Also I think it’s hilarious that the LOTR Fanclub credits are still 480p, haha. Not that it matters. But they clearly just pulled them from the SD DVD master. There are SO many names in those credits that I bet whoever was in charge of typing them up was like, “NOPE” Haha.
I also finally got a look at it. I still prefer the theatrical colors when looking at it side by side but on its own, it looks great. The only thing that bothers me is that to my taste, they went a little over board with dnr. It’s really good state-of-the-art dnr, so it didn’t really remove any detail but it looks a bit clinical and digital.
I agree, I still prefer the original color from the theatrical/extended DVD. But I have to admit the HDR is really nice.
Also, I actually noticed that there’s some really nice grain throughout the film, although it’s very fine, subtle grain. You’re right that they’ve definitely applied some DNR, (and more than I would have liked). But I’m grateful they didn’t try to scrub out the grain completely, because there’s still a light amount of it that’s present in the film.
The DNR does feel a bit more prominent on VFX shots, though. But that may just be a resolution thing.
I finally had a chance look at the 4K HDR version, and it looks amazing! My comments above remain the same — it doesn’t look exactly like the original release, but it’s very much in the spirit of the original release. I have some reservations, but overall it looks really good, and seeing this film in HDR is a really cool experience. It’s super visceral! And of course, now that there’s no awful green pollution throughout the entire film, it’s finally watchable again!
Speaking of your avatar, for those who haven’t already seen this:
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=18347156&postcount=5884
Top: Theatrical Blu
Middle: Extended Blu
Bottom: UHD
The tonemapping on that UHD still doesn’t look accurate to me. (It at least shows off the lack of the green tint though!)
44rh1n said:
So the CGI is technically upscaled 2K (scanned from film though), and everything else is true 4K. It’s a very thorough remaster, from what I’ve read.I realize this is quite subjective, but how well do you think the effects hold up?
You’re just looking at the HD version and not the 4k, but I’ve read a lot of people expressing concerns about how effects heavy shots would age once the refreshed live action material was set alongside it.
From what I’ve seen so far (and I haven’t watched the full film yet – waiting on the 4K to do that), it looks very good. The CGI appears more detailed than previous Blu-ray releases. I wouldn’t be surprised if a good amount of the 2K CGI was re-composited onto the 4K scanned negative (not re-rendered in 4K or anything like that, but just re-composited in 4K). Can’t verify that though, of course. One of my go-to shots to judge CGI is the CGI helicopter shot at about 1:50:09, and in this release it looked very good. Also the troll sequence at 2:15:00 and the Balrog sequence at 2:25:00 look quite detailed. It’s still very much 2000s-era CGI, though. Nothing will change that. But it looks good!
But again, my opinions could change once I’m able to pixel-peep on a higher bitrate source. Right now I’ve only been able to look at the iTunes version on my LG OLED while sitting on my couch, and it initially looks quite good. But I’m much more interested in watching the actual 4K HDR version, or even a 1080p SDR Blu-ray (if that releases, which hopefully it will). I’m afraid these first impressions I’ve been giving are a bit premature.
Out of curiosity, what’s the verdict on how they handled the original digital negatives for effects?
All non-VFX shots were scanned in 4K from the original negative, and all VFX shots were scanned in 4K from the original VFX film-outs. So the CGI is technically upscaled 2K (scanned from film though), and everything else is true 4K. It’s a very thorough remaster, from what I’ve read.
Since I’ve only been able to look at the iTunes version so far though, I’m not 100% certain about the texture. (Because the iTunes version is so compressed). However, it looks like there aren’t DNR issues, and there’s some nice grain. Which is good. But I’ll be analyzing the texture a lot more in-depth once I can my hands on the actual 4K Blu-ray.
That’s great news! And if one wanted a closer to the theatrical version, it sounds like this new one would be much easier to regrade 😊
Yes, it would be easier to grade indeed! 🙂
The new master of FOTR has already hit iTunes in both 4K HDR and 1080p. Not to purchase, but if you already own the HD versions and stream them it’s the new version that plays. Looks as if someone just may have put them up early.
In any event, the green tint is GONE!
