The Phantom Menace - Theatrical version scanned in 4K (a WIP) — Page 5

Darth Robin said:

Now I’m confused. The digital bits article claimes both that it was scanned at 4K and that the film has a new color grade. And the say they’re getting their infromation from disney insiders.

Are they just lying?

Does anyone have an image gallery or video that more accurately dislpays the color? We’re not getting the 4K discs here in Finland untill May the 4th so I haven’t seen them yet.

I don’t know if it was scanned at 4K, I’m just saying that this is the same scan as in the BR from 2011, which was NOT the scan used previously in the DVD, the LD and the VHS.

About color grade, the new 2020 BR shows obviously a new color grade made on the old BR master. So the only question is: was the 2011 BR master scanned in 4K?

yotsuya said:

ZigZig is 100% correct. The DVD was made from the same master as the VHS and LD from 2000. The only difference are the 4 known changes. This was also aired in the EU in HD. It features a more cropped picture and a different color grade. The BR was a new scan (it might have been 4k since we are talking 2011) and features the CG Yoda to match the other two PT movies. But this new version is NOT a new scan and features no known changes. Same colors, same shots, nothing new. And no sign that it was a native 4k scan (not that it would make any difference in the FX shots which were 2k to start with).

When you say “the 4 known changes,” you mean:

1. podrace
2. air taxi
3. that one senate interior shot
4. that one shot of Theed at night

Do I have that right?

The blu-ray added a few more changes on top of that, and the only ones that come to mind are:

1. re-done shot on Trade Federation bridge early in the movie

2. re-rendered Bode and Feed in one shot during podrace

3. digital Yoda

Anything I missed?

There is more changes thant those 4 known changes (ex: the invasion of Naboo was rerendered with different ships, the external view of Palpatine’s office was deleted, the sound was totally remixed) , but it is probably not the point of this discussion.

Darth Robin said:

Now I’m confused. The digital bits article claimes both that it was scanned at 4K and that the film has a new color grade. And the say they’re getting their infromation from disney insiders.

Are they just lying?

Does anyone have an image gallery or video that more accurately dislpays the color? We’re not getting the 4K discs here in Finland untill May the 4th so I haven’t seen them yet.

I would guess that they might be carrying info over from their matching OT articles that doesn’t apply to TPM. Not in the sense that they’ve miscopied it, but that their Disney insider might have been speaking to them about the SE trilogy along with TPM, but failed to point out some spots where they differed (i.e., the DVD and Blu-ray sharing a transfer, and the creation of a new transfer for 3D).

The other articles have similar language. With the dates and other details adjusted.

ZigZig said:

There is more changes thant those 4 known changes (ex: the invasion of Naboo was rerendered with different ships, the external view of Palpatine’s office was deleted, the sound was totally remixed) , but it is probably not the point of this discussion.

Ah, forgot about the Naboo invasion. After all these years my memory is a little blurry, but I want to say the view from the window of Theed Palace was re-done? Or are there other shots I’m forgetting about?

Re: Palpatine’s office exterior, yes that shot was deleted but since it was replaced by the air taxi sequence I don’t really think about it.

Fang Zei said:

ZigZig said:

There is more changes thant those 4 known changes (ex: the invasion of Naboo was rerendered with different ships, the external view of Palpatine’s office was deleted, the sound was totally remixed) , but it is probably not the point of this discussion.

Ah, forgot about the Naboo invasion. After all these years my memory is a little blurry, but I want to say the view from the window of Theed Palace was re-done? Or are there other shots I’m forgetting about?

Yes, there are other shots. Ex: http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/1B01NNNU

ZigZig said:

There is more changes thant those 4 known changes (ex: the invasion of Naboo was rerendered with different ships, the external view of Palpatine’s office was deleted, the sound was totally remixed) , but it is probably not the point of this discussion.

Not sure what invasion scene you are talking about. I just went over the three shots of the landing craft descending and landing and not one frame has a noticeable difference. I checked the EU widescreen broadcast (which was before the changes and matches the VHS and Japanese LD) with the EU HD broadcast. Nothing with the landing craft was redone. And Palpatine’s office is part of the known change, so that isn’t something different. That change involves the transition from the preceeding and following scenes and the shots in the middle. There are only 4 known differences between the original and the DVD/EU HD broadcast.

