Info: Star Wars Despecialized Edition - The International Blu-ray (* unfinished project *)

Hi.

As a French young adult, I grew up with “Star Wars” named “La Guerre des étoiles”, just like Marvins who made a French preservation based on Harmy’s Despecialized Edition. I like to watch Harmy’s version because, well, it’s the ultimate original Star Wars Experience. I also love Marvins’ preservation because, well, it’s the version I grew up with.

I’m torn on which Blu-ray I should pop in my Blu-ray player every time I watch Star Wars, and every version takes up a new disc to burn. Plus, I think foreigners like me might like to get to choose between “their” version and Harmy’s on the same disc. I am currently downloading the German and Italian preservations as they’re the only ones I found on the spleen along with Harmy’s DeEd and Marvins’ French preservation. if you made one for another language you’d like me to include, please let me know.

Harmy’s DeEd alone muxed as a Blu-ray weighs 21 GB, which is almost the size of a single layer Blu-ray, so I think the size of this project will be well over that, and require a dual layer Blu-ray.

thxita said:

I thought people couldn't figure out how to actually do the switching between different "video tracks" depending on which language you choose. (I know this has a specific name but I don't remember it)

Are you talking about seamless branching?

 Great news re the Italian audio!

Yeah well I thought of either not touching the tracks provided by Harmy, or including one track of each edition.

Video wise, problem is, I thought I found a free software for doing that, I just didn't understood they meant it was doing an mkv FROM a disc with branching, not permitting of creating one. But I think I might be able to achieve that from Mkvtoolnix, but it seems VERY complicated as it apparently can assign a clip to a certain language but I have no clue on how to get the extra files necessary for achieving that. And not to mention I don't know if such an mkv would keep its properties after being muxed into a Blu-ray. Any video geek to help?

Or I could buy Scenarist... Which would require selling my house :p

EDIT: Google found this, but there will be lag between scenes, which is better than nothing. 

That's what I figured out after replying. I just PMd OmegaMattman to ask him what software he used for merging the two different crawls on his DVD set (not sure if it is Rebellion or Hyperspace), and I don't even know if the method he used applies to blu-rays. I don't remember any lag in his version, but I could be wrong, and I believe I left his sets at my mom's house, so I can't check myself.

As for the audio tracks I might only keep the tracks of the languages which have a preservation with their own crawl available plus the voice over english crawl tracks. I'm also thinking of a sub-menu option for every language with multiple audio tracks, but I'm not even sure it might be possible, either for any software or for Blu-ray players.

There will be drawbacks no matter what, i just want to make them as painless as possible.

thxita said:

About the Italian audio version, me and Leo expect sometime in the near future to obtain the audio from a HI-Fi stereo version which could prove to be higher quality than the abysmal 192kbps audio from the GOUT that Leo had to use.

I appreciate your effort to put all the international versions of Harmy together, I thought Harmy and his "crew" were going to do that eventually, have I just imagined? I thought people couldn't figure out how to actually do the switching between different "video tracks" depending on which language you choose. (I know this has a specific name but I don't remember it)

 I've also been told that Leo used the wrong logo, so I'll have to wait for that, plus I'm still doing research on how I could achieve that project, so it'll have to wait anyway.

I think it could be done even with free software - MultiAVCHD; here you are a guide to make a BD with two different endings:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=154815

Probably this guide is useful to make alternate crawls instead endings, but you need a lot of patience, and a good skill.

I strongly wish you could achieve your goal; if you will find out how to make a working seamless branching BD, PM me as I could provide VHS Hi-Fi italian tracks for all the three movies, OT and SE.

Thanks, _,,,^..^,,,_, but that's exactly what OmegaMattman told me to do, but he said himself that it would cause lag, on a DVD at least, so I think it might be worse for a Blu-ray.

Anyway, I have to wait the v 2.0 of the Italian project to do it, but I could try my hand with the French and German projects.

I suggest to make as many tests as you can, to find out yourself if the lag is present or not, and in case of positive answer, if it could be "bearable" or not... I mean, if the lag is only few milliseconds, no one will notice it; if it's one second, everyone will!

If you manage to cut the shots in a moment where there is little or no movement and no sounds, it's easy to "mask" the lag even if it's longer than few ms.

Good luck!

Thanks!

OK, I understand everything in the instructions, and the English and German version are in perfect sync... Contrarily to the French version (I didn't try with the Italian version since it's apparently not final). I cut the mkvs with mkvmergeGUI and didn't go further yet. I guess I'll have to ask Marvins for help with his version.

I DID IT!!! Well, I think I did, so I'm burning the project to a Rewritable BD25. Yes, it seems it holds on a single layer BD-R. Only thing I'm not sure the subtitles are included, as it seems TSMuxerGUI removed them on step 2. Wish me luck, and thanks so much to _,,,^..^,,,_! Now I have to test my burned disc and decide on how to author the menus.

I know, that's what I did. I had to cut each version of the movie in 5 parts: The Intro with the logos and crawl, the rest of the movie until before the Greedo scene, The Greedo scene itself, the rest of the movie and the ending credits. I threw away the common parts for every international preservation, and kept only Harmy's, and finally tweaked the playlists as the guide said.

The guide was very easy to adapt, maybe too easy, that's why I doubt it's a success. And I later decided to add the Italian version, even if it's temporary. However, I still have to burn and test the disc, and Toast is taking ages for formatting it in the first place.

Also I did give credit to every preservation project, Harmy and myself on the welcome screen, but I'd prefer adding a "credits" screen for that with a link on the main  menu, as I'd have way more space to thank everyone involved in every preservation.

Happy my advice helped you; I strongly hope the final burned blu-ray will work flawlessy - a hint: test the disc in as many standalone BD players as you can, not only on PS3/PC, as they are more "forgiving"...

Well I don't own a software that can read blu-rays either on OS X or Windows, so I think I'll just test on both my PS3 and standalone BD Player. Unfortunately I don't know anyone who owns a BD Player except my best friend but it's a set top box that has blu-ray playback. I'll see if it works on what I have.

I guess, I'll just see if he's ok with that, and, first of all, if it works seamlessly. And a problem I might have on the disc I created is I have no menu yet so I'm not sure how to navigate through versions yet. And while I was typing, the burning process completed. Let's test this baby!

Just tested on my standalone blu-ray player, there's a half a second pause between segments, for any version (including Harmy's). On the PS3, it's less noticeable, but it's there. And as it's the only version that caused me any trouble, the french version is badly cut, even if I tried to do my best. Maybe it'll work if I re-encode it. Plus, as I didn't make an appropriate menu, I have no clue on how to navigate between titles on the PS3 (it works on a standalone blu-ray player).

So you tell me: do you want such a disc or not? Keep in mind that the only thing I can't seem to change with this method is the brief pause between segments. And it is noticeable.