Hal 9000

Tobar said:

satanika said:

Nocturnaloner said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

If they're going to bring in another planet-destroying superweapon, then it should be scaled down, something relatively small and maneuverable -- a rocket with a cannon strapped to it, you could say --  not another moon-sized space station.

 Pretty much exactly what I was thinking.  I'd rather it be a space gun than another Death Star.

 Like The Tarkin?

 Or The Sun Crusher?

 Or The "Death Star"?

Incredible! I'm glad to see your hard work has gotten you a real world opportunity. Congratulations! 

Thank you for the feedback and I'm always glad to hear people enjoy it. I think you accurately restated my philosophy, particularly about using deleted scenes for Ep1. These are on the conservative end of the spectrum in the interest of functionality. It might sound silly, but thanks for the compliment about restraint!

And I think the awkward cut you mentioned was to trim Anakin's dialogue: "You'll never reach the outskirts in time! Sandstorms are very, [very] dangerous. [Come on!] I'll take you to my place." I see how that'd be a little jarring. Oh, well. 

I used a fragment of a deleted scene for the podrace just so I could recreate the scoring how I remembered it from editing the DVD version years ago. Sort of a personal thing, though with the music-less soundtrack option it's there without that purpose. To me the original reads as boring now, like playing the Death Star attack without score. (You can still see the video I was trying to recreate, on my old YouTube channel 'Plutoneam.') There is another point where I cross faded the music this time around when I removed some twoheaded announcements before Anakin flies up the ramp. So if I wasn't going to use the music, I would have probably have edited the podrace a little differently. 

Well, I just wanted to borrow from the incredible work from the fan editing community and bake a prequel trilogy that I can enjoy. As good as, say, L8wrtr's edits are, it would have been very hard for someone who has spent a good deal of time editing the DVDs ten years ago to "settle" for something I didn't do myself. 

All this being said, someone please help me.

I left in a little more of Ric than my more logical side told me.

Excellent timing for that first pic. 

Seems like many of these devices have spotty luck with stuff like this. But one thing that would tell me something is wrong is if someone has an issue with v3 that they don't have with v1 or v2. Otherwise I'll have to conclude, even for my own device which once played them, that it's inherit. At least in that event, I wouldn't have to start over with this 1080p versions. 

EDIT: V2 is causing the same choppy playback for me. I have to conclude that my issue has to do with my Roku, rather than the video. In other words, I have no better clue why some of you are having problems than I did before. *shrugs* But if you are able, you could reencode it yourself to a known good format, or get the 720p version.

I have played v1 on my Roku 2 XS from start to finish when they were first released, with no issues. I just tried playing v3 and found... stuttering video, as if it just can't quite keep up. I rendered three test clips of varying bit rates, and all of them stutter regardless. 

So, I am going to (try to) reacquire V1 or V2 from myspleen and test it. It's possible that a software update on my Roku could explain this, rather than any changes with my encoding settings. The most helpful thing right now would be to have people experiencing stuttering problems download v1 or v2 of any of the films and test them as well. If they have the same problem, I'll have to conclude that it is unavoidable and give up. If the older versions work fine, I'll keep investigating. (Though even lower bitrates than what I used before cause my Roku to stutter!)

I'm interrupting my encode of the 720p version of Ep3 in order to render a very small test clip with a lower bitrate. I'll upload it for you guys to test out on your devices and see if it solves the problem. If so, I'll plan on dedicating yet another set of three weeks of CPU time to reencoding them. Stay tuned; I definitley want the final version I turn out to work for the majority of people who would be interested in it.

Thanks for the information. I believe my maximum bitrate for v3 was 37mbps.

You're probably right, but I suppose the bit rate could possibly be higher than the source material, as it would still help retain quality as I encoded to an ultimately smaller file. 

I'd also like to hear if anyone tried and had or didn't have this problem with v1 or v2. I believe I raised the bitrate very slightly this time around, but still low enough to easily fit onto a BD25 with room to spare. 

If indeed that's what's causing this problem, all versions must have been straddling this very fine line. I doubt it, though. 

Unless they figured any BR components would be as good as any other and cut costs that time around. Maybe.

Is there a way to test your existing disc with a different player? I wonder if, like with DVDs, some BR players can't handle the full bitrate spectrum the format supports.

Am I right to assume that it plays fine on a BluRay player through USB? I'm sorry to hear that you have wasted resources trying to get this to work. I don't have any prior experience authoring BR discs, and don't have any myself. All I did was use Compressor's build-in BluRay video preset. Stuttering makes me suspect the bitrate, but I authored it well within the appropriate range, so I really can't say what's causing this problem.

Q2's FOTJ trilogy was the first (finished edit) to feature Padme surviving Episode III to raise an infant Leia on Alderaan, which is a small but important "fix" for continuity with the OT.

+1, fat chance notwithstanding

For your version of Empire, have you addressed the SE continuity error with the windows on Cloud City immediately prior to the reveal that Lando had been working with Vader?

ALLOL

I use all but one of those. They've all been great.

I'm replacing the scene where Mace notes a plot to destroy the Jedi in the war room with the equivalent deleted scene where he notes this along with Yoda and Obi-Wan earlier in the film. Doing this lets Obi-Wan participate and share this suspicion, which I feel helps the second half of the film. 

The other I included this time is the second of three "seeds of rebellion" scenes. This one isn't as important, but keeping it would add a little more continuity to the film, seeing that plot thread continue. 

I'm upconverting them with Compressor this time, as I did with the rest. I took a shortcut by using something else, but there is bad aliasing. No worries; just a minor setback.

Bad news, everyone! Labyrinth Of Evil will be delayed a short bit because the two deleted scenes I'm using that I hadn't used before look like shit when encoded. I'm going to re-rip and upconvert them using the old method, which will require time to reencode the final product. 

And before anyone asks, it'll be done when I have time to finish it. Be patient, and it'll be here before you know it.

Good to hear a bit from you. I'm working on encoding and distributing the final version of my prequel fan edit project, but I've got Final Cut sequences set aside to plug your source into once it's all finished. 

Smithers said:

but the VHS release may take a while to burn to a bluray.

 lol

laderdisc audio only, but you have to agree not to use to purchase goods or services.

Close, but wrong. The VHS version will indeed be coming out soon, with the full 480p .avi coming in about a year.

I feel like there's a decent Alien joke to be made, but I don't quite have it in me.