CatBus

Anchorhead said:

Do you care about Official Canon, and if so, why?

Not in the least. Basically because I wholeheartedly buy into the postmodernist view that the viewers/readers/listeners of an artistic work are the ones who ultimately provide its entire meaning. If it's the same meaning as that intended by the work's author/creator, bully for that I suppose--but that's completely unnecessary.

In my view everyone comes to the table with their own personal canon, for any creative work. It just happens that if certain creative works have a "director approved" label on them, some people are able to set aside their own feelings, or reconsider them in such a way that their opinions eventually match the "prescribed" opinion. If at any time they simply cannot make their opinion match the prescribed opinion, there's usually some resulting anger and soul-searching.

Official Canon is just an attempt to maintain control of a creative property after it's already entered the public sphere. Which seems to be an ongoing theme with Lucasfilm in particular.

It seems every single release of Harmy's Despecialized Editions has involved someone asking for a release date, Harmy providing a release date, and then that release date proving spectacularly wrong (by up to a year) due to unforeseen complications.  Predicted release dates are therefore pretty much a joke in this thread. So with his latest answer, Harmy's playing it safe--or so I hope!

PM sent.

No black dog's telling him to shoot anyone, he's not trying to impress Jodie Foster. So he pretends he's a bunch of different people and has a couple accounts. Yeah it violates forum rules, but it's pretty harmless in the long run (esp. given how obvious he is about it--there doesn't appear to be any risk of anyone getting fooled) and we get a 35mm preservation out of it.  Beyond that, what's there to be interested about?

This is no hoax. I believe the lack of a finished final product can be easily explained by: 1) it's friggen hard work, and 2) I'm inclined to believe there's a little perfectionism involved here, and "release early, release often" is kindof an anathema to perfectionists. Why release an unfinished product when you only need to wait maybe three more years and get a perfect one?

You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.

Now there are -1 of them.

Asaki said:

Awesome =)

I'm going to try my hardest to make sure that this year is the year I finally see the Holiday Special. I hope it's everything I've heard it is!

Just in case you get some crazy notion--no, there is not enough beer in the world to make it tolerable.

Harmy said:

...so it would probably be easier to redo the edit from scratch...

Too bad. So we'll have to wait at least a week for that, then, eh? Maybe two?

Any chance of this making its way into a new Zion Hybrid release? I have to admit I am a big fan of the cheesy menu music and Rifftrax options. Also I'm not versed enough on SWHS version to know if this new version is across-the-board better than everything else or just better in certain scenes than certain other versions.  Any guidance for someone who's otherwise pretty happy with Zion Hybrid (but notices it's oversharpened)?

Harmy said:

I wouldn't say it's the best movie ever personally but I did like it a lot - definitely liked it a lot more than Citizen Kane, that's for sure.

I'll admit maybe I'm a bit of a sucker for noir, but I could just watch the closing scene where Holly waits for Anna outside the graveyard over and over and over. Right in the gut, every time.

It's Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949). If you're into noir, old movies, Orson Welles, cinematography, or zither music, check it out.

EDIT: And no, I'm not exaggerating.  It is the best movie ever.

Harmy said:

Best. Movie. Ever.

Yeah, I've never encountered any of those problems ;)

I'm not much of a TV junkie. I just watch movies now and then. Hell, I haven't watched broadcast or cable TV since maybe the late 1980's. And I don't game.

EDIT: Okay, I do game, but my games involve big folding gameboards, little wooden pieces, and cards.  Slightly on-topic, Vlaada Chvatil is yet another reason for the world to thank the Czech Republic for its awesome citizens.

yoda-sama said:

I don't see why people bother with all the headache when there's plenty of PC-based solutions, which can also bring a lot more to the table beyond just video...

I think the reason for many is there is no headache.  Put the disc in, and play it.  There's nothing else I want to do with my TV, so the same procedure works for everything.  I only consider an HTPC because I'm a tinkerer--I can't even think of an actual problem I've really encountered that it solves.

