CatBus

That so made my day, thanks!

Easy.  The PT didn't happen.  Similarly, there were no sequels to the Matrix.

http://xkcd.com/566/

Also, for what it's worth, the Special Editions didn't happen either.

Now there are two of them.

Nothing quite like a good thread resurrection, but there's actually something to report on this front, so it's not your typical necrobump.

A while back, in Harmy's ESB thread, there was a discussion about descriptive audio tracks.  It turns out, Harmy had official (British TV?) descriptive audio for the Special Editions of ESB and Jedi (not sure which versions of the SE, or if they're the ones previously mentioned, but not sure I care).  Rather than continuing to clutter up his thread with updates on this, I figured I'd move it on over here where it seems to belong.

The thing is that this audio isn't really that usable in the traditional sense (unless you want to watch the Special Editions, I suppose).  Even if you could despecialize it convincingly, the quality isn't great, they use some pretty nasty ducking, and the voiceover mixing levels seem a little out of whack to boot.  However, there is some value in these--the script of the descriptive audio.  I'm pretty certain we're all pretty much amateurs in this game, so having a pre-made script is better than winging it without a sense of what really needs to be described.  Descriptive audio is weird--florid but curt--and it's hard to write like that.  It helps to have something written by people who do this professionally.

So right now I'm transcribing the descriptive audio into a text script file.  I am also despecializing as I go, replacing some British idioms (some of them sound very bad to a US listener!), and making occasional corrections for things that are simply wrong, but more-or-less keeping most things the same.

When done, we will have scripts that our golden-voiced member (Barry White was unavailable, so I'll try to get Mavimao instead) could read.

Then, we could splice-and-dice the audio into a GOUT-timed mono track of audio description only, which could then be blended with whatever audio we like, however we like.  I'd make a stereo track myself, trying to use minimally-intrusive ducking.  But if someone wants to do a 5.1 track, or something like that, it would be totally doable.

Anyway, that's the plan right now at least.  There's always the possibility of some unforeseen roadblock, but the main obstacle really seems to be it's simply going to be a lot of work.  No, I have no completed scripts yet.

EDIT: I suppose I should add that, if this works, we could do the same for Star Wars, but it's a much lower priority, since we have decent GOUT-synced audio already.  The Star Wars audio has issues (low quality, 81 crawl, non-theatrical audio during asteroid scene, volume changes and pitch warbles).  I'm cleaning up the worst parts of this audio up by just patching in '77 stereo audio from a good source, but the best option for the long term would be to re-record the overdub and overlay it over completely new audio, just like the plan for the other two films.

TV's Frink said:

blaice said:

ALSO: I forced my mates to watch the 2011 and despecialized of SW back to back with me and they couldn't tell which one was the official release as per quality, transfer, remastering etc. They don't know (or care) much about the changes so it was a good test to gauge purely the visual grade of v2.5. /GG

 Time to find some new friends.

Not many friends will still talk to you after you force them to watch the 2011 Blu-rays. I'd say these friends are keepers... assuming they're still friends.

Harmy said:

WOW...

The Imperial March sounds really good on that instrument, and I really liked the lightsaber. The rest was just really creepy. I'm voting for the horse.

PM sent.

TheBoost said:

I'm not certain that thinking the character is a not so bright necessarily translates as a slap against the movie.

It's the interview as a whole, not that quote in particular. But I'm not sure it's a matter of Ford "not getting it", so much as being bitter at being personally tied to that character much, much longer than he would have preferred, with audiences (and interviewers) never ceasing to gush over it.

Heck, if I did fantastic work at a job I despised, and people couldn't stop talking to me, even decades later, about how great that job was, I'd do anything I could to change the subject too, including sounding like a bitter grumpy old man if that's what it took.

Generally prefer Harmy's.  The fact that some SE elements are present doesn't bother me as long as I really don't notice them, and all of the DeEd's have reached this threshold for me.  The only thing that really bugs me on occasion is the variability in quality (exceeding the already high variability of the theatrical versions).

I've noticed that the DVD downscales of the DeEd's "blend better" by putting an artificial upper limit on the detail, and that limited quality is still higher than any other non-reconstructed source--so for those who can't stand the variability, the DVD downscales of the DeEd's may work better.  That said, I still prefer to watch the 720p versions and suffer with the occasional jarring moment.

Honestly though I think it's not so much the resolution, but the colors that push Harmy's work over the top for me, especially for Star Wars.

Back when the DeEd's were at version 1.x, I preferred dark_jedi's work.  Still do in many ways for Jedi.  Those eyebrows, man...

Plus, I never really adjusted to the whole "Episode IV: A NEW HOPE" thing, so that limits my video options for Star Wars.

I'm hoping -1's work makes this whole "you must choose: high-def reconstruction or lo-def original" dichotomy moot.

Not sure I agree with the premise. Plenty of A-list talent was wasted on cardboard cutout characters in the prequels: Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman. Samuel L Jackson was just another one.

