CatBus

If zofrex is still reading, the text renderer replacement script has hit a pretty important milestone. It’s now roughly as fast as, or maybe even slightly faster than, the current script (it’s a low bar, but I still want to clear it). This was done through multithreading (rendering multiple subtitle images at the same time), which really speeds things up, but multithreading can also lead to subtle errors, so I’m still bugchecking that right now. I think there’s a good possibility this new script may be usable before the next release, so it’s now possible 12.0 may include it. I’m also finding and fixing bugs in the current renderer as I go, but I’m not backporting the fixes. The only quirk right now is that Chromium-based browsers have a tendency to occasionally leave zombie processes running, so when you use Chromium to render an image a quarter of a million times*, you could see some performance fallout.

* And yeah, it doesn’t really work in reverse, where you can use one Chromium instance to render thousands of images. There’s a hard image size limit, and I could maybe squeeze more than one image into a render operation, but the added complexity isn’t worth the payoff.

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PM’s sent, and thanks for the kind words!

ThrowMeTheWhip said:

Tantive3+1 said:

https://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/9169

Not sure the point of downscaling 4K77 to 720p… not exactly a fair comparison.

This is a 4K83 comparison, but upscaling Despecialized to 4K works too – but it’s still not a fair comparison.

Left is Despecialized, right is 4K83.

Projection prints simply have less fine detail than negatives and interpositives, no matter what resolution you scan them at.

PM sent. Generally speaking, the subtitles are designed to accompany the English soundtrack. The Russian is pretty much directly from the Blu-ray subtitles, just retimed for the original versions. The translation may match one of the Russian dubs out there, but the timing probably isn’t right anymore since it was retimed to the English dialogue.

No, it’s a fair question. As far as I’ve been able to tell, per-glyph kerning rules (the sort that put a period closer to a lowercase r than to a lowercase m) are ignored by too much software to be certain of the result. Theoretically, yes, that’s exactly what they’re for. But in practice, you have to have a lot more control over the software than I do. My goal is to make a toolkit that people can run on god knows what software stack (and clearly we’re not there yet), and where I can swap out major software components with relative impunity (which is what I’m in the middle of).

Unicode’s Private Use Areas can be put to a similar purpose. They’re not unassigned – they’re reserved for custom glyphs like this, or in this case the same glyph with different spacing. And until this bug, I’d never encountered any software that behaved weirdly about them. In this case, ImageMagick’s “-gravity” option triggers text rotation for CJK vertical text layout, but for some reason it’s applying to the PUA as well.

If I was putting this out there as a general-purpose font, I’d probably do the kerning rules in addition to the PUA glyphs, but this is pretty purpose-built. I’m not expecting people to make their résumés in this font – and even if they did, the kerning changes are so minor they wouldn’t be noticeable outside the film context anyway.

This is far from the only weird problem I’ve encountered with the ImageMagick/Pango combo – I’ve been second-guessing the decision to go with that software for years (I’m not saying either Pango or ImageMagick are bad per se, just that the ImageMagick/Pango integration is problematic). So far, Chrome resolves all of those bugs (and yes, I’ve already tested the PUA support and many other things), but the Python itself is still way too buggy. Theoretically, once it’s working 100%, it could work in Chrome/Chromium/Safari/Opera/Edge, but right now, Chrome is all I’m focused on. I could even swap it for Firefox with a little more work. And, thanks to portable Chrome, it’s much, much easier to freeze at a particular version of Chrome indefinitely, should the features I’m relying on stop working for any reason. Basically this whole effort is designed to provide future insurance against exactly what’s happening now.

I was just kinda hoping nobody would trip over it until I was further along with a fix 😉

Thanks! I’m working on a terrible coding project right now, and either I won’t be able to focus on the new dubs right away, or I’ll be delighted to work on them right now instead of programming. I’m right on the edge 😉

Oh, I’ve done all kinds of tricks. It’s just too different (the ESB dub I took it from is just awful quality in many ways, and it’s not just tape hiss, and Vader’s voice REALLY doesn’t match). However, there’s another SE dub that, if it’s complete, I can despecialize to make a better-matching dub just starting from scratch. I don’t have it yet, but I’ve got a lead on it.

Yes, you have hit on a big problem I have yet to address with Project Threepio. ImageMagick works great for ALMOST all image operations, but the whole ImageMagick+Pango text rendering business is very, very fragile and limited. The last version to work on Windows was 7.0.10-23, and Linux may be similarly version-limited (I didn’t discover this until after the current version was released, so it’s not in the README). The latest and greatest ImageMagick seems broken, and ImageMagick doesn’t archive old versions anywhere. Even with the correct Windows version, some scripts won’t render properly on that platform and must be done on Linux.

I am actually in the process of re-writing the text renderer right now, using something other than ImageMagick+Pango to turn the text into images (Google Chrome, actually). However, this is far from done and unlikely to even make it into the next version, so we’re looking two versions out for a complete fix. The goal is complete cross-platform support, greater certainty of long-term future support, and no loss in functionality. You’ll notice I didn’t say performance. The new version of the script appears to be even slower, and for those who have run the current one, you’ll know that’s really saying something.

So all I can suggest right now is to try older ImageMagick versions, or use the specific version I mentioned on Windows. For now, that’s all I can suggest. I just chose the wrong technical foundation for text rendering, mea culpa.

