CatBus

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Malaysian dubs are synced and despecialized, as well as Ukrainian dubs, which replace the Ukrainian voiceovers in my collection. Like the Indonesian dub of Star Wars, the Malaysian dub of Jedi had some content editing for a TV station. Not too bad, most of it was dialogue-free cuts which were recoverable, but a couple lines were lost and are patched in with English.

If it helps, this was geared toward the “technicolor look”, which had a heavy yellow bias (it was really like that in theatres IF you saw a tech print!). It was also IIRC working from an already-processed version of the Blu-ray that had gone through a less-than-ideal de-purpling process. Either way, the result is definitely far from perfect, but it’s still my favorite go-to version of this film.

Harmy’s already commented that future versions won’t necessarily have that hardcore technicolor look and will be more neutral/natural. The problem was (and still is) that everyone’s got their own ideas about what looks good, and technicolor prints are the only references that can definitively tell us how the film looked back in the day – but that yellowish cast comes with that particular package, and isn’t how it looked for most people who saw the film on a different kind of print (now pink and vinegary).

Wow, much thanks to Clarissa Yazzie for providing the Diné translations in that article. I have not found the original Diné script anywhere for subtitling purposes, but it’s a start.

And for those who didn’t piece together the name on the translation credit, Clarissa also voiced Leia – and nailed it!

The Definitive Collection laserdiscs actually started our GOUT standard (it wasn’t called “GOUT” back then though, but DC Laserdisc rips were the big thing everyone synced their audio to before the actual 2006 bonus discs existed), so I’d be surprised if it wasn’t perfect sync. That said, the current project now uses the theatrical frame standard, which should not be noticeably different than GOUT for this purpose.

I think there was an early erroneous pressing of the DC laserdiscs missing part of Leia’s welding scene in Empire. Those won’t sync.

But as far as actually using a genlock, I haven’t done it. Does this mean you have? If so, that’s pretty cool!

Wait until you hear about the spoon.

Indonesian dubs are synced and despecialized for the whole trilogy, available in the usual locations. Star Wars was the only dub that was cut/incomplete, which leads me to believe the full dub is out there somewhere. If I get it, I’ll sync it. Project Threepio subtitles for the untranslated sections will come after I’m through more of these languages (i.e. to verify what sort of accompanying subtitles the other dubs may need).

Okay, I’ve synced the first Indonesian dub and plan to proceed with the rest (available in the normal places). The Star Wars dub was bowdlerized – that is to say, someone had edited out all the naughty bits – and so it was a real pain to restore, and there are parts missing, which revert back to English. Sadly, this is the only version of the Indonesian dub I have access to right now, but the next version of Project Threepio will include Indonesian “titles” subtitles, to translate the untranslated parts.

What people consider to be naughty can be pretty idiosyncratic, and I’m guessing in parts due to not having the accompanying edited video, but this appears to be the naughty bits of Star Wars: any dead body or severed body part, any closeup of anyone shooting a gun or brandishing it in a dangerous manner (people getting shot not an issue), Leia hugging Han (but hugging Chewbacca and kissing Luke is OK), people drinking, smoking, or talking about engaging in illegal activities such as smuggling. And misc other things I couldn’t figure out.

Most other parts of the film were largely intact, but the cantina and the Death Star were edited to shreds. Thankfully, only a few lines of dialogue were lost because a lot of the cut scenes had no dialogue. But still… ugh. Although as someone who actively edits out parts of the film added in 1997 or later so that it syncs to fan edits of an out-of-print version of the film, maybe I shouldn’t throw stones.

Either way, I don’t think the other films, or dubs in other languages, have this problem. Just a one-off. But I’ll be holding off on releasing that new Project Threepio until I can confirm there aren’t similar problems in any of the other dubs.

The 2005 date is likely the correct one for the dubs in my collection. I don’t recall having to remove the scream when Luke fell into the chasm, which would place the ESB dub as post-2004. However, there may have been ANOTHER Cantonese TV dub in the mid 90’s to which simps is referring. Multiple dubs are not uncommon.

Bitrate gives an encoder the ability to make a better-looking encode, but there are factors that could cancel that advantage out. For example, people tend to like to DNR animation into levels of oblivion even the worst live action video never sees, so if that’s the case, the high-bitrate advantage in encoding fine detail goes away. If in doubt, high bitrate is usually better though. If you’re comparing images, compare still images of the same frame blown up to a large size, so that you’re not limited by your display size, or where your eyes happen to be focused at that point in time. Look for common video artifacts, edge enhancement, loss of fine detail, that sort of thing.

I’d personally pick the higher bitrate unless it looked worse (which it could: DNR, color issues, etc), because you’ll eventually be re-encoding anyway, which will lose quality.

