CatBus

I've got interest, but not much time for listening and feedback right now, I'm afraid.  The last version of ESB '80 I've got has the chopped fanfare and a small glitch where the holographic captains are reporting their status to Vader. I've patched over it in my own crappy fashion but would prefer a better-done job if it's out there.

Didn't realize h_h was taking up ESB. When did that happen?

PM sent!

Okay, I verified the SRT files with DeEd 2.5 are just fine, work in easySUP and other software without issues, checked German and other languages, all good.

Here's the problem: don't mux SRT files. Use SUP files. They are in the project, download it and use them.

Still want to use SRT files? Okay, that's fine BUT you're at the mercy of a lot of factors: there's software support for playback & muxing and OS support for Unicode to start with.  Heck, you could be thrown off by just choosing the wrong font.  FWIW, I use Win7 and Arial for Latin-alphabet subs.

But I don't use MKV for anything.  If you want help getting this working, you could just download and use the SUP files, or, if you really don't want to use the easy-to-use pre-packaged subtitles which are the whole point of Project Threepio, then you should probably post your significantly more complicated SRT scenario in the Project Threepio thread.  There are other users there who use the SRT files and they may have more specific MKV help than I can provide.

Please note that Harmy included SRT files for one specific playback scenario, involving renaming the file, not muxing.  This scenario works.  So does using SUP files, which is my recommendation for all scenarios.

zeropc said:

jubler hasn't done anything. when i look at actual file, all the symbols are there. like i said before, subtitle-workshop doesn't like the srt files either. it opens them, but all the symbols are replaced with some strange code.

#update3#

i imported the subs in easySUP and there are the same problems. that's definitely i problem with the source subs coding.

somebody else have these problems?

I suppose it's possible the folder included with the MKV got corrupted somehow, but I strongly doubt it.

Again, just download Project Threepio and you can use the SUP files, which is way easier and will end up nicer, or you can get SRT files that I know open in easySUP et al without troubles.

zeropc said:

#update 2#

while the remux now worked without problem, but the shown subs now don't show various symbols like ' or german extra symbols like ö, ä, ü

in jubler i don't see any problems. but in the remux it's broken.

As I feared, the Jubler conversion is really just converting everything to 8-bit and throwing out all non-ASCII characters.  I'd recommend using the SUP files unless you have some reason you really need to be using the SRT files.

zeropc said:

mkvtoolnix and subtitle editor don't like the provided .srt files

error message from mkvtoolnix

Error: '---' is neither a valid ISO639-2 nor a valid ISO639-1 code. See 'mkvmerge --list-languages' for a list of all languages and their respective ISO639-2 codes.

any ideas?

#update#

i run the subs i needed through jubler (open and then newly saved) and now mkvtoolnix has no problem with the remux.

The SRT files are just UTF-8-encoded text files with a byte-order mark--it's possible mkvtoolnix doesn't like that encoding (SRT files should not provide an ISO-639 code at all, so some very odd error is getting tripped there).  If the Jubler processing is just stripping out the BOM or converting them to another Unicode format, that's probably fine, but if it's converting them to some 8-bit encoding, there may be some mangling with certain characters--check apostrophes and quotation marks for problems.

If mkvtoolnix supports BD-SUP files, you could use those from the project instead of the included SRT files.

EDIT: Verified that it seems mkvtoolnix supports BD-SUP files, so for those of you doing your own muxing, I'd recommend against using the SRT files and use the 720p SUP files from Project Threepio instead.

FWIW, the MySpleen thread is here, for this project and other goodies.

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Request-an-invite-to-MySpleenorg-here/topic/8592/

You would probably be interested in this thread for the theatrical visual changes in Star Wars:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Print-variations-in-77-Star-Wars/topic/14705/

In short, there were multiple extremely minor print variations in the theatrical version, probably due to a combination of last minute changes and poor version control, but AFAICT aside from the alternate crawl/flyover, home video releases were faithful to one of those versions, and the GOUT is moreso.

As for the audio changes, all three distinctly different theatrical soundtracks for Star Wars are well-preserved and you can listen to the alternate versions yourself.

As for the other movies, ESB of course had two totally different cuts, and we've only seen/heard the 35mm one on home video or preservations, and just a list of changes for the 70mm one from people's memories.  It's unclear to me if the 16mm mono soundtrack was the same one used for theatrical mono presentations, but if it was, there's another audio variant for you.  AFAICT nobody's spotted any differences in ROTJ presentations that would indicate home video got something different.

Oh, and this project isn't using a Technicolor print.

