kk650's Star Wars Saga: Regraded and Semi-Specialized (Released) — Page 28

looks good Dre, your color algorithm tool and skills are awesome! I do like KKs regrading I think he does a great job as well and I’m sure we can agree both are far superior to that official blu ray haha.

kk650 said:

TRIFORCE89 said:

Nice! Really pleased with how the colours look on the OT (looking only at screenshots for IV and V, but I’ve watched your RotJ). Looking forward to the 5.1 releases.

My only request, if I may make one, is that with ESB if you could have an alternate version with the McDiarmid-Emperor scene instead (with your wonderful colour correction, of course). Planning a saga watch before the release of VII, and ESB’s original Emperor may seem a bit out of place. Maybe even a recut, as ADigitalMan did on DVD, to be closer to the original dialogue but with McDiarmid’s voice.

Loved watching your RotJ. The colour was great. Jabba’s Palace played out well with the music. Nice to see the original Anakin again. Only suggestion I might level, is that Cloud City seemed awfully lonely being the only city in the celebration at the end. I grew up with the '97SE though, so maybe that’s just me. Glad Naboo is gone though.

Thanks for the effort!!

Thanks!

I am actually seriously considering creating an alternate version of ESB with the McDiarmid-Emperor scene instead, i’m not a big fan of the dialogue or the puffed up look of the SE emperor in that scene but you’re not the first to request it and it is a very easy change to make.

I have no plans to reintroduce Coruscant, Naboo pr Tatooine Celebration scenes. Coruscant and Naboo were never shown in the Original Trilogy so they have no place there and just remind people of the Prequels by being there. Tatooine was of course but it just looks ridiculously overcrowded, blatently CG and OTT in general IMHO, like something out ot the Prequels.

Delayed reply from me, but thanks! That’s already more than I was expecting. Looking forward to it and the 5.1 releases. Can’t wait to check 'em out

(unrelated: just grabbed your Home Alone and Scissorhands releases)

DrDre said:

Here’s another interpretation of this Star Wars frame inspired by the frame piota posted recently of one of his prints.

Bluray:

kk650:

DrDre:

Yes, I prefer the third one. One reason I am making my own set. KK650, I think you’ve over corrected for reds and taken out too much. Everything looks good except the skin tones. They aren’t lobsters, but they are kind of lifeless. And newborn babies are very red - they are lobsters. Not to my taste, but definitely less annoying and more watchable than the BR.

I have to agree. KK650’s versions are a massive improvement over the blu-rays but all the skin tones look very yellow and I feel like a little red could be brought back in. Your prequels do look a little better than your OT in terms of skin tone.

My only other concern is that your prequels are too large to fit on a SL blu-ray when turned into blu-ray isos via tsmuxer.

I agree with that. It’s still the best recolored version out there, IMO. Aside from Harmy’s 1.0, which is excellently balanced but of course lacks all the great bells and whistles of his later releases.

Although I’m not sure which of his three suggested versions I preferred at the time, I now kind of wish the Technicolor versions were used in the end. Love just about everything in the 2.2 releases though, except the skin tones just get too yellow at some points. Also (and I know he addressed this and feels differently), I’d love for the blacks to be dropped a bit lower, especially for ANH. No real complaints for TPM, aside from it being TMP. 😄

I recently burned kk’s versions to discs and watching it on my TV its hard to imagine it looking better. The skin tones look great to me. Bring on the 5.1 mix!

So it turns out the PCM track upmixes through my receiver to 5.1 surround. No idea that it did that! Anyone with a receiver with Dolby pro logic II will get the full surround sound experience. Hope that clears things up for anyone that was waiting for kk to do a 5.1 mix!

Quick update for all you guys waiting for the 5.1 cinema dts tracks to go with these Star Wars V2.2 Semi-Specialised Editions. I’ve been working on these pretty intensely over the last fews days and am happy to report that the cinema dts tracks for Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back are done. I should have Return of the Jedi finished as well by the end of today.

Do you all prefer that I upload these cinema dts-hd 5.1 tracks seperately to myspleen which means you’ll be able to get them much quicker but you’ll have to do the muxing yourself or do you prefer that I upload them straight away as the whole release with the video and original PCM track included? Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back should be around 18-19gb and Return of the Jedi 20-21gb.

See my previous post haha. Your PCM tracks are perfect on my surround so I’m sticking with those. Hope all is well kk650!

