CapableMetal

Father Skywalker said:

CapableMetal said:

Father Skywalker said:

no, U R misenterperting this entire situation/thing

 Star Wars Episode 3 the revenge of the Sith-darth sidious becomes emperor palpatine and gets rid of all democracy in the galactic republic.

Star wars episode 4 a new hope-the rebellion alliance exists to fight the bad guys.

in between- the empire does a lot of atrocities and stuff like that, that we are never shown in the films

Also in between-people don't agree with/don't like the empire for political reasons/they are dissenters. 

the bad guys (the empire) uses the death star to destroy alderaan in order to show to the rest of the galaxy not to mess with them. Kinda like how Joseph Stalin is be-all-end all paranoia dictator/tyrant to the fullest extreme of paraoid schizophrneia, that sicko ordered purges to eleiminate all dissenters-even if the dissenters were just innocent ordinary everday unarmed civilians-It was not to spite Prinecss Leia or Jimmy Smits. even if there was no rebellion, aldearan would still have been destroyed. They already believed her, it was not for interrogation.....

 the empire dissolves the senate for god-knows-why

 

You're reading these stories two-dimensionally. He does destroy Alderaan as a demonstration of power, yes, but he also does it despite her. Watch the scene, listen to the dialogue, look how they behave. These aren't the flat characters you find in the prequels, where all plot points are spoon fed to the audience. They resent each other, she's trying to be awkward and he's being malicious, whilst also fulfilling his overall agenda.

He dissolves the senate because they have reached a point where they don't need them. That's made painfully obvious by the prequels; Palpatine has been manipulating and orchestrating his way to power all the way through them, Ep4 is where his rule is cemented and there is no more galactic senate because he doesn't want/need them. He is in a position where no politician can oppose him (the Imperial armies/navy follows his orders!), which is why its mentioned that "the last remnants of the old republic have been swept away." There is no way this could be any more obvious, other than having a narrator explain it all to you whilst you watch it.

So far all of your arguments are focusing on one motive for this, one motive for that, but you're failing to spot parts of the context/plot that are established, and failing to realise that characters can and do have more than one motivation at a time. That's what makes them interesting.

I think you need to watch these films again, and really try to think what the motivations for these characters are. Maybe then you'll understand what I'm saying. Until then I have nothing more to add to this debate.

What Do U mean by 2 dimensionally???

Last question I'm going to answer (only because I don't have to read the script to you to answer it!).

Two dimensional in that all the characters in the prequel with the possible exception of Palpatine, are flat, dull, and boring, have very little chemistry and aren't very believable. Personal opinion, perhaps, but this is a forum where most would probably agree. Most of our focus is on the original trilogy.

Even if there was no rebellion, Alderaan still would've been destroyed......

That you will never know, so don't ignorantly state it as fact. In theory if there is no rebellion there is no need to set an example. Leia wouldn't have been there anyway, which meant they probably wouldn't have gone to Alderaan in the first place, it may have been someone else's planet, if they felt the need to set an example at all. But you don't know that with any certainty, because what happened is in the films.

You have failed to quote EU sources when asked (by others, I have little interest in the EU), you fail to properly understand the point of half the posts here, and you've continually misrepresented or seemingly completely missed what actually happens in the films and presented a single-minded understanding.

Its impossible. I'm going to sleep now.

Father Skywalker said:

no, U R misenterperting this entire situation/thing

 Star Wars Episode 3 the revenge of the Sith-darth sidious becomes emperor palpatine and gets rid of all democracy in the galactic republic.

