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Wonderful news - glad to hear this! 😃
Hope you’re able to show some improvements shortly too.

Very sorry to read this Poita - I hope she’ll be fine.

Very exciting news, and well deserved (to say the least!) - well done Sir! :D

Get well soon Poita! :)

Gutted :(

At least he's reunited with Peter Cushing.

althor1138 said:

Yes, please up it somewhere. If the LD and VHS line up pretty good the subtitles might be pretty easy to erase.  

With our internet connection that wouldn't be possible I'm afraid. Willing to send it out though if somrbody can make use of it.

Sorry for the dark text above - ipads and this forum do not work together well :/ That was just cut and pasting text from the Notes app.

I have a DVD I made of the PAL Star Wars to Jedi VHS, using a Panasonic E50 recorder on the top quality recording mode. The quality is pretty good (for VHS!), though the image is quite dark. If it's of any use I could send off a copy.

Awsome news - can't wait to see to see this! :)

Jonno said:

A quick bump for this, just in case there might have been any developments in the last year or so!

Any more leads on a complete recording of an original TV broadcast? Most folks here were hoping to find the 1982 UK ITV screening, but really any TV broadcast would be great - the more station idents and commercials the better!

 Just for the hell of it - bumppppp!

Those colours look fantastic - not strictly speaking accurate perhaps, but it just looks exactly how I remember it looking, before the dark times.... (Or should that be, neon-hued times?!).

In complete agreement. The 35mm Grindhouse of Empire is my 'goto' version now, and I'm very excited about the prospect of a similar release of Star Wars :)

bkev said:

team_negative1 said:

1) We will probably have a pre-release just for members of the blog, and to those that donated in the past.

Team Negative1

 Is this in reference to the old blog, or is there another one I'm not familiar with?

 Was wondering the very same thing.

A list of the original UK airdates (12-12:30pm):

20/04/81 - 01. A Wind to Shake the Stars (Easter Monday Holiday)

21/04/81 - 02. The Points of Origin

22/04/81 - 03. Black Knight, White Princess, and Pawns

23/04/81 - 04. While Giants Mark Time

24/04/81 - 05. Jedi That Was, Jedi To Be

27/04/81 - 06. The Millennium Falcon Deal

28/04/81 - 07. The Han Solo Solution

29/04/81 - 08. Death Star's Transit

30/04/81 - 09. Rogues, Rebels and Robots

01/05/81 - 10. The Luke Skywalker Initiative

04/05/81 - 11. The Jedi Nexus

05/05/81 - 12. The Case for Rebellion

06/05/81 - 13. Force and Counter Force 

Second Airdates - Saturdays (2-2:30pm)

04/07/81 - 01. A Wind to Shake the Stars

11/07/81 - 02. Points of Origin

18/07/81 - 03. Black Knight, White Princess, and Pawns

25/07/81 - 04. While Giants Mark Time

01/08/81 - 05. Jedi That Was, Jedi To Be

08/08/81 - 06. The Millennium Falcon Deal

15/08/81 - 07. The Han Solo Solution

22/08/81 - 08. Death Star's Transi

29/08/81 - 09. Rogues, Rebels and Robots

05/09/81 - 10. The Luke Skywalker Initiative

12/09/81 - 11. The Jedi Nexus

19/09/81 - 12. The Case for Rebellion

26/09/81 - 13. Force and Counter Force

Hi folks!

Occurred to me earlier that it’s exactly 34 years to this day that the Star Wars Radio Drama was aired on BBC Radio 1, at 12pm. I have all the original Radio Times issues with the airdates and episode descriptions and a two-page special about the show which was included in the magazine.

These shows have a special nostalgic appeal to me as my Mum used to record them onto my old Grundig TK20 reel-to-reel deck (we didn’t have a decent Hi-Fi for years!) whilst I was at Junior School. Until we got our first VCR that tape was played almost daily - ah those halcyon days 😉 I’m going to be listening to the episodes on the same day/time order as the original air dates, which handily match date/day this year.

If they’d be of interest to anyone here I’ll scan them all in as a sort of ‘mini project’.

Cheers!

timdiggerm said:

Harmy said:

Chewie looks really weird too.

 Really? I thought they got it right.

I thought he looked pretty good to, though the mouth looked like it had been CGI'd or enhanced to me - might just have been the encoding of the video file or the lighting though.

I think they've done a bit of CGI tinkering with his eyes too. In the original occasionally you could see the gap between the masks eyes, and Peter's. They've probably blurred that out so it looks seamless this time around, which is fair enough.

I can't believe people are complaining about this trailer personally - it looks WAY better than I think we had a right to expect after the prequels. This immediately feels like that lived-in Star Wars universe, 30 years on, to me. I think if some fans didn't feel a warm nostalgic thrill from that lost shot, nothing would make them happy! And Harrison looked more invested in those few seconds there than many entire films he's been in post-Fugitive! Love the John Williams music too - amazing they got him to actually compose (or re-arrange) music for these trailers. For the first time since the Phantom Menace trailer I'm actually excited about Star Wars again (bar the 35mm film projects going on here to preserve the original films).

ratpack1961 said:

JawsTDS said:

The shot of the storm troopers all lined in front of the giant red flag was chilling. Granted, this is only a teaser, but it looks as if the film will be darker than I had previously expected from the first teaser. 

 That's a great shot.  It's very reminiscent of the opening of the first draft treatment of ANH where the emperor reviews the troops.

The only shot in the trailer I'm not sure what's going on is where the lightsaber is handed to the person on the left.  I'm thinking thats where the Rose character hands it to Rai but since all we have is hands to go on its hard to tell.

