CatBus

Looks like you’ve already posted in the other (correct) thread, so I won’t point you over there. You won’t find anyone selling copies of the Despecialized Editions because they are fan preservations, not pirated films–and we actively seek and shut down anyone we discover trying to profit from this. You should own the original source material (in the case of the DeEd’s, the official Blu-rays) before you have any fan edits derived from that source. As for working links, check the other thread. The first post in each thread is a good place to start.

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PM sent, and feedback appreciated.

TV’s Frink said:
Nothing to fear.

I think that’s exactly the problem.

As one of my favorite songwriters once wrote: “If you believe in nothing, honey, it believes in you.” There really is a substantive existential issue here to come to terms with. Dismissing it entirely isn’t really in the cards for a lot of people.

I hope there was no harm in trying, and that you find a way through this for yourself.

DuracellEnergizer said:

I’m afraid that there may be no afterlife. That’s the long and short of it.

Look at me posting in offtopic.

So, here’s where I think a reframing of the issue could help. Take the lack of your traditional metaphysical afterlife, consciousness of any sort after death – just take that as a given, not a mere possibility (big help so far, I know, just hold on a sec while I get there)

If “what’s past my death” is as important to you as it seems to be, then try to focus on what does without any question outlast your body. Your works, your friends, relations, younger people you have influenced, everyone who will have a memory of you. How will you be remembered? Not in an egotistical sense like “Shit you mean I have to discover a cure for cancer or nobody will remember me in 500 years?!” More like “When I’m gone, I’ll have left my corner of the world a slightly better place. My passing will be marked, and I’ll be missed” sense. If you’re not sure this is true, that’s the good news–you’re still alive. You can do this. Even if you’ve made some phenomenal mistakes and you fear your net effect on the world is negative, you have time to turn that around (even if it means not changing what you do, so much as thinking about what you have done less negatively).

And, back to the first point, let’s say the metaphysical afterlife turns out to be real. If you’re already at peace with yourself in the sense described above, I don’t think that could do anything but help.

Full disclosure: I’m atheist, but not of the Dawkins ilk. I totally see the appeal and helpfulness of many religions in dealing with this and many other difficult issues. I don’t intend to dissuade you from faith if that’s the path you decide to follow.

Well it’s a great improvement even if it’s without a reference. And just in case I haven’t harassed you enough about this–if at some point you are sure you have theatrically-timed subs (different from 1.x), even if it’s incomplete with ugly-looking placeholder subs and a crap 240p 2Mbps encode, I’d still like to see that. The appearance of the subs is nice to know too, but it’s the change in timing that’s going to give me the bulk of my work. And just to dangle this in front of you: Jabba the Hutt speaking Thai. It is awesomely awkward.

So if you’re fixing BD coloring mistakes, but you don’t have what you’re considering to be your final color references yet, how are you determining the mistakes? Are you just counteracting the purple, or are you doing something more complicated using color-boosted GOUT or something?

Harmy said:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/150542

The stars were BLUE? Jeeze, Harmy, just when I thought the Blu-rays couldn’t have been shoddier.

…and that was my reaction before I saw the fake grain failing to align with the video frame.

I’m sure it’s been mentioned before, but for some reason I’d always thought that the purplish cast in the 04/11SE was just somebody getting a wild hair that the colors should look totally dreadful and nobody speaking up to say maybe they shouldn’t. The video linked below, to me, indicates that the purplish cast may have been an attempt to re-create the colors of the “THX” home video releases, rather than theatrical colors like the 97SE.

Top clip is Japanese Special Collection (pre-THX), bottom clip is Definitive Collection (THX):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqVk9LB-LZo

Maybe this isn’t news to anyone else here. But apparently purple faces have been with us for a long time, not that this makes them look any better. Also, the Japanese Special Collection had pretty good colors, but that’s not a surprise to anyone.

I don’t have links, but if it helps track things down, be sure to read the first post in each of these threads, and also this–Return of the Jedi currently has no official MKV release. The best-quality official release for this particular film is an AVCHD file structure.