Properly done 5.1 is nice, but 5.1 upmixes from stereo mixes are not. Find out what he original audio format is for your show and go with that. If it was produced in stereo, you’re almost certainly going to get a better experience with stereo. If it was originally done in 5.1, go with that. You’ll likely need to talk to people who know a lot more about the show than me to get those answers though.

I’m syncing the Mandarin dubs now, and am uploading to the usual locations. SW and ROTJ are already done. I always save ESB for last – it’s the hardest to despecialize, and may take a while.

Some of the color corrections for 4K83 (1.3 I think) really match the feel of the Faces set best (full disclosure: I actually strongly dislike the colors of the Faces set). 4K77 would match better than DeEd, but you may want to look at earlier versions if you want to best match the reddish hues.

Or you could take whichever preservation you want, and pump the magenta/cut the yellow and it’d probably be about right.

simps said:

Galician
Notes :

• All three films were dubbed in 1992 for TV.

Georgian
Notes :

• Voiceovers

Hindi
Notes :

• Available on Disney+ Hotstar Southeast Asia.

Indonesian
Notes :

• Produced in the 2010s for TV showings on The Disney Channel. Also available on Disney+ Hotstar in Southeast Asia.

Korean
Notes :
Multiple dubs produced on varying dates.

“A New Hope”

• First dub was produced in 1985 for KBS television.
• Second dub was produced in 2003 for MBC television.
• Third dub was produced in 2006 for KBS television.

“The Empire Strikes Back”

• First dub was produced in 1988 for KBS television.
• Second dub was produced in 2003 for MBC television.
• Third dub was produced in 2006 for KBS television.

“Return of the Jedi”

• First dub was produced in 1990 for KBS television.
• Second dub was produced in 2003 for MBC television.
• Third dub was produced in 2006 for KBS television.

Lithuanian
Notes :

• Voiceover

Malay
Notes :

• Produced in the 2010s for TV showings on The Disney Channel. Also available on Disney+ Hotstar in Southeast Asia.

Mandarin Chinese
Notes :

• There are many dubs, at least three for each film. One produced in Beijing, another produced for CCTV6 in Shanghai, and another in Guangdong Mandarin.

Persian
Notes : -

Tagalog
Notes :

• The three films were dubbed in 2016 for TV5 television.

Tamil
Notes :

• Only “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi” were dubbed in Tamil. “A New Hope” was not dubbed. Available on Disney+ Hotstar in Southeast Asia.

Telugu
Notes :

• Only “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi” were dubbed in Telugu. “A New Hope” was not dubbed. Available on Disney+ Hotstar in Southeast Asia.

Thai
Notes :

• The first was done for VHS release by CVD Video.

Ukrainian
Notes :

• Produced in 2019 by LeDoyen (the same company responsible for the Disney Ukrainian dubbings) and commissioned by Disney Character Voices International.

Thank you for the list! If you have, you know, access to any of these highlighted dubs, I’d certainly like to know about it.

Project files have been updated to version 12.2 (codename: “Doce monos”), and the first post has been updated. Please PM me for temporary download links until the files are available at some more permanent locations.

Rough summary of changes from 12.1 to 12.2:

• Added Canadian French titles-only subtitles (thanks to schorman13)
• Lots of fixes for Star Wars mono mix subtitles, and SDH improvments (thanks to CAL0901)
• Resync script supports the 4K77-based Star Wars Technicolor Grindhouse Edition (thanks to CAL0901 and alexp120)
• Added resync option for 24.000fps preservations (I do not know of any preservations using this framerate)
• Fixed more multithreading-related bugs in the render script
• Precompiled Windows executables are now built using PyInstaller 4.5, which should reduce antivirus false positive detections

MattMahdi said:

This floated up in a recent eBay visit: “Star Wars Holiday Special 2020 EXTENDED CUT (Blu-ray SPECIAL EDITION 1978)”

https://www.ebay.com/itm/363476765732?hash=item54a0e74c24:g:LcIAAOSwGpJg8YE3

The word “extended” seems to refer to this: “As a special treat a new opening theme was created with an introduction that is exclusive to this release.”

Although it sounds intriguing a) I’m never going to pay for another copy of the Special (made that mistake twice 20+ years ago before I discovered this group and a wonderful online community) and b) I would never want to enrich someone on eBay who’s hawking something that shouldn’t be sold anyway.

My guess is it’s the Rifftrax crawl tacked onto the beginning. Extended cut!

44rh1n said:

That way, in 5+ years from now when HDR grading becomes much simpler, none of the restoration work has to be redone. The only thing it will need is a new color grade.

