Chewielewis

Well I saw this yesterday. An interesting experience. I had never seen the original cut.

It was the roughest print I had ever seen, red as hell, so scratched and dirty it makes 4K77 grindhouse look pristine.

Came with the Buck Rogers trailer at the top and a rather modern looking warner logo rather than a WB shield.

Got a good laugh when the officer fell of his bike and the number of active officers changed by one.

Very confusing movie, the directors cut makes a lot more sense, although I hate the CGI changes in it.

SilverWook said:

Off the top of my head, look for the extra few seconds of SEN interacting with the kids towards the end of the movie.

Scene ended at the point where he references the huge bottle of economics he had to take. Don’t think there were any extra seconds, will have to review the LD.

Genemon123 said:

I guess we could compromise on this by releasing a GOUT synced version and a theatrically synced version. There wouldn’t be many synced subtitles or audio for the theatrically synced version but at least it would be available for those who want it

No, the endless fragmentation of public releases really does a disservice to the community.

Personally I’m in favour of GOUT sync. Frames on reel changes are extended to allow for changeover, they don’t NEED to all be accounted for. But if we choose to make a new sync, commit, don’t look back.

44rh1n said:

DrDre said:

Here’s the current status of the color grading:

It’s looking really great so far!! My only note would be the pinkish blocky artifacting that seems to be present quite a bit. Maybe it’s just a limitation with the source? It doesn’t appear to be too major, but for pixel-peepers like myself it’s still noticeable.

Most likely the jpg compression used for these uploads

DrDre said:

act on instinct said:

Seeing teal artifacts in the whites.

Those are not teal artifacts. The walls of Tantive IV are a bluish green with creme colored panels. There is some artifacting in some of the shots, which will be fixed, but the walls are not supposed to be white.

Is there any evidence that the walls are supposed to appear as teal on screen. I would imagine the walls were painted teal so they would appear cool white under the tungsten set lighting.

I get to see a 35mm print of this soon, will take notes, anything I should look out for.

Dek Rollins said:
Anyway, I’m talking about stuff like this: http://www.framecompare.com/screenshotcomparison/999MJNNU

Ok I’d love an explanation on these changes, they don’t make a lick of sense to me.

trillary dump said:

Chewielewis said:

This post from the lddb is very relevant here and in general

That is interesting about old home video releases having their colors altered to make up for inaccurate TV sets. Would you still trust the 35mm scan that has been done over the LD in this case? I do know that a lot of people were saying that it is way to oversaturated and blown out (maybe it was unique to that specific print)

I wouldn’t trust the LD at all. It’s clear from the 35mm that the theatrical presentation bears no resemblance to the early home releases.

I’m trusting Bill Pope that the UHD is how it was supposed to look.

I think its clear that the 35mm theatrical presentation had so much extra processing in it that made it basically unusable for the home release.

This post from the lddb is very relevant here and in general

It’s so funny how all people are complaining about “history revision” yet have no experience whatsoever in this business. I’m a film restorer and colorist. Here’s a little thing for you all to consider before you start yelling how inaccurate modern releases are:

During the 80s and 90s, most TV manufacturers (especially Sony with their Trinitron sets) had such terrible accuracy out of the box with major blue push. We do see this kind of torch mode today of course, but back then there was really not as much interest for consumers to calibrate their displays and as the movie studios have always been interested in making money, most films that appeared on home video and Laserdisc were to a certain point color timed to compensate for these inaccurate sets (hence red push was very common on masters in this era of time). This meant that pretty much every DVD you’ll find by MGM released prior to 2005 or such will have an overly reddish tone and all share the exact same characteristic. Only problem however is that most of these films had much more sophisticated color timings than what we saw on VHS and DVD yet people still take this for granted.

And this becomes extremely clear when you start to have a look at the physical films in an archive. Theatrical prints, even though they never tend to have much sharpness, are usually what we go after. And they rarely have much in common with an outdated VHS, Laserdisc or DVD. Of course we can still have a look at a home video release just for the sake of it, but we know that it has been going through way too many compromises to be used as a reference.

For instance, I had the chance to check out Thief on a Swedish 35mm print from the early 80s. I kept the new grade that’s used on the Criterion and Arrow releases (Director’s Cut only), as people have complained for years for it being inaccurate. Look at this comparison: http://www.caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=3606&d2=5422&s1=33376&s2=50607&i=6&l=0
And guess what? This scene was so cold and blue, even when only going through a photochemical process, that’s it’s not even debateable. The MGM was so off you wouldn’t believe it, while the restoration by Criterion keeps it all intact.

Many people complained about the Scanners Blu-Ray by Criterion yet relatively few (in contrast) seem to even have seen it. I’ve got the BD myself and have honestly no doubt that it’s an accurate presentation of the films intended look. The entire process was also supervised by David Cronenberg himself and from my experience, both directors and cinematagraphers tend to remember the color timings and gradings that were used for their films.

As a colorist at one the oldest film archives in the world, I have no intention in changing how the films I grade are supposed to look. I can do plenty of research before I settle down with my work, but sometimes you will have to take a chance if it’s unclear just how the film was really supposed to look. Then I will have to look at other factors that play in and try to make a decision from there, but I don’t go to Blu-Ray.com or this forum to ask for suggestions. I have a very difficult time believing that someone who hangs around there or at this place, who I don’t know through my job, would be of any help when I’m facing a problem like that.

