 years. I loved Grindhouse and can't wait to see the finished products. Thanks for all your hard work.