Density

Considering this is the only change made before the Original Trilogy was even completed, it seems a lot less revisionist than others. It’s also just a subtitle change. Not a huge deal. It does make it easier to differentiate which Star Wars film in particular you are talking about. Though I usually just call it “the original.”

Of course, the first version of the movie I saw had it. Not that I ever paid much attention to it. The VHS box art and label just said Star Wars and I don’t remember calling it A New Hope.

alexp120 said:

team_negative1 said:

Aquabat said:

This is awesome. Any chance of a version above 25 GB? 25 GB is a little small for a 1080p movie; especially one with grain. Criterion releases of grainy movies are regularly 40+ GB.
There are no plans to release any versions bigger than 25 G, due to negligible differences in quality.

Also,most people don’t have double layer bluray burners or media.

Team Negative1

And you have to now consider Ultra HD Blu Ray Discs that are hitting the market (a dual-layer disc can hold up to 66GBs). It’s only a matter of time that recordable UHD Blu Ray Disc will be available. So, presenting your next project in GBs above 25 should be considered.

In the meantime, anyone that downloads a video that has this said amount of data, or more, can just store it on a portable hard drive or even on a flash drive. Those said storage devices can be plugged, via USB port, to a Blu Ray player and it will play the videos. That is how I have done it for the past year and it has worked out well for me.

During this time the person can still enjoy the HD content from the storage device until UHD Blu Ray blank discs become available and he can then burn the content to that disc.

So, we encourage you, team negative1, to present your next project in the best quality possible without compromise. If it is 80GB, so be it. We can handle it.

Most people will not be able to tell the difference, especially not when properly encoded. At a certain point you reach transparency and everything after that is overkill. Increased file size for no increase in quality.

moviefreakedmind said:

Yeah I don’t think Lapti Nek or Yub Nub as heard in the movie were ever on any soundtrack, or the original soundtrack. I agree though that it’s a great sign that we’re getting the original soundtracks back, fingers crossed the original movies aren’t far behind!

Actually I just looked at my rips of my anthology box set CDs in iTunes, and the film version of Yub Nub is included as a bonus track. Not Lapti Nek though.

Ah OK. I guess I didn’t realize that since I haven’t listened to the soundtrack in a while. Even still, I don’t think having a tiny bit of “Jedi Rocks” playing in the background of the commentary is going to break it.

No matter what you do, you won’t be able to make the CGI look like practical effects or make the story and characters feel like the originals. The only consistent aesthetic connection between the two trilogies is John Williams’ score.

Nearsighted Scrappile said:

It is a shame that the movie version of Lapti Nek never made it on to any of the soundtracks, at least as a bonus. GL strikes again. It would have made the commentary problem easier to deal with, but I think we’ll live. 😃

Yes it did. It was on the original vinyl and CD soundtracks, and it was included in the 1993 pre-special edition soundtrack anthology CD box set I have that included all three scores in their entirety. Now it (as well as “Yub Nub” and the rest of the original soundtrack as well as all the others) has recently been reissued as part of an “Ultimate Soundtrack Collection” available on iTunes and I think other digital music stores and on vinyl. The fact that they used the original versions of the soundtracks for all the movies (and no “Jedi Rocks” or any other SE crap in sight) for these latest releases is a good sign. It may well mean an official release of the original movies isn’t far behind…

If you want to download it you can buy it here BTW:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/star-wars-episode-vi-return/id1068346287

gnrmadman said:

Hey everyone! New to the boards. I received the Harmy versions from a good friend and needless to say am blown away by how gorgeous they all are. They play smoothly on my Mac with VLC, but the playback is slightly choppy through Apple TV (3). It’s so subtle, but I can’t help be distracted by it. Xfinity recently upgraded me to an 802.11ac modem and speed tests show my speeds are exceptional. Anyone have any idea how to fix this minor but oh so major issue?

