CatBus

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FYI, if I was in the estimation business (which I’m terrible at), I’d say I’m maybe two months away from a new release.

I believe there are currently people potentially working on Arabic, Swedish, Finnish, and Slovak (maybe others too?) – if you can submit your changes within that timeframe, you’ll make the next release, which will be a major one (v11).

Ah, OK. So the GOUT mix to sync to is the NTSC GOUT. The trick is, the audio for the NTSC GOUT isn’t synced very well to begin with. You could do better by first syncing to a well-synced source (4K83, which you already have done), and then trimming out the extra frames – that’s the two frames in the rebel fleet establishing shot after Luke’s last scene on Dagobah. Trim those two frames and patch over the audio so it’s smooth, and you’ll not only be NTSC GOUT-synced, but actually be better synced than the actual audio from the NTSC GOUT!

Any news on the GOUT sync? It’s mostly the same as the 4k83 sync, right?

Mavimao said:

Instead of filling them in with an alternate source, I decided just to leave them as is in order to keep it as authentic as possible.

I honestly don’t remember, but did you do fill – or need to fill – for the ESB mono mix?

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Mavimao said:

CatBus said:

Any updates on the GOUT-synced ROTP audio, Mavimao?

Puggo messaged me a while back and said he’d send me the uncompressed files, but I still haven’t received anything. I know he has a busy life so I don’t like to insist. Hopefully we’ll get them soon.

Would working with the compressed tracks on the dvd be bad? I’m not a compression expert but 16mm optical has really crap frequency range. Would there really be a giant loss of information?

Probably not a lot, but it’s always best to start with lossless if you can. Puggo may have simply lost track of your request in the pile of things to do, you may just need to ping him.

Any updates on the GOUT-synced ROTP audio, Mavimao?

Laserschwert said:

Is the SE’s color timing worth leaning on in terms of other projects? What I specifically mean is if you choose to despecialize this SE scan using 4k77, would you retime the SE to match 4k77 or the other way around?

I think retiming 4k77 to the 97SE would work for despecialization, within limits. IMO every release of Star Wars after the theatrical 97SE is completely useless in terms of color, but the 97SE may be a usable reference with adjustments. It was supposedly timed to match 1977 Technicolor prints, and it certainly seems plausibly close overall. But there would certainly need to be adjustments for particular shots, if not overall.

Just to tie up the sync discussion, which is continuing over in the GOUT sync thread, Discostu has pointed out, and I’ve confirmed, that the sync difference of two frames is noticeable in at least the German dub, which does a lot better lip-matching than most dubs. But now that we know that, it’s hard to know if we can really draw a bright line and declare any dubs at all to be immune to a noticeable two-frame sync difference. So if you want to sync with 4k83, you do need to edit the audio, regardless of what the audio is. Or trim two frames from the video.

I’m still confident in stating that subtitles are nothing to worry about.

Two things–

First, Harrison Ford moves his mouth a lot, and quickly. Carrie Fisher on the other hand, speaks quickly without nearly as much mouth movement. Ian McDiarmid moves his mouth a lot too, but slowly. And other people wear plastic masks 😉 So it makes a little sense that maybe Ford would be the first place you’d spot a small sync issue.

Secondly, I stand corrected, Discostu is right. The German dub matches English lip movements way closer than other dubs, and as a result, a small sync difference of two frames is noticeable, and not just at the “He’s my brother” scene. They’d never notice it in Thai because lip matching is pretty haphazard there. I think part of this may be due to the Krieg der Sterne team assembling a top-quality sync from several imperfect sources, but now I can’t really rule out anything (okay, maybe I can still rule out Thai).

So there’s a pretty big pile of audio to edit for 4k83 after all. The good news is that we know it needs to be done. The bad news is I’m not doing it yet. I’ve got a lot of other things on my plate, and those other things have priority for me. I’ll probably get to it after Harmy weighs in on whether he (and therefore Krieg der Sterne) intends to use this new frame standard going forward. If so, that will bump up the priority. Or if someone releases a GOUT-synced version of 4k83, that will reduce the priority.

ChainsawAsh said:

Really? That’s weird. Huh.

Well, that’s my perception of it. There may be people more sensitive to the issue than me, but most people don’t notice it at all.

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.

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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 😉

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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.