CatBus

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jinxfan2 said:

CatBus said:

jinxfan2 said:

CatBus said:

Everyone’s got their opinions, and not only that, but the films had more than one look. For example, Technicolor prints from that era have a distinctive yellow-greenish cast, other prints would look different. So one person could be trying to match the Technicolor look, someone else may be trying to match a different color reference, another person might be just trying for a balanced neutral look, and so on. These prints are old and I believe they require significant color correction, although others would disagree strongly.

As far as which one comes out on top, you’re going to have to ask someone else. I’m not actually a big 4K77 fan (although 2.0 looks like it might be okay), but for 4K83 I like the results of the 4K83 Remastered project.

I get that. It’s a very interesting thing. I think both are nice. I had a weird experience viewing for example, viewing 4K83 v1.6 last night. I have a 4k TV. So, I felt 1.6 had these pale colors on my PC monitor (and it does, to be fair.) But then I saw something truly amazing. The shot where it focuses on Palpatine sitting on the throne in the death star, and the stars surround him. I finally saw the illusion in effect! (This is hard to explain, I suggest trying it, late at night, with a 4k monitor in the house, and seeing that image glow, it’s truly enigmatic but beautiful.) It felt like they were really behind him! Like oh my god, I don’t see a special effect, it looks like he’s in SPACE. It was truly mystifying. I guess all these variations have different purposes and therefore, different effects really.

A common complaint (that I share) about 1.6 is that its colors are a little dull/flat, which may be what you’re describing, and remastered addresses this. You may want to give that a shot.

I don’t have an invite code to the other forums sadly. But what’s the difference between 1.6 vs Remastered?

Check the first post of the 4K77 thread here 😉

Remastered is cool, I’ll let you read about it yourself.

jinxfan2 said:

CatBus said:

Everyone’s got their opinions, and not only that, but the films had more than one look. For example, Technicolor prints from that era have a distinctive yellow-greenish cast, other prints would look different. So one person could be trying to match the Technicolor look, someone else may be trying to match a different color reference, another person might be just trying for a balanced neutral look, and so on. These prints are old and I believe they require significant color correction, although others would disagree strongly.

As far as which one comes out on top, you’re going to have to ask someone else. I’m not actually a big 4K77 fan (although 2.0 looks like it might be okay), but for 4K83 I like the results of the 4K83 Remastered project.

I get that. It’s a very interesting thing. I think both are nice. I had a weird experience viewing for example, viewing 4K83 v1.6 last night. I have a 4k TV. So, I felt 1.6 had these pale colors on my PC monitor (and it does, to be fair.) But then I saw something truly amazing. The shot where it focuses on Palpatine sitting on the throne in the death star, and the stars surround him. I finally saw the illusion in effect! (This is hard to explain, I suggest trying it, late at night, with a 4k monitor in the house, and seeing that image glow, it’s truly enigmatic but beautiful.) It felt like they were really behind him! Like oh my god, I don’t see a special effect, it looks like he’s in SPACE. It was truly mystifying. I guess all these variations have different purposes and therefore, different effects really.

A common complaint (that I share) about 1.6 is that its colors are a little dull/flat, which may be what you’re describing, and remastered addresses this. You may want to give that a shot.

Everyone’s got their opinions, and not only that, but the films had more than one look. For example, Technicolor prints from that era have a distinctive yellow-greenish cast, other prints would look different. So one person could be trying to match the Technicolor look, someone else may be trying to match a different color reference, another person might be just trying for a balanced neutral look, and so on. These prints are old and I believe they require significant color correction, although others would disagree strongly.

As far as which one comes out on top, you’re going to have to ask someone else. I’m not actually a big 4K77 fan (although 2.0 looks like it might be okay), but for 4K83 I like the results of the 4K83 Remastered project.

Version numbers on 4K77 aren’t iterations, they’re variations. In other words, 1.6 is NOT considered to be the latest and greatest, just a different “branch” following a different color correction approach. 1.4 is also a branch which is just as current in its own way, just with different color correction. The biggest difference between any of these versions is typically the colors.

It takes a little getting used to. In other projects and software, higher numbers are always the version to get, superseding previous versions. Not so with 4Kxx. Although major version changes (i.e. 2.0) may indicate something worth forgetting about previous versions for.

