Dek Rollins

doubleofive said:

https://www.starwars.com/news/rebel-starfighters-owners-workshop-manual

These theatrical frames are much closer to Legacy’s than any other source, just slightly different coloring.

I can’t even see a color difference between this and the legacy preview. It looks Identical to my eyes.

This will probably build our hope to be inevitably smashed when nothing ever gets announced. 😛

kchrules said:

https://vimeo.com/371054639/5a71498441
Here is a new crack at it. I used the aforementioned FS DVD as the color source. It’s the same 2:20 as before. The big video on the top half is the re-grade/re-color, the video on the bottom left is the untouched blu ray, and bottom right is the FS DVD (which I tried to emulate)

This grade looks really good and the blue color of the pool is a lot better, though I think the cyans have been pushed too dark in some places. While what you have there looks a lot better than the Blu-ray, I think you’ve replicated the DVD a bit too closely perhaps. The blue tones should maybe be kept lighter and a bit less magenta. The sky in some shots looks almost purple in the DVD, and I’m not sure if that necessarily should be replicated verbatim.

Also, in the first shot of the scope cross-hairs in front of the woman, the furniture she walks by that looks teal in the Blu-ray and and is blue in the DVD still looks teal in your grade. I’m curious why that would be.

And are some of the highlights blown out? I can’t really tell, but many shots have highlights that seem oddly brighter than both the Blu-ray and the DVD, like the buildings in the slow zoom-out shot. Some areas on the buildings just look white where they appear to have some color in the other sources.

Overall this looks great, and I can’t wait to see any progress you make on it.

EDIT: By the way, could you post some screencaps of the widescreen side of the DVD for comparison?

Reese said:

Dek Rollins said:

RU.08 said:

Anyway, would you say the projection was accurate to the old German DVD, the one that was transferred from a print?

No. The colours in that version are washed out, and it was not transferred digitally it was very obviously done by telecine which never produces a projection-accurate result regardless of whether you’re using a release print, a TV print, or whatever. I do not think it was even transferred for DVD - it looks like they used a broadcast tape literally transferred in the 1980’s for that release. It’s a full-screen transfer, outside of the US no one did full-screen transfers for DVD, even in 1997. And when they did the first digital restoration, and broadcast it, it was in widescreen.

The colors are definitely washed out, but the general color biases are what I’m referring to. I think that skin tones are too frequently pinkish, and some scenes seem very dark, but most of the scenes I’ve compared look somewhat similar to the Blu-ray, and match your description of the print you saw pretty well.

I posted in the fanres thread that I think it seems to be the most accurate (I meant generally, though I didn’t really specify what I thought was accurate about it in that post), and that it matches the dozens of 35mm frames posted online rather closely, so I would think that the biases introduced by the telecine were subtle. With the washed out contrast it wouldn’t be projection accurate of course, but a subtle regrade of the BD on a shot by shot basis to try and match the color consistency of the DVD seems like a worthy effort to me.

I think I’m going to try doing that with my updated regrade, and maybe those of us who are not quite satisfied with the BD will be happy with an alternative that isn’t far off from it. I’m curious, for everyone who has my regrade and enjoys it over the BD, would you guys be interested in something that stays closer to the BD and just makes subtle shot to shot changes?

Possibly. Depends on the final look I suppose.
I am curious though, in case you or someone else knows, is there a version which incorporates deleted scenes?

I think Stamper made an extended version on fanres.

RU.08 said:

Anyway, would you say the projection was accurate to the old German DVD, the one that was transferred from a print?

No. The colours in that version are washed out, and it was not transferred digitally it was very obviously done by telecine which never produces a projection-accurate result regardless of whether you’re using a release print, a TV print, or whatever. I do not think it was even transferred for DVD - it looks like they used a broadcast tape literally transferred in the 1980’s for that release. It’s a full-screen transfer, outside of the US no one did full-screen transfers for DVD, even in 1997. And when they did the first digital restoration, and broadcast it, it was in widescreen.