I also have an Apple TV 3 and it plays fine for me. Are you trying to mirror your whole screen? If so, that’s probably the problem. That nearly always is choppy for me when I try to play video. What you’ll need to do is remux the video from the MKV into an MP4 container, open it in iTunes/QuickTime, and airplay the video directly to the Apple TV. (Alternatively you can add them to your iTunes library and activate home sharing, which allows you to access all your movies directly from your Apple TV.) To remux, you can download this simple app:

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/35968/remux

Note that Apple TV will not play DTS, so (assuming you have 2.5), you’ll have to convert the surround track to AC3 and the stereo/mono tracks to ALAC or AAC/AC3 when remuxing. That option is easy to choose in the app (which is based on ffmpeg so it supports lossless DTS decoding).

If you have already done this and are not mirroring your whole screen, sorry but I’m afraid I don’t know what the problem is.

If you do think it’s something to do with the files and can’t figure it out, then PM me and I can see if I can find a way to get you some ready-to-go MP4 files that already have everything properly muxed and converted, and even tagged, for ATV.

Yeah, your best hope is that–now that Disney owns the rights to Star Wars–they release the footage themselves. Maybe as a bonus feature on a hypothetical OOT release for maximum nostalgia. Or maybe as an internet upload. That’s probably more realistic than someone finding, buying, and restoring a print.

CatBus said:

Audacity supports DTS-MA? I thought it just extracted the lossy core…

With the ffmpeg plug-in it does.

I don’t know how anyone would get ahold of the prints Disney used for that ride. They weren’t exactly widely distributed. Unfortunately, those YouTube videos are probably the best it’s gonna get.

towne32 said:

Perhaps another option would be to open those DTS hd ma tracks in audacity and save them as LPCM?

Bingo. This is exactly what I would do. No loss in quality, more universal support.

As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I did to make the lossless files playable on my Apple TV. I demuxed the DTS, opened in Audacity, converted to PCM. Then I compressed to Apple Lossless to save more space and muxed them back into an MP4 container.

TN1 is a great preservation in the truest sense of the word. It’s what you should watch if you are a fan who wants to see exactly what it looked like in 1977, whether you were around back then or not.

Despecialized is better for all other purposes though. If you’re watching or showing someone the series for the first time, especially kids, that’s what you should watch. It’s probably closer to the original film negatives due to being sourced mostly from the Blu-Ray and has a lot more clarity and detail, while TN1 is an old print several generations removed from the original. That means it’s closer to what was actually seen by the public in 77, but it’s not the way it was originally intended to look.

For me, Despecialized is my “main version” now and I don’t see that changing unless we get an official release, but I’m still glad I have TN1 and it was a great watch.

So does this mean a final release will likely be out within the next week or so?

I gotta agree that ROTJ has by far the worst changes. To make the SE of the original at least watchable all you really gotta do is splice out a few frames to make Han shoot first. Yeah, the Mos Eisley stuff and CGI Jabba is pretty bad, but they pale in comparison to “Jedi Rocks.” And Empire isn’t really harmed at all by the changes. I certainly don’t think any of them help or were at all necessary (the original is a perfect film as it is), but the worst is changing the line “Bring my shuttle.” Hardly Earth shattering. For the most part the changes were neutral. Had no positive or negative impact on the film. If only those types of changes were made to the other two as well, I wouldn’t complain too much.

The SE of Jedi, on the other hand, is totally unwatchable. “Jedi Rocks” is one of the worst things I have ever seen, without exaggeration. Absolute cringe. I have no idea what Lucas was smoking, but I hope I never inhale any of it. The Little Sarlaac of Horrors is terrible too, and don’t even get me started on the “Noooooooo” and Hayden Christensen with his creepy ghost smirk. What little was left of Vader’s dignity from the prequels was robbed by those changes.

Honestly, I would not buy them, for multiple reasons:

1. They’re out of print and only available used, so no more money would go to the copyright holders than if you simply pirated them. The only people who win are the price gougers who sell them to you for way more than they’re worth. In a way I think it may be slightly less ethical to buy them from these people, who are out to take advantage of you and others, than it is to download superior restorations done by dedicated fans who aren’t looking for a profit.