Hey, as long as we're doing mashups with other third parts of a series and seeing what wackiness ensues, how about Indiana Jones?

Luke struggles with mixed feelings about his father (they have a troubled past, you see) as he sets out on a mission to save him from the clutches of some archetypal villains. At the climax of this mission, he valiantly risks his own life in an attempt to save his father's life, which serves in the plot as a symbolic gesture that the loving bond is restored and all is forgiven.

Oh, nevermind...

Heh, nevermind then!

Any of them that are synced to the NTSC framecount would be affected.  I think that means all of the English language tracks.  The dubs are probably fine since most come from PAL discs or are synced to the PAL framecount (and sync differences on this scale don't mean much for dubs anyway).

I don't actually have the original tracks anymore, so I can't verify this.

DragoonClawNZ said:

I don't know if this would be going a bit too far, but I can provide text versions for each of the language options in their own language.  One thing that's always hard for me watching imported discs is, for example, trying to figure out which set of Japanese characters means "English", let alone which ones mean "Setup Options", "Subtitles", etc...

A language-neutral interface could potentially be done, at least for the main feature and language options, by using icons in addition to text for audio (speakers icon), subtitles (screen with dots along the bottom), and play movie (movie camera).  Then each language option could be listed in its native language (optionally also in English).  Not sure how you'd handle the other descriptive text like "1978 theatrical 2.0".

Anyway, I like the idea of someone not having to know a word of English to navigate the menus and watch the film with audio or subs in their own language.  How hard that would be is another matter entirely.

Some random internet dude said: Harmy is nerd royalty

I thought we were an autonomous collective.

yoda-sama said:

I think you mean he changed it in the 80's for VHS, Television and--if I'm not mistaken--theatrical rereleases.  The title was not a new change for the '97 SE's.

Yes, the "A New Hope" crawl was added in '81, but the packaging for the films (i.e. Laserdisc and VHS boxes) and other materials still called the film Star Wars pretty consistently until the Special Editions.  A New Hope wasn't used because, at the time, nobody would have known what movie they were talking about--very few people called it that.

I think the statement was that even after the crawl was added, Lucasfilm didn't see any point in wholesale renaming one of the world's most popular movies (i.e. in packaging and related items) until the nineties.

EDIT: Actually I think there was a transitional period where there were big and little titles on the boxes.  i.e. Empire would say in tiny text "Star Wars" and then in big text "The Empire Strikes Back", and Jedi would follow the same pattern, but Star Wars was inverted and said "Star Wars" in big text and "A New Hope" in tiny text, again, kinda admitting that the big text represented the name people knew the movie by.

ray_afraid said:

^Certainly more people call it "Star Wars" than "A New Hope".

True, but Star Wars could refer to the film, the trilogy, the (gack!) saga, or the franchise. There are cases where you need some way to specify one meaning because you can't get it entirely from context--I've certainly had to do it once or twice.

And you can either say "Star Wars--er, the first film... er, no, not episode one, episode four... er, except it doesn't have an episode number... uh, what was I saying again?", or you can say A New Hope.

The terminology may not be accurate, but if it communicates the needed information correctly, and it doesn't require the listener to have any especially deep knowledge of the subject just to unpack the terms, the term has done its job.  I friggen' hate calling it A New Hope personally, but I can see its utility in certain contexts.

EDIT: davextreme said it first :(

Ñø®¤ú§ said:

Is this Star Wars as it was seen in the cinemas during 1977 or is this an attempt at making it look the way it did during 1977? I just want to be clear, I also don't like any "enhancements" at all.

I know it's hard to have any stomach for any shred of the SE's to remain, but shreds of the SE do remain in this project.  In spite of that, I feel this project more successfully captures the original cinematic feel than other projects that don't use SE sources.  Mostly because other pre-SE sources suffer from their own issues that prevent them from feeling very cinematic either (lack of detail, DVNR, washed-out colors, wrong crawl/flyover, etc).  Also, for what it's worth, the amount of effort taken in this project to REMOVE any noticeable SE elements goes far, far beyond what many here would require of such an effort.  If you want the 1977 cinematic feel, this is about a million times better than your Laserdisc ;)

Harmy, this is it. I think all of the goals of your original crazy despecialization efforts, as far as I can tell, have finally been fully realized.  Thank you SO much!

...and if that doesn't work you probably have the initial bad release of 2.5 that would not demux/remux.

Harmy, if it helps with the AVCHD and DVD downscales, I extracted the lossless audio from h_h's new 5.1 DTS-MA track and re-encoded it as a 448k AC3 using aften.  Not as nice as if he does it himself using his new pro tools, but I'm throwing it out there just in case it becomes an issue for too long.

