logo Sign In

ADigitalMan

User Group
Members
Join date
26-Sep-2004
Last activity
14-Jun-2025
Posts
2,944

Post History

Post
#78332
Topic
Director's Cuts?
Time
Quote

Originally posted by: Warbler
Leo is too short. Remember Vader is a tall guy


A tall guy who is mostly bionic. He could have been Jake Lloyd in that suit and been made the correct height through bionics. The height issue is too easily overcome by the very nature of Darth Vader. He's practically cyborg.
Post
#78255
Topic
Info Wanted: What other LDs are you all transferring?
Time
Now if they'd only restore Superman II: The Richard Donner cut. He's publicly stated his desire to do this. And since the new movie is supposed to pick up where II left off (perhaps even suggesting that III and IV don't even exist), it would be even more interesting to see Donner's vision for Superman II. Brando restoring Superman's powers ... that is the greatest scene ever put to paper but left unfilmed.

But I'm pulling us off-topic. Sorry.
Post
#78249
Topic
Hypocrisy of us at OT fans wanting preservations - but also editing the PT
Time
Quote

Originally posted by: Bossk
Right now, it's not bootlegging because Lucas has denied the existence of these films publicly. Can't bootleg that which doesn't exist.


Not that I want anybody to end up in court, but I would LOVE to hear this defense argued. Granted, Lucas' lawyer army would probably shoot it down, but it's a great argument. Use Lucas' own words against him. He'd be forced to acknowledge the existence of the works that everybody knows is out there, because millions upon millions of copies have been sold by him officially.
Post
#78190
Topic
Info Wanted: What other LDs are you all transferring?
Time
I received Pinnacle Instant CD+DVD suite bundled with my burner. Expression has been a very useful tool for me. I have a miniDV camcorder with firewire out, and Expression controls it nicely. Handles the transport features of the camcorder (rewind, ff, stop, pause, etc) and imports the tape into AVI nicely. From there, it will allow you basic authoring with menus. Sets chapter stops too. A handful of menu templates to choose from.

Not extremely flexible, but perfectly fine for home movie authoring.

Also, check out a freeware application called DVIO. This is a simple freeware video capture program. No features other than straight capture.
Post
#78139
Topic
.: The Zion DVD Project :. (Released)
Time
I always think of "bootlegs" as unofficial releases, and "pirates" as unlicensed reproductions of official releases. An analogy in the music world (where the term is more common), if I bought "Frampton Comes Alive" in Best Buy, that would be an official release. If I bought it from some street vendor in Malaysia for a buck, or downloaded it for free off of Gnutella, that would be a pirate. But if I bought "Frampton Comes Alive at the Local VFW" it would be a bootleg. At least, I don't think there are any official sources of Frampton playing at the local VFW. Of course, I could be wrong.
Post
#78116
Topic
Thought on de-SE'ing the DVD
Time
Originally posted by: INv8r_ZIM
What might actually be REALLY useful is if some LD equipped people were willing to make avaiable their raw capture footage of just certain problem areas. I'm thinking the one shot of Han before he fires first in the cantina; the shot of Garrindan which in the OT transitions to Ben and Luke "If the ship's as fast as he's boasting...", but which in the SE has an iris-in on Jabba at the Falcon. That kind of stuff. Just some key parts of shots where it's impossible to use the DVD footage. Nothing lengthy, so as to save on upload time for anyone generous enough to do it.

Bingo. That's exactly what I was getting at. Knowing how meticulous some of you are, I actually think you'll do a more impressive job getting video and audio to match than you're giving yourselves credit.

Heh ... I said "bingo." I should have said "gringo."
Post
#78111
Topic
***The MeBeJedi feedback thread ***
Time
MBJ, while we're on the topic of preservism, you need to re-insert the "cigarette burns" in the upper right hand corner that signifies reel changes. After all, they were in the theatrical prints. And the clock-wipe countdown from eight seconds. That was most certainly seen in theaters in 1977. And, gawd, get rid of that hideous "Episode IV A NEW HOPE" garbage that was put onto the crawl. What is that all about? That wasn't there in '77. I mean, what is the point of calling it the original trilogy if it has any of these pointless fixes in it?

Now that I think back to when I saw it in theaters in its initial run, the reel broke during the scene when the Stormtroopers shot Leia . I think it is IMPERATIVE that you restore the visual of a burning film frame, followed by about five minutes of total silence. After all, that's how I saw the movie in theaters, so it MUST be how it's supposed to be.

