Actually some drives do allow you to do bitsetting permanently, not that it matters a great deal. I do it just because you never know...
C'mon, that original 10-15 minutes of Luke throwing and missing with the grappling hook over & over again WAS pretty tedious...
It's an expectations thing. A lot of people were upset by the removal of the snake reflection back in the day, heard that Spielberg made some mea culpa statements that altering his films was a mistake, saw that E.T. got changed back to the way it was for its Blu-ray, and assumed Raiders would get changed back to the way it was on its Blu-ray too. These people will be disappointed--and the other changes, albeit minor, are just salt in the wound that Spielberg did not, in fact, learn from his E.T. fiasco what they thought he should learn.
However, I'd say most people including me think that while theatrical fidelity is always best, there is such thing as good enough--and this Blu-ray is more than good enough, it's very good. Just, you know, not exactly what you saw or heard in the theatres ;)
I agree, if the OT got this kind of treatment, there would be dancing in the streets. But I don't think the complainers are unreasonable, they just had different expectations going in.
Mike O said:
Wait, wait, wait, what's wrong with the Raiders BR? What've I missed?
Not much, but there was fiddling. The whole opening sequence was brightened and it did indeed "blow out" some bits here and there (the sky, for example). Not exactly terrible, except for the knowledge that it was a totally unnecessary change. Also the snake reflection (for Indy) is still removed, but other snake reflections (for Marion) are still there, so it's not the theatrical version a lot of people had hoped for.
Also there's some contention that the whole film now has a slight "golden" cast (and I agree with this). However, this golden cast is preferable to the weird bluish casts of previous home video releases, so it's still an improvement. Also, the sound is a surround upmix rather than the original, but I think it's a good surround upmix.
"Wrong" depends greatly on your point of view ;) It's been unnecessarily tinkered with, certainly, but it still looks and sounds good IMO, and taken as a whole it's better than all previous releases including HDTV (although HDTV may have a better opening sequence).
SE screencaps make me sad :(
I've just discovered that Project Threepio 5.1 appears to have been posted to the newsgroups (a.b.sw) and to MySpleen. It appears to be the real thing, so people can get it from there. Which is just as well, really, since I'm going to be unreachable for many months, starting any day now (KittenBus is coming). I'll update the first post so people don't try to PM me for this anymore.
Another vote for Verbatim. FWIW, layer breaks need to be over halfway through a movie (i.e. layer 1 must have more data than layer 2). For maximum compatibility, don't use seamless layer changes, burn at no more than half the rated speed of the media, and look into bitsetting optons for your burner (some very old hardware players don't recognize certain media types, but you can make your DVD's appear to be DVD-ROMs). None of that is gospel, it's just a laundry list and if you hit most of them you should be good.
Okay, I've incorporated Harmywood in my sig. Our "flag" planted right in Hollywood's backyard seemed to go well next to a world domination map...
We give the man a dedicated superhero thread and he doesn't want to seem vain ;)
I haven't seen such humility since... wait a sec...
HARMY IS ELVIS!
Motion carried. Sorry folks, I know you wanted to see more Despecialized Editions, but this is important.
Okay, the motion before us is to change Harmy's mission. He needs to stop trying to save Star Wars, and instead focus on reconciling Johnny Marr, Morrissey, and the gang.
All in favor? Aye.
Tyrphanax said:
He should join The Smiths.
Ah, Matt, Will and Anna. Shame they broke up. Matt's solo career didn't quite match the greatness of the original group. But he did have that amazing hair.
Or the new Will Smith. Or maybe the new Anna Nicole Smith. No, wait...
Project files have been updated to version 5.1 (original post has been updated as well). The new download links are NOT the same as before, so please PM me for the links.
Rough summary of changes:
Added Thai (scaled only), and re-rendered Arabic using a more legible font. Instructions for changing subtitles into different formats are greatly simplified. The packages are also a little different: one package includes everything, and then two smaller packages just have DVD subs and sources.
Actually, you know what? That picture zoomed in and shrunk down to 100x100 would be a great avatar for Harmy when he gets tired of the Yoda/Joker avatar. I'm tempted to use if for something myself if he doesn't want it...
It's so beautiful...
lpd said:
Wondering, is that normal/standard for the player to do that?
No. And 24fps is the less-frequently-encountered framerate, so if a player was just buggy, I'd figure that would be the framerate that would screw it up. It's possible there's some sort of problem at an intermediate layer, such as if you route your HDMI cable through a receiver. But it's a bug.
I'd check for firmware updates if you already haven't. Also I know of at least one player that will only output 60fps if the source is 720p, but can do 24p correctly for any 1080p source, something to do with a bug in the scaling.
bilditup1 said:
There's been a minute but detectable uptick in interest even at the spleen since Simon Pegg's tweet
And I'm also seeing an uptick in subtitle requests, all strangely specifying that they want them for Empire and Jedi, as if they already have them for Star Wars...
So I think it's safe to say that whatever surge in interest we're seeing is global, and that people are following up watching Star Wars DeEd 2.0 with watching Empire and Jedi 1.0.
georgec said:
Am I the only one that sees a front-facing Tyrannosaurus Rex wearing two giant oven mitts?
Riding on top of the moon lander which is strangely suspended over a little white star destroyer? No.
Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:
I do consider the non-anamorphic format to be a bug. Why? Because industry standard at the time was to release widescreen movies anamorphically.
I have to point out that according to Lucas-logic, the GOUT is not actually the feature film on the 2006 DVDs, but a bonus feature, more akin to a deleted scene or making-of featurette. And those, I'm afraid, were not only occasionally non-anamorphic in 2006, but also showing timecodes, etc.
That said, aside from Lucas and a few sycophants, I doubt anyone on the GOUT production team believed the Lucas-logic. Certainly the advertising team believed the GOUT was the primary feature on the set.
Memories...
Like the corners of my miiind
Misty water-colored memorieees
Of the waaay we werrre!
Er, you probably were thinking a different kind of soundtrack...
Not only that, but if it weren't for that nail, the Holiday Special would have been much less entertaining.
I have to say I spent quite a few minutes looking at 13.13.51 saying to myself, "What did he...? How did he even...? Holy crap that looks good!"
I just took a look (didn't download, but checked date and NFO) and it doesn't appear updated. I may have caused a panic, sorry.
negative1 said:
why is using a new mix a bug?
The GOUT was pitched as the "original trilogy as it existed originally in the theatres", which is why they went through the trouble of putting in (or re-creating) the original crawl and flyover for Star Wars. Given that description of what it was supposed to be, the only appropriate mixes for Star Wars would have been one of the '77 mixes.
It's not a technical glitch, but it is a point at which it clearly deviates from the purported design specs--and it's not even a matter of attempting to meet the design specs and doing badly at it (anamorphic could qualify as that), it's just not even in the same ballpark as the goal. I think that qualifies as a bug.
You know, like if your software was supposed to be a Word Processor but it turned out to be a toaster oven. Perhaps fully functional and even good at what it does but still wrong.