kk650's Star Wars Saga: Regraded and Semi-Specialized (Released) — Page 17

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

kk650 said:

I've been on myspleen and I can only see the Star Wars 97'SE theatrical track, which i've already very kindly been provided with by CapableMetal. Still waiting on the other two though. :(

Actually, there are all three episodes there, compressed in .7z

I'm sorry to not be able to help with the latest request, as my actual display is an ancient LCD very small monitor, which could not be finely tuned... oh, I miss you very much, my huge 55' HDTV! (^^,)

Are there? What should I be searching for on myspleen then so they show up?

No worries, the more I look at the frames from the theatrical print that i've been provided with, the more the choice seems obvious. I'm surprised that I didn't come to this realisation before. Looking back in the thread, poita did actually mention that the blacks were meant to be brighter than we have become accustomed to with modern films but I was so focused on the colours of Star Wars rather than the image dynamics that I didn't give it much thought. The comparison shot he posted between my settings and a frame from the print showing Leia and Tarkin clearly shows the brighter blacks in the frame taken from the print.

I hope that you get that replacement hdtv soon Andrea, we need you out there producing more quality releases, you're not much good to use with a small ancient lcd!

poita said:

Nope, the prints don't have really lush colour, (but the GOUT colour pallete is way off in places) it is the camera taking the photos that is punching up the vibrancy at the Senator screening etc. I have a technicolour print in front of me right now, and the colour is nowhere near as vibrant. I have seen another Tech print, and prints taken from the french negative, and in all cases, the images aren't washed out, but aren't 'punchy' either.

Also, if you read interviews with the DOPs and others that worked on the film, they were going for a softer, more gauzy look, which fits in with how the prints look.

below is an example, Aussie Tech-IB on the top, grab from your front page on the bottom.

As I said, I like the look you are creating, but it is much more in line with a late 90s to early 2000s look, rather than how the originals looked in the 1970s.

Film just doesn't do those deep deep blacks, (negatives do of course, but the prints we saw in the cinema didn't).

The push towards deep (crushed sometimes) blacks and pushed whites is a more contemporary taste, it wasn't popular in 70s cinema.

 Here's what poita said earlier in the thread about the blacks for those that are interested and don't want to go looking for the post.

kk650 said:

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

kk650 said:

I've been on myspleen and I can only see the Star Wars 97'SE theatrical track, which i've already very kindly been provided with by CapableMetal. Still waiting on the other two though. :(

Actually, there are all three episodes there, compressed in .7z

I'm sorry to not be able to help with the latest request, as my actual display is an ancient LCD very small monitor, which could not be finely tuned... oh, I miss you very much, my huge 55' HDTV! (^^,)

Are there? What should I be searching for on myspleen then so they show up?

SW Special Edition 97 Theatrical DTS - Unprocessed WAVs with LFE

Posted by CapableMetal has all three episodes.

Click on "Num Files" and you will see.

stretch009 said:

kk650 said:

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

kk650 said:

I've been on myspleen and I can only see the Star Wars 97'SE theatrical track, which i've already very kindly been provided with by CapableMetal. Still waiting on the other two though. :(

Actually, there are all three episodes there, compressed in .7z

I'm sorry to not be able to help with the latest request, as my actual display is an ancient LCD very small monitor, which could not be finely tuned... oh, I miss you very much, my huge 55' HDTV! (^^,)

Are there? What should I be searching for on myspleen then so they show up?

 

SW Special Edition 97 Theatrical DTS - Unprocessed WAVs with LFE

Posted by CapableMetal has all three episodes.

Click on "Num Files" and you will see.

Thanks for that stretch009! :)

Has anybody checked the clips and have any thoughts about which brightness setting is more correct for Star Wars?

If nobody posts their thoughts i'll just have to assume that everybody is in two minds like me and i'll go with what my gut is telling me to go with, the brighter settings.

When the 16gb The Abyss regrade finishes encoding tonight, i'll adjust the settings of the whole of Star Wars to match the brightness of those brighter clips and then set it off. The Star Wars Semi-Specialised Retro Edition V2.1 should be out by Monday or Tuesday at the latest.

