Finally, I had the time to watch both edits (SW 2.1 & ROTJ 2.0) in full length, as I only could watch them in 20-30 minute segments before (I always had such a little leisure time). I just can say that it's amazing! Great job! As the others said before, the old footage is well reintegrated so you only notice the difference when you're looking for it (first I had to watch the PDE and the SE side-by-side to notice the cuts!). Thank you, excellent work!
Hi guys, don't know if it's bad etiquette to sign up and immediately ask Harmy for a PM. . . But could ya hook me up, Harmy? :)
I've been a long-time lurker here and your and Ady's work looks really inspiring. It's taken me a long time reading through these forums figuring out which version of the OUT is "the one" to screen for my friends. Not sure the GOUT is gonna fly these days. So, as much of a purist as I am, I think the few lingering Rontos and such may be a fair tradeoff for mostly HD quality.
By the way, has anyone tried putting the file on a USB stick or media server and playing on your PS3 that way, instead of burning it to a disc? I'm just assuming it'll work that way.
to Frink and adamekp: Thanks, guys :-)
to fishosaurus: I think it should work that way too. Anyway, PM sent :-)
I put together covers for the PDE trilogy:
Click for full size
I intent to print them on silver paper, so all the white parts will be silver, that should look awesome, I already tried that with the GODFATHER trilogy, only with golden paper, and it was brilliant.
Thanks a ton, Harmy!
The covers look pretty snazzy too, and should look great on that silver paper! However, if I may critique (okay, this looks like a huge rant, but really it's just a bunch of minor nits—it just runs really long because I'm bad at explaining myself):
The cropping on most of the images looks awkward. I'd try to get the whole image in there rather than crop off Luke's ear or Chewie's forehead. Watch out especially for places where the edge of the image intersects an edge or corner of something in the picture (like the side of Luke's face, the top of Han's hairline, and the bottom of Tarkin's chin on the ANH box, or the line of Luke's lower arm on the ESB box, or the bottom of Leia's bikini top on the ROTJ one). This is called a tangent and is generally something to be avoided because it flattens the image. The idea is either to get something totally in the clear, or crop it cleanly and decisively. Also, I'd make the title text on the front covers bigger, and maybe move the images up to put more white space (well, black space in this case) around the titles to give them more importance.
For the backs of the covers, I'd check your margins on the text. "The battle continues" should line up on the left with the block of text beneath it, but it's edging a bit left of where it should be. "The Empire falls" I'm not sure about, I'd have to pull it into Photoshop to check, but I think it might be off too. I'd widen the running text; it looks squished and hard-to-read as is. Also there should be no apostrophe in "its," there's an extra space in "THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK PARTLY DESPECIALIZED EDITION," and the "the" preceding "RETURN OF THE JEDI" should be in caps too since it's part of the title.
I think you could get rid of some of that mess of logos and notices in the lower right. For instance, I don't think the copy protection logo, the Video Packaging Review Committee logo, and the notice that goes "The copyright proprietor has licensed the picture contained in this video cassette . . . " are really appropriate to this release. Getting rid of some of those might allow you to move down the images and give your running text some room to breathe. (New idea—you might even shrink the largest image, since it's nowhere near print resolution anyway, and then have a small bullet-point list of things you've restored. Han shoots first! Lapti Nek! Original Cloud City buildings! etc.)
Also, I know that you want to showcase the restoration you did on the Sarlaac sequence, but I don't know if that's your most dynamic image to use as the central picture. I might switch it with either of the other images, or maybe use a cap from a different shot or sequence altogether, one where you can see someone's face or at least a more dramatic silhouette.
Anyway, if you bounce me the PSD files, I could give 'em a whirl. . . . Heck, I could even take a crack at them as they are now, just to show you what I mean.
Like I said, though, they do look snappy. You did a nice job with them, I hope I haven't stepped on your toes here. I'm just concerned that your covers are as good as possible so they do your own work justice! :)
Thanks, I hoped for some costructive criticism, I'll certainly give it a shot :-)
Just finished ROTJ Harmy, and I'm thrilled with it. It goes in my retail DVD case on my shelf and it's the version I'll watch next time.
Thanks for this gift :-)
Woohoo! I just skimmed through ANH a bit, and I am so excited to sit down and watch it as soon as I can marshal a few buddies. I'm surprised by how watchable the GOUT-sourced shots are on my 46" LCD. Dewbacks and Rontos aside, I haven't seen Star Wars like this in a looong time! Grabbing ESB and ROTJ post-haste.
Just wondering, Harmy, if you've kept the editing files, so that when the Blu-Ray discs come out you can just drop in the higher-bitrate video.