Ouch! Somebody help me get my tongue out of my cheek here.
Post
#78084
Topic
Hypocrisy of us at OT fans wanting preservations - but also editing the PT
Time
I hope I'm not hypocritical. I like most of the changes in the SE, including *gasp* the revamped Jabba in ANH. Some parts of it I hate, like Greedo shooting first and Hayden in ANH, simply because they totally obliterate the redemption of two major characters.

That said, I champion the release of the unmolested trilogy in addition to the special editions. Spielberg was wise when he released the original E.T. along with the special edition. He understood its historical significance. Lucas is a revisionist, and hopefully his kids will revolt against him when they inherit the empire. We may have to wait just that long, folks.

I have purchased all five films on DVD legitimately (not to mention countless VHS editions, including Ep I).

I also have seen MF's re-edits and love them. I will likely watch them before watching the official versions, but I have purchased the official versions because otherwise, it would just be wrong to only have a reedited bootleg. Plain and simple.

Soapbox:
In both the cases of the classic trilogy and MF's edits of the prequel trilogy, I am not alone in having certain issues with them. However, I have chosen to do something about those issues, and have been a vocal advocate of action. Bitching for the sake of bitching accomplishes positively nothing, other than sewing the seeds of discord among people who should be united by our love of Star Wars, not divided because of it. Free speech wasn't intended for catharsis of the soul, it was intended to incite action to a cause.

Therefore, in the case of the classic trilogy, I have written letters, and in the case of the actual defects on the disc, provided a guide for other users on this forum to do the same. In the case of MF's BOTF, I didn't like the way some of the subtitles read, just like scores of others. But rather than bitch about them even once, I gave myself a crash course in stream demuxing/remuxing and in subtitle generation. In 72 hours I addressed the same issues that scores of people fussed about, and circulated a dozen copies into existence. Not to revise MF's brilliant work, I was emphatic about preserving his original subtitles on the disc as well. After all, HE did all the work on that re-edit. What I did wasn't rocket science.

I can't stress enough for all of you to write letters to official sources to address your concerns. When the guy from Fox said I'm the only one he's received a letter from, he's either lying, or the rest of you guys aren't pulling your weight for the common cause. It's probably a little of both, but ask yourself, have you done your part?
Post
#77990
Topic
Thought on de-SE'ing the DVD
Time
I had an idea for the more serious and most altruistic laserphiles on the board. Being LD-player challenged myself, sometimes I can still throw an idea out hopefully inspire somebody to run with it. Hopefully this post doesn't break any of the board's rules. (If so, I'll be happy to edit it or have Jay junk it altogether). Can't be any worse than a user selling their projects for cash, which I abhorr.

There are any number of DVD editing tools on the market for the less-savvy video editors. They don't require demuxing and fudging around with the audio, as they simply cut and splice VOBs. The weakness is they cut only on keyframes, as opposed to frame-accurate editing. If somebody (or several somebodies) were to make note of where the keyframes of certain offending SE changes begin and end, and then release "fixes" in the form of matching VOB files to plug and play into those regions, then the Do-It-Yourself process for de-SE'ing the OT could be made available to the great unwashed masses, and not just the seasoned editors. Plus, by having smaller VOB files of just the individual changes available, (a) there would be less bandwith to consume and (b) archivers could actually pick-and-choose which parts they would want to restore. One could argue that this would even fit under the definition of fair use for an educational project (who posted that last week? Great stuff!) since the idea is really about how to make seamless editing around keyframes. Plus, the smaller snippets may very well fall under fair use, since individually they'd fit within the legal time constraints for sampled material.

The key would be VOBs whose beginning and end match the offical disc's keyframes precicely.

This won't solve the entire freakin' rear-channel music being reversed, but it otherwise might help nicely with restoring OT elements into the official DVD.

Thoughts from you experienced editors?
Post
#77989
Topic
RTJ Soundtrack Album
Time
Now, who has the transcription for the English translation? The English was written before it was translated to Huttese. Some of this is heard in "From Star Wars to Jedi" if memory serves me correctly. It was a work-out song, like Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" which was a monster hit between ESB and ROTJ for those who remember.
Post
#77946
Topic
Letter to LFL about DVD Defects (No OT vs SE discussion)
Time
Update:
I received a call from Fox Home Entertainment's head of ops today. He says that since the problems are with LFL's master, it doesn't fall in the realm of Fox to fix, and LFL has total control over this issue. That said, he had some interesting things to say.

