Chewtobacca

TheBoost said:his talk about editing and how shitty dialogue scenes are were EXTREMELY on the money. Kudos.

Exactly!  This was definitely one of the strengths of the review.

I enjoyed RLM's latest offering immensely.

Darth Mallwalker said:  Use that value if-and-only-if Harmy's STAR WARS card appear at frame 689, like NTSC GOUT.
(690th frame, since first frame is called 0 -- I'm going by memory here, so double-check)

The Star Wars card does appear at frame 689 as when previewing the Avisynth script in Virtualdubmod, so that should indeed be the 690th frame.  That's fortunate because it means that Belbecus' mix should synchronize perfectly.  The delay values that hairy_hen posted above match the newsgroup .png.  Well remembered, hairy_hen!  It looks like it should be plain sailing.

So far I've spliced in the footage with fixed subtitles and added new mattes.  I'm rendering out my AVI now.  Harmy, I'm uploading a small preliminary sample of the NTSC encoding so you can have a look.

EDIT:  Harmy, your Inbox is full.

Yes; Happy New Year everyone!

Thanks for the information, hairy_hen!  I'll try my best with the PAL audio.  According to Harmy, this reconstruction sychnronizes with the PAL GOUT, which when slowed down apparently synchronizes with the NTSC GOUT, so the NTSC shouldn't be too much of a problem.

EDIT: Oh and thanks to Darth Mallwalker too!  I should have noticed that .png.

Leonardo said:  one could make a custom dvd with the original audio track for Mammy replaced from vhs, where available. :)

That's true, but it's a great deal of effort, and I'm not sure it's worth the time.  I'lll just find a few episodes with the original voice and make do with them.

hairy_hen said:

It kills me when people say that fixing the lightsabers is one of the things they like about the 2004 version.  To me the original blades were nearly perfect, with only a few minor technical glitches popping up occasionally.  The '04 blades look stupid and weird, they're clearly completely re-done in some shots, and don't have the same feel or effect to them at all.

I agree.  The original blades have a different feel to them.  It's amazing how much these films have been changed.

bkev said:

Yeah, they even have a disclaimer with Whoopi Goldberg basically saying "don't sue us".

Lol!  I'll have to get them then.  Whoopi Goldberg's great.

EDIT: hmmmm  If they don't all have the original voice maybe I'll wait and see whether or not they revise the Blu-ray.  :-D

bkev said: Well, yes, but Mammy's on the DVDs.

Really?  With the original voice?  I might buy them at some point.  So far I only have a few odd episodes on DVD.

TheBoost said:But since those old shows are still on the air, any concerns about seatbelts continue to apply.

Well, as far as I'm concerned they would just have to continue to apply...

TheBoost said:But no one has any restriction placed on them. None.

My opinion of this would be different if there had been. But there is no restriction. No government action. No political campaign. No new rules. Just a private entertainment company voluntarily responding to a concern from their primary audience that allows them to better serve their customers.

I understand, and that is of course a fair point.  I do think that when one company has been convinced to do this sort of thing it makes it easier for people to convince another, and eventually people take it as so obvious that such things ought to be done that they are inclined to legislate, or not oppose legislation when it is, almost inevitably in my view, proposed.

Now, Peppa the Pig is a fairly innocuous example of this sort of thing really, so it's hard to make a case on the back of it without sounding absurd;  but there are examples of a focus group -- or whatever form of lobby -- convincing a company to make this sort of change.  Thereafter, people who did not object -- or did not feel their disapproval was sufficient grounds to change something for everyone else -- no longer had the opportunity to watch something in its original form; which is a form of restriction, albeit an indirect one, because they no longer have the choice.

TheBoost said:  Why does being a parent mean that someone has no right to speak out or have concern with the media being produced to educate their children and marketed at their children?

Who said that?  After accusing Warbler of setting up a straw man, you proceed to set up one of your own.

Why must it be a ridiculous slippery slope?

It's not that it must be: it's just that some of us are concerned that it might be.  All too often it seems that restrictions on what people can do that seem inconsequential -- and even reasonable -- at the time begin to mount up, and they are harder to reverse than they are to put in place, which is why people are wary of them.  Like Warbler, I have no objection to seatbelts being put in future shows, but reanimating old material to put in seatbelts seems as ridiculous to me as the slippery slope apparently appears to you.

TheBoost said:  But Pepa Pig is a cartoon AIMED AT PRESCHOOLERS. 

Yes; I understood that the first time you posted it, without the captial letters.

TheBoost said:  Seatbelts and shit is exactly what these type of cartoons are supposed to be concerned with.

Well, that's your opinion.  I agree with Warbler that it's ultimately parents' responsibility to teach children what they should and should not do.  Nothing is gained by shielding children from all depictions of people doing things wrong e.g. Cookie Monster eating too many cookies.  Children have to learn that they shouldn't always do what they see other people doing, in school, on the street, on the television or anywhere else.  I grew up seeing far worse examples of how not to behave -- Punch and Judy anybody?

As to whether other cartoons will be touched, that remains to be seen.

Okay!  I didn't realize that.  The NTSC delay will probably be ever so slightly different then.  If someone can post the exact delay value, that would be good.

Sounds good!  Leave a few frames on either end of the clips just to be on the safe side.  I'll cut them out when I splice the clips in.

The Avisynth work will be lossless.  Trust me.  There will still be just one re-encode.  :-)

If you upload the corrected sequence, I can do it with Avisynth and a re-encode, which I am doing anyway for the NTSC version.