WOW, you’re right! I just checked my iTunes copy, and it looks REALLY good! It’s still only HD for me (hopefully it upgrades to 4K for me eventually – iTunes usually does!), but it’s definitely the new master. It looks WAY better than the old green extended Blu-ray master!
It’s still quite different from the original DVD/theatrical release, but it looks amazing nonetheless. In fact, it’s actually an improvement in many ways (unlike the ugly green extended Blu-ray) to that original version. For example, it no longer has the fairly prominent magenta shift that the original DVD/theatrical release had in the highlights. So it now looks closer to The Two Towers and The Return of the King. And the green tint IS TOTALLY GONE!!
In other areas, I think it’s still a tiny bit worse than the original grade, though. I think it’s a tad undersaturated in some scenes. And some of the more warm, tungsteny scenes (such as Bilbo writing in his office) are a tad too warm to my taste. I liked the original version that was a bit more balanced and had some more color separation. And the scene in Bilbo’s house when he has a panic attack because he can’t find the ring, is still fairly dark as well. But at least you can actually see the colors in that scene again! His vest is actually red again! (In the old extended Blu-ray, that scene was much darker and his vest was black).
And the Rivendell scene is much less saturated than the original DVD/theatrical release. But I’m actually ok with it. It’s still warm, unlike the green version. I might even like this scene a tad more than the original version, because that scene was always very saturated in the original. But I don’t know. I’m kind of conflicted. I’m still married to the original look, I suppose.
Overall, most of the daylight exteriors look VERY close to the original release, though! It looks SO GOOD! I can’t verify this, but I would almost bet money that Peter Doyle returned to do this new color grade. It definitely looks like his handiwork!
I can’t wait to see this in HDR! I bet some of my saturation complaints won’t be quite as relevant with the HDR version, due to the wider gamut of the grade. I’m SO EXCITED!
I’m seriously SO HAPPY that it looks this good! It’s not perfect IMO, but it’s a thousand times better than the old green Blu-ray. It’s definitely at an acceptable state now, and I’m excited to watch it once I can get it in HDR. 😃
Also, for what it’s worth, I just scrubbed through The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey as well, and it also has a new grade. It’s a bit more analogue/film-print-like, and looks a tiny bit closer to the style of The Lord of the Rings trilogy! It’s less saturated than the original Blu-ray, which is great because I always thought the Hobbit films were a bit oversaturated compared to LOTR! I haven’t watched the Hobbit films since the third one was in theaters, so this might give me an excuse to rewatch those!
Thanks for letting me know, Nick66! This is FANTASTIC NEWS!
Im casting doubt on them doing 4K re-renders. At best it will be 4K recompositing for shots that are simple composites. I doubt they will be re-rendering any complex CGI.
All non-CGI shots have been scanned in 4K from the original negatives, and all CGI shots have been scanned in 4K from the original VFX film-outs. So yes, the CGI remains 2K (although scanned in 4K), but I believe it’s at least been re-composited with the newly-scanned 4K footage. So overall, it should be a nice uptick in quality!
That is, as long as they didn’t majorly eff up the color grading again! IMO, this NEEDS to have an HDR grade that’s very much in the spirit of the original theatrical/DVD look (although with higher dynamic range and a wider color gamut, of course). If it has a new revisionist grade – or if it has a stupid, dark green grade again – then I’m going to be pissed.
If you want to integrate the scenes from the 4K version (if it turns out good) into the regrade, you have to use Media Player Classic Home Cinema with MadVR to obtain tonemapped PNG screen grabs of the individual frames for the scenes and splice them into the project on DaVinci Resolve.
Nah, that’s the wrong way to go about it, IMO. I’d do a ProRes transcode of the whole film, without tone-mapping. That way I’d have the entire dynamic range and gamut of the footage at my disposal. Using footage that’s already been automatically tonemapped would be very restricting.
It probably won’t come to that though, at least not anytime soon. I don’t have as much free time as I used to when I made this restoration. (Plus, I have faith that this new 4K version will be good! If it ends up sucking though, I may change my mind and decide to do it, haha).
I believe that according to some website, DaVinci Resolve tonemapping has the correct luma but not the right chroma. However, I’ve seen that MadVR gives out both the correct chroma and luma, as seen in some 4K screenshots of modern films giving a similar result to the Blu-ray using MadVR.