ZigZig said:

Fang Zei said:

ZigZig said:

There is more changes thant those 4 known changes (ex: the invasion of Naboo was rerendered with different ships, the external view of Palpatine’s office was deleted, the sound was totally remixed) , but it is probably not the point of this discussion.

Ah, forgot about the Naboo invasion. After all these years my memory is a little blurry, but I want to say the view from the window of Theed Palace was re-done? Or are there other shots I’m forgetting about?

Yes, there are other shots. Ex: http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/1B01NNNU

ZigZig said:

Fang Zei said:

ZigZig said:

There is more changes thant those 4 known changes (ex: the invasion of Naboo was rerendered with different ships, the external view of Palpatine’s office was deleted, the sound was totally remixed) , but it is probably not the point of this discussion.

Ah, forgot about the Naboo invasion. After all these years my memory is a little blurry, but I want to say the view from the window of Theed Palace was re-done? Or are there other shots I’m forgetting about?

Yes, there are other shots. Ex: http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/1B01NNNU

That is the BR. That is a different beast entirely. My statement was 4 differences between the original theatrical version and the DVD/EU HD broadcast. The BR has a huge number of differences that I have not bothered to look at because other the 4 changes from the theatrical verison, they are all available in good quality HD.

You’re right, if we are talking about the differences between the theatrical version and the DVD, there are mainly 4 changes (+ new audio mix and bad color regrade).

Also a new digital source for the Blood test scene with recomposited background elements (IIRC).

And as always this is the best info we have on the TPM workflow from Knoll himself
https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/art-of-stereo-conversion-2d-to-3d-2012/

There needed to be two new color timing parts to the show and Knoll used this opportunity to upgrade all the material, since when Episode I was originally finished, it was done on a per shot basis – “done sort of old style, final a shot, film out a shot, look at a print of that negative and that’s what we would final”. It went through a conventional negative cut. An optical timed IP was generated from that and then then master printing negatives were made from that timed IP. So everything audiences saw in the theater was two generations down from the original. “When the original DVD was released,” Knoll says, “it came from scanning in the timed IP because it was the simplest thing to do. But when it came time to do [the conversion], we were going to take the movie and cut it up into 2,000 separate pieces, work on them and re-assemble it, we had an opportunity to go back to the original material. We could go back to the original film-out tapes that are a couple of generations better than what had been seen. So we figured let’s do that. We made a concerted effort to collect all the bits, re-create all the dissolves and pre-wipes. So that was all pre-graded material, so we had to do all new color timing, just to have the new Blu-ray master. Then there is a device-dependent color timing that’s done to compensate for the light loss that comes from stereo.”

John Knoll totally said:

We could go back to the original film-out tapes that are a couple of generations better than what had been seen… and really make sure to run the whole lot through some extra aggressive DNR software, cranking up the intensity until Qui-Gon looked like a melting wax figure. This was helpful for the 3D release, and after we finished that, we decided that since we’d already encoded the movie once, we may as well just stick that same sandpapered version on every other home media release of the film ever. For the 4k releases, we could’ve taken the opportunity to release this master without ridiculous overprocessing, but when people buy a 4K disc, what they actually want is the exact same vaguely nauseating image as the previous Bluray, so we just ran it through an upscaling algorithm and opened our wallets up.

Edit: for clarity, this is a joke.

Well, that is not what this group of people wants to see in a 4K release. So the BR of TPM is really the exact same film as before with perhaps some color tweaks. good to know. No need to both with any of the PT in 4k. But it is good to know they made a new master and have it and this is not it.

ZigZig said:

Today is probably the good date to officialy announce that a scan in 4K, based on a 35mm in very good condition, is currently in progress.
And it will be done twice 😃

• a first scan (in 4K) will be processed as soon as possibly by a Parisian lab, so that I can use it to finish my ongoing despecialized edition (https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/ZigZigs-THE-PHANTOM-MENACE-Theatrical-reconstruction-1080p-V10-work-in-progress/id/61295)
• then the reels will be shared with some people from OT (I don’t know if I can name them), and a second scan will be processed with the best available scanner.

