CatBus

PM's sent.

And FYI, I already kinda knew this but now it's confirmed--the Hebrew and Arabic SRT files aren't terribly usable right now for people who use software playback--but I think the graphical subs are fine.  The problem is that none of the major video players really supports RTL very well, and you kindof have to mangle the SRT file to get things like punctuation appearing on the correct side of the text.  I'm working on this.

Bingowings said:

 I'm going for RicRollie.

Wow, that's an excellent name.  I'm never gonna give that one up.

PM's sent.  Regarding Operation Eyestrain, I'll keep your offer of help in mind for emergencies, but I'd like to keep following our existing process right now.

The reason is that the Japanese conversion has a lot more artistry in it than the other conversions, and I'd like to keep the same person doing it if at all possible.  For example, Furigana just doesn't work in SRT files, so sometimes a different translation is preferable, that sort of thing.  Plus the Japanese subs still say "Revenge of the Jedi" I think, and that's historically cool but not the best translation ;)

I'm sure we'll have the Japanese ROTJ in text form soon enough; in the meantime the graphical ones are actually very solid, just not as flexible as I'd like.

1 2 0 3 2 0 1 4!

*gasp*

You mean he's a... ?

Run, rabbit, run.

Darth Id said:

darklordoftech said:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ancient_Order_of_Pessimists

 So a whole race of C3-PO, huh? They must be wildly popular.

Nobody likes a guy who's always right.

Also, not that we've really heard of staying on topic around these parts, but there is a separate thread for the despecialized versions of Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi.  Movie-specific questions can be posted there to get the best response.

But yeah, Vader's eyebrows are fuzzy because the highest-resolution version of them we had at the time was an old Laserdisc master, thus the fuzziness.  We have some 35mm elements now which should be worlds better in this regard.

Also, I don't know if this is still the case, but at least for a while, Harmy preferred problem reports to be sent via PM rather than posted in the discussion thread, so's not to "ruin the magic" for people (once you know about a bug, it's really hard to unsee it).  The ones I've mentioned are ones people have already mentioned in the thread, but there are others I've reported privately that are also pretty minor.

AntcuFaalb: the credits in 1.0 were from the GOUT, and were a dramatic loss in quality after a pretty consistently stunning presentation.  The reconstruction was, at the time, the only way to improve quality.  Now I believe Harmy has 35mm elements for the next version, so no worries.

Well, "wrong" is subjective.  You'll find on this forum that one eyebrow hair or speck of dirt out of place draws howls of rage.

That I know of, the video has extra frames, causing a slight (and frankly totally unnoticeable) sync problem with the audio.  The most noticeable thing is rampant typos in the credits (they were a reconstruction).  Everything else is much, much less significant than those two things, IMO.  Others will add that there's a missing bead of sweat on Luke's forearm or somesuch, I'm sure.

EDIT: Yes, of course we have subtitles for ROTJ. We're not complete savages here.

AVCHD's are in a format that can be burned to DVD-9 and played back on many Blu-ray players.  They are significantly lower bitrate than the MKV's, and therefore aren't as good, although it should be noted that they're surprisingly good considering their bitrate.

EDIT: And yes, Harmy's still working on the 2.x series.  Jedi is up next, then probably more work on Empire (it's not perfect yet).

darklordoftech said:

CatBus said:

Fang Zei said:

Well, we've now seen an actual trailer for Episode 7 without having heard anything from Disney about the OOT.

Anyone think they'll keep this bait-and-switch going all the way up to release?

By "this bait-and-switch", you mean selling the SE as if it were the OT, correct?  

The blu-rays have updated copyrights. There's a big difference between only releasing the SEs and marketing the SEs as the OOT.

If the Special Editions are marked as "Special Editions" in marketing/packaging, then it's not a bait-and-switch.  Otherwise it is.  It should be noted that the original home video releases of the 1997 SE's were explicitly labeled as Special Editions, so were not a bait-and-switch. The decision to remove all unambiguous differentiating text came later.

That's settled then.  Sync it to Funky Cold Medina, -1.  Get to work, you!

Yes (it's posted in the first post of this thread)

Filesize confirmation, even MD5's, are kosher.  ~18GB seems about right for the current (version 2.x) MKV of both Star Wars and Empire.  ~7GB seems about right for the older (version 1.0) AVCHD releases, which is current only for Jedi.

They're big because Harmy don't make no crap ;)

Fang Zei said:

Well, we've now seen an actual trailer for Episode 7 without having heard anything from Disney about the OOT.

Anyone think they'll keep this bait-and-switch going all the way up to release?

By "this bait-and-switch", you mean selling the SE as if it were the OT, correct?  Personally, I think they'll keep it going for years after the release of Episode 7 at the very least, quite possibly indefinitely.  A proper OOT release just over the horizon seems a pipe dream at best.

In other words, kindly remove those links, NoobDude.

EDIT: Argh, too late, but you got the message anyway ;)

dvdmike said:

CatBus said:

team_negative1 said:

It's not clothing. Not a release date (Still way too soon for that). Not another print. Not more screenshots. It's from an idea one of the original member of the group had.

Team Negative1

If it's Star Wars cut & timed to match the Dark Side of the Moon, we're all going to be very disappointed.

 speak for yourself 

Okay, fine. But Funky Cold Medina would be way better.

team_negative1 said:

It's not clothing. Not a release date (Still way too soon for that). Not another print. Not more screenshots. It's from an idea one of the original member of the group had.

Team Negative1

If it's Star Wars cut & timed to match the Dark Side of the Moon, we're all going to be very disappointed.

