CatBus

They're too big to be space stations.

Yirmeyahu said:

chyron8472 said:

[snip]

 Am I being too long winded here? *The black wind howls*

No, you've just posted to a thread that takes long, scenic strolls through off-topic now and again.

We also have a more utilitarian and general-purpose Howto/Technical forum which might be a little more topical to your question, or at least be better able to stay on topic.

Or should that be "brief dashes through on-topic"?

Handman said:

Are they... stars?

My God, it's full of them!

timdiggerm said:

Okay we get it, there's some frames of darkness

Dig that hole, forget the sun.

[SNIKT]

Actually stretch's suggestion to convert the audio track would allow you to keep using the MKV format, so as long as you're okay with all that demuxing, converting, and remuxing, it's doable.

bradt said:

I put the file on a USB drive and plugged it into my Samsung BD-E5300 Blu-ray player. I got video (dear maker, it's beautiful) but no audio. The error message "Not supported audio codec" flashed on the screen.

That means that the player doesn't support DTS-MA audio in an MKV container.  This is a little on the dumb side because a Blu-ray player HAS TO support DTS-MA in Blu-ray video.

Your options are: listen to a Dolby Digital track (tracks 5+), but none of these include the original English audio, or learn how to demux/remux the MKV and make yourself a homemade Blu-ray (Blu-ray burner required).  Or download the AVCHD and try your luck there, although Samsung's support for AVCHD disks is spotty and your player already has one big strike against it.

Actually checking for player firmware updates would be very worthwhile.  This is such a weird shortcoming even they probably consider it a bug.

PM sent.

You can barely see the edges, but each of these images has a little door in it.  I checked the first two doors and they had peppermint and butterscotch, respectively.  The peppermint's still there if anyone wants it, but I just can't resist butterscotch.

applesandrice said:

However, after de-muxing the MKVs and importing the video and audio streams, Encore still requires that the video be transcoded.

It's easy enough to create menu-free BDs using tsmuxergui, which is what I do.  Some authoring tools simply don't let you do anything without a transcoding step, and I'm not sure it's avoidable, other than using different tools.  There may be other tools out there that allow you to create menus without transcoding.

Stinky-Dinkins said:

...I have an Oppo BDP-93...

Stinky... has... good... *cough* *gasp* taste!

Man, I felt like I was fighting against all that was right in the world to just utter that sentence.

camroncamera said:

blurry landspeeder (1970's VFX)

Keep in mind that while composited shots from the 1970's were by no means sharp, they may not be as blurry as a low-res DVNR'd source like the GOUT would lead you to believe.  A proper restoration may surprise everyone with how good even the worst effects look.

Discussion thread here:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/4K-restoration-on-Star-Wars-Official/topic/16857/

IMO, it's a 4K restoration based on some SE version, straight '97 or '97 with re-renders of later changes added on.  Opinions vary.

Alderaan said:

I think watching Star Wars is a little different than watching something like The Godfather, don't you think?

Absolutely. One of them looks and sounds like it did in theatres (although some argue this point because they don't think the yellow tint is from bulb-matching), and one of them clearly doesn't, which is rather the point.

EDIT: If you're talking about "looking dated", you simply need to look at the haircuts.  They are movies from the seventies.  The VFX, editing, haircuts and fashions are all dead giveaways.  I'm sure it's possible to give everyone a digital haircut, freshen up the fashions and color schemes a bit, do some more jump cuts and fewer wipes, and remove the matte lines, but that would just turn it into a seventies movie trying to be a modern movie (and failing).  Which, in a lot of ways, is one of the primary problems with the Special Editions.  To focus exclusively on matte lines is really no different than focusing exclusively on haircuts.  It's the same "I don't like the look of films from that period" writ small.  Not that it isn't a valid opinion to have, but that's what it is.

It's also not my intention to be dismissive of your opinion, just of the idea that you can extrapolate/evangelize your opinion to what everyone else might want. Heck, I wouldn't mind changes to the originals myself (no cue marks, no gate weave, no burn marks, some dirt & scratch removal), but I know there's plenty who would disagree with me on some or all of these.

If you did a mashup of every comment that went "I think they should release the OOT but still including these certain Special Edition changes" and "I think that a properly-restored OOT wouldn't pass muster with today's discerning viewer based on my experiences with a decades-old home video transfer rather than my experiences with other properly-restored films of the same era, or because Lucas said so", you'd get something a lot more concise.

1977 5.1 and 1977 stereo are very similar.  If you have only a stereo system, the stereo version will likely sound a bit clearer due to lack of mixdown, otherwise I prefer the 5.1 mix.

1977 mono mix is another favorite here.  It has many interesting differences from the other 1977 mixes, but the audio quality is not as good.

1985 is, in a lot of ways, a merger of the differences in the 1977 mixes.  It sounds okay but there's no dynamic range to speak of.

1993 is a good-sounding mix overall, and like the 1985 mix, merges together elements from the different 1977 mixes.  But it's often criticized for including sound effects that were not original audio, so it's not as authentic.

Hope that helps.

Wow, I seem to be popular in Brazil these days!  PM sent.

At least a while back, tehparadox had this weird IP restriction thing, which I'm sure had some sort of other purpose, but it only succeeded in making me swear off ever using the site again (I used to post Project Threepio links there, but I got blocked from connecting there so frequently I figured PM's were easier).  It was a complete PITA, but I understand others don't run into it at all.  Maybe I've got some serial spammer in my ISP's DHCP pool and I'm just collateral damage.

If ? is -1, there will be MAXINT-7 more posts. The key is the key.

SilverWook said:

I've yet to see a Slave Leia where the paint job on the face didn't make her look cross eyed or stoned.

Suuure, blame the paint job.

PM sent.

PM sent.

Okay, one last update.  The current SRT files for RTL languages (the ones with an -rtl extension), only really work in software that fully supports RTL and BiDi, which, as far as I can tell for media players, is none of them.

So, if you're interested in Hebrew or Arabic SRT files, I now have a new set of SRT files with a -compat extension, which should work much better.  These will be released in the next version of Project Threepio, but are available now via PM.

I tested only VLC, MPC, and Notepad (Notepad is the definitive dumb text software) but all three worked, with the exception of VLC displaying a small and fairly inobtrusive garbage character on two lines in Star Wars.  Other software may behave differently, because after all, we're talking about software that doesn't behave correctly to begin with.  I haven't figured out a way to get rid of that garbage character in VLC without introducing worse problems, but I'm still looking into it.

So in the next release, each RTL language will have two SRT files: "-rtl", which is still used for making changes and generating graphical subtitles, and "-compat", which is created by running the "-rtl" file through a subtitle-mangling routine to create something that works better with software media players.  So if a change is made to the "-rtl" file, that file needs to be re-run through the mangling routine to propagate that change to the "-compat" file.

Also, you'll need to use a subtitle editor that fully supports RTL/BiDi to edit the "-rtl" files, but finding one of those is, thankfully, a whole lot easier.

Wait a sec. Are we about to see two Star Destroyers? Are we trying to get our co-pilot back home in time for the holidays?

Thanks, it's always good to get confirmation we're doing a good job.

I do accept corrections, if you want to make them.  Making intentional stylistic mistakes like that is beyond my abilities, but if you explain the changes you made, I'll incorporate them in future versions ;)