Well, it's not as simple as that, the video would have to have the exact same frame count. But I am planing on doing a new version of these if the blu-rays prove to be a lot better quality then the broadcasts.
I may have missed this somewhere, but with the latest version of ROTJ, do people still have to apply an audio fix afterwards or has it been fixed already?
I believe you have to use the audio fix. But if I can get it working...
Is there a text file that explains how to do it or something?
With pictures!!! ;-)
Well, it takes me 3 days to upload the whole film, it will take an average viewer with an average computer about half an hour max to implement the audio fix, including downloading and installing all the necessary software (and at least the burning program you've got to have anyway) so there won't be any other version of Jedi.
TV's Frink said:
With pictures!!! ;-)
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Harmys-STAR-WARS-TRILOGY-Partly-Despecialized-Edition-HD-THE-WHOLE-TRILOGY-NOW-AVAILABLE/post/426401/#TopicPost426401
Ah yes, I saw that, but figured it was a 'here's what's going on, how do I fix it?' post and kinda skipped it. :p
Should I PM you about download links, Harmy, or will you PM me? ;) Thanks.
PM sent :-)
Got it. Thanks. :)
Do you have/want the other two, Ripplin?
I suppose I could get the links for them. I don't know if I have enough bandwidth allowance left this month to get them now, but I'll have the links for later if I want to.
PM sent...
I didn't know where to post that, and as far as Harmy looks really interested in RotJ, and as I never saw that before, I thought it may be the right place. Sorry it's in French:
Cut scenes from RotJ:
Sorry if you already knew that.
PS: Yeah, you look in better shape !! :)
Just skimmed through ESB. Looks even better than ANH! In ANH there were spots where I was noticing—I don't know what it's called, pixel shifting? itching? boiling? where the digital grain pattern kind of shifts and "pops," which I was guessing is attributable to the source quality of the original broadcast. I think this was mostly in early Tatooine scenes, but I wasn't really taking note of it. I can go back and look for it if you want. But anyway, I wasn't seeing that in my spot check of ESB. Very sharp and clear! The Reconstructed footage integrated decently well. I probably wouldn't have noticed many of them if I wasn't looking for it. In fact, I'm pretty sure there are some edits that I DIDN'T notice. I'm curious though, Harmy, why you didn't replace some of the "windows" and "terrace" shots in Cloud City? Too noticeable? Honestly, the cruddy comping on Lando in the new "outdoor" shot jumped out at me more than the editing-in of the older footage!
It's good to see the RED RED RED of the new Cloud City toned down a bit, though it may be impossible to bring it back completely to its original dusky hues. There was quite a bit of blue in the original Cloud City, even greenish-blue, and I thought this made it both more convincing AND more effectively eerie and threatening. The 2004 colors just look like tomato soup, or something out of a cartoon. Adywan, if you're in here, I'm curious why you didn't restore this shot in particular:
Was the GOUT footage not good enough quality? Or just an oversight? Does anybody have plans for a future edition that cuts in that original shot? I wouldn't have recalled that particular shot until it was brought up in Adywan's thread, but MAN is the original one scarier. Almost wish someone hadn't posted it because now I want it :p
Anyway, damn, I sound like I'm complaining about every little thing, but really, I'm amazed by the work that Adywan and Harmy have done on these editions and I'm champing at the bit to watch them through! Right now Ady's Reconstruction and Harmy's Partly Despecialized Edition stand as my definitive versions.
Oh yeah, and I was able to just stream the m2ts files from my computer to my PS3. So, yeah, if anyone doesn't have a disc they can just do that.
With most of these, I think you're talking to the wrong man ;-) I didn't do any colour correction on SW and ESB, exept for some of the integrated old shots to fit the colours of Ady's colour corrected SE AVCHDs, which were the main picture source . The digital artefacting in SW you describe is a known problem with Ady's AVCHD and is probably caused by the colour correction, but I'd take Ady's colours with a bit more artefacting over the 2004 SE anytime.
I can't take practically any credit for Empire as the picture is just one Ady's product patched with another Ady's product. And the 5.1 sound is taken directly from Ady's reconstruction and the 2.0 sound is taken directly from GOUT. I just spliced it all together.
So basically all I can account for is what I didn't change:
I always quite liked the added Cloud City windows and as long as they don't create glaring continuity errors, they don't bother me. And most of the fixed CC window shots in Ady's reconstruction were quite obviously GOUT sourced, which I wouldnt mind if they bothered me but they don't, sorry.
As for that shot in the picture, I must say I was thinking about replacing it but decided against it in the end, don't exactly remember why, to be honest.
Long time lurker first time poster.
Wow Harmy, your work coupled with Adywan's is absolutely incredible. I hate to bother you, but is there any way you could send me a pm telling me where to go to download these incredible edits.
Thanks