Harmy's THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK Despecialized Edition HD - V2.0 - MKV & AVCHD (Released) — Page 26

Re: The DVD-5

Well, the VOBs read as 16:9.  DVD Lab Pro, which I used to author the disc, seems to be defaulting to Letterbox for "Widescreen Movie Display on 4:3" anyway, and I haven't changed that setting.  HCenc now seems to set the sequence_display_extension by default to 540 (it shouldn't technically be set for this disc, but the majority of commercial discs seem to do the same anyway) and it seems that Restream does not want to remove it.  Personally, I think the disc is fine as it is.

Harmy said:

I also made this trailer ages ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N0FxV3SqcI

Also not the same thing but similar :-)

 Well in the case of your Despecialized Edition

It would be funny to do a making of how the digital enhancements where digitally removed. Fore example the 1997 VHE tells a bout removing the orange blob under the land speeder, well for this tell you tell about restoring it.

The opening would go like this

George Lucas created the Star Wars trilogy special Edition

Hey Harmy. First, I want to say thanks for all your hard work. It's such a treat to finally be able to watch the films I grew up with. I have a question regarding your color correction in ESB though. The black level seems a bit inconsistent. Most of the movie looks great. A bit of crush here and there (probably the fault of the source) but in the scenes set within the freeze chamber, both Han's freezing and Luke and Vader's fight, the black level is pumped up quite a bit. The scenes are quite washed out as a result and black is more a dull grey. Is this a source problem, deliberate choice, or am I just going crazy?

Harmy said:

A little bit of both - the scenes were too dark, so I brightened them - unfortunately I didn't always manage to keep the blacks black - something I hope to fix in the next version.

Good to hear. Looking forward to it. :)

Where do I download this?

Since you mention doing another version of ESB....

There's a shot of Star Destroyers that looks really off to me.  I think it's a problem with the 2004 master (possibly introduced by the crushed blacks, or maybe the resompositing, or maybe some of both).  I've never noticed this until I started watching fan preservations using the 2004 versions as the primary source.  But I'm lead to believe it must be in the original 2004 source material (I've never actually watched the 2004 dvd's themselves) b/c it also appeared in Adywan's ESB 1980 reconstruction.

Anyway, enough background.  Check out the Star Destroyer on the bottom left of the image:

And now a closeup:

And now the same shot from the GOUT:

As you can see, during the creation of the 2004 version, they somehow erased the middle of the ship!  I know the pictures are crappy, but watch it & you'll see quite clearly that the original version the ship was intact with no weird anomoly in its center...  I don't have the 1997 SE anymore to check how it looks there, but I'm betting this problem was created in 2004.

That's exactly my point.  Go watch the GOUT then watch the DE or Adywan's reconstruction (or, presumeably, the actual 2004 version).  In the GOUT the middle of the ship, while possibly in bit of shadow, is still clearly visible as exisiting.  In the 2004 sourced versions, if it's there at all, it's SO dark as to look the same as the outerspace around it, effectively making it look like you're seeing right through the middle of the ship in a really poorly done composite.  The original composite was obviously not so poorly done.

I guess, ever since I started watching preservations sourced from the 2004 material, that shot has really jumped out at me as being screwed up.  I had never seen a version where the middle of the ship was completely invisible before then & it really stood out to me & has bothered me ever since.

How is it the wrong thread?  This is something I noticed in the Despecialized Edition of ESB & I posted it in the ESB DE thread as something for Harmy to possibly fix in the next version he just mentioned doing.

yeah, like I said in my first post on the subject, I wasn't sure if it was a problem with a recomposite or crushed blacks.  But I think you've all convinced me it is just crushed blacks (& thanks for the better pics 005).  But good grief!  They're so freaking crushed that now it LOOKS like a bad composite even if it's not!  way to go, lucasfilm...

Although one thing that still makes me question if it's not also a recomp...  Is it just me, or does the ship in the GOUT look like it's nose is pointing just slightly up as compared to the 2004 version?  Look at the pics in 005's post.  I know they're not the exact same frame, but the angle of the ship never really changes in that shot even though it is moving.

canofhumdingers said:

Although one thing that still makes me question if it's not also a recomp...  Is it just me, or does the ship in the GOUT look like it's nose is pointing just slightly up as compared to the 2004 version?  Look at the pics in 005's post.  I know they're not the exact same frame, but the angle of the ship never really changes in that shot even though it is moving.

It DOES look like the element was slightly rotated. No idea WHY...

In shots like these, I'd love it if Harmy were to try to combine the ships from the GOUT (or 97SE, for shots which weren't recomped until '04) with the 2004 starfields. If you look at the comparison, you can see that it's the same starfield element as in the GOUT, just with much more of the original detail intact. I can see the stars from the GOUT in the 2004 pic, there's just many more stars that didn't get erased by DVNR, lossy resolution, etc.

The only drawback is that the bigger stars don't really glow like they do in the GOUT - can we blame crushed blacks again?