The colors are definitely washed out, but the general color biases are what I’m referring to. I think that skin tones are too frequently pinkish, and some scenes seem very dark, but most of the scenes I’ve compared look somewhat similar to the Blu-ray, and match your description of the print you saw pretty well.

I posted in the fanres thread that I think it seems to be the most accurate (I meant generally, though I didn’t really specify what I thought was accurate about it in that post), and that it matches the dozens of 35mm frames posted online rather closely, so I would think that the biases introduced by the telecine were subtle. With the washed out contrast it wouldn’t be projection accurate of course, but a subtle regrade of the BD on a shot by shot basis to try and match the color consistency of the DVD seems like a worthy effort to me.

I think I’m going to try doing that with my updated regrade, and maybe those of us who are not quite satisfied with the BD will be happy with an alternative that isn’t far off from it. I’m curious, for everyone who has my regrade and enjoys it over the BD, would you guys be interested in something that stays closer to the BD and just makes subtle shot to shot changes?

RU.08 said:

The big issue I have with what you say about the Blu-ray’s accuracy is that there is evidence that the Blu-ray’s color biases in some scenes are not always consistent with the original prints.

None of those scans look anything like projection. Just taking the second one as an example - Reece was nowhere near that dark, he was clearly visible in that scene.

I mentioned that the second frame was scanned too dark, but the others clearly weren’t since their brightness isn’t too far off from the Blu-ray.

Anyway, would you say the projection was accurate to the old German DVD, the one that was transferred from a print? That transfer has a lot more green and teal than most others besides the Blu-ray.

Given your experience watching the film, that DVD release, and the general accuracy of the Blu-ray to the projection you saw, with those frame scans having different colors present, there might have actually been some fluctuation from print to print regarding the blues/cyans/teals and such. It’s hard to say until we get at least one print in somebodies hands to scan the whole film.

I’m aware that my regrade is not totally accurate, which is why I’m actually working on a new regrade from scratch that will hopefully be more in-depth than my previous single LUT efforts.

But, to say the Blu-ray is accurate is somewhat incorrect IMO. Just to clarify, the print you saw was an original one and not a 2001 re-issue? If what you saw lined up with kaosjm’s description and it had the mono I would assume it was original, but I’d rather be certain.

The big issue I have with what you say about the Blu-ray’s accuracy is that there is evidence that the Blu-ray’s color biases in some scenes are not always consistent with the original prints. The Blu-ray is more accurate than I used to think it is, and my regrade is certainly less accurate in many instances, but the Blu-ray still has some idiosyncrasies.

35mm Frames

The latter two frames in particular are very different.

http://www.framecompare.com/screenshotcomparison/Y6LNNN8X
http://www.framecompare.com/screenshotcomparison/Y67NNN8X
http://www.framecompare.com/screenshotcomparison/DW6ZGNNX

Of course the Technoir frame was scanned too dark, but a better picture was taken later.

I find it hard to believe that the print you saw had a yellow/green push in the highlights like the Blu-ray does, but I haven’t had the opportunity to see a print in person, so I can’t say anything from experience.

Also, the shot of Sarah driving in the tunnel you posted is still green in my regrade, though the shot is darker. The walls in the whole scene are green, though the road is cyan or blue in many shots in my regrade.

Anyway, I’m glad you weighed in here. By the way, what did you think of my old regrade?

That was the latest update I had made when kaosjm posted about the print he saw and said that I was spot on for most of the film. He did note that the beginning and future war stuff was sometimes very cyan and teal, which I acknowledged, but I never ended up implementing any changes like that because until now I was set on doing a single global adjustment for the majority of the movie. That’s why the shots in those comparisons have inaccuracies, too.

I only saw The Exorcist for the first time earlier this year, but I can say that to my memory, it’s the only movie that has legitimately disturbed me. Being religious probably has some affect on how I reacted to it, but I don’t see how anyone can say it isn’t an effective film.