2. They are of pretty bad quality. They are watchable, and I made do with them for a few years before I discovered Despecialized, but now I can’t go back. If you own a widescreen HDTV like most people in the 2010s, they will not look very good on it. It’s an old grainy transfer in 4:3 letterbox, not anamorphic widescreen. Doesn’t look that much better than the laserdiscs sourced from the same masters.

That said, I’m glad to read that your son has done his homework and is more interested in seeing the film cuts with real historical value over butchered cuts with bad CGI. That’s an encouraging sign. And you really should get Despecialized for him to reward him for it, with the added benefit of considerably less taken out of your wallet. They take the best sources available for each scene and correct the colors to match the films as they were in theaters as close as possible, more so than the DVDs do. In some cases those are actually upscaled versions of the DVDs. The work of getting the most out of them has already been done for you. No reason to stick with the DVDs themselves.

I think keeping the episode numbers prominent would be useful for differentiating between the main saga entries and the “Anthology” spinoffs, so I’m actually kind of surprised they’re basically doing away with them. Maybe they are kind of trying to discourage starting with Episode I. After all, if I knew absolutely nothing about Star Wars and popped in The Phantom Menace believing it was the first one, I would think it sucks and never watch another episode.

Harmy said:

Density said:

Once Harmy has finished the final 3.0 1080p versions he said he plans on Facebook, we’ll have the definitive versions of these movies. I doubt even an official release could top it.

Well, I disagree - Despecialized will still use the 2011 Blu-Ray as its main source and there are all manner of things wrong with that transfer, some are fixable but many are not. You can fix the colors to a certain degree but there are certain idiosyncrasies of that transfer’s colors that are simply there to stay, plus with the BD, we only have a compressed 8bit 4:2:0 version of the transfer, which makes its fixability even more limited. But there’s more - there was copious amount of DNR used on the transfer and then a thick layer of artificial grain has been added on top, which means there’s tons of detail lost and I can see other tell-tale signs of DNR, like a specific sort of warping and bits of frozen grain moving along with object. There’s still more fine detail in the 2004 transfer than any exhibition print thanks to it coming from the o-neg, so even with all those flaws there’s still merit to using it, but with a proper 4K transfer of the o-neg or even an IP, there could be way more detail still, so a properly done new restoration using the best source materials available from the LFL archives should far surpass anything that can be done using the 2011 Blu-Ray or exhibition prints.

And yeah, Mike’s version would probably be pretty close but it’s still sourced from exhibition prints alone.

Yeah, but I think it’s likely that an official release of the official trilogy wouldn’t be much if any better than the 2004 transfer. Considering how much effort was put into the GOUT… I doubt the work you’ve done to correct the colors and such would even be in an official release or as much care put into it in general. And they certainly wouldn’t include all the extra audio mixes, etc. you’ve included. But it’s all hypothetical of course. I may be surprised. But even though you recognize all those little details and flaws, the reality is that to most of us simply watching it we already see your current Despecialized versions as near-perfect and certainly more than satisfactory. Better than many official releases of other films I’ve seen for sure.

Once Harmy has finished the final 3.0 1080p versions he said he plans on Facebook, we’ll have the definitive versions of these movies. I doubt even an official release could top it.

Someone posted both Grindhouse and Silver Screen on a certain bay where pirates roam. I already downloaded the latter (looks great btw, takes me back to my childhood like nothing else–I can’t speak to the colors of certain prints etc. but I like what I see, grain and all) and am about 75% done downloading the former.

Mavimao said:
However, if people are lashing out at you, it’s more because of your tone which, while I understand you had the best intentions, did come out sounding a little condescending. People have their reasons for not creating a public torrent and instead of saying: “Hey guys, I’m just curious why you don’t just distribute this by torrent. Is there some reason why?” You went for a more agressive tone (“this crap is useless, my way is so much better!”)