Star wars episode 4 a new hope-the rebellion alliance exists to fight the bad guys.

in between- the empire does a lot of atrocities and stuff like that, that we are never shown in the films

Also in between-people don't agree with/don't like the empire for political reasons/they are dissenters. 

the bad guys (the empire) uses the death star to destroy alderaan in order to show to the rest of the galaxy not to mess with them. Kinda like how Joseph Stalin is be-all-end all paranoia dictator/tyrant to the fullest extreme of paraoid schizophrneia, that sicko ordered purges to eleiminate all dissenters-even if the dissenters were just innocent ordinary everday unarmed civilians-It was not to spite Prinecss Leia or Jimmy Smits. even if there was no rebellion, aldearan would still have been destroyed. They already believed her, it was not for interrogation.....

 the empire dissolves the senate for god-knows-why

 

You're reading these stories two-dimensionally. He does destroy Alderaan as a demonstration of power, yes, but he also does it despite her. Watch the scene, listen to the dialogue, look how they behave. These aren't the flat characters you find in the prequels, where all plot points are spoon fed to the audience. They resent each other, she's trying to be awkward and he's being malicious, whilst also fulfilling his overall agenda. He threatens her planet to get information and does what he was going to do anyway by blowing it up. He still uses it as an interrogation tool first, he uses what she says, and takes pleasure in blowing her planet up in front of her. He later orders scout ships to check Dantooine for a rebel base (off camera, its all in the dialogue) and is shocked that she lied under such duress, at which point he orders her termination.

He dissolves the senate because they have reached a point where they don't need them. That's made painfully obvious by the prequels; Palpatine has been manipulating and orchestrating his way to power all the way through them, Ep4 is where his rule is cemented and there is no more galactic senate because he doesn't want/need them. He is in a position where no politician can oppose him (the Imperial armies/navy follows his orders!), which is why its mentioned that "the last remnants of the old republic have been swept away." There is no way this could be any more obvious, other than having a narrator explain it all to you whilst you watch it.

So far all of your arguments are focusing on one motive for this, one motive for that, but you're failing to spot parts of the context/plot that are established, and failing to realise that characters can and do have more than one motivation at a time. That's what makes them interesting.

I think you need to watch these films again, and really try to think what the motivations for these characters are. Maybe then you'll understand what I'm saying. Until then I have nothing more to add to this debate.

Jetrell Fo said:

^^^^^

All I can say is..............WOW, that sure is pink .....

Yeah! There are also a few places where other colours are over-saturated in parts of the frame. It also has a chroma shift problem that has to be fixed in AviSynth, else you have grey lines on the sides of faces and such.

It has the best resolution of all the laserdiscs, the most frames accounted for and the most colour problems, unfortunately (sometimes the colour is excellent in places, though). I am, however, convinced they're all fixable, it will just take a few days of work that I haven't really put into it yet.

I'm also convinced, as far as ANH goes, that this is the source with the least amount of missing frames (the US version has more missing frames/fields, broadcast versions are missing a few frames at least) as I think its only actually missing 1 frame. I've not doubt I'll corrected if I'm wrong, but from what I can remember of my last attempts to capture of this set a few months ago, that was the number I came up with.

Father Skywalker said:

CapableMetal said:

Father Skywalker said:

Tyrphanax said:

Father Skywalker said:

High taxes, trade rescritions, no personal rights and freedoms, are what Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker's epic and dramatic redemption is about???? No!!!!!!!

So, millions of people with families that they loved and cared about and who grieved for their losses were horribly burned to death in two fiery explosions

Just so people could have lower taxes????? What the????????

What about all the innocents who died on Alderaan, a civilian target? Did nobody there have families? Those attacks were unprovoked. If Princess Leia stole the plans, shouldn't they have killed her instead of blowing up a whole planet full of people who had nothing to do with the stolen plans and were peaceful, happy citizens of the Empire?

The Death Stars, however, were military targets, controlled and manned by military personnel, all of whom joined the military knowing the risks of being in the military. No peaceful innocent citizens on those at all.

you contradicted urself because u first said that the empire destroyed alderaan with the DS1 (the first death star) to interrogate/spite princess leia organa, however, you also just said that it was destroyed for unprovoked reasons. Well, which is it????

It's kind of both.

You have seen these films haven't you?

yes i have

how can it be kinda both at the same time????

I thought it was all obvious...

He threatens her with the destruction of Alderaan unless she tells him where the rebel base is (interrogation).

He then says, that she's "far too trusting" and proceeds to blow it up anyway (spite) and it was unprovoked because the people of Alderaan hadn't done anything.

It's all in that one scene.

