CatBus

Gogogadget said:

If I did the '81 crawl with the incorrect musical cue, you'd have extra frames and then the audio would have to be re-synced to the entire movie.

Aren't the lengths of the '77 and '81 crawl/flyovers the same (the frames are different internally, but they start and stop at the same place)? So if you pasted over the '81 crawl/flyover with the existing audio, the audio glitch would "just happen" exactly correctly?

EDIT: Harmy beat me to it. And yes, the framecounts are different if you just do the crawl, but you'll find you have to do the whole crawl/flyover to do it right, and then they line up nicely.

Harmy said:

This is actually false! The BD contains the SE crawl and flyover, which was made in '97 and has the fast receding SW logo. The '81 crawl and flyover had a different starfield, whereas the '97 crawl has the same starfield as the '77 crawl, albeit shifted slightly upwards, so in order to "restore" the '81 crawl faithfully, one would have to recreate it or use a LD transfer for it and then you'd have to redo the flyover as well, because it was recomposited optically in '81 and has different matte lines than the '77 one and the '97 one, which was recomposited digitally. Plus the background has a slightly different look in the '81 version.

You could probably still use the '97 crawl, if you managed to separate it from the background, because I think what they did was that they wanted to recomposite the crawl and the flyover digitally for the SE, using the original elements, and they ended up using the original element of the '81 crawl and the original elements from '77 for everything else.

Stop blowing my mind!

yoda-sama said:

Not sure what version "present and correct" is supposed to refer to...

I'm assuming it's just a matter of taking the crawl/flyover from the Blu-ray, doing some processing (at minimum, scaling to 720p, but could also attempt better color-matching, laser despecialization, and starfield de-obliteration), and pasting it over the equivalent frames in the DeEd.

The result would be DeEd with the '81 crawl, with the same timing/cue glitch that it's always had.  Any attempt to actually fix the timing glitch, or just paste text in front of Harmy's existing crawl, wouldn't be accurate to any version of Star Wars that's ever existed, so I hope no attempt is made to do that.

deepanddark20 said:

All I'm asking for is a movie that has all the quality of Harmy's edition, except with the words "Episode IV A New Hope" in the opening crawl. I shouldn't need to request that a whole new fan project be started just to make this one little change.

There are other fan projects that swap out the crawl for versions with other languages, so it's not too much of a stretch to think someone might do the same for the alternate crawl/flyover, for example:

In response to Gogogadget, if you can do that and make it seamless with no loss of any quality, I would adore that. 

...and there you go.  A whole new project requested and potentially started.  I'd watch out for starfield incongruity, though.  I'm not sure there are any copies of the '81 crawl and flyover without obliterated starfields.

I apologize I didn't know you weren't looking for the VHS look all-around.  Your dissatisfaction with the brightness of the theatrical version in at least one scene led me to believe (incorrectly) that you might prefer the colors of home video releases to the theatrical colors.

deepanddark20 said:

I suppose while I'm on this thread I'll mention one more little personal issue I have, but this next thing I'm about to mention is not specifically an issue with your despecialized edition but with a general trend I've noticed in fan preservations. It's the lack of "Episode IV A New Hope" in the opening title crawl.

I know, I know, the original theatrical presentation in 1977 didn't have those words. But surely almost everybody grew up watching copies that did, right? Those words were not a "Special Edition" alteration, so if your goal is to remove "Special Edition" changes, you don't have to remove those words.

FWIW, I also saw it more times on video than in the theatre, but every single time I saw it on video, the crawl seemed particularly wrong (not only is the name of the movie wrong, but the entire planet of Tatooine misses its musical cue).  So sheer volume of viewings isn't a good metric, many of us suffered through what we felt was the wrong crawl for decades. The reason it's such a "trend" these days is because so many of us prefer the theatrical version.

As others have said, this is a theatrical preservation.  Not only is the crawl different than your home video experience, but the colors/brightness are different than VHS (as you have noticed), the default soundtrack is different, and you can actually see most of the stars in the space scenes.  It doesn't mean the Despecialized Editions are "wrong", they just have a different goal than you'd like them to have.  Given their goal or preserving the theatrical experience, however, they are extremely successful.

But for what it's worth, not all preservations are trying to preserve the theatrical look & feel.  There are different projects here that attempt to re-create the 1980's home video experience, such as here: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/GOUT-Extremely-Cruddy-Edition/topic/15871/

Take a look around.  Just because this project doesn't share your priorities doesn't mean there aren't others that do, or that you can't VHS-ify the Despecialized Edition yourself.

Chewtobacca said:

CatBus said:  Isn't that pretty much what hairy_hen's ESB purist mix (stereo version) was?

I don't know.  I didn't realize he released a stereo version of ESB.

Dangit, I think you're right.  It must have existed as part of the process of creating the 5.1 mix, but I don't see any downloads for the stereo version.