Um, no. Not even close. Initially I basically just said the first and never said anything close to the second. I didn’t start getting “condescending” or “aggressive” until it was done to me first. All I did was lay my case out for why I think public trackers are a more accessible way to release a project that’s creators clearly stated they wanted to spread to the public, and then ask why they chose a less accessible way. If that makes me an asshole, so be it. I sure don’t think so. In my very first post I even apologized and said I hated to complain, I really was reluctant to too, and I put it as gently as possible.

Again, I appreciate the work. I just don’t know why we’re going through archaic channels like usenet, private trackers, and .rar when all that does is limit the number of people who have access to it. The only conclusion I could reach, and this has simply been bolstered by the response I was met with here, is a certain sense of elitism and desire for exclusivity among this community, if I may be so bold. You wouldn’t even have to just release it on a public tracker, just release it at the same time as usenet/whatever.

a_o said:

if one had read the guide to acquiring harmy’s version, getting this preservation would be rather trivial. even with dealing the file locker. understanding is a thing that one can gain if they are not too dense.

If “one” had heard of certain public torrent trackers and “one” thought about how to upload files in the most accessible and efficient manner, “one” could easily figure out how to upload a torrent to a public tracker. “One” could also not be condescending and assume that just because someone would prefer not to deal with things that don’t even work for captcha anymore like jdownloader, that doesn’t mean they don’t know how to. They are just pointing out that an easier solution exists for everybody that would make such a convoluted process unnecessary in the first place.

Darth Mallwalker said:

Density said:

if you’re gonna upload it somewhere like ulozto where anyone can access it

Anyone but you, apparently
.

“It just isn’t fair!”
Someone should take -1 for the team

Look, you can mock me all you want if you can’t take some constructive criticism. But I’m not seeing any refutation of the logic that if you’re gonna upload something publicly anyway, you might as well do it in a faster and more convenient way. That’s literally all I’m saying. No need for you all to get your panties all twisted over it. I’m just asking why you make us choose between a slow 51 part download or paying for usenet and trying to figure out how to use it, when you could make it easier for everyone and upload it to a public tracker. Just makes no sense to me.

Darth Lucas said:

Density said:
Some of us do not sit at our computers staring at the screen for days on end.

Hate to break it to you, but it’s because of people who “sit at their computers staring at the screen for days on end” that we even have these projects you’re so eager to get your hands on in the first place, so maybe try to avoid basically insulting every person on this forum while you ask for something?

I simply meant I don’t sit at my computer staring at a slow download waiting for when I have to enter a new password and hope the download doesn’t timeout. I certainly appreciate the hard work that goes into making these projects in the first place and certainly did not in any way intend to belittle those who do it. Don’t be so defensive.

Darth Lucas said:

Density said:

Plus, it’s not like this whole scene is exactly a secret anymore.

Damnit! The jig is up guys!! They found us!

Uh, yeah, it pretty much is. If the reason for not uploading this to a public tracker is to try to keep it low key for legal reasons–and I can’t imagine what other reason there would be–that reason doesn’t really apply anymore now that thousands of even casual and non-fans are well aware of the existence of things like Despecialized. And again, if you’re gonna upload it somewhere like ulozto where anyone can access it anyway, why not make it so it’s a convenient torrent file that you simply upload and hand off to seeders, that is much faster and has none of ulozto’s limitations?

Darth Mallwalker said:

I haven’t got time to wait for non-premium ulozto
because I’m too busy waiting for a good samaritan

It isn’t even about the wait. It’s about having to enter a captcha 51 times with download limits. Some of us do not sit at our computers staring at the screen for days on end. Yeah, I’d much rather wait for someone else to upload it in a practical, efficient way.

I haven’t downloaded something like that in literally years. It is 2016. There really is no reason for it when you could easily upload it to a public torrent tracker.