Bluto

YoungJaaron said:

Bluto said:

Invites have been closed since early September, sadly.

Does this mean that if you didn’t have a MySpleen account by that time, you’ll never be able to get one?

Difficult to see; always in motion is the future. A number of people have wondered the same thing, but none of the admins there seem to have hinted whether or not invites might be open again in future.

And if so, is there any other way to acquire Dreamaster’s ESB Grindhouse cleanups? They are absolutely astonishing!

Agreed - they are absolutely marvellous. Hats off to Dreamaster on his astonishing restorations. I’m afraid I do not know any other way to acquire them at this time.

Bluto

Search for “ESB Grindhouse” on a Usenet search engine e.g. hxxp://binsearch.info.
The corrected 1080p release (Blu-ray compatible ISO with no video glitches at the end) was uploaded to Usenet by Mallwalker. If you’ve never tried Usenet before, I can recommend the following:

• altbinz - free, portable (if you get the zip version) newsreader software
• hxxp://free-usenet.com - free Usenet account, albeit quite slow (1 Mbps)

Bluto

(I’ve written “hxxp” rather than “http” to avoid live links in this post, in case this would break forum rules.)

Uloz is a download site, not a torrent, so there are no seeders/leechers.

I would advise using the “free rapid downloader” software mentioned in the guide to speed things up.

Bluto

Check the first post of Harmy’s thread for his Star Wars Despecialized Edition:
http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Harmys-STAR-WARS-Despecialized-Edition-HD-V27-MKV-IS-OUT-NOW/id/12713

Follow the link there to the “ultimate introductory guide”. This provides details for the Respecialized Edition too.

Bluto

Invites have been closed since early September, sadly.
The Original TN1 Renegade Grindhouse is available on Usenet and on popular public torrent sites. I don’t know about Dreamaster’s colour-corrected versions.

Bluto

I like your analogy, and hope the hydra can nevertheless be defeated such as this one:
hxxp://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2014/06/04/hydra_game_an_example_of_a_counterintuitive_mathematical_result.html

Although it might take us longer than the age of the universe to do so.

Bluto

Team Negative 1 also released two 35mm scans of ESB around January 2015, known as the Grindhouse v1 (a.k.a. “Renegade Grindhouse”) and Grindhouse v2 (a.k.a. “DCP 2013”, taken from a different print). They colour-corrected the red-faded prints to an extent, but didn’t clean them up the same way as with Star Wars SSE v1.6 before they disbanded. The first Grindhouse is more easily available and has been very nicely cleaned by Dreamaster. Relevant threads here:

http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Team-Negative1-The-Empire-Strikes-Back-1980-35mm-Theatrical-Version-Release-Details-and-Updates/id/16108
http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Denoise-Regrain-And-CC-of-ESB-Grindhouse/id/55093

They didn’t do RotJ as far as I know, but Harmy has released his own 35mm grindhouse version:

http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Harmys-RETURN-OF-THE-JEDI-Grindhouse-35mm-LPP/id/48258

Bluto

If you simply want to ensure you have every official & non-official version of Star Wars (Episode IV) in your collector’s edition, this thread may be of use to you, particularly NeverarGreat’s index towards the end:

http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Project-Index-Star-Wars-Preservation-and-Other-Projects-updated-29th-Oct-17/id/2450/page/4

Bluto

MusicallyInspired, you may be interested in pages 56, 60 and 61 of the original NJVC Custom Bluray thread. A few of us have found that VLC won’t play these particular iso files properly (essentially, it hangs on the main movie but the rest works fine).

http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Star-Wars-Despecialized-Editions-Custom-Bluray-Set/id/49995/page/56
http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Star-Wars-Despecialized-Editions-Custom-Bluray-Set/id/49995/page/60
http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Star-Wars-Despecialized-Editions-Custom-Bluray-Set/id/49995/page/61

I’m not sure if anyone has found a solution other than to use alternative software, such as Leawo mentioned earlier.

Bluto

You can always open the first rar file in 7zip (or equivalent program) without extracting and take a peek at what lies inside. There should be an MKV, readme, and probably a checksum utility. Merely extracting files from within rars is perfectly safe - as you point out, problems may only arise if you open them afterwards.

A trick I like to use if I’m in doubt is to extract the contents with 7zip, and remove all file extensions afterwards. That way the files can’t accidentally be opened by double clicking on them. Once I’ve checked checksums and scanned for viruses etc. I put the file extensions back.

Yoda-sama’s point about not using a work computer to extract is a good one, just in case the contents are dodgy and flagged up as such automatically to your IT people by a virus checker. You could always copy the rars to a USB stick (32GB should suffice for the MKV) and extract at home.

Bluto

I don’t have the checksums for these rar files, but I can give you the checksums for the extracted mkv of RotJ DeEd v2.5 MKV:

• CRC-32 - 50B268A4
• MD5 - BB61CFE99632010CDD13BA8F5CEFD35A
• SHA-1 - B4F94227497D4C983F90CF03ED7BC084A1CA51F1

These are taken from the link in section 6 of “The Ultimate Guide” to obtaining Harmy’s work. The guide is by HanDuet, and can be found via the link in post 1 of this thread.

Bluto

Heh. I feel like I’m living on Hoth right now, with sub-zero temperatures and snow all around (Midlands, UK). Time to make a snowman.

Hope it cools down for you guys on the other side. 46C (seriously?!) is not good.

Bluto

That’s worth a try as long as the media/writer supports 1x burn speed. Otherwise he’ll probably get a coaster. ImgBurn does not list 1x speed among the speeds supported on my Verbatim BD-DL discs. I see 6x (rated), 4x and 2x, but only 2x works for me.

