THE STAR WARS SAGA - 1080P AVCHD DVD-9 for PS3 & Blu-Ray players - Episodes 1, 4 & 5 available now

Well i have been tinkering with my new quad core and along the way i discovered how to convert the HDTV 1080p saga into a Blu-Ray format that is compatible with the PS3 and Blu-Ray players (that support AVCHD which most new players do) but each movie will fit on a DVD-9 with the same quality as the hv 1080p 8.5gb mkv releases, which only had 2.0 sound for some of them. Unfortunately the y are the SE versions. Here's a list of each disc:

Disc 1:- THE PHANTOM MENACE
Details:- 1080p Colour corrected 23.976fps
5.1 English AC3 audio
2.0 English directors commentary
Hardcoded English subs for alien spoken parts
English subs
Dutch subs
German subs
French subs
Spanish subs
Danish subs
Chapters
No menus
Audio & subtitle streams selectable with the audio/subtitle  button on your remote

Disc 2:- ATTACK OF THE CLONES (cancelled)

Disc 3:- REVENGE OF THE SITH (cancelled)

Disc 4:- A NEW HOPE - (basic colour correction) (AVAILABLE NOW)
Details:- 1080p True 24fps
AC3 5.1 English Dolby Digital Audio
Ac3 2.0 Directors commentary (selectable with the audio button on your remote)
aC3 2.0 Alternate commentary (selectable with the audio button on your remote)
Chapters
No menus
Greedo doesn't shoot

Disc 5: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (Colour corrected) (AVAILABLE NOW)
Details:- 1080p 23.976fps
AC3 5.1 English Dolby Digital Laserdisc audio with Boba's original Voice
Original Pre-2004 Emperor
Ac3 2.0 Directors commentary (selectable with the audio button on your remote)
Chapters
No menus

Disc 6: THE RETURN OF THE JEDI (basic colour correction) (Not available yet)
Details:- 1080p 23.976fps
AC3 5.1 English Dolby Digital Audio
Ac3 2.0 Directors commentary (selectable with the audio button on your remote)
Chapters
No menus
No Hayden

Now i can't guarantee that this format will play on every Blu-Ray player so i have made a small sample, that you will need to burn to a DVD, that you can test to see if your player is compatible before getting the release. You will waste a DVD-5 for just a few minutes of movie but it will save you wasting a DVD-9 anyway. Instructions on how to burn are included but its just an iso but burn with Imgburn because it gives a better compatibility than Nero (Nero UDF files system 2.50, which blu-ray is, is messed up and caused the disc to be unreadable in most cases). You don't really need to download this if you have a PS3 but if you want to be on the safe side (its been tested without any problems on a UK PS3 using the latest firmware - 2.41)

BLU-RAY AOTC SMALL SAMPLE TEST AVCHD -BURN ON DVD-5 -143mb approx rapidshare

The sample is only to test player compatibility and does not reflect the quality of the finished version

Please report back if you test this with the model number and country of the player you have tested it on so i can compile a compatibility list and get a better idea if it will only work on a PS3 before i finish them all off

Episodes 4, 5 & 6 contain the superior 5.1 theatrical SE audio from the laserdiscs

Enjoy

COMPARISON SCREENSHOTS

EPISODE IV

EPISODE I

Johnny Ringo said:

Just to be clear - Is this a bluray format release, or a High definition release compatible with bluray players?

 

Its a Hi-def release using the AVCHD Blu-ray disc structure but will fit on an ordinary DVD-9, so no need for a blu-ray burner or Blu-Ray media

Sounds good, ady. Can't wait. Thanks for all you do for everyone...

dont worry hd-dvd fans,

i'm getting the wookiegroomer versions,

and will be converting those over anyways..

later

-1

This is awesome, but since I took the "wrong step" into HD I'd rather just stream it to my 360, which I think I can do already.  Besides, the wife would kill me if I bought more DVD-9s and a Blu Ray player just for this. :-P

I am of course looking forward to this. But isnt this distrating you from Empire revisited? Uses mind trick "You will work on Empire Revisted."

