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DanielB

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Join date
15-Jul-2004
Last activity
5-Oct-2005
Posts
594

Post History

Post
#90905
Topic
.: The Zion DVD Project :. (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/90905/action/topic#90905
Time
Using two angles does not mean using half the bitrate. It's a little un-intuitive, but multi-angle bitrates work like this: If you're using two angles, the MAXIMUM bitrate for EACH angle of video plus all audio plus all subpictures must not exceed 8.0 Mbps. Figure on subtracting about another 1.2 Mbps for each additional angle. So for a two-angle encode, you can still have a high maximum bitrate. references? evidence?As for the seamless branching guide on doom9, it refers to shrinking an exisiting, branching, retail DVD-9 down to a DVD-5 while retaining the branching, rather than a guide on creating seamless branching in general.
Very true.

Post
#90901
Topic
MGM's DVD Class Action Settlement
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/90901/action/topic#90901
Time
Quote
Criterion's DVD was released before the company was doing anamorphic widescreen transfers, so 1.66:1 was used at director Paul Verhoeven's request.
Not entirely accurate. Their DVD is a direct copy of their LD, since they used the same source material, and did not remaster for the DVD, of course it's non-anamorphic (which is GOOD because it's 1.66:1).

And they didn't even mention Panavision (anamorphic filming).
Post
#90825
Topic
My new covers
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/90825/action/topic#90825
Time
Quote
Those are cool, but the pattern dictates that the first one should be called "A New Hope" if your only going to use the sub-titles of the second two.
No it doesn't. Star Wars was originally released without "A New Hope" in the opening crawl, and it was released as "Star Wars" right up to 1995, even with the second crawl. And I don't want to make it unsuitible for use with PRE-ANH discs either (in which case this cover would be excellent for them, far better than the cases that have "Pre-ANH" written all over them!)
Post
#90741
Topic
Episode III Crawl revealed
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/90741/action/topic#90741
Time
Quote
Thanks DB. I actually acquired the correct fonts today, and I'll be using those for my DVD's.
I didn't compliment you, I haven't seen your crawl yet (on account I dl'd it but it wouldn't play). Or did you mean:
Quote
Thanks to DB (that would be me) I actually acquired the correct fonts today, and I'll be using those for my DVD's.


Hey I have to have some way to pass the time while I download the thing again, it's 20meg for crying out loud and it takes like a full 4 minutes! Incidentally your ESB menus play. ... no it still won't play, it appears it is in some way corrupted. Oh well.
Post
#90736
Topic
My new covers
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/90736/action/topic#90736
Time
Will look like this:







Yes, I've decided to go back to this design and complete it. You can expect the completed covers within the next week or two. Oh, and I'm fully aware the Yoda pic is from Empire. I might add that it is a deliberate move to not have "Star Wars" present as part of the logos on the other two covers.
Post
#90718
Topic
The DanielB Prisoners and Lightbulbs Thread
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/90718/action/topic#90718
Time
Hmm,

Phase 1:

For days 1 to n-1 of an n day cycle, and where m = number of the 1st day of the n day cycle:
1. If the light is off and you have one token then remove it and leave the light off.
2. If the light is off and you have zero tokens then turn the light on and add to your count DayNumber - m. Turn the light on. If this was the first cycle then you are now the counter.
3. If the light is off and you are the counter then turn it on. Add Daynumber - m to your count.
Post
#90717
Topic
MGM's DVD Class Action Settlement
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/90717/action/topic#90717
Time
Quote
Since no proper framing of a widescreen movie (open matte or whatever) should cause information from the sides to be cut.
Look at Robocop. Verhoven released his preferred version through Criterion on LD (later transferred to DVD) in open-matte 1.66:1. The theatrical 1.85:1 print (that MGM released) is cropped on all four sides of the film. There's nothing wrong with it, it is the theatrical print with correct framing. It appears Verhoven liked it in 1.66:1, and the studio went ahead and made the 1.85:1 print.
Post
#90626
Topic
.: The Zion DVD Project :. (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/90626/action/topic#90626
Time
Originally posted by: zion
I most certainly would love to get my hands on those fonts, as I've alredy begun work on reconstructing the crawl in After Effects. Send me a PM Moll. I hope you can make it look better than every other generated crawl I've seen (don't worry, I have faith in your abilities, right?).
Daniel, keep in mind that when using angles, you have to split the bandwidth between them. Half the bandwidth may be unnoticable for things like credits and the opening crawl, but when it comes to the rest of the film I'd rather not do it. That is the reason why I'm persuing the branching method instead. I'm going to try out the doom9 technique and see if I can make it work. If not, I may have to resort to angles, but I really don't want to do that unless I absolutely have to.
Ahh yes, bandwidth... well, I'm sure branching can be done, even if it is extremely difficult.(Off topic again, but this is really wierd. Whenever I edit a post in a sticky thread it sends it to the top of the list. These Mod abilities have made me powerful...)
Ahh that explains the strange goings on here...
Post
#90611
Topic
.: The Zion DVD Project :. (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/90611/action/topic#90611
Time
If Zion wants to generate the opening crawl he'll want it for sure, unless he already has it. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on it either. It's handy to know the exact fonts and the method used to create the prequel crawls. I imagine it will be of great benefit to those like MagnoliaFan who create their own edits with their own crawl (in which case the font "univers light ultra condensed" would also be useful). Or they may already know which fonts were used, and have access to them, who can say?
Post
#90591
Topic
.: The Zion DVD Project :. (Released)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/90591/action/topic#90591
Time
Zottig, just so you know the +R format is not a standard DVD format (the reason Mol's player doesn't work with them).