As Tyrphanax said, if they really wanted to they could have just taken it out on Leia, but they chose to make her watch whilst they mercilessly destroyed her home planet.

Father Skywalker said:

Tyrphanax said:

Father Skywalker said:

High taxes, trade rescritions, no personal rights and freedoms, are what Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker's epic and dramatic redemption is about???? No!!!!!!!

So, millions of people with families that they loved and cared about and who grieved for their losses were horribly burned to death in two fiery explosions

Just so people could have lower taxes????? What the????????

What about all the innocents who died on Alderaan, a civilian target? Did nobody there have families? Those attacks were unprovoked. If Princess Leia stole the plans, shouldn't they have killed her instead of blowing up a whole planet full of people who had nothing to do with the stolen plans and were peaceful, happy citizens of the Empire?

The Death Stars, however, were military targets, controlled and manned by military personnel, all of whom joined the military knowing the risks of being in the military. No peaceful innocent citizens on those at all.

you contradicted urself because u first said that the empire destroyed alderaan with the DS1 (the first death star) to interrogate/spite princess leia organa, however, you also just said that it was destroyed for unprovoked reasons. Well, which is it????

It's kind of both.

You have seen these films haven't you?

Father Skywalker said:

High taxes, trade rescritions, no personal rights and freedoms, are what Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker's epic and dramatic redemption is about???? No!!!!!!!

No. I didn't say that. Its just a thread of the story, it provides motive for the actions of the rebellion.

So, millions of people with families that they loved and cared about and who grieved for their losses were horribly burned to death in two fiery explosions

 

 

Just so people could have lower taxes????? What the????????

Yes. I did say that. Although to put it in such simple terms without thinking of the other reasons that justify those deaths, like the higher number of casualties at the hands of the Empire, is rather short-sighted. Alderaan didn't need to be destroyed but it was. The Empire is not shown to have empathy, but it is shown to exterminate an entire planet (with likely billions of innocents) without remorse. It all adds up to one unhappy galactic populace who want to be free. That is quite a big part of the story in OT, and is also present in the PT. Its not the main arc, but its certainly up there.

Father Skywalker said:

Tyrphanax said:

Father Skywalker said:

You can mention the EU expanded universe in your posts, just tell me if it's EU or not.....

Please mention the EU a bit in these discussions, but don't rely on it 100%, don't rely on the films 100% either, I use both of em!!!!!!

Please give me a quote to prove where Han Solo said that nobody lived on the icy planet of Hoth. Maybe in the Expanded Universe they live on Hoth.....

Meh, I don't all that much about cloud city, so I can't say anything or respond to ur posts about it.....

"There's not enough life on this ice cube to fill a space cruiser."

Maybe the EU (the expanded universe) mentions that there is life on the planet of Hoth

What the hell/heck does Hoth have to do with anything in our discussions????

You said that people were living perfectly happy lives on Tatooine, Cloud City and Hoth. I merely pointed out that Hoth only has a rebel population anyway. You brought it up.

Father Skywalker said:

CapableMetal said:

Father Skywalker said:

No. After Alderaan was destroyed by the first death star (and despayre too, if U count the EU/the Expanded Universe)

However the empire tried to destroy Yavin IV, Endor, and Chandrila (senator mon mothma's home-planet) and the planet Mon Calamari (home to the mon calamari aliens), as self defense, a retaliation to the rebels. They destroyed 2 planets-the planets alderaan and depsayre, to test out the first death star and keep the galaxy (not just the rebels, but ordinary civilians too) in line with fear of its power. After the destruction of the first death star, the second death star was never used, or even attempted to be used, in an offensive attack/strike on an innocent civilian planet.....

Surely though the DSII was never used because it was never finished... Why would the Empire build a Death Star (the name alone should show that the Empire aren't exactly understanding of those it rules over) just to have it fly around the galaxy on the off-chance of finding some capital ships to blast away? It's not the most manoeuvrable or subtle craft. Destroying planets, or at least having the ability to destroy planets, is all part of its purpose; it is a weapon of fear to keep systems from defying the oppression of the Empire. The fact that both Death Stars were defeated before they got a chance to be properly used (Alderaan excluded) doesn't mean that they were never going to be used!

