logo Sign In

Thorr's 35 mm Star Wars Trilogy SE Trailer WQHD Restoration (Part-Finished) — Page 2

Author
Time

As Laserschwert said, your new sample looks fantastic... It's vivid and very High Definition. Keep up the good work.

Author
Time

Thanks guys. 

In other possibly good news, I viewed the SE version of the  Return of the Jedi Death Star explosion and it looks like it would fairly straight forward to take my version up to the point where it starts to fade, and then start the SE version from there and fix the rest.  The front of the explosion ring goes past the camera, so the only thing to fix would be the back of the explosion ring which is nearly a horizontal line and  could easily be edited out by replacing it with the star pattern that was there before the explosion.

I plan to release this portion as my first video sample.  I may try to complete the scene myself and release that instead of the trailer fade version.  I haven't decided yet.  Should be fun!

Author
Time

thorr said:

I plan to release this portion as my first video sample.  I may try to complete the scene myself and release that instead of the trailer fade version.  I haven't decided yet.  Should be fun!

Yay! It should prove to be a good first clip.

Author
Time

Just an update... I looked into the new version of the Death Star explosion and it is heavily cropped compared to my version and the color is drastically different also (it looks almost like a cartoon).  I am getting near to being ready to release the clip, and I would like to before the blu-ray's come out or on the same day (most likely it will be the weekend before).  I am re-thinking how I might restore the complete original Death Star explosion clip.  I will probably keep the star pattern from before it starts to fade and try to brighten up the fading portion until it starts to look bad, and maybe finish it with a GOUT upscale for the explosion part of the frame.  I haven't checked the GOUT's cropping yet.  There are only about 16-20 frames that gradually fade to black, and many of those should still be usable.  After releasing the clip, I will be interested in hearing feedback about the quality before I work on the rest of this restoration.  Also, if this will be included with the blu-ray extras, I won't really see the point in finishing it.  Anyone know if it will be included?  Does anyone know if the scenes before the explosion are unaltered? 

Author
Time

I am curious, I just read the thread title to this project of yours and you call it "Ultra-HD" what is Ultra HD, is it better than regular HD somehow? is this going to look better than Blu-ray HD? I have never heard of Ultra-HD.

Author
Time

Thorr stated that he was going to do these at a resolution of 2560 x 1600, so I suppose that's what he means by ultra-HD. It definitely will look better than Blu-Ray HD.

Author
Time

Yes, I coined the phrase "Ultra-HD" because I didn't know what else to call it.   I plan to release in both 2560x1090 (2.35:1) and Blu-Ray compatible 1920x1080 with black bars.

Author
Time

Thanks, I edited the first post.

Author
Time

How are you transferring this?

Do you own equipment that can transfer a 35mm print or are you having  a proffessional do it?


Even though it's a trailer, it's still copyrighted. Many professional houses won't handle them.

Author
Time

revgen wrote: How are you transferring this?

thorr you might want to take your earlier reply and move it to your first post.

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Thorrs-35-mm-Star-Wars-Trilogy-SE-Trailer-WQHD-Restoration/post/521762/#TopicPost521762

thorr wrote: Yes definitely I want to share details like that, but not quite yet.  I want to at least get a working prototype video first to prove out my process.  Hopefully I will have something soon.

 

Author
Time

Looks a bit red, but not bad shape. Most of the official trailers were competently transferred to the DVD set.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Just for curiosity, I pulled out my DVD copy of the trailer for comparison.  Here is a high resolution comparison shot (be sure to look at it zoomed into the actual pixels, not fitting the whole thing on the screen).

http://www.sendspace.com/file/qt2kky

(DVD version on top)

Author
Time

Fantastico!

