Dunedain

This is a great idea. The discussion is just as valuable now, since we still haven't gotten an official DVD set of the original unaltered trilogy with high picture quality. :)

It would be great to have a multi-disk set with the unaltered trilogy and then choices of which audio mix to use for each movie. But that would eat into the video bit-rate if you had more than 2 and in English only on a disk. So better to have two disks for each unaltered episode, which would be the same expect for different audio mixes available on each disk to allow plenty of room for the video. :)

Then another set for the 1997 SE of the trilogy. Just because it would be interesting to have it on DVD. :)

What details would you guys like to see in such an ultimate Star Wars DVD set? :)

Ripplin: Ah, well, if you can turn off the avatars on the main pages that show the lists of thread topics (but still leave avatars on for posts inside the threads), then no problem. :)

The avatars that are 80x80 pixels are being stretched by the forum, both inside threads, as well as in private messages, to fill in a 100x100 space instead of just being left as they are and displayed at 80x80. This makes them look really bad. Hopefully this can be fixed. :)

Looks ok overall. I'm glad to see the light gray / dark gray / blue colors have been kept, as they have always looked great. :) But the forum subject categories ( "Star Wars Fan Edits and Preservation Efforts", etc. ), where you can see all the thread topics, look cluttered with all those avatars stuck on the left side, it would look a lot neater and cleaner if avatars were left inside threads only.

GoodMusician: Thanks for all the effort on these Star Wars soundtrack scores. :) It's certainly not right for someone to take your work and then try to sell it as though they did it. Ignore people like that, everyone here who keeps up on this subject at all knows that you did this work. :)

Still looking forward to your compilation of the complete score for Episode III, which I don't think you've finished and released as yet. :)

While I understand the concerns over the scan resolution, a scan at full anamorphic DVD resolution, followed by a detailed and precise color correction/restoration, should give us much better overall picture quality than the official 2006 DVD set. For one, the resolution will be higher, plus when the files are being encoded into the DVD video there will no doubt be care taken to make sure there are no significant compression artifacts introduced. Thus resulting in a very clean video. The main concern I think is over scratch removal and such, if this can be done well, then the end result should look great.

Yes, it would be extra cool if we could scan in HD or 2k, but a good anamorphic DVD res video is better than what we have now and well worth doing. :) If we can have the 2006 GOUT pre-SE colors combined with full DVD res and good detailed picture quality, that is a huge gain for Star Wars fans. :)

Yes, that's the best way to handle it, sounds good. :)

This is wonderful news, much thanks to negative1 and adywan!! :)

While it would be extra cool if these mods needed for the scan could be done to the newer scanner, I understand if can't be done that way (would these mods change the scanner permanently?). Full anamorphic DVD resolution is just fine! :) Or perhaps the scan would take place at a little higher than DVD res for the preservation/restoration work with the reference files, and then be brought back down to DVD video res specs for release after the work is done?

Imagine the GOUT with it's pre-1997 SE accurate colors, but with full DVD res and much better clarity, detail and general image quality! :)

To get the ultimate detail you'll want to capture multiple sets of laser disks from the same collections, so that any detail that isn't captured on one set is capped from the other sets, then re-combine them into one image with max detail, like the X0 Project did. But you'd need something like that black magic program that was able to do that, combine multiple sources that let all the cumulative picture detail be collected into one video.

The goal, of course, being to get a final picture that is superior to the 2006 official Star Wars unaltered trilogy DVD set in detail and overall quality as much as possible. :)

Aleksbmw: Whoa, a customized laser disk player, sounds very cool! :)

Just wondering, if you're going to spend that much on equipment and customizing, wouldn't it have been better to start with an X0 player and then super charge it with all the best hardware you can think of to absolutely maximize video capture clarity, color accuracy and detail? I thought the X0 player was supposed to be the ultimate in quality, so it makes sense that it would make for the best base high-end player to mod. Or perhaps this Sony C2Ex player has some qualities that made it a better candidate for modding? In it's modded state, do you think it can make better captures than even the X0 project's X0 player?

They have meticulous notes on all that stuff, and if they have any sense they still have all the 3D models, shaders and such. They can re-scan the film, re-edit to the same time-code numbers, then re-time the files using the same specs, and then re-render the 3D stuff at a higher res if they want to. I can't believe they didn't do a 4k scan right from the beginning on films of this importance if it's this much trouble to make a higher than 1080p version available for home video sale later, not very smart if that was done. If for no other reason than making a regular HD home video release look better they should have done it.

In any case, they need to re-scan it just so there is an archival-grade digital master backup of the film in a finished state.

captainsolo: I have to agree, I will not go to the theater to watch the horrid 2004 even-more-SE, those absurd changes are not legitimate. I saw them once on my DVD set, and that was more than enough to know how disgusting they are.

Now, the unaltered Star Wars trilogy? I'm there opening day!! :) I'd even go to see the regular 1997 SE, but not that 2004 offense.

Ok, I clicked on each indicated track number and set the pause to 0, seems to have worked just fine. :)

I've had a chance to listen to some of the Star Wars music. When I watched the SE, it had seemed to me that some of the upper frequencies in the music at the beginning of Star Wars were more prominent than they had been before, but I wasn't quite sure. Now after reading up on this here and listening to this new set, I can see I was right. It's like they emphasized the upper frequencies for some reason in the official soundtrack in the SE, giving it a bit of a bright harshness. ABC seems to have taken away this artificial emphasis and restored the balance closer to the original sound. So it sounds more like it did in the theater originally. It sounds smoother, less strained.

What do you guys think about this, is this closer in sound to the pre-SE Star Wars soundtrack in theaters and the original vinyl LP's of the soundtrack?