Anyhow Zion, your menus are looking great. If you are going to generate the pre-ANH crawl, have you begun working on it? I don't actually mind the idea of THAT so much anymore, but my position on modifying the rest of the elements of the movie has not changed. So, as for your "video enhancements" you probably wouldn't need to use branching at all. Because the "enhanced" version will be exactly the same length as the normal version all you'd need to do is put them into an alternate angle (you would need a total of 4 angles for all your options).

I mean you've probably already thought about that, but to me it makes more sense to use angles than branching, I mean it should be much easier to do. The best thing to do would be to have an initial menu that comes up which makes you choose the version of the film, like on the Alien Quad discs. As opposed to that other "Pre-ANH" disc that has the option available in a menu, but when you start you don't really know which version's going to play since you haven't chosen anything.

Oooh... this could be useful Zion:

http://www.starwars.com/episode-iii/bts/production/f20050126/index.html

For the prequel trilogy, the opening roll-up has become a personal tradition for Visual Effects Supervisor John Knoll, who has executed the crawls for Episodes I, II and now III on his home computer.

"I type the text in Illustrator," describes Knoll. "I then get a layout approval from George [Lucas], regarding where the line breaks are -- he really cares about the typography." At this stage, the text is a rectangular block -- just flat art. Knoll then imports the Illustrator eps file into a program called form·Z, which turns it into a piece of geometry that can be used in a 3-D program.

"Then I import that into Electric Image and render it. I'm not rendering it with lighting or anything; it's only going through the 3-D program to get the correct perspective." As documented in this article, Knoll researched the original trilogy roll-ups extensively before tackling the opening text for The Phantom Menace. "George was very concerned that we match the one from Episode IV very closely, that the focal length be the same and where the lines converge be the same," he says. Asking sources at Skywalker Ranch for information about the fonts used, he was dismayed to find out accurate records were not kept.

"It turned out that there were all kinds of different versions of the first crawl: the original, the Episode IV release, and all the foreign language versions." Faced with contradictory information, Knoll took a film still of the crawl and reverse-engineered it. He scanned the perspective-titled text into Electric Image, and projected it out as a flattened block of text seen from above. He then took that image to the Art Department, whose typography experts were able to identify the different fonts used within the crawl: news gothic bold for the main body of the crawl and Episode number, and univers light ultra condensed for the title of the film.
Here's the font... too bad it isn't free, I'll see what I can do about downloading it though.
Post
#90613
Topic
MGM's DVD Class Action Settlement
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/90613/action/topic#90613
Time
Number 1 there has been no settlement, even if you wanted to you couldn't send them your disc and expect them to conform to the "proposed settlement".

Number 2, the scan I showed is what MGM uses on ALL their titles (except those few and far between without one at all). Sometimes there is actually a movie still inside their comparison, but it doesn't matter what matters is how the movie is actually framed.

Number 3, the plaintiffs (as stupid as they are) are not claiming/contesting miss-framing, they claim that the graphic displayed does not accurately depict the pan&scan comparison (which in many cases is true, however MGM certainly can't be sued over it). For instance, with the Princess Bride the movie was literally cropped straight to widescreen. As far as I know there was no vertical panning in use (since they watched what they filmed with cardboard covering the top and bottom of their TV, as far as they were concerned what was shot underneath the cardboard - or outside of the 1.85:1 area - didn't exist). So the full-screen version did not under-go a pan&scan conversion at all (since there was no panning required to keep all the action in frame, all they had to do was remove the crop boarders).

If you're with me so far, that's good. Now comes the home VHS release in 1.33:1. If the movie had instead been released widescreen, the picture would still have been the same size on the screen, the only difference would be the fact that you're missing picture on the top and bottom - you could achieve the same effect by covering your TV with cardboard on the top and bottom. This is picture that is supposed to be missing. It is not supposed to be in the movie. So yes, the theatrical version is cropped as far as the Film Frame is concerned, but no it isn't cropped as far as the movie is concerned - because the area inside the 1.85:1 theatrical run IS the movie!!

And Number 4. The "$7.10 buyback/free exchange" is the plaintiff’s idea, NOT MGM's! As far as MGM is concerned they will not buy back any of the titles, nor will they exchange them for free (except, obviously, where they are required to by law - which they do already).