I'm going to go with "No, he was not a good addition", but that's really no reflection on him given his company. Unless I hear a rumor that during shooting, he grabbed a movie camera, threw it on the ground, and pooped on it, in which case he was a great addition.

I'm not sure dumb is exactly the right word.  Impulsive, absolutely--he doesn't spend much time thinking about the consequences of his actions, like a "smart" character would.  He shoots, as it were, from the hip ;)

Chains successfully pulled. Moving on to next objective.

I don't post a lot in your threads, but I just wanted to say you've done some great work so far and made some fine choices for projects. I'm not deeply versed in Hong Kong cinema, but I know there's a lot of gold in there deserving of a proper restoration.

God of Cookery someday?  The improved subtitles alone would be worth it...

You're welcome--and remember, it's unlikely any of these translations are ever going to be absolutely perfect, even if they are based on the official sources--so if you spot a poor translation, typo, awkward phrase, or some other problem, just let me know.  I just got a small batch of improvements for the Spanish subtitles (thanks to Hostmaster and Leoj), for example, so now we're going to be better than the official translations for those as well!

EDIT: While I am interested in improving the translations, I am not interested in changing subtitles to match a particular foreign dub (except in cases where that dub simply provides a better translation for a given line).  I can understand why people may be interested in having subtitles that match their favorite dubs, but this project is for subtitles to accompany the English audio, not the dubs.

If you look at the versions and release dates, you'll see that ROTJ version 1.0 was released long ago, and 2.x is still in the works--so it hasn't yet gotten either the audio or video facelifts that the other films have.

You'll also see it has its own project thread.  This one is for Star Wars ;)

For what it's worth, I put together a German Krieg der Sterne mix for my own personal collection, which is a little different than any of the other mixes available here.  It's derived from the 1978 2.0 theatrical mix (contains all of the dialogue fixes), but it includes only audio that was present in both the 1993 Silver Screen audio AND the 1995 THX audio.  So the changes are: music during trash compactor scene removed, clunking sound when Ben picks up the blast helmet removed, background announcements in Death Star corridor added.  The announcements were difficult because there's a big glitch there in the 1995 audio, and the 1993 audio doesn't mix well with the GOUT, but I think it ended up OK.

Mostly, I made this because I just don't like the music during the trash compactor scene ;)

PM me if you're interested.

The sail barge transition I know was due to a few frames being trimmed for the new wipe.  Since taking frames from the GOUT resulted in a significant drop in quality, Harmy opted for the slowdown effect using HD frames only.  Even without access to better sources for those missing frames (which might be in the works), Harmy experimented with a better method for handling missing frames with the Han-Greedo conversation in SW 2.x (I think it was a "flow" something function in AviSynth, like frame interpolation on TVs, but not as artificial looking when you keep the framerate the same).  He eventually got better sources so didn't need to use the other method, but I think even under the worst-case scenario, there's still ways to make this transition more natural without new source material.

I know the first one was altered for the SE (Vader was brightened), so Harmy definitely darkened Vader back to match his theatrical references.  I'd say the others are correct too, because the GOUT, etc, were in general much brighter than the theatrical references he used.  30 years of home video gave us the wrong idea about how bright this film was...

EDIT: Two of these are featured in the comparison gallery.  Definitely the way it was supposed to look.

Vader in hallway

Falcon

pittrek said:

I thought this site is pro-quality

No, it's really kindof a mess of old ColdFusion code. That was clearer back when search was available, such as it was.

Everything------->Out the window

Oh well, thanks. I read some fairly certain statements about those missing lines in the elevator, but you know communicating in text sometimes goes.

At least the Castilian dub is all Castilian now ;)

Just checked, and all of the GOUT dubs in question are missing a "clunking" sound effect when Ben takes the blast helmet off the wall in the Falcon, just like the unfixed German track.  AFAIK it's present in every English mix, so that's more evidence supporting a common international master used for all of these tracks.

But was the clunk theatrical?  Was the extra score theatrical?  Well, that's the question, isn't it?

Re-reading the posts in the German thread, it's clear that people definitely know the missing dialogue was present on the 35mm theatrical audio, but it's less clear about the other changes they made to the GOUT audio.  Was anyone able to verify all of these were theatrical, or just some of them?

Yeah, I got the levels matched as you said, and to be honest it sounds good, but it just looks wrong when you see all the peaks disappear for that segment (yeah, don't judge audio by its visualization, but still...).  I think the fact that it's a complete scene being replaced also helps.  I got word from Laserschwert about another missing sound effect from the German audio, so I'll listen to the other tracks and see what that tells me, and maybe I'll have updated files depending on what I find.

Does anyone here have the original uncorrected German GOUT audio? (with missing dialogue, etc)  I'm trying to sort out a mystery with some of the other dubs and think it could maybe help.

EDIT: Thanks, got it.

On another note--does anyone have the uncorrected German GOUT audio?  That might be a useful reference for me in trying to sort this out.

Thank you Senator Moynihan.[/old guy dog whistle joke]