PM sent.

Harmy, I think you missed out on another product endorsement–just re-edit the video and emboss the name of what you’re drinking on your glass. “The Official Beverage of Nerd Royalty”.

dvdmike said:

For no reason?
Idiots who lap it up due to wanting all their speakers filled is a reaosn

Yep, it’s essentially 3D upconversion for audio. You’ve got a fancy new 3D TV and 21 channels of audio, and then you watch My Dinner with Andre and say “Hold up, what’s with this 2D video and mono audio crap!” So they hire a fly-by-night outfit do a 3D conversion, upmix the mono (and let me just tell you this actually happens and it’s exactly as bad as it sounds), and BOOM, they’ve got a disc they think is actually more appealing than the film was when it was actually in theatres.

That said, there’s a LITTLE bit of reason for messing with the audio IMO, and only just so much. Just as with video, when going back to the negatives means you lose the color timing and have to re-time everything to (hopefully) match, when going back to audio stems, you have to re-mix them as well. And theatre surround formats (e.g. 4.2) don’t quite match common home video surround formats, so a little remixing there may be warranted as well. If it’s done carefully, and with fidelity to the original in mind.

Wazzles said:

The timing is definitely different there.

Depends on what you mean by “timing”. The difference is only in saturation, AFAICT, so I’d say they are clearly from the same master, just processed differently. Home video releases were often badly desaturated like those Laserdisc examples, back in the day.

PM’s sent.

CatBus said:

Hm, need_93’s stay here was brief, but interesting. My offer still stands: if you know anyone, send them my way. Like if you happen to have Sarah Vowell in your corporate rolodex or something. For instance.

Dang, it looks like need_93 was all part of this:

http://www.afb.org/community/announcements/conde-nast-is-seeking-the-biggest-star-wars-fan-in-the-nyc-area/12

Too bad, I thought I was a special snowflake for just a second, or maybe that we at least had an in with some large media conglomerate, but apparently they’ve (maybe inadvertently) spammed everyone out there that some computer algorithm has linked to both Star Wars and the blind community, hoping to find their blind Star Wars superfan.

Apparently they’re a little new to the topic too–one of the questions was “What color do you imagine Yoda is?”. Uh, green, because that’s what the descriptive audio says?

PM sent.

I filed another a bug in GitHub, I’ll give you three guesses what it’s about (hint: it’s not DuckDuckGo)

Actually the audio for ROTJ Despecialized 1.0 is slightly out-of-sync. If what you’re seeing only starts after the final scene on Endor, and is most noticeable until partway through the battle on Endor, then this is what you’re seeing. The audio is about two frames off during that period, and then one frame off until the end of the film (I notice the two frame difference, but not the one frame difference).

You can either wait for the 2.x update or download a fixed audio track and mux it in yourself. PM me for a link to the fixed audio.

And here I was afraid I couldn’t get the right tone across on the Internet…

hairy_hen said:

I took the advice to check the 'spleen, and what I found there is extremely interesting. I’m amazed hardly anyone here is talking about it: anyone even slightly interested in colour timing should download this immediately. The difference between the home video releases and the 35mm version of The Matrix is STAGGERING.

I dunno, I saw it and shrugged. To me it looks like something very photochemically bad happened with those prints–or at least a reel or two of them–and they ended up with an extreme orange tint. Either that or something equally bad happened during scanning, but I tend to think that’s less likely. Maybe with some color-correction, we can get some idea what the film originally looked like, but man, as it stands right now, that is so unbelievably orange I would have remembered if it looked like that, and it didn’t. Color specifics are hard to remember, but unrealistic blanket hues are not. Everyone remembers how Do the Right Thing was gold-tinted, and this is way more out of whack than that.

I don’t know enough about print chemistry to say how this could have happened, but I’m guessing some cut-rate duplication facility or a tragic accident at the Tang factory.

TV’s Frink said:

I certainly didn’t expect that response.

No one expects the brief polite response!!