CatBus

Yeah, trying to mess with SRT files is asking for trouble.  Just use the SUP files and be done with it.

It depends.  Do you care if some of the visuals may be derived from Special Edition elements, even if you can't really tell?  Do you care if there's even wider variation in the visual quality of certain shots than normal?  If the answer is "No" on both, check out Harmy's Despecialized Editions.  If it's "Yes" on either, check out dark_jedi and Puggo's projects.  Or check out all three and decide afterwards.

Project files have been updated to version 8.1 (original post has been updated as well). Please PM me for the temporary download links until the files are available in a more permanent location.

Building on the goals for the 8.x series, I would say Project Threepio now matches or exceeds every known release of the 2011SE worldwide, in terms of quantity and quality. This is a more minor release, but I felt enough significant changes had accumulated to warrant a release.

Rough summary of changes:
- Added one new language: Vietnamese
- Arabic is now based on the official translations
- Changed font for quite a few Asian languages, to improve both appearance and legibility
- Thai subtitles are now available in text format for all three films. Titles files are also available to accompany our new Thai dub for Star Wars
- Miscellaneous minor changes

Huge thanks (again) to Feallan for the Thai transcription work on Star Wars (I doubt he'll volunteer to do that again soon!), and also for helping me get the official Arabic translations.

EDIT: Oh yeah, my new screenshot of Arabic text in the first post perfectly encapsulates my feelings about working with Arabic ("I hope you know what you're doing/Yeah, me too")

TV's Frink said:

JEDIT: Changed my mind.

s/disgusted/strangely aroused/g

Could be the Lowry equivalent of the extra grappling hook throw, a false memory.  I distinctly remember talking with people while waiting in our seats about the Lowry cleanup.  Then again, maybe the conversation did happen and we were just all full of it...

Mavimao said:

Do you have a source? According to sources I'm finding, the Lowry process was just used for the 2004 dvd.

No, I just remember there was a lot of chatter about the enormous Lowry cleanup surrounding the 97 theatrical SE release. The types of "cleanups" could certainly vary (may not technically be DNR or DVNR), and I'm sure they went in a cleaned it again when they got new DNR toys to experiment with, such as apparently the 2004 release.

Danfun128 said:

So you are saying that all SE versions, even the 97se, have DVNR in them?

I'm not sure what Lowry did was technically DVNR, but yes, AFAIK it's baked into the film elements. That said, it's possible video releases have a varying amount of ADDITIONAL DVNR/DNR applied to them that is not baked in, so it's hard to say exactly how bad it is in the sources.

ElectricTriangle said:

That was the whole "Lowery process," wasn't it? DNR the whole thing and then regrain it to hide the fact that there is less detail.

More or less--but this Lowryization is "baked" into the SE. There are no SE source elements without it--so I'm not surprised projection prints of the original films can look better than the best "Lucasfilm vault" footage available of the Special Editions, and thank goodness (and -1) for that!

ishikawa said:

PS - By the way so far I've only looked into the large file of Ep. 4, but are these legit? Quality seemed a bit iffy to me. Not sure if someone re-coded them therefore compromising all of your hard work and quality.

Info Hash: CBD989AF1D762D97D60947D44264A80CB7D6D227

There are definitely some crap re-encodes out there to watch out for. This should, for the most part, look as good or better than the retail Blu-rays.  If that's not what you're seeing, you're either looking at a bad re-encode or there's a badly messed-up playback setting.

Memo to self: step away from the keyboard.

SilverWook said:

There is no need to have pitchforks and torches at this point.

Just let us know when we've reached that point, okay? I can also bring tar and feathers.

Another big thanks in advance over here. I never really thought Amadeus got the best treatment on home video, and it only got worse with the Director's Cut.  Can't wait to see something to reverse that trend!

Anyone got the Laserdisc audio for The Wrong Trousers? I've never heard the original audio it seems--even my VHS copy had "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow"--I just found out about the issue via this thread, and now I'm quite curious.  I've got the Blu-ray video (US edition--slight speed FPS issue?).

PM me and I'll see what I can do.  It's my favorite Wallace & Gromit.

They're in or around New Bern, North Carolina, according to the eBay listing.  Geolocation plus IP addresses may help unmask this tool if he is on our forum.

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.