My ears are a little sore from working so much on the cinema dts soundtracks these last few days but apart from that I’m great. I really love how those PCM tracks sound as well, thats why i’ll definately be including them along with the new cinema dts tracks. Happy to hear they also sound good on surround sound systems 😃

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

Here’s another interpretation of this Star Wars frame inspired by the frame piota posted recently of one of his prints.

Bluray:

kk650:

DrDre:

Yes, I prefer the third one. One reason I am making my own set. KK650, I think you’ve over corrected for reds and taken out too much. Everything looks good except the skin tones. They aren’t lobsters, but they are kind of lifeless. And newborn babies are very red - they are lobsters. Not to my taste, but definitely less annoying and more watchable than the BR.

That third shot looks too dark to me, there’s a lot of black crush going on there. The colours also look a bit weird to my eyes, not exactly sure what’s been changed there, my shot looks better IMHO.

The thing you have to remember is that the fleshtones and saturation aren’t 100% consistant on Star Wars, they fluctuate a fair deal on the blu-ray. Yes, leia’s fleshtones may be a bit more yellow than what would be considered 100% ‘natural’ here, but in another part of the film, like when they first enter the command center with obi wan on the death star, the fleshtones are pretty red, especially luke’s in certain shots, so if I add red to leia’s fleshtones here, I turn luke and han in some of those shots into lobsters. It’s all about striking the best balance across the whole film and I personally think that the warm feeling that the Star Wars Semi-Specialised Edition V2.2 has works and closely reflects the feel that the film would have had projected in the cinemas at the time of the original theatrical release.

I am personally very happy with how the Star Wars Semi-Specialised Edition V2.2 looks but I respect the opinions of everybody that disagrees, Star Wars is one of those films where everybody has their own views on exactly how it should look and people rarely if ever agree. All anybody can do is just go with what feels right to them, myself included.

I should mention that I plan to release The Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialized Edition V2.2 with Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor in the next 2-3 days. I remember that somebody requested a release like that and I’m happy to oblige.

I’ll also put the screencap comparisons back up here as well so people don’t have go through the pages looking for the ones for the latest releases.

Here are screencap comparisons for all six Star Wars regrades:

Star Wars Semi-Specialised Edition V2.2L:

Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Blu-ray 4:

Regraded 4:

Blu-ray 5:

Regraded 5:

The Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialised Edition V2.2:

Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Blu-ray 4:

Regraded 4:

Blu-ray 5:

Regraded 5:

Blu-ray 6:

Regraded 6:

Return of the Jedi Semi-Specialised Edition V2.15:

Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Blu-ray 4:

Regraded 4:

Blu-ray 5:

Regraded 5:

Blu-ray 6:

Regraded 6:

Regraded The Phantom Menace Regrained Edition V2

Official Blu-ray 1:

Regraded and Regrained Edition 1:

Official Blu-ray 2:

Regraded and Regrained Edition 2:

Official Blu-ray 3:

Regraded and Regrained Edition 3:

Regraded Attack of the Clones V2

Official Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Official Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Official Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Regraded Revenge of the Sith V2

Official Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Official Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Official Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Kk650 did you know your PCM tracks up mixed to pseudo 5.1 surround when played through a receiver?

MrToad883 said:

Kk650 did you know your PCM tracks up mixed to pseudo 5.1 surround when played through a receiver?

No I did not, I don’t have a surround sound system connected to my tv so i’ve never been able to test it. I am not at all surprised that the PCM tracks sound good when upmixed though, they’ve always sounded great on my surround sound headphones. The PCM track is still my prefered track for Star Wars, I really like the balance between the music, dialogue level and sound effects. I haven’t finished creating the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi dts-hd 5.1 tracks so I haven’t had a chance to compare those to the PCM tracks yet.

Looks like from the lack of replies to my question its probably safe to assume that most are happy with the PCM tracks like you and me and there’s no particular rush in getting those new 5.1 tracks up.

I asked OT member hairy hen about the PCM track, who is the go to guy about audio stuff around here and this is what he said for a more comprehensive answer:

When the 1993 laserdiscs were produced, the audio tracks were taken from original source material in 4-track format: left, right, center, and mono surround. These channels were downmixed to matrixed stereo and are intended to be expanded back into surround sound (pseudo-5.1) through the use of an upmixing algorithm in a receiver. Depending what kind of receiver you have, there may be several options available to choose from, but if you have Dolby Prologic II, that is what I would recommend using. This will separate the 2.0 mix into multiple channels, with the left, right, and center information going to their respective speakers, and the mono surround will be heard equally from both rear speakers. If you have a subwoofer, the low frequency information will be separated out and will play from there. These mixes do have a fair amount of bass in them–it was added in specifically because the 70mm theatrical mixes had substantial bass content–although on the 1993 versions isn’t as loud as a more modern 5.1 mix might be due to the lack of a separate LFE channel.

kk650 said:

I should mention that I plan to release The Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialized Edition V2.2 with Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor in the next 2-3 days. I remember that somebody requested a release like that and I’m happy to oblige.