Never heard or experienced that before. Plus, there are hundreds of ways to do tonemapping in Resolve. All tonemapping is, is converting a log space into a gamma space. It can be done with CSTs, with LUTs, with custom curves, with L/G/G wheels, or many other methods. That’s what’s so great about Resolve — you have the toolset to do whatever you want. 🙂
But more than anything, It’s just not a great idea to do tonemapping before additional color work. Color should be done in the wide gamut, before any tonemapping. You get much cleaner and flexible results that way. 🙂
(Plus, I have faith that this new 4K version will be good! If it ends up sucking though, I may change my mind and decide to do it, haha).
Your faith sounds about as steady as mine 😉
Haha yeah. Maybe “hope” is a better word for me to use! I’m definitely excited, but I’m also worried for sure. Cautiously optimistic, I suppose.
Im casting doubt on them doing 4K re-renders. At best it will be 4K recompositing for shots that are simple composites. I doubt they will be re-rendering any complex CGI.
All non-CGI shots have been scanned in 4K from the original negatives, and all CGI shots have been scanned in 4K from the original VFX film-outs. So yes, the CGI remains 2K (although scanned in 4K), but I believe it’s at least been re-composited with the newly-scanned 4K footage. So overall, it should be a nice uptick in quality!
That is, as long as they didn’t majorly eff up the color grading again! IMO, this NEEDS to have an HDR grade that’s very much in the spirit of the original theatrical/DVD look (although with higher dynamic range and a wider color gamut, of course). If it has a new revisionist grade – or if it has a stupid, dark green grade again – then I’m going to be pissed.
If you want to integrate the scenes from the 4K version (if it turns out good) into the regrade, you have to use Media Player Classic Home Cinema with MadVR to obtain tonemapped PNG screen grabs of the individual frames for the scenes and splice them into the project on DaVinci Resolve.
Nah, that’s the wrong way to go about it, IMO. I’d do a ProRes transcode of the whole film, without tone-mapping. That way I’d have the entire dynamic range and gamut of the footage at my disposal. Using footage that’s already been automatically tonemapped would be very restricting.
It probably won’t come to that though, at least not anytime soon. I don’t have as much free time as I used to when I made this restoration. (Plus, I have faith that this new 4K version will be good! If it ends up sucking though, I may change my mind and decide to do it, haha).
Im casting doubt on them doing 4K re-renders. At best it will be 4K recompositing for shots that are simple composites. I doubt they will be re-rendering any complex CGI.
All non-CGI shots have been scanned in 4K from the original negatives, and all CGI shots have been scanned in 4K from the original VFX film-outs. So yes, the CGI remains 2K (although scanned in 4K), but I believe it’s at least been re-composited with the newly-scanned 4K footage. So overall, it should be a nice uptick in quality!
That is, as long as they didn’t majorly eff up the color grading again! IMO, this NEEDS to have an HDR grade that’s very much in the spirit of the original theatrical/DVD look (although with higher dynamic range and a wider color gamut, of course). If it has a new revisionist grade – or if it has a stupid, dark green grade again – then I’m going to be pissed.
https://www.redfox.bz/en/anystream.html
Maybe this could be used to get the Netflix theatrical version?
I got the trial version but can’t log into Netflix with it - perhaps it would work for someone in another region?
I don’t know for certain, but this kind of looks like another frontend to the same code used in FlixGrab (there are a few of them out there). We tried FlixGrab before, and while it did actually download the film, it wasn’t in its full bitrate for some reason. It had much more compression artifacting than when streamed directly from Netflix. So I decided it wasn’t really any better than the Blu-ray, due to compression.
If someone wants to try this and send me the file though, I’d be down to check it out! 😃
‘A Conversation with Harmy, creator of the Star Wars Despecialized Edition - PART 1’:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjp3e9lj5Cs - at the HelloGreedo youtube channel. (52 minutes long)
'A conversation with HelloGreedo, Star Wars YouTuber - Part 2:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcpdACUYYCA - at the Petr Harmy youtube channel. (59 minutes long)
Those were fun to listen to. Thanks for sharing.
Here’s an update of the color grading including a new scene:
This is all looking really awesome to me. Great work, DrDre!