I’ve found this place that hosts old ImageMagick binaries (if you’re the sort to trust random binaries from the Internet):
https://ftp.icm.edu.pl/packages/ImageMagick/binaries/?C=N;O=D

The good news is that regardless of all of this, there WILL be a solution for the mono mix (for both Star Wars and Empire, and the 1981/1985/1993 versions too) in the next version of Project Threepio. It’s not “there” yet, but I can say it’s pretty close. Maybe within the next couple months, I’m just waiting for some new translations to come in. So if you can wait for this, there will be something for you that’ll be much faster and easier then.

EDIT: You dove into the Python code of the text renderer script?!? You’re braver than I thought!

Looks like that’s Hungarian?

AntcuFaalb said:

CatBus said:

AntcuFaalb said:

PJ said:

Hey does anyone recommend a painless way of matching the frame size of two different sources? I’m trying to align footage from the 2020 Bluray of ESB to Harmy’s ESB Despecialized and I just can’t get it right.

BUnwarpJ

It’s just a jump to the left

Oh, oh, nevermind then. Sorry! I should have read the post more closely.

Argh. Sometimes I tell jokes only to amuse myself and bystanders get hurt.

“Let’s do the BUnwarpJ again!/It’s just a jump to the left”

AntcuFaalb said:

PJ said:

Hey does anyone recommend a painless way of matching the frame size of two different sources? I’m trying to align footage from the 2020 Bluray of ESB to Harmy’s ESB Despecialized and I just can’t get it right.

BUnwarpJ

It’s just a jump to the left

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PM sent. They’re compatible.

If you want to re-create them, the font family to use is something in the Franklin Gothic/Trade Gothic/News Gothic family, semicondensed, semibold. You can get something very close with that. I don’t know about the PT’s, but the ST’s have “sharp corners” on the letters, which would be well-reproduced by your standard digital font. I’m afraid I don’t have anything to offer but that.

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44rh1n said:

CatBus said:

Speaking of your avatar, for those who haven’t already seen this:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=18347156&postcount=5884

Top: Theatrical Blu
Middle: Extended Blu
Bottom: UHD

The tonemapping on that UHD still doesn’t look accurate to me. (It at least shows off the lack of the green tint though!)

Well, I think it’s a photo of a display. There could be a whole lot of weirdness added through that alone (auto-white-balance, etc). But yes, the lack of green (even compared to theatrical) is the reason for showing it off.

Speaking of your avatar, for those who haven’t already seen this:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=18347156&postcount=5884

Top: Theatrical Blu
Middle: Extended Blu
Bottom: UHD

PM sent.

Nick66 is gonna have to change his avatar 😉

Seriously, everything looks pretty delightful to me so far. It’s not the same as the DVD, but I never needed or expected it to be identical to the DVD. I just needed it to be good, and it is!

peacefrog35 said:

However, I think I would prefer a cleaned up GOUT that is closer to the VHS. Does anyone know what versions those would be as there are so so so many now?

The project that literally fits this requirement is dark_jedi’s “V3” trilogy:

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Star-Wars-OT-and-1997-Special-Edition-Various-Projects-Info-Released/id/10550/page/1

But there are better options.

I don’t disagree that Star Wars Despecialized, even v2.7, has lots of visible seams, especially in Mos Eisley. IIRC those shots were upscaled from the GOUT, and, well, since the GOUT really isn’t even proper DVD resolution, mixing that with Blu-ray footage (even a low-quality Blu-ray like the 2011 set) isn’t ever going to be perfect. If the seams are the biggest issue, you may want to look into the DVD5 downscales of Despecialized. By capping the video quality at 480i, the Blu-ray and GOUT-sourced footage blend much better.

I do see a couple seams in Empire (nothing that bothers me, but bothering is relative), but Jedi for me seems smoothest of the bunch. Jedi is exactly frame-matched to the GOUT, so if you see any timing issues, you’ll see the same in the GOUT. You may be seeing something wonky with the VFX that’s part of the source that we’ve all gotten used to (or revealed in HD), or maybe it’s a judder/interpolation thing on your display. But if you prefer the SE ending, just go with the SE and don’t worry about it.

I’d also look into the 4K77 & 4K83 projects (the Destiny Editions seem to be a promising branch from these sources as well). They’re from scans of film prints, so while they don’t have all of the fine detail of Despecialized, they still generally have a lot more than the GOUT – and they’re all from one source, so it’s a consistent level of detail. I am personally not a huge fan of 4K77 (there’s something to complain about with every Star Wars preservation), but 4K83 is very nice and worth a look and the only gripe I have is the lack of fine detail compared to Despecialized. Since you’ve already indicated you’re willing to sacrifice some fine detail for a more consistent image, 4K83 may be a perfect fit for you, assuming you can grow to love Yub Nub 😉

yotsuya said:

Technically the GOUT release of ANH created a new version of the film. They used the 1993 master tape and replaced the opening crawl with the version they had scanned for The Empire of Dreams.

IMO the main unique thing about the GOUT version of Star Wars is the 77 crawl/93 audio mismatch. The fact that the 77 crawl was spliced onto the 93 video is a comparatively minor detail, although it’s a funny reversal of how the 81 crawl was frequently spliced onto 77 film.

Oddly, even though I’ve never considered any of the GOUT versions to be in any way equivalent to the original films, they work out to be the same for the purposes of subtitles, since the 93 audio doesn’t change any dialogue from the original stereo/multichannel mixes for any of the films, and the crawls have the same text.