Chewtobacca

msycamore said:  Here's a quick contrast and saturation tweak on my Technidisc capture.  You can can improve it quite a bit just by tweaking the contrast and saturation etc, but you really have to do it on a shot by shot basis and I'm not sure if it's even worth it with all the great projects that's going on right now.

That screenshot does look great.  I would love to see a v2 with that sort of improvement, but I can certainly understand if it seems like too much trouble.  Going shot by shot is a pain.

Asaki said:Finally got my DVD burning issues settled. Any chance us folks without newsgroup access could get a hold of this?

From now on, I'm not uploading to anything other than newsgroups.  I haven't had time to finish Star Wars yet, but I'll post when it's done.

msycamore said:

Asaki said:

I think I still prefer the Technidisc.

Well, I have finally come to that conclusion after playing around with the weird color levels, I thought there was a cure. Some scenes look very good though.

Yes; I think that I prefer the Technidisc too.  Combining your v2 of the Technidisc with the scenes that look very good from the JSC would be the best that one could do, I think -- at least until negative1's project is completed.

msycamore said:

I think it's the name "Dolby Stereo" that confuse you, an optical 35mm Dolby Stereo track isn't just two channels, it's a four channel configuration; Left-Center-Right-Surround.

That's the information I was missing.  I understood the matrixing, but assumed that the source had two channels, not four.  All is clear now.

Moth3r said:Early 70mm 6-track mixes were actually 4.2 - 3 front, mono surround and 2 LFE channels. You can't encode 2 LFE channels into AC3 hence it becomes 4.1.

That makes sense.  Thank you both for the information. :-)

Jonno said: And it's otherwise a strong sounding track - impressive bass on the Nostromo landing sequence, particularly in comparison to the 2.0 surround track (which presumably comes from the 35mm stereo mix).

I've never understood how a presumably pure stereo track can become a 2.0 surround track.  Where does the matrixed surround sound come from if the source is two channel?

I also don't understand why the other mix on the BD is 4.1 and not 5.1.  If it comes from a six-channel mix, why is it not 5.1?

I always assumed that TSMuxer produces an HD output exactly the same quality as the MKV. There's no quality degradation. Would I be right in saying this?

Yes.  Tsmuxer is just a muxer -- nothing more than that. It puts the contents of your MKV into a BD (or AVCHD) structure.  If the streams in your MKV are BD compliant, then you should do this.  If they are not, then you have to re-encode if you want to burn a disc that will work in Blu-ray players.

Now for my main question: does an increased bitrate make a BD look better than the base MKV, or would there by no upgrade?

BDtoAVCHD is re-encoding your video.  When you go from a lossy format to another lossy format, you always lose quality.

Really, BDtoAVCHD and tsmuxer do different jobs.  They are not alternatives to each other.  Unless you need an output that plays in stand-alone players, I suggest that you buy a decent media player and save yourself time and effort.

The latest version does look much better, Harmy.

The video looks squished in Virtualdub because it defaults to displaying square pixels.  Assuming you have resized to 720x480 in your script, all you need to do to make the proportions look right is right click on the preview window and select 40:33 pixel (DV-NTSC-Wide).  When you re-encode, you will use a DAR of 16:9.

 

red5-626 said: Some one needs to make some software that can combine the to of them.

 

Yes, I was wondering if it would be possible to warp one to fit the other, but I was thinking about doing it to clean one up.

@Harmy

I see your point, and it is hard to decide, but I wonder what would the SWE would look like if you were to give it the same treatment as you gave the JSC.

Michael Okuda said:  Original composites still available on standard-def DVDs. Releasing original versions on Blu-ray won't make them better.

+1

I've been wondering about this recently too.  Personally, I think the SWE has the edge over the JSC.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said: Been hammered at work.

Lucky!

McFlabbergasty said:

As interesting as that might be, this is a strictly "hard sci-fi" kind of setting.

...But these are all at least theoretically possible, whereas claims of ESP are unsubstantiated and generally considered a hoax.

I understand.  I only mentioned it because the setting is to be futuristic, if only slightly, and it might take the place of magic.  You're of course right about restoration and illusion.

Short of a Babylon 5 style techno-mage skill, I don't really have much to suggest.  Your skill set seems quite comprehensive already -- unless a specific sniping skill, as distinct from the heavy weaponry that you mentioned, might help i.e. something like marksman -- or explosives to stand in for destruction.

Do you plan to include narcotics?  I suppose you could incorporate that into your medical category.

EDIT:  What about engineering?  Repairing items, vehicles and structures (such as that elevator you mentioned) should merit a separate skill category.

putting on sunglasses

AKA being David Caruso

TV's Frink said:

playing bingowings

Now you're just being silly. :D

being silly

TV's Frink said:

That's not a skill one can acquire, you must be born with it.

genetic engineering

winging things

playing bingo

Frinking

McFlabbergasty said:  I am leaning towards the Morrowind style of leveling up, where you increase a skill level by performing the action(s) associated with the skill.

