regrading/editing original trilogy using blu-rays and german hdtv streams to remove bad but not all specialised/blu-ray changes (* unfinished project *) — Page 3

Wow, lots of posts while i've been gone.

@Harmy: Great work you've done there with the hatch! Like with the Sarlacc pit, i'll have to see whether I can get it to fit fairly seemlessly with the blu-ray/hdtv footage. Thanks for the suggestion about Adywan's colour corrected ESB and the old emperor footage. I thought I'd seen the old emperor looking good somewhere and that's where it must have been from. I watched Adywan's 13GB version a few years back.

@msycamore: I appreciate what you're saying about there being no magical single setting fix for ESB, but I have to disagree with you and Harmy about the 2004 transfer being such a horrible mess, colour grading appears fairly accurate to me as far as flesh tones are concerned (which is mostly how I judge colour grading, look to see whether the flesh tones are natural looking), excluding the blue tint of course. FOTR EE blu-ray is a horrible mess, this is nowhere near that travesty, this is actually a fairly decent transfer in terms of colour grading IMHO, give or take a few brightness inconsistency/tint issues, especially in Star Wars.

Yes, the 2004 dvd and by extention the blu-ray transfers have a few clipped whites, but neither the GOUT nor the SWE LD are 100% accurate representations of the theatrical releases either IMHO. In those cloud city screencaps, the flesh tones of the SWE LD are far too orange (all the characters look like they've been tangoed) and the GOUT is far too dark, with black crush, resulting in lots of shadow detail loss, very much present. Of the three screencaps, the 2004 dvd screencap is the most balanced and 'correct' looking, with flesh tones the most accurate as well, even with the whites blown out IMHO.

Look at it this way, the SWE LD is ruled out right from the start due to incorrect overly orange flesh tones. So you just have two possible colour references left, the lowry 2004 dvd/blu-ray masters and the GOUT. The dvd/blu-ray transfers lose detail in the highlights with white crush, the GOUT loses shadow detail with black crush, so they even each other out. The blu-ray has that lost shadow detail of the GOUT, the GOUT has that lost highlight detail in the whites due to it being unnaturally dark IMHO. All things being equal, you'll go for the higher quality HD transfer in terms of picture quality, which is quite clearly the blu-ray transfer.

The way I see it, the white crush is there on the blu-ray, that detail cannot be recovered, even if you were to reduce the brightness, so why not boost the brightness slightly more to make the image overall more appealing. You don't lose much more than what's already been lost due to white crush on the original blu-ray (and of course only in the few scenes throughout the film where white crush is an issue) and you get a far more appealing transfer throughout the whole film.

BTW msycamore, just to clarify one thing, you said (or at least implied) in your post that i'm using just one colour/brightness setting for Star Wars. That is actually very much incorrect. While you're right in saying that i'm only using one grading setting for ESB (because I believe that only one setting is necessary, the colour grading is fairly accurate and consistent without the blue tint), the first Star Wars film in this project has far more than just one colour regrade setting, many scenes have been regraded seperately, especially the blockade scene at the beginning that isn't all that colour consistent from cut to cut. Many scenes with Tarkin had to be desaturated seperately as well. ROTJ will also be using just one brightness/colour setting because I also believe that after you remove the blue tint, flesh tones are fairly accurate and the colour grading is consistent, like with ESB, IMHO.

This is just my opinion on the colour grading of these three films, no more, no less. I'm not trying to imply that the blu-ray grading is correct and the GOUT and LD incorrect. I'm not old enough to have seen these films theatrically in the cinema, so I don't know what it looked liked originally on the big screen (that said, even if I had, would I be able to remember exactly what it looked like after so many years... me personally, not really), I just doubt it was as dark as the GOUT or as orange as the LD. Of all the available sources I have seen in my lifetime (VHS/TV/GOUT/DVD/Blu-ray), the blu-ray transfer is the most 'natural looking/appealing' to my eyes if you remove the blue tint. I can't really say any more than that in defence of my colour grading choices. And for the record, I consider this project to be very much a 'preservation' of the theatrical editions plus all the good specialised changes rather than a 'fan edit', for what its worth.

You_Too said:

Omen, about the clip you posted, I think the difference is not very noticeable unless one looks at the screenshots you posted. (Why are the screenshots in 2560x1600 btw?)

Ah sorry You_Too! I realise I never got round to answering your question here. The reason the screenshots are in 2560x1600 is because in media player classic, I always go to fullscreen and do a 'Print Screen' because i've found in the past that if I capture a screencap via the mpc interface, the colours sometimes change slightly and with 'Print Screen', it looks exactly like it looks when i'm playing the video. My monitor's native resolution is 2560x1600 so that's why those screencaps are that size. :)

Harmy said:

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that because I disagree so strongly that it would just lead to a pointless argument - to me the 2004 colour timing isn't appealing but appalling ;-).