Oh well, if h_h starts applying his fancy new software to the rest of the trilogy, we'll be seeing it soon enough.

No need to pile on the subs.  Sounds like Andrea's planning on just packaging them as they came off the BD.  Whether that will be CIH-safe or not, I don't know, but it'll certainly be type-safe.

Your call, but I'll personally move them so that they are entirely inside the film frame.  Black bars don't exist on some projector systems, so subs located there get chopped out.

But leave the image centered for sure, regardless of subs!

Also: overscan.  With the subs that low, you're likely to have them chopped off on quite a few TV's.  Leave a 3.5%-5% margin on the bottom.  5% for maximum compatibility.  That's likely to end up looking like one line in/one line out of the frame.

FWIW, I'm not sure if the English DTS you're referring to is DTS-MA or not, but often DTS-MA tracks have unnecessarily large lossy DTS cores.  If you uploaded the track somewhere, I could extract the lossless PCM using Arcsoft, and then re-encode the DTS-MA with the smallest possible lossy DTS core, which could save some space.

And if it is DTS-MA, I think you could safely drop the AC3 version unless the content is really that dramatically different.  Pretty much all Blu-ray setups should at the very least be able to play the DTS core.

EDIT: ...and more people speak Japanese than German or Italian, and possibly more than French depending on your source of info. Just sayin'.

yoda-sama said:

It is kind of a shame, if you really think about it, that people around Star Wars fans only tend to hear the negative things we rant about the films, rarely getting insight as to what we love about the originals...

Yeah, that's exactly it. I've really never, to my knowledge, complained about the Special Editions in front of my kid, but kids are pretty astute about picking up things like that--and apparently mine did, from me or someone else.  Certainly from his initial reaction he expected Star Wars to be a sucky movie with dumb dinosaurs in it.  And that's exactly the opposite of what he saw!

Anyway, thanks Harmy.  I know it must be kinda weird hearing about people's only experience with Star Wars being your reconstructions (never seen in the theatre, never seen VHS, never seen GOUT, just the DeEd's), but be very proud that they are good enough to serve such a valuable purpose for future generations!

Chewtobacca said:

hairy_hen said:Speaking of the '93 versions, there is no real reason to avoid them, because unlike the first movie there aren't any sound effects additions.  ESB is missing the snowspeeder crash sound for some reason...

In that case, it would be good to have 2.0 PCM of the '93 mix with the sound of the snowspeeder crash restored.

Isn't that pretty much what hairy_hen's ESB purist mix (stereo version) was?  I'm happy with the upmixed version.

Don't know if I'd mentioned this yet, but my oldest son finally saw Star Wars, thanks to the Despecialized Edition 2.5.

I didn't want to have to explain why this movie looked so bad compared to the other movies he's seen, and now I don't have to, at least until he's older.

But apparently at some point I must have said something about it, because when I said we were gonna watch Star Wars, he rolled his eyes at me and sighed and said: "It doesn't have dinosaurs in it, does it?" When I assured him there would definitely be no dinosaurs, he seemed more interested.

My kid's already got a Star Wars misconception.  He's only seen Star Wars so far (so far he's been able to wait for the Despecialized 2.x series), but I call this one the Darth Vader/Pootie Tang crossover misconception.

Basically Darth Vader is occasionally using big unfamiliar words for a kid (ambassador, etc), and he's wearing a mask which kinda muffles everything he says.  Then practically the first thing Leia says to him is that she has no idea what he's talking about.

...so, later, my kid just starts laughing in the middle of the Death Star conference scene, and says, "Ha! Nobody can even understand what [Vader's] saying!"

Which I think is great!  It points to a whole new source of motivation for Vader.  The sheer rage of being misunderstood wherever he goes.  Finally at the conference he just snaps and force-chokes a guy who misunderstood what he said.  I think it's great.  Also a fairly decent motivator for Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, now that I think of it.

EDIT: I should also add that my son is young enough that he's got at least three friends who are pretty hard to understand because they're still having trouble pronouncing certain sounds, so a guy just going through life not being understood by the people around him is actually not that out of the ordinary to him.

Can't remember anymore, but I think so. But I believe hairy_hen has postulated elsewhere that the 85 mix is based on some master that's earlier-generation than either the stereo or six-track mixes, so it's not just a matter of putting one bit of the mono mix into the otherwise untouched stereo mix--but the result was (to me) a lot like a mashup of the various original mixes.

SpilkaBilka said:

Interesting.  I wonder why they did the remix in 1985 for SW, but not for ESB and ROTJ?

I've always felt that the SW '85 mix was their attempt to reconcile the three theatrical mixes, since the mono mix seemed to get a lot of love, but the future was clearly stereo.  The other films either didn't have multiple mixes to reconcile (ROTJ), or nobody liked any parts of the mono mix better than the stereo mix (ESB), so they just stuck with the stereo mix.