It's a long way of saying that Spaceballs isn't miss-framed, and if it is then you'll have to wait for another class action to come along, because this one has nothing to do with it.
Post
#90593
Topic
MGM's DVD Class Action Settlement
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/90593/action/topic#90593
Time
Quote
Originally posted by: Warbler
I agree that they lied. Bad_karma24 seemed to indicate that he thought it right for them to lie. How is it right for MGM to lie?
who knows how his mind works. MGM was not right to lie, however they really didn't lie - all they did is use the one single example regardless of how he film was shot. I mean you could complain that for the P&S version to be 50% of the picture then you'd need to start with a ratio of 2.66:1 - however there are cases of movies being shot this wide (wider), so even that is technically true.
Post
#90584
Topic
MGM's DVD Class Action Settlement
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/90584/action/topic#90584
Time
Here's a scan of their graphic off my Princess Bride booklet:



And here is another graphic showing all comparison possibilities:



I will, however draw attention to their caption:

... Depending on how the film was shot, the widescreen format presents up to 50% more image to the left and right of the screen than the standard "pan & scan" process, thus preserving the director's vision for each scene ...
Post
#90569
Topic
MGM's DVD Class Action Settlement
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/90569/action/topic#90569
Time
Yes, I doubt MGM could be held liable. For 1. the "miss-representation" of widescreen to pan&scan is on the inside of the packaging and not viewable from the outside, and 2. Just because the movie was shot in open frame, does not mean it'll have the same width as the wide-screen version. For instance with Robocop, Paul Verhoven (or so it seems) wanted the movie released in open-frame which is 1.66:1, however the widescreen version had cropping on all four sides of the frame in many instances.
Post
#90564
Topic
MGM's DVD Class Action Settlement
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/90564/action/topic#90564
Time
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=11503576&sid=137541&tid=97

There's nothing wrong with their widescreen releases. MGM have been using the same graphic on all their DVD's to display a comparison of widescreen and pan-scan. It looks something like:
 _____________
|     |         |     |
|     |         |     |
 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
A lot of the time they have pictures of the movie in them. The problem is that while this may look correct for a lot of their movies, that were shot on anamorphic/wide stock, for those shot on an open frame it is not correct. The movies shot on open-frame often have more picture information in the pan&scan version than the widescreen version, like Terminator 3 (T2 also, actually).

Don't let that fool you though, movies like The Princess Bride that were shot on open-frame stock were always intended for a widescreen release. In fact, in those times directors would literally watch what they'd shot with cardboard coving the top and bottom of the TV screen to make it look wide-screen. In the open-frame release of The Princess Bride ("Pan&Scan") you can see boom mics that were not originally in the movie, because they were cropped out. The original theatrical ratio, short of a director-proffered ratio, is always the best presentation of the film.
Post
#90517
Topic
The DanielB Prisoners and Lightbulbs Thread
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/90517/action/topic#90517
Time
Quote
Originally posted by: Starboy
You have two variable holders: the lightbulb and the day. If the counter does not need to know when the light switch was turned on, all he has is the lightbulb variable...

So that's why you have the standard count, so he knows how many to add. Interesting...
Well he has to know in which specified period the switch was turned on. If the light is on at the end of such a period then the person visiting on the last day must take the tokens. He can, however, turn the light switch on, or leave it on on such days if he leaves the required number of tokens in the light switch.

It is complicated in algorithm form, but on a 1-to-1 basis as described above the prisoners need only follow a set of easy rules. The way I've written them above is generic, the rules they would need to follow are very easy.
Post
#90507
Topic
The DanielB Prisoners and Lightbulbs Thread
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/90507/action/topic#90507
Time
Here are the full rules for each phase:

Phase 1:

For days 1 to n-1 of an n day cycle:
1. If the light is off and you have one token then remove it and leave the light off.
2. If the light is off and you have zero tokens then turn the light on and add to your count DayNumber - n. Turn the light on. If this was the first cycle then you are now the counter.
3. If the light is off and you are the counter then turn it on. Add Daynumber - n to your count.

4. There is an exception to the above, and that is if on day two of the first cycle a prisoner enters the room for the second time, then he should turn on the light but not pick up his token or designate himself the counter.
5. If on day 3 of the first cycle the light is on, then it means exactly one person has been in the room before you. Therefore add one to your count, and designate yourself the counter.

For day n of an n day cycle:
1. If the light is off then add daynum - n to your total. If this was the first cycle then you are now the counter.
2. If the light is on and this is the last cycle in Phase1 and your count is one and you are not the counter, then leave the light on and your count is now zero.
3. If the light is on, failing any or all of the above conditions then turn it off.

Phase 2:

For days 1 to n-1 of an n day cycle:
For non-counters:
1. If the light is off and you have an odd number of tokens, then remove one token and turn the light on.
2. If the light is on and you have an odd number of tokens, then add one token and turn the light off.

For the counter:
1. If the light is on then switch it off and add one token to the count.

The last day of the cycle:
1. If the light is on and you are not the counter and you have an odd number of tokens, then remove one token and leave the light on.
2. If the light is on, then add one token and turn the light off.

Phase 3:

This is the shortest phase in code. But good luck following it! It works in my head and there isn't any errors in it (like dropping counts and changeovers), I'll try to explain how it works as a set of rules later, but for now: