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CatBus

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Join date
18-Aug-2011
Last activity
16-Jul-2025
Posts
5,971

Post History

Post
#775561
Topic
Team Negative1 - Return of the Jedi 1983 - 35mm Theatrical Version (unfinished project)
Time

Can't say about this particular film, but I've read that 70mm blow-up prints often do have slightly more detail than 35mm prints.  Not sure how the math behind this observation pencils out, but maybe it's just that size matters more than you'd think.  Frankly in this case, though, I'd say practical matters such as how well the film was cared for, how long it was in circulation, etc is far more of a concern than hypothetical best-case scenarios.

EDIT: Beat to the answer by happycube.

Post
#775553
Topic
Star Wars GOUT in HD using super resolution algorithm (* unfinished project *)
Time

DrDre said:

Thanks for the positive feedback!

Back to the aspect ratio mystery. Here's two comparisons with Harmy's DE. Some aspects of the frames seem to suggest that the AR should be wider, while others suggest to opposite. Anyone?

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/130819

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/130820

I'd probably compare against similar frames from Negative1's project.  Harmy's projects, while wonderful, are based on the Blu-rays, which can't be considered definitive references for anything at all.

Post
#775245
Topic
team negative1 - star wars 1977 - 35mm theatrical version (Released)
Time

All three, last I read about it, and I recall some excitingly cryptic comments about the 6-channel mix which I chose to interpret as meaning something cryptically awesome rather than run-of-the-mill cryptically obtuse.

EDIT: Crap, no the 6-channel was for Legacy, which means the cryptic was definitely awesome rather than obtuse, but whatever it is, it's likely not in this project.

Post
#774883
Topic
Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)
Time

It occurred to me that I'd given Operation Eyestrain a cool name but no accompanying logo.  So here you go:

The joke may be lost on you if you weren't into the late 80's/early 90's ska/punk scene*.  You can look up Operation Ivy to see where this comes from.  Feallan, Sadako, this eyedropper's for you!

* To be honest, I wasn't into it either, but I worked in a record store and this image of theirs stuck with me.

Post
#774589
Topic
Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)
Time

Mine's pronounceable, it's just Welsh.  No, seriously, it's all good.  Honestly the concept of having an official shortened URL is probably a little wrong, since people are quite likely used to handling their own shortening and would never think there's one already set up to use.

The need for it came not from Twitter (where I assume it's way more useful), but from the NFO file.  Some NFO readers add clickable hyperlinks to URLs, and the way I'd broken up the long URL in the existing NFO file meant it didn't work in those readers.  Using a shortened URL, it works without making the NFO file 100 columns wide.  And for all three people who use an NFO reader instead of a text editor so they can see the not-actually-very-fancy graphics in the Project Threepio file, well, probably only one of them uses one that does clickable hyperlinks.  So Bob, if you're reading this, I did this for you.

Post
#774548
Topic
Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)
Time

Well, mine's one longer, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be browsing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your browser. Where can you go from there? Where? Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do? Eleven. Exactly. One longer.

...

I guess an "official" ensmallified URL isn't strictly necessary, as people could do it on their own.  I just thought the fact that the current project URL approached 100 characters on its own presented a problem.  Either of the above enweensificated URLs should work fine.

Post
#774510
Topic
Doctor M's ÜberGuide for -Full- PAL to NTSC DVD Conversion v2.0
Time

It might not matter to a huge number of people here, but the latest free version of Muxman contains some errors.  The language codes for Indonesian, Javanese, Hebrew, and Yiddish are incorrect, so if you make DVDs with subtitles (or audio) in those languages using Muxman, your player may or may not be able to identify the language of that track in its language selection menus (some players know about the language code errors and can successfully identify them, others follow the spec more strictly and don't).

I made a customized Muxman executable for Project Threepio which uses the correct codes for these languages, so DVDs have better compatibility on this front.  I don't know if you plan to distribute binaries as part of the guide or not, but you could certainly include my customized binary.  If not, I suppose you can reference the Project Threepio project thread for people who wanted to get the modified binary.

Post
#773702
Topic
Harmy's RETURN OF THE JEDI Despecialized Edition HD - V3.1
Time

Ah, the initial complaint may have been more of an audio quality complaint rather than a translation/voices complaint anyway--i.e. yes, VHS audio isn't so great.  If that's the case, this is just the Brazilian dub debate all over again.

FWIW, my personal priorities for dubs are:

1) authenticity of the recording--SE dubs are only considered of no other dubs exist

2) quality of the translation--only considered if there are multiple non-SE dubs to choose from

3) quality of the voice acting--only considered if there are multiple non-SE dubs with good translations (we should be so lucky!)  Not really applicable to voiceover dubs.

