Atilla the Hut

One more thing.. Comparing Harmy's 1080 and 720 example (above) I concur that there is no difference in detail between the two.

Not Star Wars related, but now I'm thinking of all the assholes at dvdfile.com and thedigitalbits.com (with the exception of Robert Harris) with their group think and less than 20:20 vision (not bragging here but my vision is perfect) who over the years have 'dictated' what is quality and what is not quality. Not that these mentioned sites are influential these days but they once were and I always thought they were wrong. They were wrong. They didn't know the difference between a compression artifact, a macro block, and a pixel. Seriously. I wouldn't trust any of their recent reviews either. Just saying...

Harmy said:

Even if it was so, the current version is still stuck at 1080p plus it isn't really all that detailed to begin with:

720p has approx. half the resolution of 1080p, yet when scaled down to 720p and then upscaled back up to 1080p, the BD master definitely doesn't lose half the detail, so that effectively means that the 1080p master doesn't really use all the resolution 1080p has to offer.

Interesting...

I can tell the 720p image is a lower resolution than the 1080p image from the grain structure, BUT the detail appears identical. For the longest time I used to be under the impression a 35mm release print had some sort of amazing resolution. After I got a blu ray player and saw a few films then went back to the local cineplex, I started to question that. Then I found out that a release print was sub 720p on average due to the generation loss in contact printing. That and most new films used a 2k DI meaning if the HD version was sourced from the DI it would be hands down better than the release print (unless heavily compressed). Now the local cineplex has 4k DCI equipment so that's not a problem (and comfy seats... and a full bar)

Seeing this comparison makes me wonder how much extra detail could be extracted via a modern higher scan (with the OCN). For a film like SW, I would hate to see them not try.

Fang Zei said:

No, they used the OCN. That's why the '04 master still holds up in full HD: the scan Lowry was working with was capturing all that detail of the original source, even if the scanner was only 2K.

But you're still missing my original point, which is that Lowry was only working at HD resolution (whether it was 1080 anamorphic or 817, either way it was only 1920 horizontal). That's an hdtv master, not a cinema master. The prequels had actual 2K masters (Clones and Sith were shot at 1920, but the effects shots and everything else in the movie were rendered and finished at full 2K). I somehow doubt even Lucas would want the OT looking even worse than the prequels.

I knew what you meant. :) I would like to see a new scan too, for peace of mind, preferably at 8k. I've also read they scanned the OCN, but I also read (on this site I think, links in archived posts) that OCN=1997 SE which is an internegative two generations from the OCN. I know secret history of star wars says the OCN was disassembled and reassembled with SE footage, but that contradicts what Rick McCallum said in an old interview. The OCN was disassembled, but I don't think it was re-assembled with SE footage like Kaminski wrote. All the sources conflict with themselves and since we're not in the loop, who knows?

I just wanted to point out that the 2004 source was indeed scanned in at least 2k. The de-graining stuff was done at 1080p, but the scan was not 1080p like I've seen several people on the internet claim. Can't scan a scope film at 1080p. Well I guess you could, but it would be 1200x1080p or something like that

Fang Zei said:

I'm bumping this thread in light of last week's Disney announcement. Several weeks ago we learned that Clones and Sith would be hitting theaters only a few weeks apart next Fall. With Episode VII hitting in 2015, we'll obviously be seeing all three of the OT-SE installments hitting theaters much earlier than originally expected (late 2014 / early 2015 at the very latest).

I bring this up not out of any interest in the 3D versions, but out of interest for what this might mean for the OT in general. Will Lucasfilm spring for 4K rebuilds of the OT now that money is no longer an object? The current Lowry masters are stuck at 1920x817, which is just fine and dandy for hdtv and blu-ray, but the standard digital cinema resolution for a cinemascope film is 2048x872. Jim Ward called the Lowry masters a "digital negative" back in '04, saying they could use that for theatrical if they wanted to.

Well, it's been eight years and (correct me if I'm wrong) that master hasn't been projected theatrically anywhere.* That says to me that, no, hdtv resolution for a 'scope film is not a "digital negative."

*Was that special screening of Empire a couple years back (with Ford in attendance) the '04 version or was it a '97 print??? That's literally the only time I can think of where the lowry master might have been theatrically projected.

No offense to Michael Kaminski, but the Star Wars films were scanned at least 2k resolution which for a scope film is at least 1828x1556. It was more likely scanned at 4k since 1828 horizontal pixels is less than 1920.

LFL used a Cintel C-Reality film scanner which scans at either 2k (at 6-15fps) or 4k (2 seconds per frame). The C-Reality cannot, however, natively output in either 2k or 4k. It only outputs in HD and lower resolutions. The full squeezed anamorphic scope frame was scanned at a higher overall resolution than HD and downconverted then output at 1920x1080 10bit color (4:4:4 RGB). Whether it was anamorphically squeezed at the full 1920x1080 or was letterboxed on output to 1920x817 is not known. The only source is Lowry saying it was "HD" and Videographer magazine saying it was 1080p, as far as I can tell so it's hard to say.

Since the C-Reality doesn't store images, the cost between 2k and 4k probably isn't much as it only comes down to time. It would be interesting to find out whether they opted for 2k or 4k. I would hope they did 4k. Even though fans don't like the colors, the overall image on the blu ray is pretty detailed. They look more detailed than Raiders and Raiders had a 6k scan with the restoration work done at down-converted 4k. LFL color 'corrected' the 1080p version and gave this to Lowry for restoration and de-graining. I would suspect they did not use the OCN either and opted for the 1997 SE internegative.

