RETURN OF THE JEDI 1983 THEATRICAL VERSION RECONSTRUCTION DVD by Harmy (MKV, NTSC DVD5 AND PAL DVD9 AVAILABLE) — Page 10

Well, it wouldn't be 576 after you've removed the black bars, more like 720x436. And I would run a test first, as non-square pixels in AVI, MKV and MP4 files can be problematic (display in wrong AR) in some media players. It might be better stretching to 1024x436 or squashing to 720 x 306.  

OK, just so you're up-to-date on the current developement:

1) I encoded a 5GB 25fps 720x576 h264 stream from my editor for Chewtobacca to use for the PAL to NTSC coversion, so the NTSC DVD5 is now fully in his hands. The situation is a bit different on an NTSC DVD9 due to sound-mixes but I'll get to that later.

2) The 5GB 25fps 720x576 h264 stream I encoded for Chewtobacca is what I'll use for the MKV, I will only be changing its frame-rate without re-encoding for the MKV, so the black bars will stay and it should stretch fine to 16:9.

3) I encoded a 6GB 25fps 720x576 MPEG-2 stream from my editor for the PAL DVD9, which I will be authoring myself, so there should be no re-encoding necesary. But I will release the MKV 1st as it is much easier to mux in new soundmixes in case I'd find some I'd like to add to the DVD9.

4) At the moment I have 2 sound-mixes ready for the PAL version:

384Kbps 2.0 AC3 sourced from Belbucus' 1993 LD PMC preservation - basically a higher bitrate equivalent of the GOUT audio.

448Kbps 5.1 AC3 sourced from hairy_hen's 5.1 custom mix, with the new music removed and replaced by the SE 5.1 (this should be very close to the original 35mm audio).

5) Only the Belbucus' sourced 2.0 audio is ready for the NTSC version and that's what will be on the NTSC DVD5.

To avoid another re-encode for the PAL to NTSC change, I'll be doing the removal of the new music from h_h's audio separately for the NTSC DVD9 and the MKV, hopefully tonight.

If I find any other sound-mixes or foreign dubs, for which I'm asking in this thread, I might be adding those too.

Harmy said:

Yeah,  I used 005's list, so the reconstruction should really be quite complete.

Return of the Jedi looked great in theaters in 97 when i saw it.  No Hayden, No Jar Jar.  Only real crap scene to me was Jedi Rocks.

I mean the bastard child in that both of the others had digital compositing up the wazoo. Every lightsaber in ANH was redone by 2004, all of the snowspeeders were redone, all of the wipes were redone for both movies.

RotJ has no new wipes, no new saber composites, no speeder bike work, the only recomps were the sail barge in 1997 and the Rancor in 2004 and a handful of TIEs. Sure it had a bunch of new CGI stuff, but nothing was restored.

Chewtobacca said:

Harmy said: Also, I wanted to ask, would it be ok to create an x264 MKV with the correct speed (23,97 fps) and PAL resolution

Pupil used to make those, and I've made them myself.  They played back fine in two different media players, but there will always be some players that ignore the DAR and display the video incorrectly.

If you do decide to use 1:1 instead, I would squash the video, rather than stretch it.  Playback problems are far more likely when you stretch it to 1024 or whatever, in my experience.

No, I'm definitely keeping the resolution as it is. If the AR doesn't work for someone (highly unlikely, as a vast majority of players can be set to show 16:9 if it doesn't do it automatically) they can download the DVD - period.

If I was to squish the picture, I'd have to re-encode yet again. This way it will be the best possible quality: high-bit-rate encode, using the best codec, encoded straight from the source files, in full PAL resolution, at the correct speed. And if everything goes well, I could have the MKV up tomorrow morning...

hairy_hen said:

I just sent a PM to Satanika asking him to upmix another RotJ 5.1, this time with the unaltered 1993 mix, so provided he is able to help with that, you shouldn't have to make that edit for the ntsc version--it'll be a fresh ac3 encode from a lossless source.

That would be great, just how long do you think it might take? I was about to release.

Edit: Also, I'd like you to keep the Luke - Vader fight sound, it does sound better and you said yourself that it's closer to the 35mm mix anyway.

I meant that you keep that as it is in your mix, I hope that was clear. I want only the Obi-Wan scene music gone. Thanks a lot :-)

 I found out that the 5GB 25fps 720x576 h264 stream I encoded for Chewtobacca to use for the NTSC DVD has one of the black border masks missing so I can't use that for the MKV and now I can't get Power Director to encode an mp4 that works. It always encodes the whole film and when I play it, the 1st 5 minutes or so work and the rest keeps falling apart, quite apparently due to some compression thing. I've had this problem before and then miraculously I managed to encode that one for Chewtobacca and now it doesn't work again, so I'm trying over and over with different settings but so far still nothing. And every encode takes 3-5 hrs, so it's pretty f*cking annoying. I tried reinstalling the codecs and if it still won't work, I give up and I'll only release the DVDs.

 First it was the subtitles and now this; To be honest, I can't wait to be done with this project. It's more of a public service than anything else, because I prefer my HD PDE version and am very unlikely to ever watch this myself. Don't take it the wrong way though, I really enjoyed making the edit, otherwise I wouldn't have done it at all, it's just things like these encoding problems that piss me off. I'm really thankful that Chewtobacca is taking care of the NTSC version, because that would be another great pain in the ass.

 Now, for the DVD release I'm only waiting for the "purist version" of hairy_hen's mix and possibly a German dub would be nice too, if someone could provide it for me.

Btw. apart from the spelling mistakes, which are now corrected, I never got any feedback on the subtitles.

Great!!! Reinstalling the codecs seems to have worked, so there will be an MKV after all. As I had to re-encode anyway, I used the opportunity to make the AVC file smaller so it will fit a DVD5 - at this resolution, the quality should be comparable to an mpeg-2 DVD9 or better.

Now, I'll just be waiting for h_h's new audio mix.

That's great news, thanks :-)

OK, the 4,3GB mkv is available now.

It contains:

720x576 - 23,976fps - 3389 Kbps - h264 video encoded straight from the source files

AC3 2.0 384 Kbps EN (converted from Belbucus' 1993 LD PCM audio captures)

AC3 5.1 448 Kbps EN (hairy_hen's purist audio mix)

AC3 2.0 256 Kbps CZ (captured by me from a 1992 VHS)

I'm starting work on the PAL DVD9.

Will it include fancy menus, extras and all that jazz?

There will probably be no extras  (I don't really have any ideas for extras).

I will be designing menus and adding chapter stops and stuff though (which is why it might still take some time before release).

Sounds cool bro. Keep up the good work. Don't forget to post menu previews.

I'd appreciate links to the mkv Harmy for now. I'll grab the DVD9 when it becomes available.

edit: Thanks!

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