Agree discs are not fully silent within a certain radius, but even in the worst-case scenario, they spin slower than fans and hard drives, and certain vendors take a little more care choosing quiet transports (for not really that much more money), which makes them effectively silent at any reasonable viewing distance.  The audiophile market, crazy as they are, gets vendors to make nice stuff sometimes.

yoda-sama said:

Computers good enough to handle Full HD video can be put together so incredibly cheap anymore, I just don't get it...

Fans. At least in my case, I want my movie watching experience to be such that, during a dead quiet part, I can truly hear a pin drop. Fully fanless systems with no moving parts, powerful enough to handle full HD video, are pretty pricey items (I've shopped them). Even then, I find a shiny disc to simply be easier, if you have it.

Others may have other reasons for forgoing the HTPC route.

team_negative1 said:

You're not addressing that person anymore, there is no '-1', by the way, must have been an earlier team member.

He may have been here more recently (and probably has), but he definitely posted about 9 hours before you did using the team account.  You should probably change your password.

All three failed for me--page not found.

Traveller said:

Oh ok. So will that be a file that can simply be burnt right away? I thought people were already putting these onto Blu Rays to playback? 

Exactly.  I am personally very attached to shiny disc media, so I burned the MKV to Blu-ray (demux/remux).  But the resulting disc has no menu, no extras, and I had to supply my own BD-SUP formatted subtitles (shameless plug).  Which for some people might be quite enough, but there might just be one or two obsessive completists in these forums ;)

djchaseb said:

Harmy's English is better than mine and I'm an American 

Of course it is. He's got the BBC World Service over there, unfair advantage ;)

Man did the air get sucked out of that joke :(

TV's Frink said:

As soon as he posts his password, we can all jump in and knock this puppy out in a week.

I'm not sure that would actually help unless someone can also show us how to enter a linefeed into the password field.

It really depends on how fancy you want to get. Since you're starting from scratch, you have the freedom to map it all out.

If you just want subtitles without any interesting formatting (i.e. beyond italics), and placement is going to be in a consistent, standard location, then just create an SRT file using any of the tons of subtitle editors out there.  I actually prefer SRT because I can focus on the content and not the presentation.  However, if you want to get all fancy and have subtitles that are (for example) positioned under the speaker of that particular line, go for a more advanced format that can contain positioning information such as ASS.  You can make this exactly as complicated as you like.

As for timing, different editors offer different ways of doing it.  Some allow you to line up the subtitles to the waveform of the audio track, but I actually prefer to do it visually by watching a preview of the movie with the subtitles overlaid.  There is a lot of trial and error and guesswork, but generally it's pretty clear when a subtitle "works" and when it doesn't.

To convert an SRT file to a BD-SUP/BDN+XML format for burning to disc, I recommend easySUP.  This gives you a lot of flexibility about typeface, positioning, color, border/shadow, etc.  Some BD authoring tools may allow you to plug in an SRT file too, but I doubt you'll end up with quite the level of control easySUP gives you.  Also keep in mind you need to install AviSynth for easySUP to work.

I'd also look at some subtitling style guidelines, even if you opt not to follow them to the letter.  The BBC has some pretty thorough ones online, I believe.

Asaki said:

CatBus said:

Out of curiosity, do you happen to have the other half of my amulet?

Does it say "BFF" on it?

No, it's got a jewel offcenter in the middle of it and writing on both sides.

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

...plus the improved versions of the subtitles done by CatBus...

With that aspect ratio, my adjustments are more likely to make things look worse than better.  1.75:1 (HDTV) goes all the way to the top and bottom of a 16:9 frame.  2.35:1 (BD) has significant black bars.  So when I moved the subtitles just inside the 2.35:1 image, I pushed them ridiculously far into a 1.75:1 image.  The subtitles will be right over all the action.  I'd recommend using the straight-from-BD subtitles for this one.  You could even afford to move them out toward the edge a bit.

AntcuFaalb said:

I found the 3 missing frames. They were the last 3 frames before the shot where Neo enters the room to see The Oracle. I simply froze the last frame in that shot 3 times to keep it synchronized with the DVD.

Are you sure that doesn't create a visual artifact (I know if's not always visible depending on where it is)?  Would it possibly be better to insert spoRv frames instead, or otherwise color-matched BD frames?