CatBus

Yeah, this is tough.  You could maybe convince the rep that because the "AVCHD backups" have a decidedly higher intrinsic value than the Laserdiscs, the fact that they are bundled as a freebie extra is a ruse--they are demonstrably of much more value than the Laserdiscs, and their description as a "backup" is false and misleading.

Then to explain why they are of more value, you can say that have vastly superior video quality, audio quality, AND they can easy play on a modern PC or home theatre setup, whereas the Laserdiscs require unusual equipment for playback, and still look like crap.  Furthermore, they are bootlegs, so shut the auction down.

Heck, you could even use your little image of Luke through the years of various home video releases to show how these "free backups" are the real thing of value in the auction, and that they are not at all a backup of the Laserdiscs as described.

PM sent.

Alright.  Short version: I've got GOUT-synced, despecialized Thai dubs, PM me for links if you're interested.  The Star Wars dub needs some Thai subtitles for the Greedo dialogue (it's not voiced over), and those will be included in the next version of Project Threepio.

Long version: These were strange dubs to work with. The lip sync was all over the map, sometimes perfect, sometimes way off, even for lines right next to each other.  Granted, Thai doesn't really lip sync well over English anyway, but I feel it could easily have been better.  That said, my fairly fast-and-loose sync to the GOUT probably didn't help matters very much.  It's not 80's Kung Fu movie bad, but it is just a little off, be forewarned.  Some of it's probably my fault, some of it isn't.

Despecialization went pretty well.  ROTJ probably sounds like the real deal to a non-expert.  Star Wars has a few rough places where the SE reveals itself, and Empire suffers worst, mostly during the Emperor scene, which sounds a bit like it went through the audio editing blender, which it pretty much did.

The provenance of this audio finally revealed itself while I was working on Empire.  They are most likely 1997 SE dubs that have been updated to include 2011 audio changes.  I don't know much about the SE audio variations, but I concluded this from the DSS (disembodied screaming strangers) in each of the three films.

I did ROTJ first, and the DSS was there as Vader threw the Emperor into the pit.  The DSS wasn't that guy from Shattered Glass, but an equally incongruous Thai voice.  They definitely did a good job matching the WTF factor from the English dub, I'll give them that.  Then I did SW, and there was no DSS as Ben Kenobi chased off the Sand People.  That was odd, I thought, but I just ignored it and moved on.  Last, I did Empire and was shocked to hear the DSS as Luke fell from the platform on Bespin.  This time it was the same voice as the English audio, so not only are Thai audiences left to wonder why the Emperor from the wrong film is screaming while Luke falls, they're also wondering why it's the Emperor from a different dub of a different film. All of that, to me, pegged it as 97SE audio that had been revised to include 2011SE audio.

Anyway, I understand dubs are very popular in Thailand, so I'm happy that Thai speakers now have an option for watching the Star Wars trilogy dubbed.

I'd say effort is better spent transcribing it.  We don't have a "new narration" plan yet, but it seems the way to go, and a script would help.

Well, I'd imagine most of the people who gave a damn left long ago, just to avoid the daily feeling that their employer is actively working to destroy film history.  Those who remained were either able to compartmentalize their feelings about it, or didn't really think of what they were doing as destructive to culture.  Sounds like moviefreakedmind's friend is likely the former, and Puggo's friend is the latter.

I don't see much point in preserving the tracks in their current state--they exist for accessibility, and if better accessibility can be achieved by re-recording the voiceover, I'm all for that.  Don't we have a few forum members with silky-smooth radio voices?  Mavimao?

If anyone has any pre-2011 Thai audio, let me know.  At the moment, I'm syncing and despecializing the Blu-ray audio and there are a couple places where I'm having trouble removing audio changes made after 1997.

Specifically (all in Star Wars):

- The chess game, due to the weird slot machine noises

- Coming out of hyperspace into the asteroid field, due to the whooshing video game noises (could also apply to Empire asteroid noises as well, but I haven't gotten there yet)

The only other major audio content alteration I couldn't get rid of is the whirring, beeping hover droid on Tatooine.  Other than that, the despecialized soundtracks seem to be turning out very well.

Yeah, I know it's a long shot for anyone to have pre-2011 Thai audio (I don't even know if such a thing exists).  But with this crowd, you never know...

Wookiee scat.

Actually this value is lots of different values depending on where you look.  I think the value is over 4.2% but less than 4.3%. I have it down to some level of precision somewhere, but really I recommend just using eac3to for this bit, using WAV input and output.

eac3to can input and output WAV files, so no lossy conversions there.