The point of the rebels wanting to blow both Death Star's up isn't just one of self defence, but also of necessity in their crusade to defeat the Empire and bring freedom back to the galaxy.

Sometimes, having interesting discussions with people, especially if it's about detailed or deep conversations (not small talk!!!!!) can be very hard and confusing, not only because of circular arguements and keeping track of what everybody is saying, but because understanding and interpeting what somebody means or is trying to say, especially if it's all really vague and stuff, or u dont get exactly what they're are talking about.

For instance, I said self defense. By self defense I meant defending innocent civilian planets, you could be interperting what I said as defending rebel military bases-too totally different topics and discussions.

What exactly was the point of blowing up the two death stars, beyond the obvious??? Exactly, the obvious!!!!!!

The DS2 almost tried to destroy 3 rebel planets, and I'll admit here that destroying any planet, regardless of whatever military enemies are on it, is evil, because it destroys the enviornment, plants, animals, and innocent life that is one that planet, however, just because one side does an evil deed, doesn't mean that their enemies are good.

Either the rebels defeated the empire before they could do anything evil on a large scale

And, most/all of the Star Wars SW fans will claim that the death star made the Galactic Sith Empire (duh it was ruled by two dark lords of the sith), and that was the reason that it was evil. However, you just implied that the death star was built to keep rebel terrorists in line. Defying the opression of the empire is another way of saying joining the rebel alliance and becoming a traitor to the imperial state, committing treason........

The empire's evil deeds were a response to the rebels alliance.......

I implied no such thing. You misunderstand my point. The Death Star was built to keep the systems under the Empire's territories in line. The Empire is obviously an undesirable element to most or all of the systems it controls.

Grand Moff Tarkin implies as much ("Fear will keep the local systems in line; fear of this battle station.") He makes no mention of 'rebel terrorists' in that instance. The rebels exist to help free the galaxy from the oppression of the Empire. It says this in plain English at the start of the film ('Rebel ships striking from a hidden base have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire'). The fact that it is led by two Sith lords may have little/nothing to do with why those under the control of the Empire are disliking it; its likely due to trade restrictions, taxes, and the removal of personal liberties and other such things that such regimes enforce. Either way, the fact that they need to build a planet-destroying space station clearly shows that they're obviously aware that more people will want to break free from their control and they want to stop them from doing so. That must mean the populations under their control aren't happy and the Empire knows this, otherwise you wouldn't need a Death Star!?

Father Skywalker said:

Tyrphanax said:

Father Skywalker said:

SilverWook said:

Missed the joke by a mile.

An Empire founded before there was even a Rebellion, and killed lots of people in the process of an orchestrated war to create it.

I know that already, they started the clone wars to get to power. That doesn't explain anything about what life was like for imperial citizens. They all seemed pretty happy, very happy, regardless of the unjust methods that their leader came to power with.

Do you have any examples of how happy they were?

While democracy is the most ideal form of government, the lack of democracy, ie, a dictatorship, is not all that terribly and mythically evil, just some dictators and tyrants are......

Tattoine, everybody was walking around and living a normal life....

The same thing with Cloud City....

The same thing with Hoth....

The same thing with Endor-no Ewok genocides or massacres going on there.....

They slaughtered Jawas and Luke's aunt & uncle for having a brief association with some droids. Sounds fairly evil to me.

Also the only people on Hoth were rebels.

Father Skywalker said:

No. After Alderaan was destroyed by the first death star (and despayre too, if U count the EU/the Expanded Universe)

However the empire tried to destroy Yavin IV, Endor, and Chandrila (senator mon mothma's home-planet) and the planet Mon Calamari (home to the mon calamari aliens), as self defense, a retaliation to the rebels. They destroyed 2 planets-the planets alderaan and depsayre, to test out the first death star and keep the galaxy (not just the rebels, but ordinary civilians too) in line with fear of its power. After the destruction of the first death star, the second death star was never used, or even attempted to be used, in an offensive attack/strike on an innocent civilian planet.....