Bluto

At one point, the TN1 Grindhouse release was being used to improve certain shots for ESB v2.5. Is that still the case, or is the plan to wait for poita’s ESB scans (whether SE or OT) to be finished and use those?

Bluto

They sound like Panasonic discs made in Japan for distribution by Verbatim, and are reported to be good quality. Try at 2x speed and see if your PS4 copes with the layer break.

Bluto

boxmonkey99 said:

Is anyone else here having trouble getting their dual layer discs to play on their ps4? Mine will play perfectly through the first half of the movie, and then it will try to switch to the second layer of the discs but just freeze indefinitely. I seems to me like my ps4 refuses to play the second layer of my discs. I am using Verbatim dual layer discs from Japan if anyone is wondering

Have you tried burning at 2x speed? A number of forums recommend burning BD-DL (50GB) discs at 2x speed, even if they are rated at 4x or 6x, in order to reduce the chance of things going wrong at the layer change.

Also, I would recommend burning with ImgBurn software and “verify” turned on.

Out of interest, what is the media ID code of your discs? ImgBurn should be able to tell you this.

Bluto

Just some observations from an interested reader:

The slightly dimmer white and increased transparency of the new subtitles look great to me.
However, I’m not as keen on the narrower font. It looks somewhat squashed to me.

Bluto

NeverarGreat said:

Here’s a spreadsheet I made for people who want to know what versions of ANH are available to watch:

Very handy - a super idea! If there’s room, it could be useful to squeeze in the word “GOUT” in the description for the Limited Edition 2006 DVD, since that is what it is commonly referred to.

With the resolution details at the bottom, I believe the DVD should be 480-576 horizontal lines (480 for NTSC, 576 for PAL, assuming it is anamorphic), and the laserdisc 425-440.

Bluto

JawsTDS said:

They’re straight rips from the LaserDisc.

Thanks for confirming, JawsTDS. The uploader thought they might be from the original laserdisc masters rather than rips.

SparkySywer said:

Possessed said:

Actually adywans 1997 reconstruction was 1080p I think though I don’t think it was 100% accurate don’t remember him adding Luke’s scream back in or fixed any other tiny differences that may have been there just put the old emperor back in but was there anything else?

Checking my copy of it, the scream is in there.

Yes, I believe Adywan’s 1997 reconstruction of ESB used an audio track from a laserdisc of the 1997 SE, so the sound should be entirely accurate including Luke’s scream.

Bluto

Just noticed a new upload on the Spleen for rips of some R3 bootleg NTSC DVDs of the 1997 Special Editions. Does anyone know anything about these, or how they compare with other available versions of the trilogy such as the TB, G’Kar or Five Star sets?

Bluto

Yes, it is the same. Checksums are very cleverly designed so that even the tiniest difference between files will result in large differences in checksums i.e. you can tell they are different at a glance. There is a remote chance that two different files would have precisely the same SHA-1 checksum (about 1 in 16^40 for files of this size).

7 minutes for that checksum is pretty good compared to my PC! It took about half an hour on mine, but my PC is 5 years old now.

Try testing your disc with a program such as that recommended by oojason above. If you use vlc (which is free and available as portable software - don’t know about other programs), then be aware that you may not get the main movie on njvc’s Blurays to play on your PC. But all extras and menus should work fine with vlc. My disc works fine in all respects in my standalone Sony Bluray player from about 2008.

Bluto

If you have 7zip installed on Windows, you can right-click on any file and obtain various checksums. For the “Star Wars Despecialized 2.7 BD50.iso” file, I have the following details:

File size - 49,773,346,816 bytes
SHA-1 checksum - 2171 77D9 982C D6B0 23F3 02C8 3F1D B418 8AB1 A3DB

I “forced-checked” my file against the Spleen torrent with no errors, so the above figures should be correct. If your checksum matches mine, then you can rest assured that your iso has been downloaded and extracted correctly.

Bluto

That’s a great idea regarding mounting the iso. If it downloaded & extracted properly, the menus should work, as should the extras. But beware that some media players (such as vlc) may not play the main movie, even though it would work fine on a standalone Blu-ray player.

Bluto

Agreed - try lower speeds. I bought a Pioneer BR burner last year (internal, BDR209-EBK) and some Verbatim BD-R DL (50GB) discs. Although the discs were rated as 6x speed for burning, I made half a dozen coasters at 4x and 6x speed. Once I started burning at 2x as recommended in the club.myce forum, they worked perfectly. In fact, some hardware testers recommend always burning BD-R DL discs at 2x speed even if they appear to work at 6x, on the grounds that the burn quality is higher at 2x.

I’d give 2x or 1x a go before giving up on the discs.

Bluto

trimboNZ said:

SilverWook said:

It’s a magical Jedi crunchy frog! He Force teleports out of Jabba’s stomach each time he’s eaten. 😛

I assume that some slave, possibly a Jawa on stilts, has the job of keeping Jabba’s crunchy-frog bowl topped up at all times from a supply cupboard/pond out the back.

Actually because of the way that scene is edited, as a kid I thought that Oola had somehow been shrunk by some machine beneath the trap door and transported to that bowl, and Jabba was then eating her. But that’s a discussion for the “childhood misconceptions” thread.

I remember thinking exactly the same thing as a kid when seeing RotJ in the cinema for the first time! It was only after getting the VHS several years later that the scene made sense to me, and I realised it was some kind of frog being eaten.

As for those flipped shots of Luke and Boba Fett, I can’t believe I never spotted either of those before… Luke’s parting and Boba’s antenna look so blatantly wrong now it’s been pointed out. In my defence, I’ve only seen the film about 25 times 😉.

Bluto