Dunedain

Well, that's something you don't see every day. :)

Well, remember, it wasn't just about the capture on the X0 machine. It was about getting captures from at least two different sets of each movie, then combining those captures to get the maximum detail.

Then taking that highly detailed captured video and restoring it as best as possible (color correction, anti-aliasing, maybe upscale to 16x9 DVD res, etc.), so the end result would be better than the raw capture of a single laserdisk set. I think that was the plan. And from the screen shot of Mos Eisley that was shown, it looked like it could beat the 2006 DVD set for detail after those things were done.

Excellent cover design. :) And thanks for the all effort on this ultimate DVD set! :)

Yeah, I guess it just goes to show that the only way to get it really close to the film colors without causing problems is to adjust the color correction scene-by-scene. And I realize that would take a lot of time. But perhaps you can make some adjustment for the duel between Obi-Wan and Vader, to make sure the light saber colors are correct (while still keeping the flesh tones fair), since that's such an important epic battle in Star Wars. :)

Actually, more of a bluish gray (with perhaps a slight green tinge) is their correct color, if I recall correctly.

adywan: Great work, even though it was just a quick correction. :)

This shows how far superior this is to the GOUT, ahh... beautiful real film. :) I would suggest everyone here just be patient now, this is obviously way better than anything before, but let's not get into this any further right now, and I also suggest not posting about this elsewhere on other forums, best not to make noise at this time. We all want to make sure this happens without problems...

Then the blue should be retained. I seem to remember Hoth always having a pleasing icy blue color to it, and that appears to indeed be accurate according to the references, so it all makes sense. :)

Yeah, it looks beautiful, such wonderful detail, gorgeous real film. :) Far beyond anything seen before. And once the colors are restored, it's going to be just incredible. :)

Restoration takes time, that's for sure. But the end result will no doubt blow the doors off anything seen before. :)

I think it's rather safe to say it's real, there are those that have seen some of it. :)

There is cause for much happiness. :)

Just saw the most recent sample, the big 4 part video. Wow, way to go, dark_jedi! It looks great on my monitor. The natural film grain was there, which looks the way it should, the detail was good, and I didn't notice any unusual appearance to the characters. I guess it just goes to show that if you carefully restore the video source for the 1993 DC laserdisk set, there's a lot of detail and natural color there, it just has to be made a little easier to see.

To me it looks like an ideal compromise between retaining the natural detail which is present and keeping the grain from being too heavy. The real test will be on an hdtv, so please check that out on your end. The colors look really good, too. And if no way can be found to restore them closer to the film appearance without messing up the flesh tones, then I say just go with this (which I assume is the V3 color correction settings). If you can bring back even more of the color, like the blueness to the Death Star's interior and so on, without causing other problems, then so much the better. Try a few things and see how it turns out before you decide.

Nice Work! :)

I mean the video of Uncle Owen and Luke purchasing the droids, with no other scenes in it. And I said that I had not seen the larger video that he had uploaded yet, so obviously I had to mean the previous smaller video sample. :)

Yeah, I saw the video with Uncle Owen and Luke. It looked really good on my monitor, had some natural film grain, but looked fine. Uncle Owen and Luke looked normal, didn't notice any oddness to their appearance. Would probably look a little different on a tv, though. Is that video using the latest settings?

I'll have to look at the other larger video sample, but it will take hours to get it. Might want to try megaupload next time, it's 10x faster. ;)

Well, I meant there were certain aspects of certain scenes that looked a lot closer to the original colors (compared to the technicolor print) in some of the new screen shots, but the flesh tones, as always, tend to be tricky.

I agree that Luke doesn't even look white in some of those shots, it's a serious problem that needs fixed, but Obi-Wan looked much better in other scenes compared to how Luke looked. The skin tones are so tough to get right. Hopefully that's something that can be solved, if not, then I say go with the V3 colors, as they are good overall. But it would be great to get back as much of that vibrancy the film has as possible.

Looking forward to the V3 DVD set, which looks to be the best at restoring the original unaltered trilogy we've yet seen. :)

And that HD footage is looking really good. If some way can be found to keep as much detail as possible, while reducing grain *just* enough to make it look good on an HD tv, without the plastic artificial look to the people, then that would be great. :)

Ah, I see what you mean. Well, I figured if you thought these new color correction methods were so good that they should be in the Blu-Ray set, then they must be good enough for the V3 DVD set also. :)

Since I assume you're not also going to make a separate Blu-Ray without the new color corrections (assuming you think they are that good), meaning the Blu-Ray would only be available with the new color corrections, that you'd want the DVD set to have it also.