Use eac3to's "-slowdown" option to convert PAL to NTSC speed and pitch, and it should line up much better.

And if that doesn't work out, I can be backup for trying to sync and/or despecialize the visually impaired tracks.  FWIW, I've found the '93 audio for Star Wars works best for patching over SE elements in Star Wars.

Somehow I completely missed that this Gormaanda Hybrid (v1) had been completed, and it's just what I was looking for.  Thanks to everyone involved--great work all around!

It's all fun and games until it turns out to be Gilbert Gottfried.

In the 720p folder, get the files called SW-en-native.sup and ESB-en-native.sup, unless you want the SDH subtitles, in which case you get the ones with SDH in the filename.  Grab the README file too if you don't know what to do with them next.

EDIT: to be clear, the "native" subtitles exclude the alien subs, which I assume is what you want. There are also "match" subtitles which are a bit of a gimmick, but if you look at the last screenshot in the first post, you'll see what that looks like.  If you prefer that, then download the -match-DeEdv2 sup files instead.

doubleKO said:

...I have previously noticed advanced audio of around 50ms in plenty of other videos...

FYI, if you're noticing/fixing advanced audio by using the audio delay feature of your AVR, the value may not be correct.  i.e. if your display delays video by 80ms on its own (which would not be unheard of), you may be able to add an audio delay of 50ms on your AVR to make it go away--because that brings it into the realm of an unnoticeable mismatch, not because 50ms was the amount the audio was actually advanced.

I'm not picking on you, I have no idea how you determined 50ms for yourself--it's the "plenty of other videos" part that made me think of this.  But any time someone says they can hear a 10-20ms sync difference, you can bet it's because they set 10-20ms on their AVR to make it go away, not because they can actually detect a difference that small.

Stinky-Dinkins said:

So SW has the error too?

Harmy, any chance of uploading a "fixed" SW DeEd whenever you release ESB 2.5? Maybe a SW 2.6? No rush seeing as it's barely, if at all, perceptible... but it would be nice to have the most perfect versions out there in an official capacity.

If you really want to work around this in the meantime, you could mux all the audio on something like a .030 sec, which would make everything "off", but by less than the ITU minimum offsets in both directions.

That said, I think the ITU standards are crazy about this. 1 frame is unnoticeable.

The one-frame difference is already known (discussed on the last page), apparently an error of some sort.

EDIT: Whoops, this is Star Wars we're talking about, so the error hasn't been acknowledged before. I don't know which one has the error, but they should match.

You both have to pay to clean Harmy's pants now.

Isn't trimming the frame off the video in the next iteration a valid solution?  The mismatch is already out there in 2.0 and the video will be redone for 2.1 anyway.

AntcuFaalb said:

I'm sorry if this has been asked before. Are there any plans to create a "Zion Hybrid"-esque edition using the recent 1st gen VHS preservation? Thanks.

 Seconded.  Just can't live without the Star Wars disco music on the menu.

IMO headphones make it much easier to do critical listening, just because critical listening through speakers can be complicated by bad placement, background noise, and all sorts of environmental factors that are better managed through headphones.  You can also get some very good headphones for the same price as some very crappy speakers.  I really like my Sony MDR V6's for audio work.  Not the best thing out there by a long shot, but still awfully good, pretty cheap, and nearly indestructible.  YMMV, of course.

Any chance of a lossless version of the 93 mix?  I know it's counter-intuitive, but I wasn't actually very interested in the '93 mix until I knew it had a big flaw.  Now that I know about the missing snowspeeder crash sound, I want to hear it more than ever!

And yeah, I honestly probably can't hear the difference between 224k AC3 and lossless, but my philosophy is it can't ever hurt to go lossless.

JediZombie said:

I doubt casual fans care one way or the other. 

Many casual fans, particularly younger ones, have never seen the original Star Wars trilogy.  Which really indicates the need for a term for people who call themselves Star Wars fans, but who aren't in fact fans of the Star Wars trilogy, since the term "Star Wars fan" is already taken by those who are.  Too many Star Warses.

RobotWalrus said:

Sweet Lord. I had attributed the problem with the Castillian track to either a honest mistake by whoever put together the GOUT edition or just lazy editing, but after reading what you all mention, I'm beginning to think that they are doing it on purpose.

Not to mention the Russian dub mixes PAL and film-speed sources without pitch-correcting them to match. I get the feeling that dubbing is an afterthought in a lot of places, and not just with Star Wars. The only place I've noticed that dubs get a real professional level of attention is in France.  In fact, I personally had a pretty low opinion of dubbing in general until I heard some French audio for some films.