Emphasis mine. You certainly know the way to Harmy’s heart 😉

FYI, there’s a new minor Project Threepio release upcoming, codename “Doce monos”. The main feature is a ton of little fixes for the Star Wars mono mix. While small, I’m just gonna go ahead and apologize to all the mono mix fans out there right now for letting these problems persist this long, because they still look bad. All I can say in my defense is that I rarely watch with the mono mix. If anyone has any changes they’d like to submit, now’s the time to do it if you want them included!

Strictly theoretically, averaging multiple prints would get you less grain. Similar to the temporal averaging used by some DNR processes, except with less of a risk of producing frozen grain. But Mike’s secret sauce is his secret sauce. The videos may not describe it fully or even entirely accurately.

Where would I get more information on the “4K77 Grindhouse” release? I’ve got a user wanting to sync subtitle tracks to it, and I don’t know where all the extra/missing frames are. Does anyone already have this info? e.g. the person who synced the audio?

I’m adding the original Bulgarian dubs to my collection as I sync them.

In terms of video quality, NTSC is better for Star Wars and Empire. PAL is better for ROTJ.

CAL0901 said:

Does the OOT subs include Swahili? My son-in-law has been sucked into the Star Wars universe recently, in large part by, and credit is due to DigModiFicaTion (fanedit.org). He created a “Youngling” edit of ESB for younger kids. As a result my grandson was able to watch. Soon after my granddaughter, his younger sister, got hooked, and thereby has subjected her father, my son-in-law, to watching it well over a dozen times. While my son-in-law understands English fluently, I’m thinking he would appreciate it more in his native tongue. On that note, does anyone know if there is a Swahili audio?

We do not have Swahili subtitles, and I don’t know of any Swahili dubs. TV stations frequently commission dubs that never make it onto any “official” releases, so there’s a possibility that there’s a Swahili dub out there, if dubbing is popular in Swahili-speaking areas. Some parts of the world show Hollywood films with English audio AND English subtitles, with an expectation that the audience knows English, but may not be able to follow American accents.

This project does include English template files designed for translators who want to create subtitles in new languages, and Swahili is on my list of languages I’d most like to add. So if you, or someone you know, has the time and ability to create Swahili translations, I would be delighted to add them to the collection.

Keep in mind: translation is hard. For every simple “Hello there”, there’s a “hyperdrive motivator”, and three movies is a lot of translation work. But boy would I love to offer a Swahili language option!

PM sent.

Project files have been updated to version 12.1 (codename: “Gigawatt”), and the first post has been updated. Please PM me for temporary download links until the files are available at some more permanent locations.

Rough summary of changes from 12.0 to 12.1:

• Improvements to Turkish subtitles (thanks to ArdaYlcn)
• Turkish titles-only subtitles updated to accompany new Turkish dub
• Improvements to Korean subtitles (thanks to Kaz47)
• Czech titles-only subtitles included to accompany new Czech dub
• Persian/Farsi titles-only subtitles included to accompany incomplete Persian/Farsi dub
• Project Threepio is now theatrically synced rather than GOUT synced, because all major Star Wars preservations now plan to move to theatrical sync – while having theatrical sync doesn’t break subtitle compatibility with the existing versions. In practical terms, this makes no difference at all, since a difference of a few frames means nothing for subtitles.
• Added support for the 70mm cut of Empire. I don’t currently know of any restored 70mm prints or full-film 70mm reconstructions for Empire, but if/when one exists, the whole world should be able to watch it (thanks to morgands1)
• Updated Noto fonts to more current versions. Most significant changes: Arabic available in semibold weight, Hong Kong CJK variant available. Lots of minor fixes included as well.
• Graphical Italian alien subtitles for Star Wars (in the style of the original theatrical 35mm Italian prints) are now based on 35mm scans, rather than approximated with a custom font (thanks to williarob)
• Project Threepio now includes more Windows binaries for portability, allowing most operations to work on the Windows platform without installing any software at all
• Fixed several multithreading-related bugs in the scripts
• Fixed some posterization that would result from subtitle colors being reduced for the indexed PNG format required for subtitles. This was most noticeable in the 35mm alien subtitles, which included lots of subtle color variations. Everything is now properly dithered, and the unmodified PNG32 files are now included for use by preservation projects.
• Some scripts now support a -yuv flag to compensate for expected color shifts from an RGB-YCbCr-RGB round trip (i.e. they make the colors a little wrong, so that after they’re encoded as a BD-SUP and displayed during playback, they’re approximately right again). All included BD-SUP files have been created this way. These color shifts are extremely small and typically unnoticeable for a single round trip, but since Project Threepio’s instructions for some tasks can include multiple RGB-YCbCr-RGB round trips, they can add up to something noticeable unless compensated for.
• Python scripts now require Python 3.6 or later