MonkeyLizard10 said:

I think that whole Red Letter Media nonsense about TPM is what really got it going. Before then you could go to SW forums and reasonably talk about TPM or the prequels, after… forget it. And all you see is people parroting RLM review quips and quotes, or if you say you like a prequel, they respond by saying, nope, you are wrong and then give a link to one of the RLM videos. (But those RLM videos, I mean there is plenty of stuff objectively incorrect in them, a bit ironic since he is laughing at what a stupid fool Lucas is. Although some of the farther post TPM RLM videos, I almost feel like maybe he is actually not even being so serious about anything he says but just mocking the RLM review lovers.)

(and yes, sure some hated TPM (and even many who loved it did still complain about some of the baby dialogue and scuh given to Gungan officials and he did get a bit more commercial in a few things, I wasn’t so crazy about some of that stuff myself, but in the end, the baby dialogue stuff is jsut a few minutes out of more than 120) and even AOTC and even even ROTS before any of that, but the numbers just seemed to explode after that video, again SW message boards went from somewhat reasonable to almsot total hate fests, couldn’t dare mention anything other than 4-6 after that video)

I’d like to hear what’s objectively incorrect in the Plinkett videos, as I don’t really remember anything that seems to be factually incorrect in them. Anyway, regarding the affect those videos had on popular view of the films. The big thing that I see people say about them is that a lot of things people didn’t like about the movies was hard to fully explain, and that the reviews did a great job of putting those complaints into words.

If you don’t know, the original Plinkett review (Star Trek Generations) was something he did to put out his feelings on why he hated the movie so much in words, and he had some fun by doing an impression of his friends Plinkett character. He then did the same thing with the other Star Trek TNG films, and eventually started doing the Star Wars prequels for the same reason. Obviously his TPM review became a popular hit and the rest is history. I don’t understand the vitriol PT fans have for those videos, because he wasn’t trying to pull one over on the whole world. He explained in great detail the objective flaws in the films, both visible on screen and in the creation of them. Was he perfect? No. Did he make mistakes? Yes. Some of his arguments in various reviews of his are skewed by either misinterpretation or some other form of human error. That doesn’t devalue the abundance of reasonable and perfectly sound arguments he makes for his assertion that they aren’t well made movies.

A lot of the stuff people bash about the prequels for being dumb, actually has decent reasoning behind it.

This is true for a lot of things, but plenty have poor reasoning too.

Even the way Anakin and Padme were awkward in AOTC make sense, I mean he wasn’t some swashbuckling Han or worldly Lando, he was a monk! isolated at an early age and she became a leader at like 14 and then was off to the Senate. So hardly surprising they talk to each other in less smooth ways than Han or Lando. Also some of the wya they acted and talked was also modeled off very early US cinema romance. DOn’t forget the characters were in another galaxy, in anotehr time, not today.

Here is the problem with this. We as the audience are supposed to feel that these too people are in love, at some point in the story, but they never fall in love on screen. They roll around in a field and have dinner and boom, love, apparently.

I don’t want to turn this thread into a debate-fest on whether or not people should be allowed to hate the PT, though maybe that’s already accomplished. 😛

MonkeyLizard10 said:

Slavicuss said:

MonkeyLizard10 said:

cool project

I saw this in 35mm as well as on two different digital projectors back in '99, including what might have been the first commercial digital projection of any film in the world.

Contrary to all the net rage, theaters were packed and people generally seemed pretty happy and were NOT all laughing, raging, etc. decent bit of clapping at the end at many showings.

And for AOTC, people were racing out of the earlier showings, smiling, giving thumbs up to people still on line, saying it was awesome, audiences erupted into cheers at the end. Again, contrary to all the hate you hear coming form the net crowd.