Star Wars was shot on the same film stock as Raiders except the composites and wipes/dissolves used a different film stock (among others) which faded so they re-did them either digitally or with an optical printer. Because of the generation loss with them and the effects and also if it is the 1997 IN, a 2k scan would have captured all the detail, a 4k scan would have definitely captured all the detail. The only way to make it better would be to scan the OCN parts that are salvageable, preferably at 6k or 8k. 

Harmy said:

The problem is that the other HD version is crap as well only in other respects (it's the same master as the 2001 DVD, only not downscaled), so it's hardly a good comparison. I saw somewhere on this forum some really nice HD screenshots from TPM, which seemed to be from a completely different source (or possibly the same source as the BD only prior to all the additional meddling) and those looked beautiful.

I'll check out the archives for the high quality screenshots if they're still around. That link I posted earlier with the info about re-assembling the film digitally has a section on grain in the conversion process being an issue since it's 'mono' and a true stereo image would have independent grain structures. Sucks if they DNR'd it for 3d and used that version for the blu. Saw some internet comments claiming the film was not DNR'd in 3d and there was grain, but that's probably random digital grain and their eyes are deceiving them. I guess it would also 'help' the compression process. Oh well...

I recently watched TPM blu-ray and thought I would register and ask you guys about the DNR issue. I noticed the film was grainless and looked soft but for the most part it looked great to my eyes. Now I always remember the film looking soft overall which is what makes me think made the DVD look terrible. Out of curiosity, I wondered if they used the source for the 1999 digital projection (an IP, same source as the DVD) and found this:

http://legend3d.com/sites/default/files/articles/fxguide%20Online%205%208%2012.pdf

Which is about the 3d release and it has this interesting piece of info:

There needed to be two new color timing parts to the show and Knoll used this opportunity to upgrade all the material, since when Episode I was originally finished, it was done on a per shot basis – “done sort of old style, final a shot, film out a shot, look at a print of that negative and that’s what we would final”. It went through a conventional negative cut. An optical timed IP was generated from that and then then master printing negatives were made from that timed IP. So everything audiences saw in the theater was two generations down from the original.

 

“When the original DVD was released,” Knoll says, “it came from scanning in the timed IP because it was the simplest thing to do. But when it came time to do [the conversion], we were going to take the movie and cut it up into 2,000 separate pieces, work on them and re-assemble it, we had an opportunity to go back to the original material. We could go back to the original film-out tapes that are a couple of generations better than what had been seen. So we figured let’s do that. We made a concerted effort to collect all the bits, re-create all the dissolves and pre-wipes. So that was all pre-graded material, so we had to do all new color timing, just to have the new Blu-ray master. Then there is a device-dependent color timing that’s done to compensate for the light loss that comes from stereo.”

TPM (like the first LOTR:FOTR blu-ray) did not use a DI but almost the entire film was scanned at 2k to apply visual effects. This footage was then output to an internegative which went through a traditional negative editing process including what sounds like optical wipes. An interpositive was created from this and both the digital and DVD versions were sourced from this IP.

For the blu-ray, they went back to the film-out tapes. The only scene that was not digitally manipulated was a quick shot of a gas vent in the beginning. That scene would have been scanned and the film re-assembled from the film-out footage, and he is saying the re-did the dissolves and wipes digitally. This means, by the way, that the blu-ray even without the alterations is different from the original theatrical release.

A close-up of Qui-Gon made the rounds last year as an example of bad DNR. But that particular scene (along with the scene where Anakin's blood is analyzed) were filmed digitally on a Sony HDC-750 as a test for the other prequels being filmed digitally. From what I can dig up, the HDC-750 has a CCD resolution of 1920x1035 and stores to the older HDCAM format which is 1440x1080 (1080i, it's interlaced) interpolated horizontally to 1920x1080 on output. So it looks like crap because it was filmed on a crap prototype digital camera.

When I watched the film, I noticed that it looked soft in some scenes and sharper in others. According to the technical info on imdb, some scenes were shot on Vista Vision cameras. I don't think during shooting George intended to digitally alter 98% of the film (which would require nearly the entire film to be scanned which then would have been 2k). The Vista Vision footage would appear sharper.

If it is badly DNR'd, is it badly DNR'd enough to destroy the extra detail (and then some) that it received from being 2 generations closer to the source? Or are people comparing the clean footage to the grainy IP-sourced footage and their eyes are fooling them into confusing the grain for detail? Most reviewers who reviewed the set claimed that TPM should look better than the prequels because it was sourced from film. If 98% of it was scanned in at 2k for effects work, that's not true. Not without re-rendering the CG and re-compositing the whole film. That they didn't do it for the 3d version (which probably would have helped, they say they don't use that software anymore) means TPM is like any other film made in the last 10 years with a 2k DI. Stuck there for a long time, if not forever.

I can't find any detailed shots to compare except for comparing it to the DVD (which of course it looks better than). It's been DNR'd but not with a detail-destroying filter. It went through the Lowry de-graining process. (which would help the 3d conversion too). So I'm wondering, is there really additional detail in the HD version floating around, or is the eyes playing tricks on the viewer from confusing grain with detail?