CatBus

Discostu said:

CatBus said:

Re: German dubs. Short story: No adjustment is necessary.

I hoped so and muxed the file with 4K83. But while it seamlessly syncs with ROTJ DE 2.5 there is is a noticeable asynchronicity in 4K83. It’s for example quite obvious in the scene where Leia tells Han that Luke is her brother. But if you are sure that there shouldn’t be a noticeable delay, then maybe I should just try it again.

I’ll take a look at my own copy (which may not be the same dub used by DeEd). It could be that the copy with DeEd 2.5 was not synced well the NTSC GOUT, so has a more-than-two frame difference at that point. However, there are sync issues on and off throughout all dubs, unrelated to frame issues. If it were related to the frame difference, you’d see it at every point past Luke’s last scene on Dagobah. If it’s specific to that scene, it sounds like a dub-sync issue (which may very well have sounded better a couple frames off, as this happens with dubs).

ChainsawAsh said:

I think the fact that you noticed a delay should prove that resyncing is required, whether it “should” or not.

Some dub resyncs are not possible because the sync of the dubbed dialogue is different than the sync of the underlying soundtrack. It’s unfortunate but true. You can sync “I’m sure he wasn’t on that thing when it blew” perfectly, and “He’s my brother” is off, and vice-versa. Or you sync to the soundtrack and maybe they’re both off!

Besides, even if lip sync isn’t as crucial in dubs, isn’t there still the issue of SFX/foley sync, which would need to be every bit as correct as the native language tracks?

They do need to be every bit as correct, but AFAICT there’s no point where a two-frame sync issue is noticeable in any of the three films, except in English dialogue. Specifically, except in Harrison Ford’s delivery of the English dialogue. Carrie Fisher can stand being two frames off. It’s that specific.

Re: German dubs. Short story: No adjustment is necessary.

Long story: I’m not actually sure of the origin of the German dub on DeEd. If it’s from my collection, it’s actually synced to the PAL GOUT, so it will be missing one frame of audio from 4k83 and will technically be more closely synced to 4k83 than it ever was to the DeEd. If it’s from elsewhere, it may be synced to the NTSC GOUT and be missing two frames of audio. The audio from my collection has the German loudspeaker announcements when they’re walking to the elevators with Chewie pretending to be a prisoner, the others tend not to. Also, my track does NOT feature any scored music during the trash compactor scene, while the THX remaster and some reconstructions do. Regardless of the version you have, none of these options would present a difference large enough to notice, so would not require any change to work seamlessly with 4k83.

At one point, Harmy was actually thinking three different color grades for 3.0. But that was back when he had a weensy more free time. Now I think this is his plan:

Harmy said:

For v3.0, I’m actually planning on using Neverar Great’s corrections - we have been cooperating behind the scenes for quite some time and his results are amazing. He’s currently matching the BD to the I.B. reference with unbelievable accuracy and then I will probably use that as a basis and do something very similar to what Towne32 shows above, in eliminating some of the I.B. Print’s color biases.

So basically if this is still true, 3.0 will have the same IB Tech print target as it has now, but more accurate to the references we have, and without some of the oddities of the IB Tech prints. I doubt that’s going to do much with the brightness on Tatooine, but the Despecialized Star Wars is showing its age more than the other two films, and I imagine it will still be quite a pleasant improvement.

There are lots of reasons for the differences you see between 4K77 and DeEd. Optical duplication tends to increase contrast with every generation, so projection prints have higher contrast than whatever higher-up source was used for the Blu-rays. So the projection prints have print fade, less detail and more contrast, but the Blu-rays have more detail, less contrast, and all sorts of nasty inexplicable color issues (plus stupid dinosaurs in Mos Eisley). They’re really coming at the problem from two very different starting points, and expecting them to meet at some sweet spot in the middle may be expecting too much.

PM sent.

Arnied said:

Maybe I missed it but what are the framenumbers of the 2 extra frames? And how many frames are there in total?

IIRC the frames in this release are basically a superset of the NTSC GOUT plus the PAL GOUT, so it has one more frame than the PAL GOUT and two more frames than the NTSC GOUT.

Chewtobacca posted this in the GOUT sync thread for converting PAL GOUT to NTSC GOUT.

Chewtobacca said:

RotJ

PAL GOUT

Mpeg2Source()
AssumeFPS(24000,1001)
DuplicateFrame(141781)
DeleteFrame(68664,68665)

The Star Wars title card appears on frame 689.

My Avisynth-fu has never been anything except rusty, but I think that means if you delete frames 68664 and 68665 from 4k83, you’ll get NTSC GOUT. Really worth a second opinion though 😉

PM sent.

Dek Rollins said:

How can multi-project coordination happen if there’s only one project going on?

One project? Should I even read further? How long have you been on this forum exactly?

How many new theatrical ROTJ projects have to pop up for you guys to buy it as the new standard?