Probably still high from the movie they just saw. After a few days of reflection (and repeat viewings) the cracks start to appear, not long after, they’re ripping the film’s a new a-hole (deservedly so).

nah, more just like the sort of sneering hipster crowd took over forums and spread hate and then it became cool to hate everything

A brother of mine, who was around 10 at the time, thought AOTC sucked when it came out. Of course, over the course of the decade the films grew a more negative reputation, but those reputations started at the beginning. There were a lot of people who loved the prequels when they came out, but anyone pretending that there wasn’t any hate until it was “cool” is fooling themselves.

There are many people, even those who have been members of this board over the past fifteen years, who consider the prequels to be some sort of contraband that’s not allowed in their homes. Nobody can convince me that these people were peer-pressured into hating these movies so much.

There are also people like me. I enjoyed TPM and AOTC a lot when I was younger, hated ROTS, and then I came to a realization over time that even the first two aren’t very well made films, and many of their problems ruin some of the mystique of the OT. I still enjoy some aspects of the first two prequels, as they do hold some good ideas and good filmmaking, and my nostalgia for them makes them fun to revisit. I wasn’t brainwashed by internet forums, I just built a greater understanding of what I was seeing on the screen for myself. That’s enough ranting though. I don’t disbelieve that the general response in your area at least was positive.

I’m actually very excited for this project since the P&S VHS is what I used to watch TPM on.

Removed from my post for the surprise.

MonkeyLizard10 said:

https://live.staticflickr.com/1894/43971204464_43505b9757_c.jpg

Is that for Anakin? Lol.

I’m not sure I understand. You agree that these should be available on the internet, but you’re only offering them for trade? That’s completely contradictory. Offering things exclusively via trade has almost always been a ridiculous practice. Trading bootlegs is no more legal than file distribution.

I’m sorry you had to pay money to get these, but now you are in a position to make it a lot easier for everyone else. There’s no reason you can’t just upload them somewhere.

Last week I saw Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and I must say it was wonderful, refreshing, and satisfying. I think I’ll see it again soon.

Yeah, it shouldn’t be too overwhelming. It’s over a year since I finished updating my Terminator project and from time to time I still get PMs here and there, haha. So be a generous host and keep on it till you feel like it. As long as you don’t feel the need to respond to every request immediately at the expense of your sanity, you’ll be fine. 😃

Just give the link in private messages. It’s not that bad.
*shrug*

Send me a PM. 😃

Well, this is certainly intriguing. Definitely great news. Thanks for spending so much time and effort on preserving this movie!

marin888 said:

We already have 4k BD - perfect home video release for 1.85:1.
So, I’m more for preserve this film as uncropped - Full Frame.

Is the 4K master actually used for the standard BD? Cause I can’t do anything in 4K.
And I didn’t mean as a replacement of releasing the scan open matte, obviously the full super8 frame would be the priority for most people. I just think that, if it looks good enough, watching it in widescreen would still be great (and for me personally, preferable 😃).

Judging by these photos it looks like a bit on the sides are missing, but not enough to make a huge difference. If this were scanned, it’d be cool to see it cropped to the proper widescreen ratio (maybe at 1.66:1 if 1.85:1 ends up removing too much image).

Is the Derann too faded to be a potential future color reference or is the color all there?

TiddySprinklesPimpBillion said:

Dek Rollins said:

TiddySprinklesPimpBillion said:

RU.08 said:

Well for the theatrical experience anyway. The “detail” in prints is 1-2K not anywhere near 4K (although they have much richer dynamic range than digital) and most prints have little shadow/highlight detail, the exception being dye-transfer prints that retain the same detail level into the shadows/highlights. Blurays and 2K/4K restorations are often sharpened way beyond the sharpness of prints as well. This is not a limitation of prints - films like Alien were shot in anamorphic and transferred using contact-printing so there is little to no loss of sharpness between the negative and the final prints.

So then I should get rid of this since it shouldn’t exist to own? Mastered in 4K and is older than ALIEN. (Warning, shit cover design.)