I know it's picky, but I confess that I noticed Wookie too and things like this do irritate me -- no doubt more than they should.   Could people check for other subtitle errors, because if there are any we might as well fix them in one go? Also "captain Solo" needs to be "Captain Solo".

Gaffer Tape said:

You know... if you were a cartoon, that cigar would totally be edited out of your hairy mouth.  Just sayin'.

Lol!

I think events in cartoons should be allowed to be depicted differently to events in real life -- that's part of the nature of cartoons.  If the people who make cartoons want to add seatbelts to future productions, then that's up to them, but if seatbelts are added in to existing cartoons, I don't where it would end.  I hate to think of what would be done to Tom and Jerry, Road Runner or other classic cartoons.

I'm not sure revisionism has any direct connection to the Blu-ray format though -- if that's what's being suggested.  These revisions to films began on DVD, if not before.  They are simply becoming more common at a time when Blu-ray is becoming more widespread.  Admittedly, this might be helped by the fact that to make films look good on BD studios often choose to go back to the negatives -- or otherwise "remaster" films -- and this provides the opportunity for director's to fix goofs or otherwise make additions.  I have no real objection to fixes for Special Editions or Director's Cuts, as long as theatrical versions are respected and preserved "warts and all".

@Aluminium Falcon

No apology necessary! :-) Read post 175 of this thread.

Erikstormtrooper said:

Cool.

Just curious: Can the 720x576 25fps anamorphic MPEG2 be easily converted to AVCHD?

I'm not quite sure what you are asking.  If you mean can it be upscaled to, for example, 720p the answer if yes, but it's probably a waste of time as your player will probably upscale it better.

If you mean can it be converted to a 720x576 16:9 AVCHD, then the answer is yes, but it has to be interlaced not progressive to be in spec.  Crazy though it seems, 480p and 576p are out of spec for AVCHD, although some BD players will play such AVCHDs.  If you know that your player can do this, then just use Ripbot or whatever to convert it.

I think it's important to make a DVD-5 available first because some people still cannot burn DVD-9s, but I'm sure a DVD-9 could be made available at some point.  Hairy Hen's 5.1 mix has material not in the original, so Harmy decided not to include it because this is a preservation -- or were you thinking of including the French and Spanish audio?  I was thinking about that the other day.

kenkraly2007 said: I am officaly done good riddance.

Lol!

See you tomorrow...

Re: the Blu-rays

Will they feature a 2.0 mix?  The 2004 SE DVDs had 2.0 surround mixes.  Were they different from the 5.1 mixes or the same thing downmixed?  (I don't watch the SE discs often enough to know.)

Santa wrote:

Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas!

What a forum!

Yes, but he happened to find protocol droid pieces.

So?  Make them into something else.  I'm sure he could find other pieces too with all the junk lying around.

If he didn't find that a protocol droid could the job, he would never had started to (re)build him.

Well, that sounds like a circular argument to me.

But the current scenario has nothing wrong with it. As far as R2's concerned.

But it does as far as Threepio's concernced.  Swapping them round would make more sense, so it would have been better.

Alexrd said: My mistake. I thought it was you who had mention a gonk.

No problem!  I had to look it up actually. :-)  I'm not up on internet speak!

Alexrd said: Yet, you need space on the vehicle for the deliveries.

That's the entire point of the comparison I made!  You could do it.  Open the sunroof.  Have deliveries sticking out of the boot.  Make more trips.  It's possible, but it's not likely.  That's my point.  If Anakin's mother needed help, it's possible that he would build a droid specialised in protocol and translation,  but it's more likely he would make her a droid more fitted to the purpose.

From the comments of his friends, an astromech is not something that common around there.

So what?  He can still build one.  If he wants to be a pilot, having him build an astromech would at least make sense.

A protocol droid seems way more pratical for chores than an astromech.

This has nothing to do with anything I have posted.  I never argued that an astromech would be good at chores. I argued that a more plausible scenario -- if you want to have Artoo in the film -- is to have Anakin build the droid for himself.

Alexrd said: Yet we know that protocol droids can drive vehicles and pilot starships, things that they were not made to do.  Why is it so hard to believe that a protocol droid can help at home?

All sorts of things can be used for tasks they weren't meant for.  What is hard to believe is that Anakin would deliberately make a droid designed for diplomacy and protocol for a domestic environment.  That's like making a sports car for a delivery man.  Sure, he could use the sports car for deliveries, but wouldn't it be better to make him a van instead...

Like I said, all he does is searching nits to pick, and that's hardly called a review.

I don't think RLM feels he is nitpicking: he seems to me to be outlining what he believes to flaws with the film.  He obviously likes the original film and seems genuinely disappointed with the prequels.  I doubt that he set out to find fault.

Right... A gonk is way more helpful...

I fail to see how Artoo can be considered a gonk, not that I would use the term.  I think it is perfectly logical for Anakin, a boy who wants to be a pilot, to construct himself an astromech droid.  This seems more logical than constructing a protocol droid for his mother.

Then what did you meant with your first post?

I meant that if we wanted to set up a more plausible scenario than the film presents us with, a ruler having a protocol droid for translating in diplomatic situations would be logical.  It makes more sense than Anakin or Shmi having one.  If Lucas was determined to work Artoo and Threepio into the prequels, this would have been a better way of doing it, as far I'm concerned.