It's official; Ady is a nutter! In a good way, of course. ;) This is a bit of a shock, really. I look forward to hearing about distribution and such. I would really love to get the complete set somehow. Thanks for such an interesting and well, caring, side project, Ady!

teharri said:

I have not tried it on my blu ray player yet but so far on my computer it is telling me it is an audio file.

The blu-ray standard uses the UDF 2.50 standard and unless you have the driver installed for that then it will not be readable on your PC and will sometimes give a false report. The Iso needs to be burned direct to DVD then played in either a PS3 or a blu-ray player to view.

AxiaEuxine said:

I am of course looking forward to this. But isnt this distrating you from Empire revisited? Uses mind trick "You will work on Empire Revisted."

No. I needed a small break from ESB:R because i've got to the planning stage now and i'm looking through the movie to list things that need to be don & how i can achieve things.  This project can be done at the same time as ESB:R because once all the fine tuning is done it can be rendered without taking up much of my time on ESB:R

Has anyone burned the test file and tried it on a blu-ray player yet? I could do with some feedback before i go into the final stages. thanks

Just played the test disc on my 60GB NTSC PS3 (I can provide more specs if necessary) and it looked beautiful. It was on a 32" CRT using s-video, but still. ;)

Kurgan said:

Once these are out, and with these and the wookieegroomer versions to compare with, anyone can do a color-correction, sound-fix if they wish

Yes, I was thinking of that earlier. Some excellent quality to work with and make new edits.

Kurgan said:

So I take it the Prequels are the same "cuts" as the DVD editions, and the OT are the "2004 editions" right?

 

Of course I don't have any High-Def hardware at all (and my current PC hardware couldn't handle it even if I did have the right drivers/software installed), but I thought I'd ask. ;)

Can someone post some comparison shots?

 

It's nice to know though that by the time I DO get one, there will be a six film saga waiting for me (if a decent official one isn't out by then). Once these are out, and with these and the wookieegroomer versions to compare with, anyone can do a color-correction, sound-fix if they wish (since, believe it or not, there are actually people out there... though not me of course... who prefer the 2004 editions, but admit that they have a few glitches).

To be honest i wouldn't use either mine of Wookiegroomers versions as a basis for an edit. No disrespect to Wookiegroomer of course but you want to work with the best quality encodes and they were the original german braodcasts that were the x264 16gb+ releases. Both mine and wookiegroomers have artifacts that aren't there on the higher bitrate file, and i know that wookiegroomer would agree with me on this. Never work from a re-encode. Always use the original

Also i may use the laserdisc 5.1 audio track for the OT so you can chose between either the 2004 5.1 or the laserdisc 5.1 (and have boba fetts original voice) to give a wider choice. but maybe the commentary will have to go for those and i would ahve to return them to the '97 SE trilogy and not the 2004 set

wookielover69 said:

Adywan,

 

Just tested this on a DVDR-DL disc as I did'nt have a single layer to hand. It played perfectly on a Sony BDP-S300 and looked fantastic on my 42" HD LCD.

 

Just another fantastic idea you've had, looking forward to these releases.

That's great to know. I was just thinking about scrapping this project because i noticed someone else is doing an AVCHD set using the wookiegroomer set in the wookiegroomer thread, and started uploading. So i'm going to ahve to do something a bit different with this set now or it wouldn't be worth doing.

B'oh! I hope my hopes haven't just been dashed. :p One thing that would be different would be to scrap the commentary tracks and replace them with alternate mixes. Or, um...I don't know. Color correction? Just kidding. ;)

I've got the ESB AVCHD that was upped to the newsgroups and it looks very nice indeed.  If your encodes will be better quality, I say go for it.  However, if it's negligible, all six will be up shortly anyway (I, IV, and V are available right now, with II and VI going up), so you may be doing redundant work...

Since these are SEs and Prequels, my interest is low, but I'll happily test this Ady to let you know how it plays on my LG BH200 SuperBlu. Now where are those pesky Dual-Layer discs...I know I placed them around here somewhere...

Make it different by adding your color correction? :p

nohandluke said:

Now where are those pesky Dual-Layer discs...I know I placed them around here somewhere...

The test disc is only 143MB, so a DVD-5 will do.