After Star Wars, I move straight onto Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialised Retro Edition V2.1 which should be much much easier, that should be out in a couple of days, then onto Return of the Jedi Semi-Specialised Retro Edition V2.1 that should be quick to release as well, though i'll have to release two versions, one with the Yub Nub ending and one with Victory Celebration, as I did with my first Semi-Specialised releases.

I checked out one of the clips and i have to say the brighter does look better, not washed out at all I think it looks great kk650.

Edit: just checked out another clip and the brighter version definitely has my vote.  :)

I have to agree. The brighter settings look excellent. Good job.

I now hear these edits are being released over the weekend. Looking forward to it...

Been very busy with work related stuff this week so I wasn't able to get any of them up during the week but I finally have some free time to myself this weekend. The Star Wars Semi-Specialised Edition is indeed coming out tomorrow, thank you Doombot, Hal 9000 and kane1138 for letting me know that you prefer the brighter settings, thats what i've gone with.

I was in two minds about the black levels so I have actually created two encodes for Star Wars that I plan to release, one using the exact same settings as the latest clips I posted and an encode with slightly reduced brightness.

I believe the first settings are more accurate in terms of brightness to how Star Wars looked in the cinema when it came out but the blacks in certain scenes are a bit too bright for modern sensibilities watching on a TV screen IMHO, it makes for unconfortable viewing until your eyes adjust. I'll probably call this one the Star Wars Semi-Specialised Cinema Edition and will be a one off for Star Wars only.

The second settings conforms more to modern expectations of black levels and in that sense has much better continuety with the black levels of the second and third film's Semi-Specialised Editions. This is the version I expect most people will prefer and it'll be the Star Wars Semi-Specialised Retro Edition that will be followed by the ESB and ROTJ Retro releases.

I'm also almost finished with the settings of The Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialised Retro Edition, so that should be coming out in the next few days as well.

The Star Wars Semi-Specialised Retro Edition V2.1 is now up on tehparadox.

Here are some comparisons between the blu-ray and this release:

Blu-ray 1:



Regraded 1:



Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:



Blu-ray 3:



Regraded 3:



Blu-ray 4:



Regraded 4:



Blu-ray 5:



Regraded 5:

Those screenshots look fabulous!

Looks great, I hope somebody will "spleen" it one day :)

Good God man those new screenshots are beautiful!  Looking forward to this as well as the other two films!  Were you able to get the cinema DTS for all 3 films?

The Star Wars Semi-Specialised Cinema Edition V2.1 is also now up on tehparadox and the settings for the The Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialised Retro Edition V2.1 are finished. After all the lightsaber colour corrections I'm seeing twirling lightsabers in my sleep haha need to take a break for a day or two, then i'll move onto Return of the Jedi.

@nafroe: Thanks! If you like how this looks, I think you'll like how ESB and ROTJ look as well. :)

@pittrek: haha if that was a hint I got it loud and clear. I was always planning to put these up on myspleen, I just wanted to finish off ESB first, which I have done today. I'll put both the Star Wars Retro and Cinema versions up there tomorrow. I'd forgotten how much of a pain it is correcting the lightsaber colours so they're consistent...

@kitt1987: Thanks, very kind of you to say that. Its the best i've been able to get Star Wars looking after months of tweaking the colours and image dynamics. I think i've achieved a natural and appealing balance of colours and fleshtones.

I was able to get the unprocessed cinema DTS audio for the three films off myspleen. There's a bit of work that has to be done to them synced correctly first to the '97 releases but I should have all I need to start creating the audio tracks for these releases. That will have to wait though, I want to get Return of the Jedi Semi-Specialised Retro Edition V2.1 done first, both with the Yub Nub ending and the Victory Celebration ending.

Danfun128 said:

How is the Return of the Jedi Semi-Specialized going to be made? Do you have access to the same Negative 1 clips Harmy has for his despecialized?