It’s anarchy, sheer anarchy 😉

I’ve added despecialized Polish dubs to my collection, which will almost certainly replace the current voiceovers (I generally only keep one audio option for each language). The new dubs will require some new titles-only subtitles from a future version of Project Threepio.

It’s up for me. May have been a temporary outage or service interruption.

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BrotherOfSasquatch said:

I think it’s super cool that the little “shutter” in the new clip caused by removing the beak makes the Sarlaac seem more alive in a strange sort of way.

Yep, practical effects beat CGI every single time.

If you can’t edit the title of this thread, it might be worth starting a new thread (and just let this one roll off the first page). The current title still catches me every time and I already know you’re not Harmy 😉

I’ve replaced the Slovak dubs in my collection with newer dubs, despecialized. The existing Slovak titles-only subtitles in Project Threepio will still work with the new dubs.

I also updated my Ukrainian dub for Star Wars, with better despecialization.

The original Latin American theatrical dub did not voice over the crawl. I’m not sure which crawl they used (Castilian or localized Latino), but at least one of the prints scanned by the 4K77 team was actually a Latino print. I know this only from the audio captured, I don’t think I ever saw the original scanned crawl itself. This may have changed for the later dub made for the Special Editions, which is on Disney+, but I don’t know much about it.

There is no evidence of a Portuguese crawl for the unaltered films. It’s possible one was made for some iteration of the Special Editions. Brazil’s first dub was for TV broadcasts, and I don’t think there was a theatrical run there until the SE. There was never a European Portuguese dub – Portugal is one of the countries where dubbing is very rare except for children’s programming.

I think what you’re describing for #1 and #2 is partway to an SDH subtitle. i.e. cues for things you may not be able to hear clearly. While I’d happily accept SDH subtitles for non-English languages, I’d have to rely entirely on others to do the translation work (the commercial subtitles generally don’t do this). You could use the English SDH subtitles as a template, just finding the SDH cues and translating them/inserting them into the existing subtitles. The character names would have to be localized to the current translation. No universal abbreviation system would work (think about languages that don’t use Latin characters).

There are a couple Uncle Owen exchanges that are just very dense, and rougher on mid-dialogue line breaks than anywhere else in the trilogy. I’m more likely to solve that problem through retiming than anything else, but only if it’s a noticeable improvement and maintains readability. I’ve even dropped one of C-3PO’s lines (“Shutting up, sir”) in that particular exchange in an attempt to give the other lines more space. It’s just… a lot of dialogue in a short period of time. I see what you’re doing, but I’m not sure this is the way to do it, in non-SDH subtitles, at least.

For #3, you’re definitely not the only one who’s interested in this, but this is too much for this project. These subtitles are designed for the English audio only – adding one more supported audio track, with different translations and even different timing (stormtrooper voices don’t always line up at all, because there are no lips to sync), could theoretically double the size of the project, and then double again for another dub. I definitely recognize that if you watch, for example, the Italian dub with Italian subtitles (or the Italian dub with Croatian subtitles, etc), the dialogue won’t match. That’s a line I drew a long time ago for this project, and I’m not willing to step over it. The project goal is to provide the best possible translations of the English dialogue, and that’s all. Dub translations often prioritize things like lip-matching, so it’s possible no “best English translation” subtitle would match in any dub translation. There are language-specific preservations (Krieg der Sterne, Geurre Stellari, etc), and it’d probably make more sense to pair this type of subtitle with those projects. It’s a good idea overall – I know I occasionally watch films both dubbed and subbed in English, and I don’t like when they don’t match, even though I know why.

For #4, I like the thinking outside the box, but no. Too weird 😉

I have new copies of the Indonesian trilogy dubs, which means that the Star Wars dub in no longer incomplete, and I will likely have better-quality audio for the other two films. It’s the same dub, just a better source. The next Project Threepio will include Indonesian titles-only subtitles that go better with these complete dubs.

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Welcome back! I think the Despecialized Editions include the DA track for Star Wars (first film only), but I have not heard anything about DA tracks for the other two films, except the Special Editions.

