Chewtobacca

If one can believe Ohio, you might have your work done for you.

This highly anticipated Blu-ray Disc premieres in 1080P High Definition Widescreen in two deluxe-edition releases: a 3-Disc Full Disclosure Edition and a 2-Film Set. Also for the first time, these movies will be presented for home entertainment audiences in their original theatrical aspect ratios (2.35:1)*.

http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/heldenfiles/2010/07/apocalypse-now-on-blu-ray/

Harmy said:I was actually trying to do the Bantha herd thing differently but then it wouldn't fit the original sound.

Could you crossfade the two tracks in some way?  The Bantha herd cut really did stand out.

Harmy said:All the rest of the scene is taken directly from GOUT, so if there are any inconsistencies, they were already there in the original cut.

Fair enough!  It has been a long time since I saw the GOUT, so that might well be the case.  I have been waiting for dark_jedi's encodings before I see it again, as I do not want to spoil the experience.  :-)

I am glad your version of A New Hope is nearing release.  It was only ROTJ that I personally was interested in, as for Star Wars itself I watch G-Force if I want the original and ANH:R if I want an SE; and for ESB I watch Adywan's theatrical reconstuction if I want the original and his 1997 reconstruction if I want an SE; so I shall wish you luck from now on.  (I will always try to help if you have any technical problems though.) Good luck! :-)

I am pleased that you appear to have fixed your problem, Harmy.  Here is some belated feedback on ROTJ.

*  Color correction was generally very good.  Colors did seem to vary between shots in certain sequences. At times, I thought the video looked a little too green.  Light-sabers looked great!  Overall, this is a great improvement on the SE.

*  The material that was replaced looked fine.  At times, I could tell that material had been replaced, but the quality was acceptable and the result was certainly preferable to watching the 2004 SE.

*  There were a few abrupt cuts that could be improved.  Most noticeable for me was the quick trim to the footage of the Bantha herd on Tatooine, which as SE additions go I have never minded much.  Moreover, Oola seemed to move position in the room quite quickly during the re-edited dance at Jabba's palace.  The rest of the editing was good.

This is a great improvement on the 2004 SE.  I do think that there is room for improvement, but I would certainly recommend watching this.  Thanks for all your work, Harmy!  :-)

TV's Frink said:Just for anyone else reading who is tempted to ask, adywan's ROTJ does not exist.

There are many posts like this.  People simply do not read the first page -- it is not just you, JediTray.  :-)

As Episode 1 has been available for a while, would it not be a good idea to change the thread title to:

"THE STAR WARS SAGA - 1080P AVCHD DVD-9 for PS3 & Blu-Ray players - Episodes 1, 4 & 5 available" by adywan

That might help.

To frameserve is to pass frames direct from one program to another

I like the changes to the Luke and Vader conversation.  You probably know this, but the cut at 1:18 should take place at the frame just before Vader begins to look down.  Vaderios is right that the close ups are too fast.  You removed the line about other rebels well though. :-)

Can you not even frameserve from Power Director?  I would try searching the Doom-9 and Videohelp forums, if you have not already done so: there might be a work around that you have not found yet.  I amazed that Power Director is so limited. 

You can encode a sample.  You do not need to re-encode the whole project to see if it works.

Harmy said:

Because Power Director only outputs NTSC at 29.97 fps I remuxed the Ady's original AVCHD to 25 fps in TS Muxer, which had the advantage of working with a PAL version in PD and being able to work with my PAL GOUT as it was. Then I ouputed a 37000 Kbps 1080p 25fps Mpeg2 which I reencoded with multi AVCHD still at 25fps and then changed the framerate to 23.976 while making an AVCHD in TS muxer with all the soundtracks. But I did it the exact same way with Jedi and it worked.

Will Power Director export an uncompressed/lossless AVI?  If so, you could then change framerate in Avisynth before sending your video to the encoder.  This would save you re-encoding twice.  I know you paid for it, but it sounds like this program and this workflow is causing you problems, whether it worked once or not.  I do not understand why you re-encoded (the first time) to MPEG-2.

TV's Frink said:Please, honestly, let it go.  We've made our points about how we feel.  If The Cutter is interested in making changes to address our points, it is worth continued discussion.  But right or wrong, he feels improvements are not possible without compromising his vision.

I have only been monitoring this thread so far, and am not really interested in watching any more prequel edits, but I think TV's Frink is right.  Both sides have established their positions; what follows can only lead to argument rather than discussion.  Just wish The Cutter luck and leave it at that.

adywan said:

I just noticed you mentioned it took 2 days to encode the video? What specs are your machine because this does seem a very long time if you are using turbo. A 2 hour movie would usually only take me between 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours to encode depending on what setting i'm using

This is about what it takes me to encode a two-hour 1080p movie on 1-pass Turbo, Adywan.  It definitely takes me a minimum of thirty-six hours - sometimes more.  You do have a very good computer compared to some of us mere mortals.  :-D 

Harmy, I am sorry I did not get round to responding to your PM.  I agree with Adywan that multiAVCHD will not output an interlaced file, unless we are talking about standard definition resolutions, which is not the case here.  (For example, according to the author, multiAVCHD will output 480i when fed a 480p file, as 480p is not technically part the AVCHD specification - although many players accept it.)  I am also puzzled by the flickering.  It sounds very strange to me.

timdiggerm said: Folks can argue about the changes, the newly composited lasers, etc, but the basic premise, that Adywan is color-correcting the films so they look how they looked, how they ought to look is 100% right.