4) audio quality--only even considered if the top three factors are tied.  This is what drives me to prefer the Russian voiceover-style dub for Star Wars over the traditional acting-style dub, which has dreadful audio quality but seems decent in every other respect.

I really don't know how well my priorities on this matter line up with Harmy's, and I just give him the dubs I choose, which he's free to use or discard as he sees fit.  But obviously there's a lot of room for disagreement--if your top priority is crystal clear audio, you're going to pick different dubs than I do.

Post
#773487
Topic
Amadeus - Laserdisc+DVD Audio Tracks for 4K (formerly Theatrical Cut Restoration)
Time

Okay, this is plain weird.  I'm trying to make this BD-compliant, and so I re-encoded the video (works fine), and the main audio also works fine without alterations, but I'm having a heck of a time with the isolated score and French tracks.  I've tried re-encoding and everything--they're just dead silent on my system, but play fine on my PC.  Any ideas?  48k sampling, 16-bit audio, not much that can go wrong there, right?  Weird watermark/copy protection issue?  No idea.

Post
#773484
Topic
Harmy's RETURN OF THE JEDI Despecialized Edition HD - V3.1
Time

Harmy chose the Czech dub (not sure the criteria of this one over the 95 one).  If you can convince him to drop the current dub in favor of the 95 dub, I'm sure it'll make the next release.  But that's a big "if".

He has mentioned that the Czech SE dubs are technically better, but neither he nor I are interested in including despecialized SE dubs when there are already available dubs, even if lesser-quality, for the unaltered trilogy.  One reason for this is that it's impossible to completely despecialize the audio, so original mixes simply always sound more authentic, and the second reason is that there is a certain nostalgia factor for the old dubs--to watch them as you first saw them as a child.  For languages with multiple original dubs, there's always a bit of subjectivity in picking which is best.  Hell, there are like fifteen Russian dubs (slight exaggeration), at some point you just need to pick one and run with it.

All of this doesn't mean you aren't free to add your own audio if the one we pick doesn't suit you.  You can't please everyone, and I think Harmy and I also share the opinion that one dub in each language is typically adequate for global accessibility, and that including several audio options for any given language is up to another project (much like the Krieg der Sterne/German project does).

Post
#773096
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

Never tried the box, but most software pays very little attention to the actual size of an image when printing--they all attempt to do different stretch-to-fit algorithms (such that "stretch to fit" and "don't stretch to fit" are actually just two different stretching algorithms, neither correct).

I use Photoshop, which works.  I'm sure there's others.  Windows Photo Viewer is a bad move.

Post
#772928
Topic
Amadeus - Laserdisc+DVD Audio Tracks for 4K (formerly Theatrical Cut Restoration)
Time

stretch009 said:

CatBus said:

Also, if anyone has Blu-ray case cover art for this, or even scans of the official Director's Cut cover that could be modified for this, let me know!

 There's a really good custom cover on  http://www.cdcovers.cc/.

Having a heck of a time navigating that site, possibly because my virus scanner is going bonkers over it, so I'll probably just wait for another source.

Post
#772806
Topic
GOUT DVD vs VHS
Time

Slart said:

Personally, I haven't even watched Star Wars since I retired my CRT and VCR a few years back. Sad, really. I used to re-watch the OT every once in a while.

I'd gone about 10 years Star Wars free before I found this place.

Hopefully my daughters will love it and it will be the beginning of a new era

That's what did it for me. To quote another forum member, it's all fun and games until little Timmy comes home wearing a Jar Jar backpack. The movies really are magical, and they come right back to you just the way you left them.  Except, you know, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher look like these young kids now, and you're positive they used to look like grownups...

and (extra hopefully) maybe someday Disney will decide to clean up and release the unaltered trilogy. Hard to tell. Always in motion is the future...

Have to go with Tom Petty over Yoda on this one.  The future ain't what it used to be.

Post
#772796
Topic
GOUT DVD vs VHS
Time

Harmy's Despecialized Editions are how I've introduced the complete three-film Star Wars saga to my kids*.  No need to explain why things don't look as sharp as an official release, because it does.

Also, FWIW, a fan preservation is the ONLY way to watch the theatrical version of Star Wars.  VHS releases have the "A New Hope" crawl, and the GOUT has the 1993 revised audio.  If you're not so much of a purist to care much about those distinctions, then Harmy's Despecialized Editions are definitely the way to go.  It's actually quite difficult for your average fan to tell it's not the real thing.

* And if they get curious about Star Wars beyond the Original Trilogy, I've got the Holiday Special too.