  • He was unaware that any replacement program was already in place for the Ep IV discs. I had to correctly inform him that such a program was already in progress due to skipping issues. He attributed such issues to older-model DVD players (he's probably right) being incompatible.[/li]

  • He said this is the first that he had heard on the issue. Admittedly, he doesn't hang out on the internet, but if anybody is complaining about these issues, they're either doing it directly to Lucasfilm or not at all.[/li]

  • Once he realized that I wasn't trying to be belligerent or an ass (he seemed to think I was arguing to argue at one pont) he did say that he would communicate the issue to LFL. Largely this would just be re-sending my letter to them and asking if they've seen or paid attention to it. BUT, coming from an exec at Fox, this may get more attention than my letter alone would.[/li]

I can't stress enough that if you want these production defects fixed, you need to each speak up on the issue. I've become an irritant to them, little more than a mosquito bite. If LFL (or Fox, for that matter) get swarmed, then they'll have to respond. Therefore each of you needs to address LFL (and CC Fox and the BBB) individually. Encourage every Star Wars fan you know to get involved with a letter of their own. Most of all, confine your complaints to legitimate production missteps, because those are tangible wrongings whose fixes can be mandated.

May the Force be with us all!
Post
#77810
Topic
Grievous added to databank
Time
Quote

Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab
BTW, whatever happened to that guy from Harry Potter 3?.. Gary Oldman, I believe. I thought he was playing Grevious.


Oldman had to turn the role down because he is a guild member and Lucasfilm doesn't support the guilds. At least, that's the nonsense answer I read in multiple sources. I can't imagine that Sam L. isn't in SAG.
Post
#77662
Topic
StarWarsLegacy.com - The Official Thread
Time
So, here's a question whose answer I couldn't tell from the FAQ, even though you touched on it. Do you intend to keep the "restored" bits of dialogue that are present on the DVD? Namely:

C-3PO's "We've stopped" line in the sandcrawler
His tractor beam explanation
"Close the Blast Doors" (This is the one you mentioned but didn't say what you were doing).
Any others that I may not be thinking of.

I'm just curious from an audio perspective if you're leaving them in, taking them out, or what.
Post
#77627
Topic
Hitchhiker's Guide trailer online
Time
http://movies.yahoo.com/movies/feature/thehitchhikersguidetothegalaxy.html

Pretty cool trailer, even though it shows/tells you very little. Being one of the few geeks on the planet who has NOT read the book, and having only seen parts of the BBC miniseries as a kid, I have no idea what to expect.

I do think its interesting that this comes out only a couple of weeks before ROTS. Serendipity? It worked for Neo in '99.
Post
#77480
Topic
MagnoliaFan Edits: Ep I "Balance Of The Force", and Ep II "The Clone War" (Released)
Time
I did not receive mine from Rik, but I too noticed the high brightness ... specially on BOTF. I figured it was a product of the editing and reauthoring process, or maybe the re-compression down to one layer.

Having read about the LD restorations going on by some of our laserphiles, the "restore black" process has been in my head for this flick. But if MF still has the original edit without all of the recompression artifacts and original levels (assuming they exist in the re-edited form), then I was wondering how his source compared.

Let me say it again, because I haven't said it in a while: I positively love the prequels now, thanks to MF. I just kinda liked them before, but Episode I has truly become a great film to me. This was the movie I expected in 1999.
Post
#77483
Topic
Harry Potter (spoilers!)
Time
I just realized something ... Gary Oldman bites it in pretty much every major role he's been associated with. Even when he's not the bad guy.

Lots of spoilers below ... you are warned.

- Sid Vicious in Sid & Nancy - Drug overdose
- Drexyl in True Romance - Bullet to the crotch
- Beethoven in Immortal Beloved - I don't remember if they said how, but the public funeral was the one memorable scene in this movie.
- Zorg in The Fifth Element - Blown up in a giant flying cruise ship orbiting some far-flung planet. Damn French directors ...
- Dracula - after being undead for 500 years, finally snuffs it at the hand of Wynona Ryder.
- Lee Harvey Oswald, shot by Jack Ruby.
- Stansfield in Leon/The Professional - I don't even remember the details.
- Mason Verger in Hannibal - Fed to carnivorous swine that he engineered to eat Hannibal Lecter alive.
- Ivan Korshunov in Air Force One - Thrown out (punched out) of a plane by Harrison Ford in midair

And now, when we get to Order of the Phoenix, he'll cross that great void from which no soul returns.

At least we expect Commissioner Gordon to survive for the long haul.