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CatBus

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18-Aug-2011
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21-Oct-2025
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Post
#632170
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

guiser said:

Or could the files be stored right in another directory in the Blu-ray (only visible if the image is mounted or the disc is viewed as data)?  I thought this was possible with DVD, but have never heard of doing it with Blu-ray.

I'm sure it's possible, but Harmy has indicated space on a BD25 may be tight.  Also, he has provided sub-free versions of those scenes to people who needed them in the past--I'm sure he'd do it again.

Post
#632169
Topic
Digital Source for the '77 Stereo Mix
Time

I'm not sure I ever got the exact timecode for the error, down to the millisecond.  All of my work (amateur) has a fudge factor of a few ms (I don't notice anything less than two frames off, but I like to think it never got nearly that bad).  As long as I couldn't hear the sync drift, I didn't care.

You could probably post in the technical howto forum, how to get the exact timecode of a particular frame.  But if you can't get that, consider that neither of these edit points is particularly critical in the A/V sync department, except that they make the frame count match down the road.

If it helps, see this post here: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Whats-missing-from-GOUT/post/457548/#TopicPost457548

Post
#631872
Topic
Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)
Time

Yep, I still hear "over" too.  Although honestly it's more like " 'fer my dead body."  C'mon, Harrison, enunciate!

EDIT: Definitely "over".  If you are kind of hoarse after, say, a long day of shooting, the "o" can come out unvoiced, and the "v", if also unvoiced, sounds like an "f".  He finally got his voice back on the "er".

Post
#631469
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

chyron8472 said:

Yeah, I read that Harmy said it would. I was just sort of continuing the conversation.

The issue for me really seems to be specifically with Bluray subtitles (PGS) when converting to MKV. DVD subs would work fine.

DVD subs would function, but they would have lots of aliasing compared to PGS, due to not enough colors/alpha to do curves and diagonals.  I've done DVD subs for one of Chewtobacca's DVD projects, and while I think they look as good as DVD subs can look, they don't really fool anyone about being original theatrical subs.  To sharp, too defined, too regular, too aliased.  Burnt-in would have been better.

Post
#631465
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

yoda-sama said:

In all fairness Chyron, you could probably make a .ASS subtitle file that'd have a pleasing enough font, still not be burned into the video and be usable across a large number of software and hardware players.  But it'll be burned in, so no worries.

.ASS doesn't give you anything more than .SRT in this context except better positioning options.  The font can be very pleasing but still not accurate--in fact I find the theatrical subs to be harder to read than font-generated subs.  But readability and pleasing appearance are not the point.  Chyron wants theatrically accurate subs, which I don't think is unreasonable for a theatrical reconstruction.  The only way to achieve theatrical accuracy is PGS or burnt-in, and PGS doesn't work everywhere.  You can't work around this by changing the format of a text file.

You CAN get something that makes both you and Chyron happy by using multiple angles.  This path is not a dead end, unlike the path you are on right now.

Post
#631390
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

yoda-sama said:

Chyron, I agree about the typeface, but if the font and position could be reproduced correctly as a Blu-ray subtitle, would that not be close enough?

The whole thing is doable, theatrically accurately, as a Blu-ray subtitle.  But each subtitle would consist of hundreds of images, accounting for gate weave, inconsistent positioning, a mostly-transparent rectangular bounding box to simulate the compositing effect, etc.  It'd be done as a long, long series of hand-adjusted images, not rendered text, in order to be theatrically accurate.  I don't volunteer for this.  Also this method would only work reliably on Blu-ray and AVCHD, it may not work on MKV, and it wouldn't necessarily work on software players at all, and it would also suck when scaled down to DVD because DVD subtitles don't have the necessary color palette (or alpha) to be convincing.

The next best thing, and far easier and more compatible thing, is burnt-in.  Hey, do you want theatrical accuracy or don't you? ;)  I spent a long time trying to match the theatrical font and placement with a traditional subtitle, and really, you just can't do it convincingly.  You can get close, but not close enough to seem like the real thing (check the last image in the first post of the Project Threepio thread for an example).

For your particular complaint, multi-angle with burnt-in angles and a subtitle-free angle is the way forward.  It's just not an easy way forward.

Post
#631385
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

FWIW, if whatever authoring tool you choose doesn't accept BD-SUP subtitles, it's pretty trivial to convert them to BDN+XML with bdsup2sub.  There's a sample command line to do this as a single batch process in the Project Threepio README if you still have it.

EDIT: Regarding burnt-in subs, alternate angles is ultimately the ideal way to handle subs for multiple languages while at the same time maintaining theatrical fidelity.  Each language with theatrically-accurate subs could have its own angle, and the rest could get standard subtitles overlaid on a subtitle-free angle (more-or-less the same for the crawl, and even credits).  But multi-angle is non-trivial, and besides I'd have to re-render most of my project :-/

Post
#631327
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

lpd said:

But once again i've never had an edition of Star Wars that reminded me of what it used to look like as much as this one.

Agreed.  After 2.5, I feel the remaining despecializations would be so minor that I might not even notice them if I was trying.  In fact, if Disney released the "original" Star Wars (most likely scenario with the 81 crawl/93 audio/not great colors), I'd probably stick with Harmy's.  So to quote Harmy from earlier: "Harmy wins."  I guess there's also a little bit after that quote you could fill in the blanks for, too.