This is your project and you should mainly do it so that you enjoy the final result :-)

No worries Harmy, i'm fully aware that my opinions on the lowry colour grading are going to be controversial on this forum and i'm really appreciative that you're still helping me out so much even though our opinions really differ in this regard. And don't get me wrong, I'm really looking forward to your despecialised editions, I loved what you did with the ones you've already released, these are just two totally different schools of thought when it comes to colour grading these films. At least people will have the choice of different versions with different colour grading, those based off the GOUT and similar sources and those based off the lowry 2004 masters. Choice is never a bad thing in my book. What more could they ask for? :)

Harmy said:

Yeah. Although, I don't just use the GOUT as a reference. Wherever available, I compare different sources and references, trying to colour correct it the way I believe is closest to the original colour grading (which most of the time coincides with what I like, so that's cool) based on all references available to me. And of course, choices will be made based on personal preference even in my project, because the references sometimes simply aren't there. But in those cases, I usually make my choices based on what I think was probably in the original. That's the nature of my project.

The nature of your project is different - your effort is to make a version you'll like, which, unlike for me, isn't necessarily the original version, so the original colour timing doesn't really have to mean anything for your project and that OK too :-)

Harmy, in my mind, a transfer that has correct looking flesh tones is the 'original version' (unless all the characters in the cinema looked orange or had some other strange colour of flesh tone, which I doubt). I am using the flesh tones of the characters as a guide for what is the 'correct' colour grading, not colour grading to my own preferences. Basically all the theatrical references I have seen, like that LD screencap posted earlier, have had incorrect flesh tones, basically all those 35mm shots that were on the website that You_Too posted earlier had incorrect flesh tones, with the majority being affected by either red shift, green shift or yellow shift (presumably due to the film degrading). It's very difficult to see the colour grading with the GOUT because it is so often dark and the picture quality so poor (contrast and brightness all over the place most o the time).

Are there any other clearer colour references for these films that i'm not aware of? If there are I would really like to see them because I assure you I am trying to get back to the correct colours, using flesh tones as a guide, not creating colour grading that fits my fancy. I definately consider this project a preservation, so if there is a reliable guide for colour grading these films so they look like the theatrical release that i'm not aware of, please tell me. If you can't post the answer on this thread for whatever reason, please PM me.

@Harmy: I am very much aware that flesh tones depend on the scene and lighting and have very much taken that into consideration when setting on a single setting for ESB, which is why I was in favour of the more bluish flesh tones in the wampa clip I posted before rather than the more balanced neutral colour grading that You_Too put up using photoshop, where Luke's flesh tone was too orange for his very cold surroundings IMHO.

Fair enough about the GOUT, I'm looking at the dvds and you're right, it is brighter than the dvd/blu-ray in a lot of places (or at least seems so due to its lack of contrast).  If you increase the contrast to get the image looking fairly decent, the image is a lot of the time darker than the dvd/blu-rays. The only part of the GOUT I have familiarity with recently is Lapti Nek and looking at the footage i've got, after boosting the contrast, its definately going to need its brightness boosted in order to fit with the rest of the blu-ray/hdtv footage.

@msycamore: Fair enough, I definately agree with you about detail getting lost in the clipped whites and yeah, that is clearly visible in the blu-ray itself. That it is already present in the blu-ray is not in itself a reason not to increase the brightness a little more though if it improves the image overall, as I believe it does here, even taking into account increased white crush in certain scenes. Sorry, it seemed from what you posted before that you believed I was using a single setting to regrade Star Wars, which is pretty much impossible because its so inconsistent. Didn't mean to jump down your throat there, sorry about that.

msycamore, we're going to have to agree to disagree about needing a shot by shot correction to get any decent results. If anything, its the exact opposite IMHO, a shot by shot correction is a slippery slope if ever there was one. Only the cinematographers of these films would be able to do that with any real accuracy IMO and even then, his colour grading sensibilities may have changed over the years and he could choose to grade certain scenes differently, much like Peter Jackson and Andrew Lesnie did with FOTR EE blu-ray, which has a very different palette to the theatrical release, even after the green tint is removed. This may even be the reason why the Lowry colour grading is so different, the cinematographers and GL may have decided to change the colour grading to fit more modern colour grading trends, much like what happened with FOTR EE.

For somebody not involved in the actual production of these films to regrade them shot by shot using a source as poor as the GOUT as a reference and get them close to how they looked in the cinema? Little to no chance IMHO and that's of course assuming that the GOUT's colours/flesh tones are accurate, which for me personally is open to debate. The contrast was definately not that messed up in the cinema, I'm pretty certain of that. No, shot by shot regrading is definately not the way to go, at least for me. The Lowry masters minus the blue tint will do.

Msycamore, thanks for wishing me luck with this project and I hope that you will continue to provide feedback on clips i post in the near future and maybe even check out this release when I get round to uploading it. Who knows, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Okay, leaving all the differing viewpoints on correct flesh tones/colour grading to one side, what does everybody think about the dual hatch in ESB when Lando saves Luke? I've tried reinserting Harmy's great matte reconstruction of the original hatch with the rest of the blu-ray footage but i'm finding one thing a little jarring, the bright white light above the hatch. Where is that coming from? It doesn't seem to be part of another tunnel, there are no walls visible in that light. Not from outside, because the light outside isn't like that in the next shot, so there appears to be a lack of lighting continuety with the next shot, when Lando is coming out of the Millenium Falcon to pick up luke. That bright white light is nowhere to be seen in the outside shot. This would explain why GL felt he needed to change it for the special editions in the first place.  Wouldn't it be better to keep the special edition shot with no bright light that seems to have more continuety with the shot from outside the millenium falcon? I don't know whether to use the original hatch or leave the specialised change as it is, so please share your thoughts.