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Bridge-on-the-River-Kwai-4K-Blu-ray/183746/

You’re telling me I’d need to watch it properly if the scan were a low resolution of an outdated print? Not the 65mm~70mm print but a 35mm answer print?

Same goes for this too, I bet. ALSO older than ALIEN. https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/2001-A-Space-Odyssey-4K-Blu-ray/224350/

Jonno said:

Indeed. 4K transfers should be technically superior, in terms of detail retention and consistency of performance, every time.

But that’s not what films shot in the 1970s were designed for - even TV and home video would have been a distant afterthought. It was all about rendering the best possible image on those theatrical prints, and all the creative decisions in the filmmaking process had that firmly set as their end goal.

4K (and, to be fair, Blu-ray) are fantastic at wringing visual information out of archival film materials - it’s among their chief selling points - but they’re aimed at achieving a much different purpose than the one those materials were created for. Hence my concern about claims of ‘original intent’, which is always a dicey issue with this technology.

This isn’t some bullshit whingey tripe about some George Lucas revisionism this forum is so bitchy about. Too much complaining about comparing it to an older print on an outdated format such as VHS, Laserdisc, and DVD. Hell, the current Pet Semetary 4K+Blu-ray disc has fucking weird color timing but is revisioned. ALIEN doesn’t regarding the Theatrical Cut. Same goes for BLACK HAWK DOWN. 2K upscales don’t count.

So yes, perhaps this does recreate the theatrical experience of seeing this within the same day or a week of opening in 1979. I’m keeping the official 20th Century FOX 4K UHD release and this fan “restoration” will be a nice bonus disc, not a replacement.

EDIT: By the way, no need to pay attention to me, I’m a fucking dumbass.

Dude, chill out. You came in here to shit on the thread for no reason and it’s clear you don’t understand why people enjoy these preservations. Why should I, someone who doesn’t own any 4K equipment, be forced to accept the new UHD BD of Alien as the absolute for enjoying this picture? How do you know the color timing isn’t different from the theatrical release? Why is it wrong for people like me to see a theatrical preservation as the definitive version of a movie? We aren’t forcing you to watch it in place of your glorious official release. Even good BD releases don’t always preserve the theatrical experience as it was originally intended. And calling yourself a dumbass doesn’t automatically make you not an asshole shitting on a thread for no reason.

It’s a fan preservation, not a definitive or official one, and it won’t replace the 4K UHD.

For me, someone who doesn’t watch 4K discs and doesn’t have the equipment to play them, it will definitely replace the 4K UHD that I can’t watch. “Definitive” is usually a subjective term based on a persons preferences. “Official” is also a meaningless term in this situation, since the “official” versions of many films have incorrect color timing and even George Lucas-esque changes. The print is being scanned for the sake of preserving the theatrical experience, and for the people who prefer watching movies how they originally looked at the cinema. I seriously doubt that the 4K UHD disc looks like the picture did in theaters, and your going to need to show some proof if that’s what you’re saying, since you’re the one making the claim that this project is superfluous.

Case in point, the 4K UHD with the BD included is fucking trash regarding T2. I’d rather see a proper presentation of that compared to the sub-par bullshit of that release, which far more needs it compared to ALIEN.

You don’t think people would jump at the chance to scan a print of T2? Priorities can’t be set on something when the source of the project doesn’t exist yet. If you want a 35mm print of T2 scanned, go find a print and rent it and pay these good folks for the cost of scanning. If you don’t like that someone is scanning Alien, then I’m sorry but you’ll just have to live with it.

EDIT:

JayArgonaut said:

TiddySprinklesPimpBillion said:

But get with the times of home media physical formats.

Troll confirmed. I shall respond no further after this.