It is great to hear a new and informed report on the accuracy of the color correction.  Welcome!  :-)

Sluggo said:

Me gusto! 

I always did take you for a narcissist, Sluggo.  ;-)

edited - A static menu sounds fine. :-)

Harmy said:

Btw. Chewtobacca, did you burn it a watch it on a stand-alone player? I'm still not 100% sure how well compatible it is.

I used my media player to preview it.  I burn nothing, unless I send friends copies.  Nonetheless, I had already planned to burn this one to let you know about the compatibility, as I knew you were unsure.  As soon as I know, I shall let you know.  :-)

Anyway, I have a sort of on topic question.  What filter is Adywan using to convert 1080p to 720p? because I would like to know.  Spline36?

Harmy said:Also I'm home for holidays and all of my uni friends live quite far so I'm bored to tears and this project keeps me going. You guys will probably be my best friends for the next two months ;-)

I remember the feeling, but it was a long time ago.  :-) 

Can I put the links here as it's just audio and custom made at that?

No; PM would be better. 

It is great to hear that the fix will be up so soon.  I really want to watch this.  I shall post a more detailed review when I  have seen the fixed version.

Harmy said:

I will, now that I took a look at it I found out that the problem is that there is both the sound contained in the video plus the sound added for the mix playing at the same time in that scene and that's what makes it so loud and that this is not the only instance where this happened so I will definitely be fixing it.

Thank you, Harmy.  :-)  From what I have seen this will be an astounding release once all the bugs have been worked out.  The colors look great - not as good as Adwan's finest work perhaps, but natural and a significant improvement on the 2004 SE, and better than Wookiegroomer's release.   The "despecialized" elements look well integrated.  :-D

Two 200Mb-ish rars would be enough, as a separate upload, like Adywan's ESB fix, so Frink you would know, because it would be a separate download.  It is easy to remux with Tsmuxer, as Harmy says.    :-)

I really think you should upload the fix though, Harmy.   Many people would appreciate it. 

No worries!  As I said, I have not properly watched it - just flicked through.   I had actually turned the volume down to the point where it was just audible, to take a call on my cell phone, and had to scramble for my remote when The Max Rebo Band began to do their funky stuff.

I have jumped through the rest to check the volume level, and it seems fine.  I imagine this was the only place where Harmy spliced in another audio track.  It should be an easy fix. 

edited -  Harmy, you appear to fade back in at approximately 15:10, so from about 12:17 to 15:10 the audio is too loud.  I think you need to lower it by 12 db. 

The English 2.0 mix seems unaffected.  It is just the 5.1.  You will have to check the Czech yourself.  :-D

I have had a flick through ROTJ.  Everything looks really good, but there is a massive jump in volume level at about 12:17.  This is obviously where you spliced in Lapti Nek over the 2004 footage.  It really needs looking at.  All you have to do is experiment with lowering the overall volume level of that clip. Play it on a 5.1 system if you can, and if not you can use headphones, which you should always use when editing anyway. 

This is a common mistake for first fanedits, so do not feel bad.  You just have to correct this, re-export the audio track and mux it to the video stream with tsmuxer: check the AVCHD radio button.  You do not have to re-encode.  :-)

adywan said:

Vegas can handle six-track wav files as long as they are wav64 files.

Is that a Vegas 8 change?  I did not know about wav64.  It seems to be similar to rf64.  That is very interesting. 

dark_jedi said: is there a way to make a 6 track wav file instead of having all the separate tracks?

It is possible to make a six-track WAV file, but Vegas is unfortunately not able to edit such files.   Vegas should be able to edit this sort of file really. 

It is a joke that editors that cost hundreds are so limited in terms of what they can actually do.  If Womble can edit an AC-3 5.1 file, then Vegas should be able to do the same with WAV, but there you go.

There are also some good comparisons at DVD Beaver.  I quite like the new color timing for Alien, but hated it for Bladerunner, but there you go.  :-)

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare2/alien.htm

Harmy said:

Well, in multiAVCHD there is a choice between PAL and NTSC but I can't seem to find any other frame rate option, can I do it in TS muxer?

That might be for standard defintion content that might be on the AVCHD.  There is no PAL or NTSC for HD on AVCHD really, but you can make 23.976 480i or 25 fps 576i AVCHDs, which is perhaps what it is referring to.  It might also refer to the colors used for the menu: NTSC Safe Color is an option on many DVD authoring programs.  I would always choose NTSC to be safe.  

Possessed said:  Color correction shouldn't take long, I'm going to try and do it with colourlike histograms with avisynth.

Please let me know how this aspect of the edit goes.  I was considering using Avisynth for some basic color correction myself, and would be interested to hear about your experiences.

Jonno said: And hasn't there already been an HD transfer of Alien (on DVHS and - I believe - TV broadcasts) - what did that look like? (EDIT: Seems the previous HD release was only the director's cut)

The broadcast looked good for HDTV, and yes it was only the Director's Cut.  There was a D-theatre release of Aliens (Special Edition), but I don't know about Alien.