Disney is literally sitting on a gold mine with this.
Stage 1 😉
😂 I know Disney has no interest in releasing it. I accepted that a long time ago. That doesn’t mean it’s not a gold mine though!
there’s far less incentive for Disney to release the unaltered original trilogy than fans estimate (the home video market is effectively dead and the number of people who know or care enough to seek out the original versions of these movies are diminishing by the day).
I think you’re massively underestimating the Star Wars fanbase, in particular the fanbase of those who love the original film in its original theatrical form. This is a movie that literally millions of dedicated Star Wars fans haven’t been able to see, in an official way, for over 20 years (crappy GOUT version excluded).
And the home video market is nowhere near dead. What a strange thing to say. It’s pivoted to digitally-owned movies, sure. But dead? No way. In fact, it’s stronger than ever.
If Disney were to release the original theatrical version in 4K, the press would be all over it, and thousands upon thousands of people would buy or rent it. Guaranteed. Not to mention, with a little bit of marketing, Disney would reach the casual fans of the series who maybe hadn’t realized they’ve been watching an altered version.
Disney is literally sitting on a gold mine with this.
He has finished his restoration from the multiple prints, and he has given it to Disney. So they have it. However, he hopes to eventually get a scan of the negative to use as an additional source in the future. Probably won’t happen, but we can hope. I just hope one day Disney will choose to release it on home video to the public. He’s done some fine work!
I just stumbled upon Mike Verta’s livestream from May 2020 about his unreleased 4K restoration. I remember him working on this a number of years ago, when he was about to present it to Fox and Disney. In this livestream he gives some new info about it. Pretty interesting stuff! I wish Disney would just release his restoration. It looks phenomenal!
https://youtu.be/G3W_O-tp0_g
Mod Eidt: For info… here is the link to mverta’s StarWarsLegacy.com - The Official Thread
Is there a way to make it properly identified as Rec.2020
Sorry for the belated reply. Yes, you just need to tell Resolve what the input color space and gamma should be. This can be done by simply right-clicking the ProRes file in the media pool and specifying the color space and gamma as Rec.2020 and ST2084, respectively.
I wasn’t able to repro the issue either, both VLC and MPC-HC, the only software video players I’d ever used. So IMO whatever I saw was either a bug fixed in a newer release, or something in the Windows audio mixdown to stereo, which may be different since I’m using a different machine now than when I saw this before.
Thanks for looking into it! Yeah, I couldn’t produce the problem on my end either, on any of my computers or players. So I wonder if it’s a system setting or something.
you could degrain one, and regrain the other, and meet in the middle.
This is the best approach IMO
Are you on the latest version of VLC? I find it odd that you’re able to reproduce the issue in VLC, yet VLC plays the center channel on my end. Hmmm.
Thank you for this. It’ll be very helpful.
I have a question. I want to take a UHD and edit the film. I want to keep the grading that it was released with, but do my edit, and be able to output the edited version with identical grading from the source, but with the new edit.
This used to be as easy as making an MKV of the film, converting it to ProRES, and then outputting a new ProRES after the edit. NOW when I try this, the color is washed out and completely off, and I believe I lose the HDR grading entirely.
I really appreciate the direction to process the MKV to ProRES 444, that’s good… but I still see it with the ungraded look. Is there a way to extract a LUT from the MKV?
Thanks so much for your help.
The color is “washed out” and “completely off” because it’s a Rec.2020 source, but your video editing application is assuming it’s a Rec.709 source. What software do you use to edit?
If you want to preserve the original HDR grading without making any modifications, then it should look washed out on your SDR display. That’s normal. And then in your timeline and export settings, you need to specify that it’s Rec.2020 ST2084 so that it doesn’t default to exporting in Rec.709.
This is a simple color management setting in DaVinci Resolve.
In other common editing programs, unfortunately, it’s complicated and sometimes not even possible to specify your timeline and output color space and gamma. So I recommend DaVinci Resolve for that reason.
HDR video will always look washed out on an SDR screen unless it’s being tonemapped. So when you’ve exported your film, you can try playing it in VLC or MPV to see it with the tonemapped colors. (Or just simply play it on an HDR TV).
