Dunedain

Wow, that is one beast of a piece of equipment. :) Will look forward to seeing what it's capable of.

Perhaps some night you can turn it on in low light and take a picture or two. Would be fun to see the switches and such lit up on it. :)

hairy_hen said:

Yes, it was. What I'm talking about now is essentially the same thing, but since I recently gained the ability to upmix using real Dolby Prologic II, the channel separation and imaging are now somewhat improved compared to how it was previously. I'll also eventually do the other two movies the same way, as well.

hairy_hen: I thought your new slightly adjusted Star Wars 70mm soundtrack restoration (as compared to the original version found on the V1 Blu-ray) was already done some time ago?

I guess it depends if one wants to use the Technicolor print that was shown as the reference or other sources, which, of course, would affect how you do the color restoration. And yeah, I agree, the V2 Blu-ray set is looking superb. :)

So, have a set of color correction values been come up with for each movie that will correct the 2006 Star Wars trilogy DVD's about as close as one can get to the original theatrical colors within the limits of that DVD source? After all the adjusting and fine tuning, wondering if there is some agreement among the experts here on what provides the best overall correction?

Yeah, because Blu-ray doesn't use PAL, just the standard theatrical picture and soundtrack speed for all movies. But all the previous German Star Wars home video sets would have been in PAL with the speed up effect.

Ok, thanks for the details and thanks for making this cool restoration/preservation. :)

Ah, I see. You mentioned above that as many of the SE changes in the official 2011 Blu-ray soundtracks have been removed as possible for use in this set. Has all the original German theatrical dialog (original theatrical voices) been restored to the DTS-HD soundtrack and the SE dialog voices removed?

In other words, the only SE changes that have not been removed from the 2011 Blu-ray set are audio effects and things like that, but the all the voices heard are the original theatrical voices of the characters and what you hear them say in all the scenes is the original theatrical version?

spielt mit: Yes, but there's a lot going on with this and it can get confusing in the fine details. :)

Laserschwert: Thanks for the clarifications. :) So I could watch Harmy's video with English subtitles (I assume Harmy's 2.5 video has English subtitles as an option) turned on for the whole movie (sorry, mein Deutsch ist schlecht :) ), while still having the German soundtrack playing?

Any opinions as to which German soundtrack available in this set is the closest to the original theatrical soundtrack, and which has the highest overall sound quality (but maybe not quite as accurate to the theatrical soundtrack)?

Harmy said:

Well, now the Blu-Ray 6.1 mix is intended to be the definitive version, so that's not really saying much ;-)

Hmm, I guess the reason they made a mono theatrical soundtrack version, even though the original theatrical soundtrack of Star Wars was in stereo and was intended to be in stereo, was because some theaters back then couldn't handle stereo sound?

So, this video you are releasing will be the new 2.5 restored Blu-ray version of Star Wars from Harmy, combined with a German 2 channel stereo Laserdisk soundtrack or is it the 2006 GOUT PAL DVD German 2 channel stereo soundtrack you are using?

Since the 18 Gig video will be playable on Blu-ray set top hardware players, I assume the video is not in PAL format, but standard HD and the Blu-ray disk will play on U.S. Blu-ray machines?

Also, has the German soundtrack been slowed down from PAL to it's normal theatrical speed (which is the same as NTSC soundtrack speed) to match the non-PAL HD video Harmy has made?

Thanks for any info. :)

Yeah, having the best quality 35mm print of the real Anakin possible to scan would be great. :) Plus it might be helpful in other ways, as the general quality of a print after the restoration should be really nice (not counting any color corrections that might be needed).

I notice it sold already, did someone here get it? :)

Hmm, good point. So far everything has been smooth the way it is...

10k, whoa, that's enough for 70mm scans. =P This sounds like a dream pro-level film scanner many here have talked about before with how great it would be to have one in the hands of a Star Wars fan for use in restoration work. :)

That's very cool :) How does your 4k setup compare with something like that?

I would suggest not naming any person in a thread that might do a high res scan and make it available for fans to use for restorations and to share publicly. Keep that sort of talk for private conversation. :)

poita: Nice to hear about the 4k upgrade, that would provide more than enough detail for a print scan. And thanks for the dedication required to make that happen. :)

Wow, the skin tones are so rich and natural, excellent saturation. Film rules. :)

I hope this can be scanned in high quality soon. :)

Hmm, well, Mr. Harris would certainly know, if anyone would... But I hope there's some way to do it, or at least get very good color-accurate shots of the film print, so it can be used to help with correcting colors on restoration projects.

Which is why it's best to handle it with a private scan using the best equipment possible. So a 1080p or 2k scan with maximum color precision using either film guard or a wet gate is the best option. That way the prints are in the hands of dedicated Star Wars fans who will handle them with the greatest care and scan them as well as can be done on equipment that doesn't cost $100,000+ (that 4k machine for $350,000 is nice :) ).

It would be one of the most important events ever in the history of Star Wars preservation to get these prints scanned in at 1080p or 2k with high color accuracy in an uncompressed file format for the best quality possible. I really hope this can be arranged. I'd be willing to kick in some to help cover costs. :) Any donations should all be handled through private communications and low profile.

I know one thing that I remember distinctly is that Hoth was always an icey blue. Definitely not the straight snowy white that Lucas has changed it to in the more recent home video versions. So the cool icey blue of the snow fields and mountains is correct. The trick will be getting the precise color as close as possible.

As to this 35mm print, it's great to hear of a print in such fine condition. :) I wonder how it compares to the prints of those who will be continuing on with negative1's 35mm restoration after Star Wars is done. Makes you wonder if this one might be an even better one to base the restoration on than the 35mm prints they are going to be lining up for The Empire Strikes Back. And if he might be willing to let them have access just long enough to do a HD scan for the restoration. Then he would have a superb quality back up of his print on Blu-ray. =)

In any case, I hope at the least that very high quality photos can be taken during a screening (with the projector paused for a few seconds on various scenes to give a good sampling throughout the movie) with a nice SLR camera on a tripod, with the white balance, exposure and such set correctly manually to get the most accurate shots of the movie possible. No doubt the camera/movie experts on the forum here could advise on the best camera settings, lens types, etc. to take photos with.

This could be a superb reference for color restoration for Harmy and everyone else working on such projects. But whatever you do, please don't compress the images, so as to leave the colors fully intact and unaltered. Have the camera take them and store them as uncompressed bmp's, tiff's or whatever. I guess it would be in 32 bit color, or maybe even 36 bit (the next step up in color detail/gamut, IIRC) if the camera supports it (not sure if any do). I hope all goes well with this. :)

doubleKO: Thanks for the covers. :) If you'd like some other styles, let me know. :)

Spaced Ranger: That's interesting. I would have thought that the increased dwell time of the slower speed would result in the dyes being more fully changed and thus more likely to remain easier to read for longer. But maybe the dyes change best within a certain range of laser exposure, and thus the medium burn speeds, say 2-3x on a BD-R, work best.

By the way, anyone who has dark_jedi's V3 DVD set, I'd like to get the full resolution image files for the V3 DVD case artwork for the trilogy included in that set, as seen on page 1 of this thread. Please PM me if you have them available. I have some other very nice Star Wars trilogy covers in a variety of styles I can send in return if you like. Thanks for any help, it's much appreciated. :)

Spaced Ranger: Burning at very slow speed is often also mentioned as increasing the chances of the disk remaining 100% readable for long periods of time. So that seems to help, also.

Welcome back, dark_jedi. :) Superb work the two of you have done, the latest samples are clearly superior to even the blu-ray version 1, and that's saying something. And vastly better than the GOUT before restoration.