MisterXDTV said:

So it's not possible to get a download link for the original PCM file of the DTS-HD MA mono track?

Harmy posted a link a while back to a FLAC version of the mono mix.  However, it's not quite the same as the source for this particular DTS-MA track, as h_h did do some tweaks.  h_h said he'll post sources for his tracks at some future date, but he's pretty busy right now and I have no idea when that might be.  So we either have to wait, settle for a slightly different track, or use something else to play it back.

I promised earlier to report back with some audio findings, so here they are:

The DTS-MA 1.0 mono mix track is fine.  A player, such as a Blu-ray player or receiver, that can decode DTS-MA can play it back just fine.  A player, such as VLC or MPC, which cannot decode DTS-MA, can play back the lossy DTS core fine.  It's only software with a buggy DTS-MA decoder implementation (ArcSoft, others?) that chokes--probably because they don't handle mono encoding correctly (it's rare and may not be in their test suite).

I've confirmed the Japanese track appears to be the home video dub, not the theatrical dub.  I don't think this is a big problem because I understand the home video dub to be the more well-regarded dub.  Just a labeling issue.

chyron8472 said:

I wouldn't suggest using the word "crappy" in the documentary. It sounds amateurish and unprofessional. "Poor", "inferior", "low quality", "substandard" or other such words would be better.

Not only that, but the GOUT gets "crappy" while the SE gets "manipulated" and "questionable".  The GOUT deserves plenty of disrespect, but the SE's deserve stronger wording than whatever language gets applied to the GOUT.

EDIT: SE terms could be "revisionist", "dated, anachronostic CGI effects", "heavily edited to the point they no longer resemble the films we love".  Okay, that last one is a mouthful, admittedly...

SilverWook said:

Having the creator involved to some degree is simply a good business idea, not to merely placate the fanboys.

I'm not sure--from a pure money-making perspective, I'm left a little puzzled about what exactly they think they're getting out of his involvement. There is no George Lucas cachet anymore--and hasn't been for decades--your average cinemagoer isn't going to say "Hey, look, a new George Lucas movie--let's see that!" the way they would over Spielberg or even, hell, Apatow.  They already have all the branding they can get in the Star Wars name--that's what they paid for, whatever that's still worth.  Maybe some additional cachet from the involvement of Harrison Ford and J.J. Abrams, but not much else.

So if what they're getting out of it just isn't a big name they can hang on the film, they must be counting on him to make actual creative contributions.  Which leaves me even more puzzled.  No, not a good business idea.  Not at all.

DragoonClawNZ said:

I also tried remuxing the MKV using MKVExtractGUI2 and mkvmerge and they both didn't go right too.

So has anyone else managed to remux it?

Yep, I actually used MVVExtractGUI2 too, and it worked fine, on the second MKV release.  The first (buggy) MKV blew up just as you stated.  Are you sure you have the right 2.5 release?

Also, I was remuxing using tsmuxer instead of mkvmerge so there's a possible difference there.

jdryyz said:

Interesting. My understanding of AVCHD was that it was an HD video standard developed by Sony that uses the H.264 codec and is fully compatible with the Blu-Ray disc format. So, if I have an AVCHD file structure, wouldn't it just be a matter of burning this to a blank BD with BD authoring software? That's my definition of trivial!

Again, terminology.  AVCHD when describing a disc layout is as you stated.  AVCHD when talking about the disc itself (particularly a DeEd disc, which has been distributed in this form before) is as I stated.  Which is why it's best to not use the word unless you're careful to specify what you mean.

As long as you create the right Blu-ray folder structure for a Blu-ray (just an option in tsmuxer), yeah, just burn the folders to disc and be happy.  I downloaded the MKV and maybe 30 minutes later had a working Blu-ray.  It is definitely trivial.

jdryyz said:

But isn't AVCHD native to Blu-Ray? I would think I could do the .mkv to AVCHD conversion then simply burn the AVCHD data to a BD25 disc with no loss in quality. Am I missing something?

Terminology problem.  AVC is a video encoding.  HD is high-definition video.  AVCHD is video encoded using AVC in HD and then burned onto a DVD.  If you plan on burning to BD-R, there's no reason to even talk about AVCHD.  When you say the word AVCHD, people immediately jump to the first step of how to compress the data so that it fits on DVD media.

Converting the MKV to burn to BD-R is trivial.  Demux the streams using MKVtoolnix or somesuch, and then use tsmuxer to put them into a Blu-ray compatible format.  I've already done this.