A little piece of advice though: Please don't use Sendspace... as soon as you share bigger files or multiple people download your stuff, Sendspace usually caves. I'd recommend Mediafire.com

Author
Time

Here is a sample video.  I had to travel for business and ran out of time today, but fortunately I got enough done to take it with me and finish it.  I wanted to produce something before the Blu-ray's are out in case this was included as an extra.  It is the last scene in the trailer, and I didn't work on making it into the fully restored Return of the Jedi scene due to time constraints.  I will probably do this when I get back home.  I had to finish this on my single-core 1.6GHz Netbook, which isn't exactly a great tool for working on HD video.  I encoded it to mpeg2 because my Netbook can almost handle it.  It is a little herky jerky, so I am hoping the clip is actually fine.  I also encoded it to .mp4 for better quality, but I have no way to test the clip with this computer.  For now they are 1920x1080p.  Theoretically, they are blu-ray player compatible, but I didn't test this either.  I did some extremely basic level adjustments (one adjustment at the low end, and one at the high end) and it really brought out the color.  Enjoy and please give feedback.

 

MPEG 4 version:

http://www.mediafire.com/?vmahqq4dkgvpivj

MPEG2 version:

http://www.mediafire.com/?y2byb45h3z1qh7v

Author
Time
 (Edited)

That looks great, only it seems to me that the whites are a little overblown and the gate-weave is quite big, maybe it would be good to run the final result through some process similar to GForce's script?

So are you going to tell us more about you process? I'm really interested!

Author
Time

yeah, looks really good.

the video actually seems to be 1920x1088.

later

-1

[no GOUT in CED?-> GOUT CED]

Author
Time

Wait a second, that was the original explosion, not the SE one. Cool.

Author
Time

Harmy said:

That looks great, only it seems to me that the whites are a little overblown and the gate-weave is quite big, maybe it would be good to run the final result through some process similar to GForce's script?

Thanks a lot for the feedback.  The last thing I did before rushing out the door to catch my flight was do the levels adjustment.  It is possible that I adjusted the whites a little too far, but I tried to push it to the edge without clipping.  The blacks are the same way.  I will look at it more closely when I have actual time when I get home and make sure nothing is clipped.  In general, I really like the current look but I don't want any clipping.

Regarding the gate-weave, if you look at the DVD version of that scene, it also moves around a little bit.  I think it is inherent in that scene.  Let's see how future scenes come out.  I would be very interested to see if a script could also be used to help stablize it.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Harmy said:

So are you going to tell us more about you process? I'm really interested!

I will, I will, promise.  Sorry, I am not trying to be mysterious or anything.  I am not quite ready to talk about it just yet.  Let's just say it is a non-standard approach that I came up with, and I really want to make sure my process is successful and works well (hence asking for feedback).  I am still thinking of some possible ways to improve it.  I will work on a bit more of the trailer and release that and see how it works out.  The last scene was very time consuming due to a lot of factors including starting over several times, and I am thinking that it will start going quite a bit faster now.  I want to get a feel for how much effort this really is, make sure the community approves of the result, and then I will tell all.  :-) 

I also have another Star Wars project that I am working on in parallel and it is also very exciting for me (as well as a really cool potential third project if all goes well).  I have no idea how long the second project will take, but I might do it in steps and release revisions of it with improvements each time.

negative1 said:

yeah, looks really good.
the video actually seems to be 1920x1088.

Thanks!  I checked with MediaInfo and it shows 1920x1080, so I am not sure why you are seeing it as 1920x1088.  Anyone else see this?  Is it the MPEG2 or the MP4 version or both?  By the way, does the MP4 version even work?  I can't try it myself.  I sort of feel like I did all this work and can't even enjoy it because my crappy Netbook doesn't do it justice with it's pathetic screen resolution and slow processor, so I have to rely on you guys to tell me how my clip turned out, LOL!  Can't wait to go home and see how it looks!  :-)  I will also work on a 2560x1090 version and maybe complete the RotJ version.

Drewton said:

That's really fantastic quality.


Thanks!  I am really glad you think so.  I spent a lot of time on this and am glad it's finally paying off.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

TK-949 said:

Wait a second, that was the original explosion, not the SE one. Cool.

Thanks!  I thought I might as well start with the best part of the trailer! Not to mention I am doing the whole thing in reverse so it was quite convenient. :-)

Author
Time
1080 MPEG-2 is actually stored with 8 lines padding.

"Right now the coffees are doing their final work." (Airi, Masked Rider Den-o episode 1)

Author
Time

I just watched the clip and it looks very good. The grain structure is very visible and the black levels are spot on.