I think I’ve already said: Two major ones, including this one, is adequate. And they don’t both have to be new. One big project deciding to go off in a new direction is simply not enough reason to follow along. If a second project even gives the slightest whiff that they intend to go the same direction in future releases, that’s fine. But it simply hasn’t happened, not yet at least.

You can bet Harmy will use it since Hairy-hen and Schorman have updated their audio tracks, so I don’t get where all these other projects are supposed to come from for it to be worth changing foreign audio.

Harmy would be the biggest other project in my mind. And as far as I know, he hasn’t said a word on the matter, and I’m not doing anything off probabilities and guesswork. hairy_hen also made a new audio track for Harmy’s last release, so I’m not sure new audio means anything other than people have the time to make updated tracks for major new releases when they come out. IIRC the last time negative1 released a video project that wasn’t GOUT-synced (SSE 1.0), GOUT-synced versions popped up a while later to resolve the audio compatibility issues. So if you’re looking for historical precedents to predict the future, there are plenty on all sides. And the kicker is that the foreign audio in general is fine. We’re talking three audio tracks here.

But then there’s commentary tracks and descriptive audio and in-theatre recordings and a host of other things that might be floating around out there without any official maintainer. Changing standards breaks all of that. Heck, I’m not even an official maintainer of foreign audio tracks – I just have a nice personal collection that I like to share. And I’ll change it too – once it’s clear this actually is a new standard.

Chewtobacca said:

Changing standards would bring considerable potential for confusion.

And to re-iterate a point from the same discussion in the GOUT-sync thread. Switching to a wildly different standard is one thing, and IMO a fairly tolerable thing. Users who inadvertently use a wrongly-synced audio or subtitle track will quickly realize the problem and be able to correct it. Switching to a standard that’s extremely similar to the previous standard can result in a situation where ten people watch a film with the same bad audio sync, and only one person kinda sorta notices something seems off. We already ran that experiment when Harmy’s Jedi 1.0 used PAL video frames and NTSC audio. Most users and Harmy himself didn’t notice a problem at all, but a few people thought they were going nuts.

I’m not saying the change shouldn’t happen. But multi-project coordination might have been a consideration. Now it’s just weird.

You’re generally nice/positive/curious and put punctuation at the end of your sentences. So if anyone complains about your prolific posts, just consider how you rank against our other prolific posters in these regards, and you have to conclude it could be a lot worse.

I definitely notice the two-frame difference in Jedi, but only on English-language audio tracks or audio tracks that contain an English-language component like a voiceover. But it’s definitely something you can miss – it’s right on the edge.

It may be exaggerated by the fact that the GOUT audio was already nearly two frames out of sync at that point, as reported by hairy_hen in the other thread, so audio synced to match that would actually be nearly four frames off.

oohteedee said:

Fix the audio, don’t butcher the films.

Fix it for one project, and break it for the others? No thanks. I don’t have the time or disk space to maintain for more than one frame standard simultaneously. If other projects decide to join in this new standard, that changes the calculus, but we haven’t reached that point yet. I’m willing to wait. Right now, it’s just a matter of one odd man out, and it’s not even certain to be the last standard. Who knows, maybe someone will decide the Reel 1 leaders need to be preserved for posterity as well, and we’ll have to pad some extra time on the beginning of all our audio tracks to account for that.

That said, the original question was about dubs and subs, which aside from three specific languages, are a complete non-issue with a frame difference this small. So when it eventually comes time to change things, there’s not much to change.

theMaestro said:

But shouldn’t historical preservation be the top priority instead of convenience?

It all depends on how literal you want to be. Two frames is 83 milliseconds of a film. It’s also not unusual for a few frames to get skipped at a reel change, so it’s unclear how many theatrical audiences really saw those 83 milliseconds in the first place.

I get the argument both ways. But it’s 83 milliseconds that breaks stuff (but not as much stuff as people think), so it’s ultimately a matter of how much you really want them. Different people, different priorities.

DuracellEnergizer said:

CatBus said:

snooker said:

Nobody could ever guess mine 😉

I think I got you beat there.

The magic school bus on magic mushrooms? 😉

Navigate a nostril! Spank a plankton, too!

This is already discussed in the GOUT Sync thread. While I agree that I’m not particularly convinced of the need for a new video standard that’s only a couple frames off from the previous standard, the team is clearly all-in on this.

And for subtitles and typical dubs, I do not think there will be any noticeable sync issue. For voiceover-style dubs (Russian, Ukrainian, Polish), it will be noticeable, but just barely. Subtitles in particular often have larger than two-frame differences from audio all the time for other reasons. Don’t sweat the subtitles.

I am closely watching this development. If it turns out other major video projects start using this standard, I’ll make sure nobody’s left in a lurch. If it turns out this is just a quirk of this one project, then I’m less inclined to rush into things.

snooker said:

Nobody could ever guess mine 😉

I think I got you beat there.

ChainsawAsh said:

LordZerome1080 said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Because it’s been getting really obnoxious and makes it hard to follow projects when threads keep showing new posts only for it to turn out to be you saying “Interesting” or “The more you know” or “That was informative” or something equally pointless.