Surely though the DSII was never used because it was never finished... Why would the Empire build a Death Star (the name alone should show that the Empire aren't exactly understanding of those it rules over) just to have it fly around the galaxy on the off-chance of finding some capital ships to blast away? It's not the most manoeuvrable or subtle craft. Destroying planets, or at least having the ability to destroy planets, is all part of its purpose; it is a weapon of fear to keep systems from defying the oppression of the Empire. The fact that both Death Stars were defeated before they got a chance to be properly used (Alderaan excluded) doesn't mean that they were never going to be used!

The point of the rebels wanting to blow both Death Star's up isn't just one of self defence, but also of necessity in their crusade to defeat the Empire and bring freedom back to the galaxy.

A few shots of just how pink the PAL set truly is, with 'corrected' colour on the right...

Jetrell Fo said:

The Japan LD's are spread out over 2 discs as well.  The 1st pressing is the Silver Box like the Widescreen VHS Box.  The 2nd pressing sports the new artwork and drops the Special Edition moniker.

 

PAL ANH and ESB are on one disc (about 1 hour per side). ROTJ is on 2.

EDIT: My bad, by one disc, I mean a disc each! They'd have to do a 200% speed-up to fit both films on one disc, which would be amusing but very impractical!

The PAL set is in a silver box too, similar if not the same to the first pressing of the Japanese set. I saw a Japanese silver-box set on eBay a couple of weeks ago, and noticed is had the 5.1 AC3 audio, which the PAL laserdiscs don't have. Does the Japanese set you have also have the 5.1 AC3 too?

Father Skywalker said:

adywan said:

Father Skywalker said:

adywan said:

Father Skywalker said:

I know I sound like an idiot right now, but in Star Wars, a science fiction film saga, actually ignores scientific accuracy.

Star Wars is science/fantasy not science/fiction.

star wars is not a fantasy. Why Do/would U say so????

Because it's a fact.  If you know the differences between the tow genres you can easily see why Star Wars is classed as fantasy as opposed to Fiction.

Please tell me your reasons/opinions on why Star wars is a fantasy, not a science fiction, story!!!!!

Mostly because that's what George Lucas has said it is on many, many occasions (because it is, and he wrote it as such). He also uses the term 'space opera' from time to time...

Here are a few frames from the ANH SE PAL laserdisc for comparison. Averaged from 5 captures and filtered once with DeGrainMedian(). No colour correction applied (although white level reduced slightly):

In terms of resolution, its not as good as the TB broadcast, but better than the US set. It also has fewer frames missing (I think my count on my previous capture was 1 frame) from the numbers we've got. It has the same smearing as the other releases, of course. The colours are also the most saturated of the SE releases I've seen, meaning the pink scenes on Tatooine are very pink indeed, but its fixable. I've only captured side 1 so far (the film is split over 2 sides on the PAL release).

Jetrell Fo said:

CapableMetal said:

R1T5 = 21:38:03
R2T5 = 20:12:01
R3T5 = 21:55:01
R4T5 = 21:54:23
R5T5 = 20:04:23
R6T5 =  22:14:03

I guess I was wondering if the times I posted were the same as each reel of 35mm film for each movie.  The numbers you've posted might be totals without those extra change over audio bits at the beginning of each reel.

This stuff can be so hard to verify.  You'd figure there would be some websites where this info would actually be available no matter how "useless" the info might be to some.

Those numbers are the length of the audio tracks with the overlaps included before I put them together, so they are the times as they come off the discs without any manipulation.

It is hard to verify. The best we can do is guess at the video reel lengths by taking the numbers we have as a 'standard' reference and getting the time lengths from those (SMPTE Film format). They should be shorter than the audio files by a few seconds each. The only way we would know of the 'true' reel lengths would be to get a 35mm reel of the film and examine it, which would also tell us whether our 'standard' numbers were right or not. Without that I cannot see a way to be 100% certain.

Jetrell Fo said:

 

These are unedited times for the reels on the DTS Cinema Discs for the 1997 Special Edition.

