CatBus

PM’s sent. Yes, 9.0 incorporates LexX’s new Finnish translation, in pre-made SUP files with positioned text.

DVD subtitles look bad because the subtitle spec only allows 3 colors + fully transparent, which means smooth curves and diagonals are impossible (plus the low res). The only way to have decent-looking subtitles on a DVD is to burn them in or player-generate them from an outside source. Blu-ray subtitles mostly look pretty good in my experience, except when they just upscale the old DVD subtitles (e.g. the Matrix), and that’s always pretty awful looking.

Cabin Boy
Pootie Tang
On this forum, maybe I should include Return of the Jedi

For the next DeEd ROTJ 2.0, I believe Harmy will be using film print references for both the appearance and timing of the alien subtitles (I used the same reference for timing for Project Threepio 9.0). For 1.x and the workprint, he kinda matched the film print appearance (close font match), but used DVD timing and a non-theatrical fade-in/out effect. The official releases use subtitle image overlays (not burned-in) on the disc, which look nothing like theatrical, either in appearance or timing. Player-generated subtitles are extremely rare, almost all discs just use graphical overlays.

PM’s sent. Also, Usenet users rejoice! Project Threepio 9.0 can be found on alt.binaries.starwars.

PM sent. Check the README for how to incorporate them into an AVCHD/NTSC DVD… you may need some help extracting the original audio/video streams from the NTSC DVD version, AVCHD should be pretty easy.

Looks like I delayed watching TFA for so long this thread isn’t about rating TFA anymore? Oh, well, on the OP’s 100-point scale, with high and low markers:

The Third Man: 100
ESB: 80
SW: 75
ESB:SE: 70
ROTJ: 60
SW:SE: 60
TFA: 55
ROTJ:SE: 40
Holiday Special: 20
TPM: 8
AOTC: 6
ROTS: 3
Battlefield Earth: 1

At least for me, ratings for TFA are subject to change over time as the newness wears off, expectations change, etc. Certainly the best new thing in the Star Wars universe in 30 years, but 55 is pretty average.

Something in your playback system could be clipping on loud noises. The source isn’t clipped though.

…the posts remove you!

moviefreakedmind said:

The uncertainty of whether or not it will happen is pretty unbearable for me.

Yet another benefit of pessimism 😉

ott said:

any idea on foreign language tracks for v2.0?

Czech, German, American Spanish, Castilian Spanish, French, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Thai, Ukrainian. Not sure if Harmy’s going for the Russian dub, voiceover, or both.

For those having trouble searching at the paradoxical location, you can search for the thread title beginning with “Star Wars OOT Language Options”, or you can search for “Project Threepio”, but uncheck the box for “Search titles only”, and that should get you there too.

PM sent.

A direct download link to version 9.0 (and more) can be found at our favorite paradoxical location. I’ll let you know about other locations (and update the first post) as they become available.

PM’s sent.

Project files have been updated to version 9.0 (codename: “Aaand We’re Done!”), first post has been updated, please PM me for temporary download links until the files are available at a more permanent location (and yes, I’m planning on more than just MySpleen and PM’s this time).

• Full Japanese subtitles for Return of the Jedi are now available in SRT format (thanks to Sadako). Operation Eyestrain has been a success!
• Greatly improved Finnish translations for the entire trilogy (thanks to LexX)
• Fixed a typo in Japanese subtitles for Star Wars (thanks to wayphat)
• Fixed some Brazilian Portuguese translation issues (thanks to Kloky)
• Fixed some European Portuguese translation issues (thanks to jl8)
• Translations for alien subtitles now closely match theatrical subtitle timing – they may not match the timing for alien subtitles on home video releases

The change in subtitle timing is a bigger deal than it might seem. Particularly in Return of the Jedi, the timing of the alien subtitles varies widely between theatrical prints and various home video releases. This means that Project Threepio’s subtitles, without manual adjustment, may look out of sync during the sequences in ROTJ with alien dialogue, if there are burnt-in English subtitles using timing from a non-theatrical source. More specifically, this means Project Threepio’s alien subtitles no longer line up quite so neatly with the burnt-in alien subtitles in ROTJ Despecialized 1.0 or the first 2.0 workprint, but will sync with the final version 2.0 when it’s released. So if you’re just looking for subtitles for ROTJ Despecialized, 8.3 may look better for now.

As the codename suggests, the end of Project Threepio may well be in sight. I doubt this will be the very last version, but in its current state, it now meets all of my original goals for this project, in addition to all of the other goals I’ve added along the way. I honestly can’t think of very much more that can be done without venturing into areas I’ve already definitively ruled out for the sake of my sanity (mono mixes, 70mm Empire, 85/93 audio, 81 crawl, matching foreign dubs, and so on). So – absent language contributions from outside sources – no major updates are really even possible at this point. Minor corrections and refinements can, of course, potentially continue indefinitely, so that’s where I can still see a minor release or two down the line.