Lol sorry. 😛

TiddySprinklesPimpBillion said:

RU.08 said:

Well for the theatrical experience anyway. The “detail” in prints is 1-2K not anywhere near 4K (although they have much richer dynamic range than digital) and most prints have little shadow/highlight detail, the exception being dye-transfer prints that retain the same detail level into the shadows/highlights. Blurays and 2K/4K restorations are often sharpened way beyond the sharpness of prints as well. This is not a limitation of prints - films like Alien were shot in anamorphic and transferred using contact-printing so there is little to no loss of sharpness between the negative and the final prints.

So then I should get rid of this since it shouldn’t exist to own? Mastered in 4K and is older than ALIEN. (Warning, shit cover design.)

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Bridge-on-the-River-Kwai-4K-Blu-ray/183746/

You’re telling me I’d need to watch it properly if the scan were a low resolution of an outdated print? Not the 65mm~70mm print but a 35mm answer print?

Same goes for this too, I bet. ALSO older than ALIEN. https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/2001-A-Space-Odyssey-4K-Blu-ray/224350/

Jonno said:

Indeed. 4K transfers should be technically superior, in terms of detail retention and consistency of performance, every time.

But that’s not what films shot in the 1970s were designed for - even TV and home video would have been a distant afterthought. It was all about rendering the best possible image on those theatrical prints, and all the creative decisions in the filmmaking process had that firmly set as their end goal.

4K (and, to be fair, Blu-ray) are fantastic at wringing visual information out of archival film materials - it’s among their chief selling points - but they’re aimed at achieving a much different purpose than the one those materials were created for. Hence my concern about claims of ‘original intent’, which is always a dicey issue with this technology.

This isn’t some bullshit whingey tripe about some George Lucas revisionism this forum is so bitchy about. Too much complaining about comparing it to an older print on an outdated format such as VHS, Laserdisc, and DVD. Hell, the current Pet Semetary 4K+Blu-ray disc has fucking weird color timing but is revisioned. ALIEN doesn’t regarding the Theatrical Cut. Same goes for BLACK HAWK DOWN. 2K upscales don’t count.

So yes, perhaps this does recreate the theatrical experience of seeing this within the same day or a week of opening in 1979. I’m keeping the official 20th Century FOX 4K UHD release and this fan “restoration” will be a nice bonus disc, not a replacement.

EDIT: By the way, no need to pay attention to me, I’m a fucking dumbass.

Dude, chill out. You came in here to shit on the thread for no reason and it’s clear you don’t understand why people enjoy these preservations. Why should I, someone who doesn’t own any 4K equipment, be forced to accept the new UHD BD of Alien as the absolute for enjoying this picture? How do you know the color timing isn’t different from the theatrical release? Why is it wrong for people like me to see a theatrical preservation as the definitive version of a movie? We aren’t forcing you to watch it in place of your glorious official release. Even good BD releases don’t always preserve the theatrical experience as it was originally intended. And calling yourself a dumbass doesn’t automatically make you not an asshole shitting on a thread for no reason.

A UHD release is vertually never an endall.

Quattro Bajeena said:

Tried to apply that LUT to the Grindhouse using VSDC with no success, what software did you use Dek?

I use Vegas Pro. Never used VSDC before, so I’m not aware of what features it can utilize. Honestly I don’t how easy it is to do without professional software. There might be some web tutorials out there but I don’t have any on hand.

Bluto said:

Thanks for the info, Dek - I hadn’t come across this before. What software would allow you to apply this LUT to the Grindhouse ISO in order for the output to be another Blu-ray-compatible ISO?

Bluto

If you have a video editor there should be some sort of plugin available to apply LUTs. I honestly don’t remember how the Grindhouse ISO was packaged, but if you don’t care about menus, putting it through tsmuxer has a BD ISO option.

a_o said:

Dek Rollins said:

^This might be of interest to you. I prefer NeverarGreat’s LUT applied to the Grindhouse over any other version of Empire right now.

has someone applied this LUT to the film & shared?

Not to my knowledge. I can look into getting my file uploaded if you guys want it (24.8 GB).