ANH (DTS Cinema)

R1T5 - 19:52
R2T5 - 21:29
R3T5 - 21:52
R4T5 - 16:55
R5T5 - 21:17
R6T5 - 22:14

TESB (DTS Cinema)

R1T5 - 21:41
R2T5 - 20:14
R3T5 - 21:58
R4T5 - 21:57
R5T5 - 20:07
R6T5 - 22:17

ROTJ (DTS Cinema)

R1T5 - 17:33
R2T5 - 20:30
R3T5 - 21:08
R4T5 - 19:40
R5T5 - 21:15
R6T5 - 20:22
R7T5 - 15:31

Okay, since these are the times of each reel of audio, and the film uses time code to sync the two together, would these times be accurate in regards to the 35mm films?  Aside from the additional bits that can be removed from this audio due it's being there just for change over of course.

I'm not sure that I properly understand your question. If you mean the the 35mm reel would be the same length then we cannot be certain until someone examines a 35mm print with the time code on. If I had the money I'd try to buy one and check it out, but I don't so its academic at this point.

I've just checked the numbers for ESB and I'm showing each reel to be shorter than the times you have posted (unprocessed), all are SMTPE Film Sync 24fps time code (mm:ss:ff):

R1T5 = 21:38:03
R2T5 = 20:12:01
R3T5 = 21:55:01
R4T5 = 21:54:23
R5T5 = 20:04:23
R6T5 =  22:14:03

You_Too said:

Ok here's something I don't understand.

DJ gave me the 2004 SE NTSC version of ANH, so we could use it as a reference to synch to. The SW title card appears at 719, not 711.

I cannot explain that as I'm from a PAL country, for me the SW title card appears at 689 on the 2004 DVD release. Maybe its something to do with IVTC that accounts for the discrepancy?

Darth Mallwalker said:

 

You_Too said:

Maybe eac3to is that smart?

Sure, why not?
Surely I'm not the first to think of that idea.
Shirley might be an eac3to developer :)



Back to frame counts, I think I'm noticing a trend.
Seems like each movie is split into three 'chunks' for lack of a better term.

___ANH_________ESB______ROTJ__0-thru
_85225_______75306_______84511 -thru
147672______151133______142918 -thru end

Sometimes the chunk size match the LD sides, but not always.
Among NTSC LDs the pulldown cadence doesn't change at reel boundaries-- it only change at chunk boundaries (or side boundaries) which make them easy to IVTC.
The chunks are all less than one hour.
I'm wondering if those telecine were stored on three tapes recorded in "1-hour mode" if there exist such a thing among professional tape formats.

Metal has already pointed out some spots where digital broadcast was breaking up and frames went missing.
Besides those type of transmission errors, do we know of any missing frames
which are NOT surrounding those chunk boundaries?

 

I think you're on to something here with those chunk numbers. 

The only ones I know of from TB that are missing in non-chunk places are:

ANH: 50172

ESB: 32993 (or there abouts, difficult to pin-point this one exactly)

ROTJ I haven't looked at yet.

Not sure how the frames went missing, there are a few ways it could have happened.

EDIT: Interesting... it seems the PAL laserdisc of ANH is very nearly frame-for-frame accurate, at least to the reel change numbers. I captured it a couple of months back and averaged 5 captures. I've just found the master file sat on my laptop and checked it, the numbers match up until the penultimate shot where 172825 seems to be missing. I don't remember inserting any null frames, and each frame around the expected points is there, although the breaks are different for this set, side 2 starts 90295.

So there it is, only 1 frame missing from that disc by my count, but would like it confirmed of course ;)

Doesn't Lee Thorogood's SE97 release hail from this same set?

Jetrell Fo said:

The standard levels being too loud...are you speaking about the way DTS has them set via the whitepaper on it?  My other question I guess is going to be, are you going to release a set based on your work?

:)

'standard' was a poor choice of words, 'stock' may have been more fitting. The theatrical DTS volume levels are way louder than any audio you would find on a commercially available DVD, for the sake of consistency I think it is essential to reduce it. I lowered it by 8dB to make it more 'standard' to a DVD/Blu-Ray format. Imagine watching whilst listening to the laserdisc audio, only to switch to the DTS track and be deafened because the level is so much louder! Aside from SRC it is the only real processing that has occurred, although I have made another master at 24-bit for compatibility with lossless HD audio formats (and there is no noticeable difference in the sound quality). In fact, I think my sync was matched up well enough, looking at my master files I have no crossfading on the reel overlaps this time whereas on my first attempts I did, which takes time longer to render as it is another processing step.