Project Threepio is now in a state where any Star Wars trilogy preservation can pretty easily have extensive subtitle support, regardless of whether it syncs to the GOUT, includes burnt-in alien subtitles, what sort of framing is uses, or if it includes translated crawl and alien subtitle text. And I have to say, even if this project never goes any further than this latest release, I’ll still be quite satisfied with what we’ve accomplished.

That’s not to say that this project thread won’t stay active, with, if nothing else, enough “PM sent” posts to keep everyone satisfied for a long time to come!

PM sent.

moviefreakedmind said:

The fact that we’ve received no comment rejecting the idea of releasing the unaltered films also makes me wonder if they’re potentially waiting to announce a release.

That right there. Optimism. 😉

Re: fan projects, it’s often been supposed (and I agree) that the whole reason the GOUT was even released was to shut down the burgeoning trade in bootleg Laserdisc rips. Based on a higher-generation source, it basically was simultaneously (at least arguably) better than any of the bootlegs, and as close to a zero-cost, zero-effort release Lucasfilm could muster. And it worked.

The quality of the fan projects today ensure the GOUT won’t happen again. To be at least arguably better than the current batch of fan projects would require a significant investment, and a great final product. And if that’s the case, hooray for Disney if they effectively shut down the fan projects by making a product worth buying. And with their access to archives, they could easily beat the best we’ve got, if they tried.

But my money’s on them not trying. Not in five years, not in ten. That money’s staying right there on the table, where it’s been sitting for the last twenty years waiting for someone to take it.

AFAIK, no such beast exists, you’d have to make it yourself from the MKV.

Re: audio, most Blu-ray remotes have an AUDIO button that lets you switch between audio sources. The default 5.1 track mixed down to stereo would get a little muddied, so it’s safest to recommend one of the stereo tracks for best clarity. Some players don’t understand DTS-MA under some/all circumstances, so won’t play the default track (either silence or they’ll pick another track).

Re: subtitles, Project Threepio has a huge, detailed README that should answer all questions. PM me if you need a link to the complete project. In short, the best thing to do is to unpack the contents of the ISO, and make a new ISO with subs embedded.

joefavs said:

Harmy said:

Great news - these new mixes will be awesome additions to v2.5.

Wait a minute, is this to say that 2.0 will have the same DD tracks from 1.0 instead of the DTS-HD of the other 2.X releases? If so, and if indeed the new audio will be ready in a matter of weeks, I think I’d prefer to wait. Though I may be biased, since I finally got a receiver that can handle 5.1 DTS-HD for Christmas. I guess I can hold off on burning the MKV and mux in the new audio if hairy-hen makes it available on its own.

I’ve provided Harmy with DTS-HD lossless versions of the old 5.1 mix… not that hairy_hen’s new mix won’t be better.

moviefreakedmind said:

CatBus said:

“Because it makes good business sense” has been a valid argument since 1997. If anything, that argument is actually becoming less valid as time goes on, as the proportion of the Star Wars fanbase that has actually seen the Star Wars trilogy that started it all decreases.

It will always make good business sense. There always has been and always will be a market for the unaltered films. Things we infinitely smaller followings have received releases in the past. The producer’s cut of Halloween 6 was released on bluray recently as the selling point for the Halloween box set, and in 2013 the original mixes of ZZ Top’s studio albums were released on CD for the first time since before they had been altered with new percussion in the late 1980s. There really is a market for almost everything, but especially Star Wars. Despecialized Edition has proven that there is a market for the OT. Whether the fact that there is money to be made will motivate Lucasfilm to them releasing the films is yet to be seen, however.

Not sure we’re in disagreement. The original ZZ Top mixes may still have a market now, but it would have made more business sense to do it twenty years ago. If they held out another fifty years, would it have still made business sense then? I think our different attitudes come from our differing expectations of an official OOT release. If I’m reading you correctly, you seem to think it could happen in 5-10 years, while I tend to think the most likely official OOT release scenario is for the OOT copyrights to expire (still a hundred years out or more), so that some public domain media outfit like Laserlight will release it as a cheapo vintage classics collection. The length of the wait does impact the size of the audience, if the wait is long enough. I’m not saying an OOT release won’t make business sense even then, just that it’ll make considerably less sense than it would have a century earlier.

Darth Lucas said:

I’m sure all of us would love for Mike to clear some things up himself.

I prefer the enigmatic Mike.

PM sent.