Puggo Strikes Back! (Released) — Page 34

Oh good. This means I will get to update Post 1 in my dialogue differences thread -  "The Definitive - tractor beam - Close the blast doors - Blast it, Biggs/Wedge - you don't taste very good - Noooooo!!! - Preservation Guide."

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

I'm pretty sure I grabbed rsortor's audio too.

I'm assuming you're going to release that transfer later, too, like you did with the Swedish print?

Asaki said:

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

I'm pretty sure I grabbed rsortor's audio too.

I'm assuming you're going to release that transfer later, too, like you did with the Swedish print?

Actually I wasn't planning on it.  Maybe someday, but I was assuming the other projects (such as ROTP) would have higher precedence.

jero32 said:

New mix, doesn't that kinda prove that this was an officially made print then? I mean it can't be bootleg if they have a new mix in there.

Indeed it certainly seems that way.  Unless there were some later 35mm prints with this mix, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that.

I had always thought that most 16mm prints were sort of grey-market things printed up by other companies.  This seems like it must have been in-house.

...yeah... definitely looks like I'll have to wait for a reup on some other site.  Can't seem to find the thread or username for teh MySpleen guy.  (then again, the search on this site is wacky.)

Molly said:

...yeah... definitely looks like I'll have to wait for a reup on some other site.  Can't seem to find the thread or username for teh MySpleen guy.  (then again, the search on this site is wacky.)

you wanna pm walkingdork. he comes and goes though

TServo2049 said:

hairy_hen is right, the 70mm mix is only very slightly different from the 35mm. The mix on this print is an entirely different beast, made *after* the 70mm 6-track and 35mm stereo mixes (just like the "Story of" LP and the Super 8 digest version). It's obvious that Lucas and Ben Burtt kept tinkering with the mixing throughout 1980, even after the 35mm version was out, and that they carried over some of their changes into the SE in '97.

As I've said before, some of the confusion about the content of the 70mm may stem from the fact that the 8mm, which shares some sound variations with the SE, used the 70mm cut as its picture element. However, the soundtrack was put together *after* the 35mm mix; for example, even though it has the 70mm edit of the Rebel fleet establishing shot, you can still hear some of the tracked "Yoda and the Force" music that was added when the scene was extended.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand: I've started watching PSB, and I haven't gotten as far as any of you, but I noticed another difference. When we see the snowspeeders taking off (after the scene of R2, "Imperial walkers on the north ridge", etc.), there is no music.

In all other mixes previously accounted for, the music starts during that scene of the speeders taking off. In this mix, the music doesn't cut in until the next shot of the walkers.

I had no idea that this was anything more than a mono fold-down of the standard 35mm stereo mix, until I got to that scene and thought "hey, isn't there supposed to be music here?" Then I switched to the stereo track and, sure enough, there was music there that's missing from the 16mm. I immediately pulled up this thread and saw that you all had already found other differences. Good work, everybody!

I noticed that with the speeders almost instantly. The cue is completely gone on this mix.

It seems as if the score and some effects are partially muted in places here, which allows for the more buried effects to take center stage. A very different and interesting listen even if it wasn't an official mixing job.

That said, it was very kind to sync in the 1980 stereo that is the familiar track for most.

The wait was completely worth it. I knew the print was much better than PG, but I never expected it to be this much better.  This combined with Ady's corrections and the alternate mono audio provides for the best ESB I've seen since childhood. Like the PG this is mostly due to the feeling generated of experiencing the film instead of just sitting down to watch the GOUT or something for the billionth time. There are new things to find in this transfer and having a different mix really threw me off initially.

But with PSB, you also get the feeling of ESB's probing into the dark murky depths of the Star Wars universe. At least that's how I can best describe it.

Imagine it's September 1980, and your college film society has finally gotten the 16mm rental print after being shorted on the waiting list at the beginning of the year...

Curiosity has gotten the better of me, so here are my one or two ?s.

-What exactly causes the highs to warble and distort so badly on the optical tracks? This was thankfully very very minimal in PSB, but of course all over the place on PG.

-Is there any reason for the darker block boxes on the left third of the frame on and off throughout the film? Most notable on end credits etc. It's just something that stuck out to my eye for some reason.

-Why oh why couldn't they ever get rid of sssssssssssibilance? ;)

I also liked the rounded frame edges this time around. It gave a more pleasing look than the PG's edges.

6 days shy of 1 year 7 months. Again well worth the wait. As with the PG before it, the PSB is magnificent in its glorious mouse droppings.

I'm hoping this ends up on a filesharing service soon... while torrents would normally be my go-to, my college is actually smart enough to block P2P networking and I have yet to figure out how to get around it. I am eagerly awaiting the chance to see this!

Puggo, this is wonderful. I can't really appreciate the mix as I don't really have a good ear for this kind of thing but it's interesting that there is another alternate version and if you ever provided your captures and someone did a GOUT sync, I'd be interested to include it in ESB v2.0. No rush though :-)

The PQ is definitely better than PG but I do believe this would benefit greatly from an HD upscale (the horizontal resolution of the capture should after all be much higher than here, especially with the wider than 2.35:1 AR) but mainly a better encode using a more modern codec and higher bitrate, because I think the worst problem PQ wise with this and PG both is the compression of the grain, especially in dark areas, which makes a lot of it look not like film but noisy video. I believe it would be a much more of the experience people seem to want from it, that is to relive the time they saw a run down print back in the day, because I can guarantee that in no official cinema projection in the history of ever people saw huge compression blocks and such.