It's Han passing Luke's old sabre to Leia. Check that thumb - that's a Harrison Ford carpenters special - not a woman's ;)

WHAT an amazing trailer! I'm stunned - feels like Star Wars is truly back again! Could JJ have actually knocked this one out of the park? Looks very promising!

Some of the ON was destroyed for good too, according to this article:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/09/once-lost-star-wars-related-short-to-screen-for-the-first-time-in-33-years/3/

"Tanaka: I remember when we were working on the Star Wars restoration, that was a different process. I think we optically recreated interpositives. But in order to do this, it went through some kind of warm chemical bath cleansing. The weird thing about Star Wars was that it was made up of different film stocks, so it went through this bath and they didn’t know what would come out on the other end...

Parker: You mean if it would survive or not? ‘George we might destroy your entire film, but it’s... we think it’s going to be OK.’

Tanaka: There’s a space battle shot and a close-up on Hans Solo, and the original negative is coming out of this cleaning solution and it’s just acetate.

Parker: It’s all clear. Oh no, did the bath dissolve it?

Tanaka: Yeah, it dissolved it, depending on the film stock. If you compare it to something like that, this isn’t as risky because we’re into the digital scanning era. But of course, anything can happen."

Mavimao said:

Great demonstration, Mike! You mentioned that you would like to look at the original elements and composite them digitally. This was already done for the Special Edition for the SFX shots that did not get replaced by CGI. 

Did 4K scanning exist back in 96/97 when these were done? I'm sure it could be done at a greater resolution today.

Not sure how to take these rumours about Han... other than with the usual large packet of salt! According to this older item of news he stipulated a character arc for Han beyond Episode VII... as well as one last Indy film. Either all that's changed or this recent rumour is just all BS:

"Ford wanted to see the synopsis for his character's development over more than just Episode 7. He saw this in August and is happy with the story arc."

...or Ford had a change of heart once JJ abandoned the original story treatment...

http://www.jedinews.co.uk/news/news.aspx?newsID=14102

Brief interview with Hamill with some not really surprising, but welcome, info:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=A51Tymkp8eY&app=desktop

Hal 9000 said:

Seems like many of these devices have spotty luck with stuff like this. But one thing that would tell me something is wrong is if someone has an issue with v3 that they don't have with v1 or v2. Otherwise I'll have to conclude, even for my own device which once played them, that it's inherit. At least in that event, I wouldn't have to start over with this 1080p versions. 

EDIT: V2 is causing the same choppy playback for me. I have to conclude that my issue has to do with my Roku, rather than the video. In other words, I have no better clue why some of you are having problems than I did before. *shrugs* But if you are able, you could reencode it yourself to a known good format, or get the 720p version.

I couldn't find a V2 or a V1 so will just watch V3 on the computer for the time being. Though will give Handbrake a go at some point to see if that works. I'm sure somebody here will come up with the solution before long anyway - it's probably something simple, one of those annoying little settings that makes all the difference. Thanks for checking it out anyway.

I have watched the first half of Clock of Deception. Whilst there's only so much one can do with the material of course, I LOVE what you've done with it. So much more stream-lined now and it flows way better. Cutting all the journey to the gungun city out and much of Jar-Jar's antics just about makes him tolerable now and cuts to the heart of the story better. If only George Lucas still had an editor of Marcia Lucas' skill when piecing together the raw material for Phantom it could have been a pretty decent film, in addition to using a voice actor entirely to enlace Jar-Jars incredibly grating voice! The only thing that slightly interupted the flow for me were the deleted upscaled scenes. Interesting additions but the noticeable drop in quality (in the 1080p version) made then really stick out to me. None the less interesting additions. Look forward to seeing what you've done with the remainder later tonight. Resisting to the urge to go through your check-list of changes until I've finished, or I'll be looking out for them. To me an unnoticed change is a compliment as it means the film is flowing as it should :)

Hal 9000 said:

I have played v1 on my Roku 2 XS from start to finish when they were first released, with no issues. I just tried playing v3 and found... stuttering video, as if it just can't quite keep up. I rendered three test clips of varying bit rates, and all of them stutter regardless. 

So, I am going to (try to) reacquire V1 or V2 from myspleen and test it. It's possible that a software update on my Roku could explain this, rather than any changes with my encoding settings. The most helpful thing right now would be to have people experiencing stuttering problems download v1 or v2 of any of the films and test them as well. If they have the same problem, I'll have to conclude that it is unavoidable and give up. If the older versions work fine, I'll keep investigating. (Though even lower bitrates than what I used before cause my Roku to stutter!)

Thanks for checking this out. It's a head-scratcher isn't it, I've looked at all the obvious video codec information and I can't see what would cause this stuttering. I'll have a look for an earlier version and test that out.

Nanner Split said:

For those having Blu-Ray issues: there are several Blu Ray players out there that just will not play BD-Rs, period. Be sure to Google the model number of your player and see what it says (I found this out the hard way: I was working on a BR for a commercial release and some of our QA testers just could not play their test copies at all for this exact reason).

I'm using an Oppo BDP-83 - never had any problems with any BD-R disc until this one alas.

Hal 9000 said:

I'd also like to hear if anyone tried and had or didn't have this problem with v1 or v2. I believe I raised the bitrate very slightly this time around, but still low enough to easily fit onto a BD25 with room to spare. 

If indeed that's what's causing this problem, all versions must have been straddling this very fine line. I doubt it, though. 

If that's the case though then wouldn't the retail Star Wars Collection blu-rays also not play properly, or are your files at a higher bitrate than those? The official set plays fine on my player - I just don't want to see those ;)