Ojason does the exact same thing and you don’t see anyone complaining.

No, he really doesn’t.

To get back on topic:

So how much of a difference would a two-frame discrepancy between GOUT and 4K83 standards matter when it comes to subtitles anyway?

Completely unnoticeable. Subtitles are regularly off by more than that with respect to audio for unrelated reasons. It’s really the dubs, and in particular the voiceover-style dubs that are the only concern within my bailiwick.

But if everyone else jumps on the 4Kxx frame standard, you know I’ll add a few milliseconds to my subs because I can’t help myself. It’s just how I am. I hold off for a long time, but once I commit I’m all in.

Chewtobacca said:

CatBus said:
Multiple derivatives of the same source video with different processing options isn’t really the same thing IMO.

And once frame-complete 4k versions of the OT are out, how many other projects will go to the trouble of dropping frames to maintain GOUT sync if they no longer need to (audio from those 4k versions being readily available)?

That’s the question. I’m willing to jump on board if some other video maintainer does, but at the moment I’m not jumping based on speculation/probability.

If more than one major video project uses it, I’d agree it’s a de-facto standard. Otherwise I’m of the opinion that it’s just Balkanization (no offense, I love the Balkans!) Multiple derivatives of the same source video with different processing options isn’t really the same thing IMO.

Chewtobacca said:

CatBus said:
However, the assumption that the GOUT audio was also synced to that frame reference seems natural.

It’s certainly natural, but it’s not something that necessarily follows. It depends on how one syncs audio.

While I’m glad that hairy_hen and schorman are on board with the new standard, because it will make adopting it far easier, I can’t help wondering what will happen with all the foreign dubs. Is someone going to resync them systematically?

IMO for a new sync standard that’s only a couple frames off, the resync priorities would be (in this order):

1. All English tracks (77, 80, 83, 85, 93, stereo, mono, six-channel)
2. All commentary tracks
3. Descriptive audio
4. All voiceover-style dubs (Russian, Ukrainian, Polish)
   — (above the line is a change you might actually notice, below the line is cray-cray) —
5. All regular dubs
6. Subtitles

I’m not seeing much urgency on any of the dubs myself, but I’m lazy. I’m also coincidentally not convinced of the need for a new standard.

I believe Harmy already stated after the release of 4K77 that his projects will now focus more on approximating what a respectful Blu-ray release would have looked like, rather than what a film print would have looked like.

For example, film prints have the occasional damage from an upstream source like an interpositive (the so-called Tantive IV “burn marks”). They have reel change cue marks, they have gate weave, they have different contrast and grain characteristics from the optical duplication process, etc. So even a very clean theatrical print (such as 4k83) will have these things. But your well-regarded high-end bottomless-studio-funding no-holds-barred Blu-ray restoration from camera negatives (Lawrence of Arabia or My Fair Lady) will not.

Harmy had until now been incorporating a little of both worlds (gate weave, remaking damage, etc), and if I understand his intention correctly, he means to make the DeEd’s more like the latter cases – more of what you’d see on a quality Blu-ray, less of what you’d see in a theatre. So I’d expect his goals now look more like: More detail than the theatrical release (well, what you can manage from the crappy 2011 Blu-rays at least), rock solid image stability, extremely clean (but not degrained) image. Things that you wouldn’t actually want from a theatrical preservation because theatrical prints weren’t like that.

For that reason, I expect at least in the long term I’ll prefer Harmy’s versions, because what I’m looking for is a respectful Blu-ray release, not really a theatrical preservation. Others will prefer the 4KXX series. I doubt either will ever be “best” because – at least looking forward – they’ve got different goals.

I have a favor to ask. Would anyone be willing to share screencaps of all of the Jabba’s palace subtitles in 4K, like two or three different frames per subtitle, so that we can account for dirt, etc? It would be great to have 4K sources for the burnt-in alien language subtitles. PM me if you’re interested in doing this.

Chewtobacca said:

The GOUT was always a reference for which frames to include.

That’s the way I treated it too. However, the assumption that the GOUT audio was also synced to that frame reference seems natural.

nightstalkerpoet said:

I hate to be “that guy”, but just in case noone on the team has caught it, the site name is misspelled at the end.

Otherwise, beautiful trailer!

ABE SIMPSON: Stop your snickering! I spent three years on that tirlogy!

I had no idea the scale of Emojigeddon. Look carefully at that post, oojason. It’s an italicized smiley. I’m getting back in bed. Maybe Tuesday will be better.

44rh1n said:

stretch009 said:
Download the HDTVrip from rutracker or Usenet then…

Do you have the HDTVrip that you could privately send me? 😉

Oh now you’re just teasing me. FWIW, the HDTV video has a consistent magenta cast compared with the DVD but may absolutely be a better initial source for such a project. I think the DVD’s colors are very very close to theatrical, but it’s hard to say with any certainty since they’re all definitely heavily digitally altered.