JayArgonaut said:

It's irritating alone for repeating the wildly inaccurate claim that the Jar Jar Binks character is offensive to Caribbean people. My parents and extended family are from the Caribbean and none of them sound even remotely close to Ahmed Best providing the voice talent for an alien species...  

To be fair:

Racist stereotypes often have very little resemblance to the people they portray, so the "extended family" test is not a good one.  For example, could I say that certain historical European imagery can't possibly be anti-Semitic because real Jews don't actually have horns on their heads? Same difference, when you're dealing with racism, the real world need not apply.

So you have to have some prior knowledge of racist imagery before you can truly say something resembles it or not.  And frankly I'm not very briefed on racist depictions of Caribbean people, so while this is the Internet and all, I don't feel qualified to offer an opinion on that.

Heh, no.  IIRC, Team Blu's DVDv3 and Bluv1 went NTSC,NTSC,PAL.  Bluv2 will be NTSC,NTSC,NTSC.

Isn't this fun? But in the long term, NTSC seems to be the way to go.

IIRC:

Harmy's 1.x series used frames from NTSC,NTSC,PAL (in trilogy order)

Harmy's existing 2.x series accidentally used frames from PAL,PAL, but after discovering this, he did not release "fixed" versions because the difference was so unnoticeable in the first two films.

I believe all of his future releases of all films will use frames from the NTSC GOUT.

Bingowings said:

It's hard to get character growth and plot development without what is being called universe shrinkage.

...

I really would be more wary of a set of films that went out of their way to avoid obvious connections with the prior films than worrying about universe shrinkage.

You make some very good points, and I think the main problem is that the term "universe shrinkage" is an objective-sounding term used to mask more subjective criticisms like "ridiculous coincidence that doesn't add anything to the story or character development" and "adding more depth to a story or character that I'm already sick to death of".  I apologize for my part in waving the term around needlessly.

To me, it's quite likely that this PT character is a needless tie-in, tied to the prequels only for the sake of giving the prequels a nod, much like "young Greedo" was in the PT.  This is independent of his value as a character, which may be significant with or without the tie-in (could some other previously-unknown character have pranced and frolicked just as effectively as young Greedo? Definitely).  It's also certain that I'm sick to death of any story or character that was introduced in the prequels and don't want to see any more of that.  That's a much more subjective and honest assessment than just throwing around the term universe shrinkage, so thanks Bingo for correcting me on this.

Arnie.d said:

So at most there is 2 frames difference. That's something like 80ms, right? Is that like even visible?

Depends who you talk to, what the audio in question is, and if the audio leads or follows the video.

In my experience, with the sync differences in Star Wars, 2 frames is right at the edge of perceptible, 1 frame isn't noticeable.  With 2 frames, I only notice on dialogue that's spoken by someone who speaks quickly and moves their mouth a lot (i.e. Harrison Ford), not on any other dialogue, sound effects, or music.  Since the 2-frame difference in ESB is after Solo's already frozen, I don't see it.  The 2-frame difference in Jedi, on the other hand, I can.  YMMV of course.

dan76 said:

It won't have any impact if it was just a character who was mentioned in previous films.

My vote - Boba Fett. Just you watch...

It would be quite the troll if our leaker called the character "from the Prequels" but it turns out it's a character who first appeared in the OT, but then also appeared in the prequels.  While that may be preferable to an actual PT character, it'd still be taking Universe-shrinkage to sillier and sillier levels.

ROT-13 Spoiler: Terrqb snxrq uvf qrngu!

Tobar said:

CatBus said:

Well sure, but the PT tie-in is unnecessary to accomplish this.  Why not have Max Von Sydow play some entirely new character, instead of an elderly, decrepit Boss Nass?  The fact that there's so much distance between the ST and the PT is an "all clear" signal to the writers that the trainwrecks of the past can be ignored altogether.  Instead there's more of this "unified saga though unnecessary cameos" BS we get from the Special Editions.  It would be unified enough just by not too explicitly contradicting anything from the previous films.

 I think that bullet point was just written weirdly. I don't think Von Sydow is supposed to be a character that we know from the PT. Just that he was around at that time. But if he is, my votes on Kitster! =P

I dunno, man.  While the rest of everything could work out fine, I can see no way to interpret this that doesn't end up neck-deep in suck.

The contention is that he is an existing character from the prequel films, and the revelation of his identity will shock viewers.

Presumably, his identity would be already known enough to viewers to shock them when it's revealed. So either it's a presumed-dead-but-actually-not PT character, or a presumed-irrelevant-but-actually-not PT character, but the only guarantee is that, if this is the case, disappointment will overwhelm any shock felt.

AntcuFaalb said:

CatBus said:

But instead we get bitter half-robot Sebulba collecting Jedi scrap off eBay. Great.

Among other things I'm an archivist, collector, and nostalgia whore, so I'm pretty excited to see a representation of someone like myself in the ST. I think this is an excellent tip-of-the-hat to the "original" Star Wars fans and it's what I'm looking forward to the most.

Well sure, but the PT tie-in is unnecessary to accomplish this.  Why not have Max Von Sydow play some entirely new character, instead of an elderly, decrepit Boss Nass?  The fact that there's so much distance between the ST and the PT is an "all clear" signal to the writers that the trainwrecks of the past can be ignored altogether.  Instead there's more of this "unified saga though unnecessary cameos" BS we get from the Special Editions.  It would be unified enough just by not too explicitly contradicting anything from the previous films.