I hope to have access to those clips at some point though I sent Negative 1 a PM like they asked 3 weeks ago and have yet to hear back from them. Hopefully they'll get back to me at some point. Maybe they're waiting for the despecialised Return of the Jedi to be released using their clips before they reply to my PM, so I could be waiting a while.

I have however got the uprezed PAL GOUT footage for Yub Nub, Lapti Nek and the Jedi Ghosts scene that I created for my first Return of the Jedi Semi-Specialised release a year ago. I colour corrected all three scenes, changed the image dynamics to better fit seamlessly with the blu-ray footage and finally cleaned the GOUT footage of the three scenes frame by frame of spots, scratches and dirt, so it is more than satisfactory to use. Not as good as a high definition source or film print scans of course but it will certainly do until something HD in quality crops up.

So I currently have everything I need to create the Return of the Jedi Semi-Specialised Retro Edition, all I need to do now is adjust the settings and make sure the lightsaber colours are consistant.

Again it sounds fantastic and look forward to your new versions. I'll be patient and wait until you can fix up the DTS soundtracks with hopefully the larger format in the future. Take all the time you feel you need!

Okay, both the Star Wars Semi-Specialised Retro Edition V2.1 and Star Wars Semi-Specialised Cinema Edition V2.1 are now up on myspleen.

@kitt1987: Thank you kitt1987, I appreciate that, good things come to those who wait. :)

Awesome. Thanks for the spleen.

@kane1138: My pleasure. :)

The Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialised Retro Edition V2.1 is currently encoding, I should have it up on tehparadox by tomorrow. I'll put it up on myspleen as well soon after.

Sorry about the delay guys, after muxing The Empire Strikes Back encode to the PCM audio that I created for my first The Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialised release I wasn't 100% happy with the audio syncing so I had to redo it from scratch. I also noticed a few lightsaber shots that I felt could be improved further so doing both those things is what delayed me releasing this.

The Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialised Retro Edition V2.1 is now up on tehparadox. I'll also have it up on myspleen later on today.

The Empire Strikes Back is now on myspleen.

Return of the Jedi should be coming in the next few days, then i'll create playable AVCHD versions of all three with chapters and selectible subtitles for those that want to write these onto a dvd-9 and watch these releases straight off their players with as little fuss as possible.

kk650 said:

The Empire Strikes Back is now on myspleen.

Return of the Jedi should be coming in the next few days, then i'll create playable AVCHD versions of all three with chapters and selectible subtitles for those that want to write these onto a dvd-9 and watch these releases straight off their players with as little fuss as possible.

Sounds great. And then the 16 gb 'retro' versions?

towne32 said:

kk650 said:

The Empire Strikes Back is now on myspleen.

Return of the Jedi should be coming in the next few days, then i'll create playable AVCHD versions of all three with chapters and selectible subtitles for those that want to write these onto a dvd-9 and watch these releases straight off their players with as little fuss as possible.

 

Sounds great. And then the 16 gb 'retro' versions?

I'll need time to create the cinema DTS audio tracks to include with those 16gb releases but yeah, that's the plan. Then i'll start releasing the more colourful classic versions.

Seems I forgot to add screencap comparisons before (silly of me I know) for the latest Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialised Retro Edition V2.1 release so here they are:

Blu-ray 1:

Regraded 1:

Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:

Blu-ray 3:

Regraded 3:

Blu-ray 4:

Regraded 4:

Blu-ray 5:

Regraded 5:

Blu-ray 6:

Regraded 6:

Blu-ray 7:

Regraded 7:

Blu-ray 8:

Regraded 8:

Blu-ray 9:

Regraded 9:

Blu-ray 10:

Regraded 10:

Blu-ray 11:

Regraded 11:

I should also let you guys know that Return of the Jedi is going to be delayed because i've decided to take a break from Star Wars.

I'm currently working on removing the blanket green tint from Egde of Tomorrow, then i'll take a look at Godzilla, many people have complained about the transfer's underexposure so i'll see what I can do.