Here's a clip of how it was originally: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0SFOENA7

Here's a clip of how it is specialised: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5MGLT3VR

 Now that colour wars are over :) going back to the scenes.OMEN regarding the hatch I know what your saying but that CG is so bad it should definitely go that one scene to me is why I'm all for these changes please if you only change one thing in Empire please be it that bloody ugly hatch. Also do you know if your keeping in Lak Sivrak or smoky the lizard for new hope yet at all ?

@Harmy: Cheers for the feedback Harmy! I am actually in total agreement with you here, I hadn't noticed the improved continuety between the hatch opening in the tunnel and the hatch opening outside in the special edition, thanks for pointing that out. I'm definately leaning towards leaving it as it is in the blu-ray, one of the good changes IMHO, like you say.

@Darf Muffy: I know where you're coming from but while you find the second CG hatch very jarring, I find the bright white light going to nowhere just as jarring in terms of lighting continuety. What I can do if you want is upload the version of this scene with just the one hatch using Harmy's matte footage for you in high quality and when I upload the finished release of ESB, you can use a program called TSMuxer and simply cut out the special edition hatch and reinstate the original theatrical hatch. If you don't know how to do that, I can run you through the whole process step by step no problem, its quite simple. Then you'll have the version you want of ESB without me having to upload another 50GB just for a single change.

As for all the guys in the cantina, i'm not changing anything there so that's all staying specialised, all the changes there look pretty good IMHO and are improvements as far as i'm concerned.

doubleofive said:

 

Harmy said:

For what it's worth, I think this is actually a pretty good change. It lends continuity not only to the light but also to the hatch opening in the shot from the outside. I'd actually recommend you keep it because these are exactly the kind of fixes that are not distracting and actually add to the film.

I like the hatch as well, they even timed it to match it opening in the model shot from the outside. However, it does add even more height to the already cramped Falcon. What one person can barely stand in from the outside now has enough room for people to stand below the main floor and go up an elevator and two doors to the top.

 

Ha ha, very true, hadn't thought of that! But who's going to be thinking about things like that when you're enthralled by ESB's exquisite storytelling, totally engrossed in the scene and the peril that the characters face at the hands of the Empire? Certainly not me. ;)

OMEN!-_-! said:

 What I can do if you want is upload the version of this scene with just the one hatch using Harmy's matte footage for you in high quality and when I upload the finished release of ESB, you can use a program called TSMuxer and simply cut out the special edition hatch and reinstate the original theatrical hatch. If you don't know how to do that, I can run you through the whole process step by step no problem, its quite simple. Then you'll have the version you want of ESB without me having to upload another 50GB just for a single change.

As for all the guys in the cantina, i'm not changing anything there so that's all staying specialised, all the changes there look pretty good IMHO and are improvements as far as i'm concerned.

OMEN, your a gentleman and a scholar I'll be very glad if you could do that and yeah I think I'll need to take you up on the the step-by-steps you kindly offered on how to do this also, but apart from the hatch and the emperor scenes in ESB I'm in total agreement with what your views are for these films :D

Darf Muffy said:

OMEN!-_-! said:

 What I can do if you want is upload the version of this scene with just the one hatch using Harmy's matte footage for you in high quality and when I upload the finished release of ESB, you can use a program called TSMuxer and simply cut out the special edition hatch and reinstate the original theatrical hatch. If you don't know how to do that, I can run you through the whole process step by step no problem, its quite simple. Then you'll have the version you want of ESB without me having to upload another 50GB just for a single change.

As for all the guys in the cantina, i'm not changing anything there so that's all staying specialised, all the changes there look pretty good IMHO and are improvements as far as i'm concerned.

OMEN, your a gentleman and a scholar I'll be very glad if you could do that and yeah I think I'll need to take you up on the the step-by-steps you kindly offered on how to do this also, but apart from the hatch and the emperor scenes in ESB I'm in total agreement with what your views are for these films :D

Thanks Darf Muffy, it'd be my pleasure to lead you through that process. :)

Exactly the same thing could be done with the Emperor scene as well but that's footage from Adywan's revisited ESB which hasn't even come out yet. When it does, we should really get permission from him to use his newly created revisited emperor footage before I can regrade it to fit the rest of the footage in this project and upload it to you to edit into the rest of the film.

Harmy said:

Actually, there's already a HQ 720p MKV of Ady's Emperor scene, so with his permission, you wouldn't have to wait for ESB:R to come out.

Ah, didn't know that. Cheers Harmy! Can this 720p mkv be found in Adywan's ESB revisited thread or is it somewhere else? Feel free to PM me where it is if you can't post here.