Ah!  I used to really enjoy playing Morrowind.  That system sounds like a good one to use.

Have you considered a set of ESP skills or do you not wish to venture into that sort of territory?  Your mention of Morrowind brought magic to mind, and while some of your proposed categories have obvious affinities with Morrowind's skill set (e.g. bypass for security -- great name for the category, by the way!), there is little to take the place of magic.  Perhaps this is intentional though.  I confess that I'm not really sure what an Indie action movie is.

Hee he he he he he he!

CatBus said:  I'm agreeing with all of your corrections (even "deflector screens") except the exclamation mark.  Although the line delivery is definitely unexcited, I think the exclamation still fits in context.

That was the only correction that I didn't agree with either.  I would always use an exclamation mark there because the remark is constructed as an outcry.  Msycamore's knowledge of the details of the dialogue is certainly most impressive though.  I found this one interesting:

Another one is "We're passing through the magnetic field" Could be "We're passing through their magnetic field" that's how it appeared in the published/forged script which are more or less based on the dialogue in the film not the other way around, but if you cannot hear the difference it doesn't really matter, I cannot...

because I've always heard the rather than their, but I suppose it could either, and perhaps the accent's throwing me a little.  Regardless of the script, I wonder what the actor would say that he said.  (I didn't know that some of the lines were clearer in the mono mix than the stereo, because I always listen to the latter, so I'll have to listen to that line again.)

EDIT:  I listened to the mono mix and, while it could be either, it definitely sounds more like their.  Interesting!

After a false start, a DVD-5 of ROTJ has been uploaded to the newsgroup.  (Look for the collection labelled "Proper".)  As with ESB, apart from conversion to anamorphic widescreen and light sharpening, there has been no filtering. 

Thanks go to CatBus for providing soft subtitles for the alien language parts.  I have had little to no time to work on these, which is why I went with soft subtitles for this release. 

I'm also posting the DVD-5 of ESB to the newsgroup.  Star Wars should go up in about a week, when I have authored the disc.

Thank you for starting this project, CatBus.  Owing to illness and working long hours, I still haven't had any time to work on the subtitles for the X9 project.  (I loathe working on subtitles anyway.)  I shall have a look on tehparadox and maybe send you a PM.

By the way, Project Threepio is a cool name. :-)

TheBoost said:

With POPA and PIPA and ACTA and what not going down, this seems a good time to discuss what do you steal online?  How do you justify it... if you bother to justify it at all?

I download HDTV broadcasts and preservations (usually laserdisc ones) of films and TV shows that are not currently commercially available.  Only very rarely do I download commercial Blu-rays, HD DVDs and DVDs.

My reasons for downloading preservations probably don't need much explanation.  I don't want things that I like to become lost, I want to be able to watch them, and as soon as they became commercially available again I buy them.

I download HD broadcasts that have what I judge to be superior transfers/masters/encodings/whatever to commercial releases.  Obviously this is done out of a desire to see films in the highest available quality; but the fact that there exists an alternative way of acquiring films that studios have DNRed, badly color timed or otherwise marred also affords a certain degree of satisfaction.  It would be nice to believe that all films with poor releases will eventually be done justice by the industry, but this is hard to believe, and I think that the films themselves are more important than copyright.

Moreover, downloading broadcasts that anyone with the right equipment can access doesn't feel the same as downloading rips of commerical releases.  If it's not legal to own copies of broadcasts why is it legal to sell set-top boxes that burn copies to disc?  I suspect that many people who think that downloading broadcasts is wrong have done this and lent copies to friends, in which case the difference is simply the extent of distribution.

Pennsylvania Jones said:

Did you listen to both the new 7.1 and the original 2.0?

So far, I've listened only to the 7.1 track, but I will listen to the other track at some point.

TV's Frink said: Was the animated gif of Homer turning the light on and off included on the sampler?

Unfortunately, it wasn't.

Bonuses are very light.  There is a trailer for season one and a teaser promo, but as this is a sampler I didn't expect much more.

I have the sampler disc.  So far, I have watched only Sins of the Father.  It looked and sounded fantastic.  Colors and effects seemed true to the original.  Grain is present, and the detail level was high.  I noticed a tiny amount of upscaled material for a couple of shots that obviously could not be recovered. 

I know these episodes very well and was looking for flaws, but any imperfections were minor.  Shots of Qo'nos look better than they ever have.    I'm not a great audiophile, but dialogue seemed crisp, and I heard background noises clearly, such as dripping water and footsteps on carpets.  If the whole series is like this, I shall be very happy.  If Star Wars were restored like this, I think most of use would be ecstatic.