This 9 way comparison will be rendered at 4K and uploaded. Will be handy reference. Will also have frame numbers and such on the bottom.

Will see about including more sources to the randomizer.

A sneak peak of things to come https://streamable.com/334phh

I might be the only one that prefers 97 Jabba. Yeah he looks terribly outdated but he’s got personality.

Ive had a glance at this and I don’t think its going to work for me. It has all the probems of the original remaster bar the aspect ratio. The colors are too bright and too oversaturated. There are still Interlacing artefacts and line smearing artefacts. The video filtering is too overdone. And far too over processed for my taste. Particularly when it comes to fuzzy details become strongly defined details. Stuff that looks bad because of the low resolution of SD now looks bad because someone drew it bad.

My simpsons remaster will still happen, at some point, when the workflow becomes defined enough to do it all at once. But don’t expect it any time in the near future.

For now enjoy disney plus.

Yeah it pretty much stalled. I’ve had a brief look at the new remasters. They look good but they haven’t done an amazing job on the line shifting issue. Which is no surprise. I’ll take a closer look.

Just for fun i thought id mix the 2011, 2020 blurays and 4K77 1.4 and match them all to one source, the UHD. Here is a snippet.

https://streamable.com/yzpdjj

All graded using Dr Dre’s color matching tool. Cheers

It might be a good idea to make a thread about just errors in the 4K releases. Here’s something I found today.

In almost all the shots like this during the Tie chase scene there are misaligned power windows making the space outside darker. Here is the worst

2011

2019

And its animated https://streamable.com/9g6zkl

Notice the shadows in on the cockpit windows, almost every shot in this setup has misaligned power windows, making space darker.

Here is another one

2011

2019

Some absolutely fascinating stuff shared here. I’m saving a copy in case it goes down.

Ban for this guy please

Yeah it’s been edited. The reactions are taken from a video of Avengers Infinity war when everyone dissolves.

Keep in mind these are all shot with anamorphic lenses, so things can get squished or stretched based on their position in the frame, i believe.

Also interesting to note the 2004 ESB release was complete well before the ANH and ROTJ was finished and was colored by another person entirely seperate. Might have something to do with the weirdness.

44rh1n said:
I’ve been wondering about this myself. Since LOTR is so VFX heavy, redoing visual effects in 4K is probably out of the realm of possibility. Honestly, I just hope it’s sourced from the original 2K DI, and upscaled. No monkey business, no green tint, no DNR, no artificial sharpening, no scanning of a print — just the original file that got rendered out as the master, before it got printed back onto film. That would be the best source IMO.

It’s funny to me that this conversation only ever comes up when discussing Lord of the Rings and Eps II and III. But never for any of the multitude of 2K rendered VFX heavy films that have been released on UHD bluray.

But yeah its practically impossible for this to happen. Consider the hardware and software the vfx pipeline was built on is long decommissioned. An enormous amount of effort for a very minimal upgrade in fidelity.

Power windows will definitely be in the 2020 BRs too. And probably some in the 11 BRs.

I’m my opinion some of those corrections are a bit revisionist and should be replaced on a shot by shot basis.

But not all. Despecialized seems to be the project where such modern grading techniques are acceptable. And In a world where we have 4K77. Some work done to invisibly tidy up the presentation of Star Wars is… fine.

As had as the sources go. I do believe that a 10bit SDR workflow is the way to go.

1. The current HDR BR do not use HDR to its fullest. Keeping the picture largely in the lower range of the brightness spectrum. There isn’t a tone of HDRness to use there.

2. Considering how difficult it is even for professionals to do quality HDR grading I would strongly advise against amateur HDR grading, even as an optional release.

If I were in this position I would cap both releases and look at how we can conform one to the other. Either by using Dr Dre’s tool shot by shot (It can be done), or a blanket adjustment if it works. There is detail in the 4K surprisingly, but the image on the 1080p is more than enough to make a future presentation.

I’d like to think that the future of Despecialized becomes more of a community driven project than a largely solo effort. As a community we should look at what Despecialized look like. And how we would achieve that goal.

Despecialized has become the “brandname” of the theatrical editions of Star Wars. It’s what people talk about outside of the Star Wars forum (that and 4K77). It’s important that all the fans out there (who aren’t as savvy as us) that perfect, comprehensive, community approved versions are out there and easily identifiable. And it should happen soon.

Oh wow, if this is the upscaled 4:3 versions coming to Disney ill be pretty happy. Its still from the original TX masters. And in that shot of the waffle machine you can see traces of the line smearing, as well as a jaggy frame that Im aiming to eliminate.

none said:

Is ‘Power Windows’ the official term?

Yep
https://www.lynda.com/DaVinci-Resolve-tutorials/Power-Windows-101/704152/733575-4.html

Just as I suspected, a lot of power windows.

Personally I believe power windows on remastered films ruins the authenticity of the image. Recoloring is one thing, every film that goes back to the negative for a remaster has to be regradeed, but power windows should not be used.

ATMachine said:

I read that as “temporal avenging” and now I’m falling down a rabbit hole about the logic of using time travel to avenge something as opposed to preventing it.

Spoilers for Avengers Endgame