Oh, and can anyone confirm that despite the error codes, the first Zip file was fine? I wouldn't want to share anything that is broken.

captainsolo said:

-What exactly causes the highs to warble and distort so badly on the optical tracks? This was thankfully very very minimal in PSB, but of course all over the place on PG.

-Is there any reason for the darker block boxes on the left third of the frame on and off throughout the film? Most notable on end credits etc. It's just something that stuck out to my eye for some reason.

I consider it a minor miracle that I'm able to grab the sound as cleanly as I can.  These old projectors are hardly what one would call hi-fi.  And I don't know of any other mechanism for grabbing 16mm audio.

There is actually one difference between the PG and PSB with respect to sound... the PG I captured with an EIKI, and the PSB I captured with an Elmo. Some sources on the web say that the Eiki has slightly richer sound, but the Elmo has a more stable film path.  The Elmo is easier to work with and more reliable, but I'm not totally sure which one has better sound, all else being equal.  I think the Elmo turned out better when comparing PG and PSB.

Can you be more specific regarding the "darker black boxes"?  I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about.  If I knew I might be able to figure it out.

Harmy said:

The PQ is definitely better than PG but I do believe this would benefit greatly from an HD upscale (the horizontal resolution of the capture should after all be much higher than here, especially with the wider than 2.35:1 AR) but mainly a better encode using a more modern codec and higher bitrate,

If anyone is curious, the bitrate on the PSB was variable, with max 7000, average 4275, minimum 3000.  Encoding was with TMPGEnc.

Oh, and the bitrates on the "extras" were lower.  So expect many more artifacts on the "making of" and the "bonus".

I wasn't implying that there's anything wrong with the DVD, Puggo. You've done a top notch job on it, but that's the unfortunate thing; you can't really squeeze anything much better from Mpeg2 DVD on a source this grainy.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

Can you be more specific regarding the "darker black boxes"?  I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about.  If I knew I might be able to figure it out.

Wrong wording, sorry. I meant transparent.  There's these pesky little transparent vertical stripes on the left third that appear in the same place in different levels of visibility throughout all three reels at different points. They're more visible in motion.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

I consider it a minor miracle that I'm able to grab the sound as cleanly as I can.  These old projectors are hardly what one would call hi-fi.  And I don't know of any other mechanism for grabbing 16mm audio.

Miracle indeed. I only have 16mm experience with my schools wonky old Eiki and the sound on it was..shall we say less than stellar...if it didn't want to eat the film that is. ;)

There is actually one difference between the PG and PSB with respect to sound... the PG I captured with an EIKI, and the PSB I captured with an Elmo. Some sources on the web say that the Eiki has slightly richer sound, but the Elmo has a more stable film path.  The Elmo is easier to work with and more reliable, but I'm not totally sure which one has better sound, all else being equal.  I think the Elmo turned out better when comparing PG and PSB.

With my experience, you're probably right. I couldn't ever get that darned Eiki to even want to run properly. Lost quite a few reels of randomness trying to do so.

Still grinning about that bonus. Was that actually 16? Didn't think they made anything 16 for the SE era.

captainsolo said:

-What exactly causes the highs to warble and distort so badly on the optical tracks? This was thankfully very very minimal in PSB, but of course all over the place on PG.


 

captainsolo said:

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

Can you be more specific regarding the "darker black boxes"?  I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about.  If I knew I might be able to figure it out.

Wrong wording, sorry. I meant transparent.  There's these pesky little transparent vertical stripes on the left third that appear in the same place in different levels of visibility throughout all three reels at different points. They're more visible in motion.

yup, i've seen them also..

there's also a scene at 9:00min when luke is hanging in the

ice cave, where there is a color shift that made it look like a

new scene... (nevermind, it's just the ice beasts shadow moving)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

just finished doing a complete frame-by-frame watching of

both the 16mm and the 35mm simultaneously.... i had them

both running in 2 vlc windows at synched them up (with

adjustments during the breaks/vobs/etc).. overall they match

up in scenes very well..

1) there is definitely more grain in PSB.

2) the initial hoth scenes have a much darker blue tint in PSB

3) the rest of the movie seems to have more contrast, and

a darker orange/red coloring to it..

4) the amount of cropping on PSB is quite a bit compared

to the 35mm (even with the full frame shown as is)

still it's very cool to see how well they both look,

i remember doing some comparisons with the sample you

put out earlier..

i'll have to put out some more now that it's released..

later

-1

Alright, let's get this show on the road!

Ooh, golden.

ETA: Fastest. Torrent. Evar.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

Maybe someday, but I was assuming the other projects (such as ROTP) would have higher precedence.

 Oh, of course RotP has higher priority =) I was just surprised when you talked about it in the bonus features, because I didn't remember you mentioning having two prints before.

Also, speaking of the 35mm...I was wondering about something we were talking about on the blog before, and if the film (PSB) really is supposed to be that blue, or if it was to compensate for  the yellow of the bulbs they used back then (like how most of the Star Wars print they have is blue). I noticed a lot of the bonus trailer was very blue also, like a lot of shots from ANH that aren't usually tinted like that.

But then, like -1 said, there's a lot of parts later that look more natural. I don't have as much of the 35mm to compare to as he does...