I received a few days ago from the lab in Paris a first test scan of reel 4 (made with a simple 720p scan), just to analyze the average condition of the reel before scanning it with a brand new 4K scanner. The lab scanned the entire reel… in 25 fps (the French standard) so it is not currently usable (there are ghosting artefacts and interpolated frames). Damn French people, always thinking that the world needs their own standards!

But It looks just gorgeous, even in 25 fps: the reel is in PERFECT condition, it looks like it was never projected before, the colors are perfectly preserved. The lab made NO correction at all (white balance, DNR or something else) and the rough result is astonishingly good.

The 4K scan will be obviously done in 24 fps, can’t wait to get it 😊

Happy birthday to TPM!

Any news about this 4K release ???

Twingo said:

ZigZig said:

Today is probably the good date to officialy announce that a scan in 4K, based on a 35mm in very good condition, is currently in progress.
And it will be done twice 😃

• a first scan (in 4K) will be processed as soon as possibly by a Parisian lab, so that I can use it to finish my ongoing despecialized edition (https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/ZigZigs-THE-PHANTOM-MENACE-Theatrical-reconstruction-1080p-V10-work-in-progress/id/61295)
• then the reels will be shared with some people from OT (I don’t know if I can name them), and a second scan will be processed with the best available scanner.

I received a few days ago from the lab in Paris a first test scan of reel 4 (made with a simple 720p scan), just to analyze the average condition of the reel before scanning it with a brand new 4K scanner. The lab scanned the entire reel… in 25 fps (the French standard) so it is not currently usable (there are ghosting artefacts and interpolated frames). Damn French people, always thinking that the world needs their own standards!

But It looks just gorgeous, even in 25 fps: the reel is in PERFECT condition, it looks like it was never projected before, the colors are perfectly preserved. The lab made NO correction at all (white balance, DNR or something else) and the rough result is astonishingly good.

The 4K scan will be obviously done in 24 fps, can’t wait to get it 😊

Happy birthday to TPM!

Any news about this 4K release ???

Eagerly awaiting news of this!

ZigZig said that he’ll update it when there is something to report. ZigZig said in another post that the lab scanning the print is shut down due to corona.

Maaga said:

ZigZig said that he’ll update it when there is something to report. ZigZig said in another post that the lab scanning the print is shut down due to corona.

No need to report that to him until we have something to report! 😄 ha!

Here’s some news, more than a year after the start of the project …

The Parisian laboratory in charge of scanning the entire film in 4k, under professional conditions, showed a lot of slowness and encountered a lot of problems … until it was closed and unable to continue working because of the Covid-19.

As a result, at the time of writing, only one of the 7 reels has been partially scanned… and it took more than one year to achieve this weak result.

So I decided to resume scanning myself, and I just ordered a Retroscan Mark-II scanner which seems to give very good results on a fairly competitive price.

The scanner is expected to be shipped within the next couple of months, so it can be reasonably expected that everything will be scanned and shared here by the end of 2020.

My apologies for the time this all takes. It is a beautiful adventure, strewn with pitfalls!

At the same time, I’m continuing the despecialized version. A v1 was made but I prefer not to share it and wait until I have the full 35mm scan to integrate the despecialized scenes in better quality.

Take all the time you need dude! Like I always say, Patience is a virtue!

Not only that, but DAMN: You just up and bought a scanner for this. That’s dedication. And awesome as all hell.

In fact, I was “lucky” to be fired by my employer during the Covid-related confinement, and he was ordered to pay me large severance pay.
So, in agreement with my wife (obviously), I decided to have fun with this money, in order to turn this ordeal into something positive! But it becomes clear that the Phantom Menace is an expensive adventure 😃

SilverWook said:

Never thought anything good could come out of this bantha poodoo year! Congrats on getting a scanner. I hope you’ll take a photo or two of it so people can see what one of these beasts looks like.

Thank you, I will definitely take a photo or two!

Been following this project since the beginning! Can’t wait to see the results. Thank you for your dedication!

ZigZig said:

So, in agreement with my wife (obviously), I decided to have fun with this money, in order to turn this ordeal into something positive! But it becomes clear that the Phantom Menace is an expensive adventure 😃

In more ways than one, my friend!
Stay well.

Did anyone else want to see raging Anakin in episode III return to settle the score with Kitster and Wald?
“Make fun of my podracer now!” wipes them out like he did the sandpeople, and the younglings…