I think I was one of those who requested it. So, thank you kindly

MrToad883 said:

I asked OT member hairy hen about the PCM track, who is the go to guy about audio stuff around here and this is what he said for a more comprehensive answer

Mhmm, Dolby Pro Logic II is a decoding processor for matrix-encoded surround sound. Essentially, surround sound downmixed to stereo that can then be reversed or upmixed. If your entertainment system features a DPLII mode, you can use the technology to simulate surround sound from standard stereo sound as well - even if it isn’t encoded. Fakes it in an acceptable manner for everyday use, I find.

I’m not positive about the following statement at all, but my uneducated understanding is that discrete channels like what kk650 is currently building are preferred to a simulated upmix.

kk650 said:

My ears are a little sore from working so much on the cinema dts soundtracks these last few days but apart from that I’m great.

I noticed you have Episode IV’s available now. It is much appreciated!

Harmy released a work-print of his ROTJ despecialized V2, and it has an HD version of Lapti Nek, that looks better than past versions. Are you going to re release your regraded version of ROTJ with the up-scaled Lapti Nek footage when it becomes available? That would be great!

kk650 said:

Quick update for all you guys waiting for the 5.1 cinema dts tracks to go with these Star Wars V2.2 Semi-Specialised Editions. I’ve been working on these pretty intensely over the last fews days and am happy to report that the cinema dts tracks for Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back are done. I should have Return of the Jedi finished as well by the end of today.

Do you all prefer that I upload these cinema dts-hd 5.1 tracks seperately to myspleen which means you’ll be able to get them much quicker but you’ll have to do the muxing yourself or do you prefer that I upload them straight away as the whole release with the video and original PCM track included? Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back should be around 18-19gb and Return of the Jedi 20-21gb.

Thanks, kk!!
I already grabbed your the semi-specialized OT a while back… If it’s not too much of an imposition, would you be able to share the DTS tracks separately?

Hey KK. Any update on your ESB tweak? Quick question: Are you cutting it the way Adywan did? “Young Skywalker”, or using the full 2004+ scene?

Hi KK,

Thanks for the tremendous work you’ve done on these releases. Perfect balance of original and special editions!

I was also wondering when you’d be releasing the updated ESB with new emperor.

Where can I find the DTS 5.1 tracks?

Cheers

skuid87 said:

Hi KK,

Thanks for the tremendous work you’ve done on these releases. Perfect balance of original and special editions!

I was also wondering when you’d be releasing the updated ESB with new emperor.

Where can I find the DTS 5.1 tracks?

Cheers

If you have a surround sound receiver I suggest going with the 2.0 track. It will upconvert to 5.1 and it is based off the the audio from the laser discs. This is actually considered the purest form of the audio for the OT.

Say… just discovered this thread since it was kinda buried until recently and was wondering if anyone could possibly start seeding on Spleen? There’s only like 3 peers and I’m afraid it’ll take forever for me to enjoy the Prequel Trilogy Regraded. Any help appreciated!

Please help me out! I joined tehParadox in order to be able to download and watch your Semi-Specialized Return of the Jedi, but the process has been mind-numbingly slow. The file is split into 28 parts and is 22GBs, meaning that it will likely take me multiple days to download, factoring in the necessary wait time between downloads. Forgive me because I am not up on all the technological stuff you have had to do to make this - I simply want to watch a high quality version of the film without too much of George Lucas’ messing around, and this sounds like what I want. I don’t understand why the file is so enormous. I downloaded and watched the excellent fan edit Star Wars: A New Hope Revisited the other day and it was only 5 parts and around 5GBs. I don’t want a massive 22GB file on my computer. Is there another way I can watch your edit that will allow me to do so today and without filling up a huge chunk of space on my drive?

Edit: Now part eight isn’t even there anymore, apparently. So I’m stuck no matter what I do. I’m about to give up and watch the despecialized version instead. Assuming that doesn’t give me the same trouble.

.