I can make them available if people want them, I haven't up to this point because most people commented that they wanted to sync these mixes themselves, and I didn't see much point in releasing just the audio when there are no actual video sources to watch them against that are frame accurate (or as close to frame accurate as we've thus far calculated, msycamore's ANH m2v file excluded of course, along with my own colour-corrected HD/Upscaled SD project for my projector).

I've been avoiding considering the idea of releasing my own HD video sources with the audio because I don't want to undermine other projects that are happening.

ROTJ is a great film. I don't find it as good as ESB or ANH, but it is certainly great. As a kid I wore out all 3 of my OT VHS tapes, but never found ROTJ to be as exciting or well paced as the other two. I also has a hard time believing ewoks could help defeat the Empire.

As to it being thought of as a lesser film than AOTC or ROTS is a new one on me, and its got nothing to do with there being a love story (ESB?), or merchandising-friendly characters in the PT, its just that I don't believe in any of the characters because the acting is so terrible, McDiarmid excluded. I cared about the OT characters and didn't want any of them to die. Watching the PT I couldn't care less if they did die. I often find myself watching the excessive clutter in the background of every single frame because I find the actors' performances so two-dimensional most of the time.

eac3to is an excellent program, especially good at converting PAL audio to/from NTSC with no noticeable quality drop.

At the end of the day the best tools available are your ears and your judgment. If you hear no difference and you're satisfied then its probably good enough.

That said, I can confirm that Darth Mallwalker's method works perfectly and maintains synchronisation with the video at 23.976fps (no surprise there, of course!). I'm currently watching ESB having resampled the audio and adjusted the sample playback rate and everything is in sync and probably as pure as its going to get, including the volume adjustment; technically it could have been avoided but the source reels really are just too loud at their standard levels.

Darth Mallwalker said:

If target is true 24fps then it's only one step.
Use your favorite software (iZotope RX Advanced if you can afford it)
and convert the DTS files from 44100 to 48000Hz.

Now if the target will be 23.976 it could be a two-step process.
First 44100 to 48000, then 24 to 23.976
But that's resampling twice, and we'd like to avoid that if possible.
We can avoid it! Here's how.
Use iZotope or whatever to convert from 44100 to 48048Hz. Not a typo, I did say 48048.
Then using (SoundForge, Audacity, Audition, Vegas?) to edit the WAV's properties and force the rate to 48000, without resampling.

It's a bit like using AssumeFPS() in the video realm-- it doesn't change the total frame count.
When you force 48048 to 48000 in the WAV's header you're not changing the total number of samples, but rather slowing them down to NTSC speed.
Slowing down without costing the extra step. Does it make sense?

 

Absolutely right. That's how I've done mine, or I should say doing. I haven't done a SRC to my synchs yet. ESB is doing it now.

Just for the record, you can do it by going to 44144 and SRC to 48000 but its technically less accurate (with a remainder of .144 instead of .048). That's how I did my early synch of ANH that was available on MySpleen, which I've now surpassed.

I have since synchronised the whole trilogy at the native 24fps, 16-bit, 44100KHz (with volume reduction to make it more friendly with DVD/BD's) and am going down this route to match it to 23.976. In fact I've got ESB going through its SRC right now as I finished colour correcting my video source.

In a couple of hours when its ready to mux I'll give it a test and confirm that it works perfectly this way, which I'm entirely confident it will.

I believe that the Blu-Ray's are actually 6.1, which is essentially a regular 5.1 mix with an added mono rear channel that would mean that the two rear speakers in a 7.1 setup would have the same output. I don't have a 7.1 setup so don't know what it sounds like separated, but DTS-HD MA tracks should be matrixed down to 5.1 when played through a 5.1 system so you hear those elements mixed with the other surround elements anyway.