Post
#631283
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

TK421138 said:

The original 1977, 1980, and 1983 sound mixes are all at significantly lower levels than the Hairy Hen 5.1 Purist mix on my copies of the DE ED editions.

Well, I haven't verified this, but I would not be surprised at all.  All of our audio resources were made by different people from different sources, and different levels is a sign of that.

Also, different mixes have different dynamics, so there is simply no way to make the levels match exactly all the way through.  If you match peak levels, then the '85 mix will be louder than the '93 mix because the '85 mix has no dynamic range.  Matching "normal dialogue" levels doesn't really work with Star Wars because the movies are so driven by the score, and it ends up matching even worse.  So no matter how you try to make them match, they won't match exactly.  Not to mention the fact that DTS is louder than AC3.  And let's not even get into the dubs.

That said, I'm sure they could be better-matched than they are right now, and I apologize for my contribution to the problem.  The 85 mix was normalized 3dB louder than hairy_hen's mixes, and I didn't think it was my place to make changes to someone else's work, so the DTS track I gave Harmy is exactly as I found it.  For my own personal collection, I reduced the volume by 3dB so at least the peaks match (if nothing else).  Then when Harmy wanted a lossy option, I was lazy and gave him my -3dB modified version.  But it's in AC3 format which means it still won't match peak levels with hairy_hen's lossless track...

Post
#630099
Topic
Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)
Time

TK421138 said:

Catbus, I just wanted to take a moment and say thank you for this fantastic project. You did on hell od a job and your read me was written so well that, though I was nervous I might actually screw something up, I was able to mux in subs like a pro. I can't tell you how happy my deaf friend was when I presented him with these discs and told him that they had subtitles. He sent me a text saying that these were the nicest, easy to read subs he's seen on a dvd EVER. Plus, now I can enjoy Star Wars while my partner is asleep without having to turn up the volume too loud. So there you go, two lives touched by your dedication.

That is great to hear.  The thing that got me started on this project was making good SDH subs for a deaf friend of mine, so I'm very pleased to hear more deaf viewers like it too.  I really spent more time on those SDH subs than anything else.  Also, good to hear feedback about the README file, I tried to make it pretty easy to follow and I'm glad to hear it worked out.

One thing I do feel the need to point out, and this is not a poke at you or a complaint, merely made me chuckle a bit. When you watch Star Wars with the subs but the mono track enabled, when the Stormtroopers are checking the doors of Mos Eisley and they say "The door's secure, move on etc.." the subs still read "the door is locked." I know you can't have a mono sub and a stereo sub, just thought it was worth mentioning.

This is, as you pointed out, fairly unavoidable due to subtle variations in the sound mixes, I opted for matching stereo/70mm because it's the most popular option and the default on most preservations.

...BUT, you'll notice that there IS in fact a mono SRT file in the project files for fans of the mono mix, it just hasn't been pre-made into a SUP file.  It's a little more involved to make the SUP files, but the process is described in the README.  And there's even a mono SDH file in there too!

Post
#629991
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

Cobra Kai said:

It's not the title menu, it's for the extras, and do you really not understand the significance of the animation there? 

It's quite possible he, and many others, may not.  For a lot of people, they saw the SE's in 1997, declared them to be an abomination, and never saw or thought much about them again.  The details of what exactly made it an abomination were forgotten well over a decade ago (maybe they remember the "Han Shot First!" controversy more from the T-shirt than from the actual scene)--they just stopped paying attention to Star Wars developments and they stopped watching Star Wars entirely when their VCR broke.  Seriously, I went about 10 years without giving a damn about Star Wars.  It happens.

That said, a sense of humor about this situation is good, and I think the menu animation handles it nicely.  Some people won't get it, and that's OK.

Post
#629925
Topic
Harmy's THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK Despecialized Edition HD - V2.0 - MKV & AVCHD (Released)
Time

chyron8472 said:

poita said:

I had a look at a 35mm print of ESB last year that had only been screened 3 times and had been kept in climate controlled storage. It had very little fade, [...] I only wish the owner would consent to having it scanned.

Sounds like a delicate subject to broach. Not sure how I would word that.

It seems this ground may have been covered before ;)

If they are afraid that their scans will end up out in the public (exposing them to legal issues), assure them they won't by requesting something that is unusable as anything except a color reference.

e.g. Scale images down to standard definition or less, and only one frame per second of film.  For example ;)

Or, since we don't likely have time for him to get such a big thing together, scans of a single frame per scene or so, reduced to SD.  You can't do anything useful with that, except color reference.  You can also provide a testimonial that Harmy will keep even these low-res scans private, because he's done it before.

Heck, even pics taken from a camera during the screening could be of some value (also scaled down).  The ones of the Senator screening were pretty close even with all the auto-white-balance stuff cameras do.  Just ask for another screening with cameras permitted, and allow him to limit the images and resolutions that would be shared.

Post
#629508
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

Harmy said:

Should I make a VHS version too? It's 2013.

 

There's this farmhouse out in the country I stay at sometimes.  They've got this huge bookshelf of books, and on the shelf are about six VHS tapes.  Three of them are the '97 OT Special Editions.  Every time I walk past them, I have to say to myself "Just walk on by.  Don't say anything.  Just walk on by."  I don't even know where the TV is in that place, so what's the purpose...

But now that you brought it up, I think I may make a VHS transfer.  I still won't know where the TV is, but first things first.

BTW, are we rendering yet?