And I agree that there were lots of debates about the color correction in the V3 set before, but most agreed that your current V3 settings are very good, while avoiding the problem of red flesh tones. But that was before these new color correction methods were available, some of the new screen shots posted look amazing and most seem to like them better than anything we've seen before. And with your good eye towards avoiding flesh tone problems, I imagine you would choose an excellent set of color correction values that would bring the colors closer to the original film colors than ever before on home video, while avoiding the skin tone problems. Anyhow, just a thought. :)

dark_jedi: I just meant using the new adjustment methods posted by mother and others that were able to get stronger more accurate colors without the flesh tones going too red, I didn't mean copying LeeThorogood's particular settings as exactly as they are (I also think the flesh tones are too dark, at least in many of the scenes).

And I only mentioned it because you seemed interested in trying to get the colors more accurate using these new methods of fine color adjustment for this HD set, so I thought to might want to apply it to the V3 set also. Since most who have seen these new screen shots using the new color correction methods that have been posted in several threads here have liked them overall, even if there is still some significant fine tuning needed to get them right. :)

dark_jedi: For the V3 DVD set; now that we know it's possible to get a lot closer to the vibrant original film colors without causing overly red skin tones (a big thanks to everyone for working on finding color correction settings that can actually do that), will you be applying the latest color correction methods to the V3 lossless AVI before releasing the V3 DVD set, similar to what LeeThorogood has done with his newest color correction settings (but perhaps with adjustments to what you think is more accurate)?

And if you are, will you also adjust that color correction in some scenes where the general setting might be more problematic?

Thanks for any info. :)

I agree that the lastest version of the color correction looks way better than the previous setting used. The skins tones still have an odd darkness in some scenes, but are ok in other scenes, but that can't be fixed unless scene-by-scene adjustments are made to correct for that.

Overall it's very nice, and much closer to the original vibrant film colors than the GOUT. :)

When uploading large video files, you might want to try Megaupload. As long as the file is under 1 Gig in size, anyone can download it without having to be a member (if the file is larger than 1 Gig, just use winrar to break it into 2 or 3 .rar files for later recombining after download).

Files usually download very fast (often over 1 Megabyte per second, if your connection can go that fast), and you can download one file right after the other, with no delay in between the downloads. I know of no better free site to download large files from.

Your 1.48 GB sample video, for example, could be broken into two 740 Meg .rar files and be downloaded by anyone with no membership required. And it would normally download very fast, maybe less than 30 minutes for both files. :)

Those latest screen shots are looking incredible! :)

Moth3r: Yeah, that was me who posted it. So I guess I replied to my own post 3 years later. hehe 8O)

I seem to recall him having access to a better source than the 2004 SE DVD set, not sure what. But not on the level of this new source, this new one is off-the-charts! 8O)

The real problem more than anything else (other than George being so unreasonable in the first place :) ) is having access to the scenes that were altered in the SE in a non-SE form, and also in high quality. If a high quality source like that has been found, then that would be fantastic. :)

Yes, he's restoring various things, but he may not have used the SE as his source, I think he had a better source. His goal is a restoration without the SE changes, if I recall correctly. And his new source, well, it looks just awesome...

And yes, he never said he would publicly release it when he was done, because of the trouble it would cause. But has released methods in the past. The problem is that we don't have access to the kind of sources he does (and that's an understatement). :)

Asaki: I mean a restoration that we can actually watch at home. ;)

The Aluminum Falcon: It is the same disk in the 2004 SE set and the 2006 original trilogy DVD box set.

ChainsawAsh: Incredible, isn't it?! :)

He's a professional in this field, and apparently he has access to a fantastic source. He's mainly restoring the original Star Wars trilogy, but I think he's also making a few very subtle adjustments here and there to stabilize ship movement in some of the space combat and so on. But it's 99% straight restoration/preservation. And he has the skills to do it.

LeeThorogood: I don't think "want" has anything to do with it, he's simply worried about getting in trouble if he made it publicly available. If he could, I'm sure he'd be happy to. He's a big Star Wars fan. :)

zombie, how do you like those starfields in that shot?! :)