Well, now I want to have your synced ESB 93 mix, Teeceezy, because I want to hear the sound of a snowspeeder not crashing. *shakes fist at universe*

Thanks, hairy_hen, that helps a lot.  So depending on what you think of the snowspeeder crash sound, the ESB '93 mix could be considered as containing different content.  Technically it's different, but not enough to make me care.

BTW, in a way, I do listen to the '93 mixes, via your purist 5.1 mixes.  I just had more faith in you to get things right, for example the snowspeeder crash ;)

So our updated list of different-content mixes is:

SW: (1) 77 six-channel, (2) 77 stereo, (3) 77 mono, (4) 85 stereo, (5) 93 stereo

ESB: (1) 80 six-channel, (2) 80 stereo, (3) 80 mono (assuming it's similar to our 16mm mono track?), (4) 8mm mono, (5) 93 stereo (same as 80 stereo except missing snowspeeder crash SFX)

ROTJ: (1) 83/93 stereo/six-channel/mono

...with the caveat that we don't have much info on the ROTJ six-channel or mono tracks and could get surprised by some new mix content at some later date. And the ESB mono story could prove to be much more complicated, if the theatrical mono mix matches neither the 16mm or 8mm in content, which is certainly a possibility.

AntcuFaalb said:

Interesting! I (mistakenly) thought that the '93 TESB and ROTJ mixes had some different content.

That might not be a mistake.  I have always shied away from the 93 mixes because of the changes in Star Wars, so I don't know them as well (even though I'm the first to admit they actually sound very good).

Certainly if all of the 93 mixes are all based on the 70mm multitrack mixes, there'd be room for the differences on the 70mm Empire mix to make their way onto the 93 mix.  I just don't know of any.

AntcuFaalb said:

CatBus said:

From what I've gleaned from the thread, no.  We're talking different mixing levels and dynamics, but the same content (defining content as the dialogue, SFX, and music).

Cool! So, as unique content goes, it's:

TESB: (1) 80/85; (2) 93

ROTJ: (1) 83/85; (2) 93

Correct me if I'm wrong, please!

Thanks!

For content differences as we've defined them, I'd list them as:

SW: (1) 77 six-channel, (2) 77 stereo, (3) 77 mono, (4) 85 stereo, (5) 93 stereo

ESB: (1) 80 six-channel, (2) 80/85/93 stereo, (3) 80 mono (assuming it's similar to our 16mm mono track?)

ROTJ: (1) 83/85/93 stereo/six-channel/mono

...although we don't have much information on the ROTJ six-channel or mono mixes to say for certain if they had unique content.

From what I've gleaned from the thread, no.  We're talking different mixing levels and dynamics, but the same content (defining content as the dialogue, SFX, and music).

Laserschwert said:

CatBus said:

The safe areas are ill-defined these days

Pretty much every video, DVD, compositing and 3D software I've worked with during the last 15 or so years used the 5%/10% guides, so I'm pretty sure that's the most common ratio for them.

Agreed, but authoring software always trends conservative (nothing wrong with that). The percentage of sets out there requiring such extraordinary treatment is now very, very low and you already see game designers (which tend to be more cutting edge) pushing closer to the edge.

That said, until the last first-gen CRT HDTVs fail (and they were built like tanks, so they'll last decades still), I'd use your chart.

EDIT: And I'd especially keep using large overscan values for the left/right borders, because those are relevant to SDTV's, of which there are still millions.  The top/bottom ones are only relevant for 16x9 sets.

And like AntcuFaalb, I love me some CRT image. I personally don't think the color's that great, and the clarity obviously isn't there either, and then there's the overscan. But the motion... the motion on a CRT is puts even plasma to shame, even in spite of telecine judder. And what other display tech can you buy that will easily last thirty years?

Laserschwert said:

Man, you people really have to learn about safe areas

++ It didn't take me long to discover that there are sets out there (16x9 HDTVs, mind you, not just 4x3 SDTVs) with completely ridiculous amounts of overscan. If you design anything for public consumption, always assume the worst. The safe areas are ill-defined these days, but Laserschwert's chart looks pretty good to me.

deho said:

Here are the menus I made:

 

 

FWIW, you probably shouldn't have to specify "German Forced" as an option here.  If you choose German audio, the menu logic should auto-enable the German Forced subs--and the same thing for any audio language with corresponding forced subs.  However, that does mean that any forced subs should be automatically disabled when you choose an audio track with a different language, and that logic might be more cumbersome. No idea, I don't do menus ;)

Fantastic, thanks!  ESB 80 and ROTJ 83 are the ones I'm interested in.

CatBus said:

Looking at the crawl again, it looks like there's some light bleeding in from the edge of the frame in the lower-right corner, and that abruptly disappears around frame 2696 or so (not exact, that was my reaction time for hitting pause).

Odd, it looks like there might be light bleeding in from that corner periodically throughout the film.  It's there again at around frame 29080.  And it appears to be there in the GOUT, so I guess it's on the OCN.