I don't know specific details about the blu-ray mixes, but the audio has been given the same treatment as the video and has been tweaked again so it must be a new mix with a true 6.1 channel map.

The 5.1 mix from the DVD was an entirely new mix made from original elements, but is Dolby Digital EX, meaning it can be matrixed up to 6.1 or 7.1.

Its quieter than previous mixes because of hiss-removal. Its also a bad mix, surround elements are on the wrong sides in places. The 5.1 mix from the '97 Special Editions is the best 'official' 5.1 mix I've heard, but was only released on LaserDisc.

You_Too said:

There's an unknown frame missing there? I guess I could pinpoint it once I have it synched to the 2004 SE.

Its not unknown, its 3 frames from near the end of reel 3. 85223 and 85224 are the last two frames Alderaan exploding, and 85225 is the first frame of Luke lightsaber training on-board the Falcon.

Darth Mallwalker said:

Do you mean the last shot before wipe to credits?

(My 2004 DVD is sealed in polythene, so I can't even count that one.)

Using msycamore's proposed numbers (which I'm not endorsing yet) it came out to 183,826 in my script.

183.825 is the last frame of Mr.Shaw's ghost.

 

That's exactly what I meant ;)

My synch source has the same. I think the numbers may be accurate as I made my sources by aligning several different releases side by side and realigning each where there were sections missing. By then end of it the only release not missing frames was the DVD.

The only thing I am unsure of is where frames were missing from each except the DVD. Should they be there or not?

Jetrell Fo said:

Is there any way to determine frame count from the DTS audio?  Or at least a way it could help confirm them?  I did appeal to someone who might have some access to the 35mm prints but I have not heard anything back as of yet as to whether it was possible to get such counts, "per reel", to make it easier to match via the DTS audio.

I'm not sure there is. There is overlap at the start/end of the audio in the reels and I tried the "sample-sample" trimming method, but the waveforms for the same parts look different on different reels, likely due to them being recorded in different takes from an analogue source to digital (at the end of one of the ANH reels the audio slows and drops in pitch, like a tape being stopped slowly). This makes it difficult to get them aligned mathematically perfect, which is why there is no exact science to synchronising these DTS reels other than putting them in the place they should be within a video source and making small adjustments until its perfect.

Darth Mallwalker said:

Not 15, it's 50! (132114-132163)

Wow thats loads! I did count them, but it was several months ago. Fifteen kind of sounds like fifty. That's my story and I'm sticking to it ;) You are of course right, if I remember correctly (which I haven't!) its a big chunk from them dueling in the corridor just before they are shown in the doorway.

I wonder if the laserdiscs have the same frames missing.

Over the past weeks I've been comparing US & Japan LD captures.
Not my own caps-- I don't own those LDs, but ones available on usenet.
Both sources are raw 29.97fps pulled-down which is good from a certain frame-counter's point of view.
Lots of IVTC'ing ensues and by this point we got sync scripts for US trilogy & Japanese sequels.
US & Japan have different side breaks in some cases, which is also good for frame-counters like us.

Looking back at some notes from Sept, the US ANH LD lacks
85225-85226
147671+147672
and it's missing one field of 162630.

Should be able to provide more specifics for sequels in the coming days.
Earlier in the thread I agreed with msycamore about inserting 75305 into ESB.
After noticing variation between US & Japan versions I've had some radical new idea about that.
If we're to believe the audio evidence, perhaps two frames are missing instead of one.
I need to present that evidence here.

ROTJ frame counting is finished but I haven't done any audio analysis of that one yet, so I can't comment on msycamore's proposed numbers.

 

Excellent. I do own both NTSC and PAL laserdisc sets, just need to check them. TB broadcast of ESB is missing 75305 and 75306. I'll give the NTSC and PAL sets a look tonight.

ROTJ may be correct with the numbers myscamore posted before, I did manage to sync the DTS to that at 24fps. The only piece that in theory should differ from the DVD is the insert of Naboo, it could well be a case that, because its in the last reel, I may be off by the end by a frame or two. Maybe we could figure out the first frame of the last shot to confirm we've got the right length, in addition to confirming the reel change points?