Thanks for the effort, ABC. :)

skyjedi2005: Yeah, I suppose you could just up-sample the 2k CGI effects to 4k, assuming they didn't do the effects at over 2k in the first place and then just down-sampled them to 2k for immediate use in the film, with the higher res CGI source files being held in reserve until needed later (when they do the 4-6k film scan).

I find it hard to believe they'd be dumb enough to make all these fancy CGI effects and then not have enough res in the source CGI files to handle possible future requirements for more res. What are you going to do, have to go back and completely re-render every single frame of CGI to exactly match the existing CGI, except at higher res this time? Why do it twice, that would be stupid. Anyhow, if they just up-sample it from 2k to 4k, I guess that would be adequate.

I agree, digital effects should used when and where something can't be done any other way, otherwise all effects, scenes, etc. should be done for real. It's *so* much more convincing and believable that way. Especially with big-budget movies like Star Wars, there's no excuse for cutting corners.

Hmm, but you would think the effects would have been done at really high res for the master render files, and then down-res'd for use in the film. So couldn't they go back and this time just use the full res master renders to match the higher scan res of the film?

And why wasn't all this done at 4k right from the get go, the scan, everything? For a mega budget super high quality trilogy like this, it shouldn't have been a problem. :)

Max_Rebo: Thanks for the update! :)

I hope after you release this NTSC DVD set that you will consider going back to your prepared pre-DVD source files (just before you encoded them for NTSC DVD) and color correcting them back to the GOUT's more correct original colors and releasing a set like that (no other changes, just the color correction). :) This way we can also have a Star Wars SE set with the very nice overall image quality of the SE's, but with the more correct colors from the GOUT. :) Even if the GOUT isn't perfect in this regard, it's far more accurate (especially in certain scenes, as we've seen from the screenshots) than the SE and the best non-SE source we have available.

It would be great to have a choice to watch the Star Wars trilogy SE version as it was broadcast or watch the SE with the original non-SE colors restored. :) Also, I'm not sure if anyone has ever color-corrected the SE before, so it might be a first ever achieved by a fan project. :)

They can always re-scan the source at 4k or 6k. :) With an HD camera, you're stuck with HD because that's what you shot the movie at.

skyjedi2005 makes many good points in his post. Lucas made a big mistake using those HD cameras for the most recent movies. Sometimes I think he does stuff like this just because it's new and "cutting edge", just for the sake of it being so, even if the end result is inferior in quality. Just because something is newer, doesn't mean it's better. Ironically, it's The Phantom Menace, the first of the prequels, that looks the best. And it will always have vastly more resolution than Episodes II and III.

And The Phantom Menace will look better on Blu-Ray when it's released, since they will be scaling it down from a much higher res scan. When they do the new archival scan in preparation for the Blu-Ray release, it will probably be a 6k scan (4k minimum), maybe even an 8k scan (hadn't heard of those before, must be the very latest super high-end scanner for films :) ).

Thank God at least The Lord of the Rings trilogy was shot on real film. That would have been a catastrophe with an HD camera. :)

As for the Wookiegroomer sets, the 12 gig HD ones already look great and I thank him for making them. :) Even taking into account adding in the extra soundtrack options and the tri-screen comparison video's inclusion, I don't see how color correction could account for the video going from 16 or 17 gig up to 45 gig. I mean, the video was already 1080p to begin with (not Blu-Ray quality, of course, but the best quality 1080p broadcast version so far), so there was no need to up-res it for watching on a high definition TV.

So I'm not sure what good it would do to crank up the bit-rate really high and get a huge video, as you can't get more detail than the original source video had. You'd think a 25 gig single-layer Blu-Ray disk would be plenty large enough to handle the color corrected video along with the soundtrack options and the tri-screen comparison. Maybe the video and all the soundtracks went just a little long to 26 gig or something, and he figured, "What the heck, I'm already into the second layer, might as well really crank the bit-rate and make full use of that 50 gig disk."? :) Or perhaps he felt a really high bit-rate was necessary to prevent any further compression artifacts from being introduced to the original video when he did the re-encode to have the color correction in place? Maybe it was necessary. You certainly wouldn't want to deteriorate the excellent quality of the source video.

I certainly hope this speculation is incorrect. This was huge news for all serious Star Wars fans, a real chance to get a high quality transfer without waiting God knows how long for Lucas to decide to be more reasonable on this issue.

I noticed in the txt files included with the soundtracks that is says the following
for The Empire Strikes Back.

IMPORTANT: 0'sec pause at tracks: CD2: 09. 11.

And for Return of the Jedi it says.

IMPORTANT: 0'sec pause at tracks: CD1: 04. 11. 12. - CD2: 21 (don' t miss that one !)

Does that mean that there should be no pauses *after* each of those song numbers?

Also, how do you do that? I've never set up music CD's like that before. How do you set the CD burning program to put "0 second pauses" after those specific songs, and only those songs?

My computer came with Nero 7 Essentials.

Thanks for any info.! :)

Not posting here doesn't mean arrangements aren't being made. If you'll recall from earlier in this thread, all such discussions are happening in private now, for obvious reasons. :)

The 1st rule of doing a project like this is to always backup your work very regularly onto blank DVD's or external hard drives so that any progress is not lost no matter what happens to the PC or the hard drives in the PC. :)

I've seen comments from some rather knowledgeable people that the official 2006 Star Wars trilogy GOUT DVD's appear to have surprisingly accurate colors (no weird color alterations from the original appearance). So they could help a lot as a guide to color correction, setting proper original white points/white levels (I think that's what it's called), etc. in the HD broadcast of the 2004 versions. :)

negative1: Any updates on this yet? :)

PaulisDead2221: Any updates on Star Wars - The Vintage Edit? This has to be one of the most anticipated projects on the forum, any little tid bit would be of great interest. :)