Let me know if you find anything. I still have a dream of recording new descriptive audio narration, which we could then duck into our other excellent-quality audio tracks. Maybe some day…

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Sure, where such things are possible, nothing beats a color separation master or a reference print, and that certainly works best. But these things simply aren’t possible with our Star Wars preservations, so I didn’t think that was particularly worth getting into. The best we have is low-fade prints, in the form of low-fade poly, late seventies dye transfer, and in the case of ROTJ, the simply better filmstock of the era (and some lucky showprint finds). Because they’re not perfect color references, they can serve only as starting points, so the question is how do you know where to take the color from there? After all, if you have several prints on the same fadey media all struck from the same master, thirty years later, they will all look different due to differences in storage conditions if nothing else. How do you know how they looked thirty years ago?

DrDre actually has multiple tools at his disposal. One is his famous color matching tool, which as you correctly point out doesn’t have a lot of value here on its own. But another is his color correction tool, which is where the value is (discussion thread about both tools – I see the confusion now, he’s renamed the tools multiple times so it’s hard to keep them straight). Using color theory, the correction tool (or whatever he calls it these days) estimates the original colors of a single faded image (selected for how well it represents color primaries). Then, using the CLUT created from that single frame, you can use the color matching tool to restore the rest of the shot. You then have something very close to where that print actually started before fading.

And yes, it’s not 100% objective science, there is a little art to this as well. Dre does apply small tweaks to his corrections after the fact. Sometimes there might not be a frame within a shot suitable for his color correction tool, so you’d have to estimate. I suspect he also likely adjusts contrast and black levels to match modern audience expectations, for example, or changes things for consistency. But this tool is key to why his colors are generally closer to objectively correct, in my opinion, than most.

New Hindi dubs for ESB and ROTJ are now available in the usual places. Unlike the earlier Hindi dubs, these are complete. Unfortunately, no complete Hindi dub for Star Wars yet.

If anyone has access the the Hotstar streaming service (in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, or Thailand), send me a PM.

It’s okay, I was being diplomatic in my own way, explaining how there can be so many wildly different color corrections for the same film, without outright saying most of them are wrong. Yes, basically there’s DrDre’s color corrections and then there’s subjectively messing around with color, but that’s not really fair to the non-Dre corrections, some of which are pleasant enough to watch in spite of their wrongness.

Well, Tech prints don’t go through as many optical dupe processes, so they’d get less generational “stacked” grain and also less detail loss from duplication. Optical duplication is sort of a weird concept in this digital day and age, but every iteration of the process added grain and reduced fine image detail… and they did it a lot. That’s why commercial releases tend to go back to the original negatives. In the digital world, duplication is a lossless process.

As for the fading, with this sort of film, all colors fade to pink. If you look at a raw scan of a reel from that period, pink is typically the only color left visible. So it’s actually pretty hard to extract multiple colors from an essentially one-color source (there IS other color present, but boy is it not much), and the result can either appear washed out or like those colorized films, depending on whether you don’t go far enough or go too far, or what your expectations are as a viewer.

It’s hard to overstate how much color is lost over a few decades on film from that era. Even Technicolor, which was relatively low-fade, still fades (and was a little screwed up to begin with, as Technicolor was well past its prime at that point). The colors you see in these preservations are reconstructed. Yes, with lots of effort, care, and knowledge about how the films ought to look, but still reconstructed to some degree.

There was color variation on opening day. Technicolor prints (which, as I mentioned earlier were a little screwed up at that time) had a yellowish cast to them that you wouldn’t have seen on an LPP print, and so on.

So basically the color grade of a preservation is in the eyes of the grader. 4K77 has has a lot more people, and a lot more iterations on its color grade, so IMO it looks better. SSE has sort of receded into the background as far as fan attention goes, and its color grade hasn’t been revisited, so IMO it looks worse. Which of them looks more like an opening-day print? Almost certainly one of the more recent 4K77 iterations, but I’d say there’s still quite a lot of room for improvement there, too.

It’s an inexact science, starting out from a point very, very far from where the color really ought to be. It’s a miracle we even get something close.

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FWIW, there are two high-profile projects working toward the same goal: OTD83 and Harmy’s Despecialized Edition ROTJ 3.0. It may help people differentiate your project from the others if you give your project an identity that’s clearly different from the rest, and highlight what may be unique about yours. Otherwise I fear your work may be lost in the crowd. Good luck!