Hal 9000

Still can't tell a huge difference, just the brightness. It appears one is bright, two is a bit darker, and three is darker still. 

The wmv file you sent me appeared bright overall when I played it, but all three versions you posted today appear to be properly bright, so any discrepancies aren't as noticeable. That being the case, I think any of them look good. I'd vote for number two, just because it's a middle ground between three equally good options.

Since I am delaying v2 a bit, I'm taking the opportunity to go back and give Episode II more film grain. 

The pictures are so small; I can't tell the difference between the three. I think the edges could still be blurred a bit. 

About the streaks. Could they be painted out? They're very small, and surrounded by black. 

Oh, also, there appear to be two white streaks (frozen shooting stars?) to the right of the planet. I'm not sure what they are.

Sweet. Better to do this now before James Luceno's upcoming 'Tarkin' book comes out and I start rationalizing the Death Star's unnecessary presence. :P

Then forget I said anything about it. 
The planet just needs a bit more work, to blend with the surrounding footage, but it'll be great to have in my edit. Thank you again for volunteering!

Okay, here are my thoughts. The planet looks very clear, perhaps too clear. I know space doesn't have any atmospheric depth, but blurring it slightly might help it blend in. Especially the edges; I think JasonN blurred the edges when he did this for his edit. As it is now, the planet (especially the border) is very distinct and doesn't seem to be part of the original image. The scene is bright overall, at least how you exported it, so that might be what makes it look so noticeable. I can't tell whether the brightness should be changed for the clip or the new element, but something doesn't quite fit brightness-wise between the two. 

This is a minor point, so please ignore it unless it's a very easy change: The planet seems very big. It could stand to be a little smaller, which might help it blend into the rest of the picture anyway. If you have the motion tracked and all that, I wonder if it'd be an easy thing to change, but like I said it doesn't really matter much.

I am totally unfamiliar with rotoscoping and image manipulation, so I could be talking out of my ass. If it is possible, could you export it (or screencaps) with its original brightness? Maybe it's my Mac struggling to play a wmv file, but it looks too bright and that might be skewing my judgement. 

I'll check it out as soon as I get home tonight!

Octorox said:

At the risk of becoming annoying, can anyone give me a myspleen invite for this, so I can use it for my edit? I've tried asking for one on the myspleen forums to no avail.

 PM sent.

Thanks for the update. I might go ahead and get v2 of Ep1 and Ep2 out for now. Hope your exams went well!

Awesome.

I'd like that. Thanks.

Oh, my bad! I thought that was the 'regular' version. 

emanswfan said:

My bad, on the grain.

Here's the same shot with real anamorphic film grain scanned at 4K, I purchased recently.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/80765

 IMHO it's still a lot of grain, and it noticeably hinders detail. I do really like this look overall, but I estimate the grain is stronger than necessary. 

Would you want to cluster the Battle of Yavin as one big change, or every specific little change? 

Just curious; why start with ROTS?

Sounds like fun, though polling in this way could introduce incongruities unless some changes are clustered into packages.

I tend to agree; it might be too strong. I wonder how it would look if the settings were applied at 50%. Less might be more.

Anyone try upscaling and working wizardry to make it look ~okay?

No worries! I'm gonna work on a few other things in the meantime, so you aren't holding me up. 

Back to the Future, when originally released in theaters, had no “To Be Continued” title card before the end credits. This was added for home video releases. When the DVD version was released, they opted to remove it so as to more accurately reflect the original theatrical version.

While that is something most of us here can sympathize with, I personally tend to miss that title card when its not there. Does anyone know where I can find that brief video element in HD quality? I would like to throw together a custom version for myself with it included. (Then a custom version of Part II that simply removes the trailer before the credits. I understand faithfulness to the original version, but there’s no reason to have the trailer around anymore.)

If you compare the OOT with the SE, you'll hear the music I'm talking about. It's present in both versions, though ends up being gone when trying to edit out the two new shots with SE+ footage. 

On its face, it's not jarring and works well enough. My concern, however, is a conservative desire not to do any harm to ANH. It seems like I have a choice here between interfering and making it worse than the original, or leaving in a somewhat benign SE change. 

Ideally, I'd be able to recreate the timing of the original with newer footage, music and all. 

I can't get on dailymotion.com so I can't see your particular version.

There’ve been a few ANH fan edit projects cropping up lately that are mixing and matching elements from the original version and the various special editions. There are some fantastic sources available for just that, including Harmy’s Despecialized and Respecialized editions. I’m even working on a custom SE of ANH myself.

And one thing I’ve reached an impasse about is the “look, sir, droids” scene. I’ve seen a few projects go the ‘Darth Editous’ route in an attempt to remove the added shots using SE (or '04, or '11) footage. A fresh clock wipe takes us from the new version of the sandcrawler shot into the next scene at approximately the point the original did. Naturally, the running time of the two shots is slightly shorter than the original.

My problem is that this wrecks the music in the transition. Originally, the clock wipe coincides with a brief reprise of the “Imperial” ANH music. In the ‘Darth Editous’ school of thought, this is gone. Using audio from the original doesn’t sync properly with the dialogue or dewback sound, and attempts to sync it have failed because the music gets botched.

Any ideas or examples could be useful for multiple people working on various ANH projects.

I wouldn’t mind just using Despecialized footage, but I prefer the shots of the sandcrawler before and afterward from the SE.

Just wondering if anyone has any breakthrough ideas on this one. My version won’t show any CGI dewbacks outside of this scene, but to me the slight jerk in the audio and pacing of the video in doing a ‘Darth Editous’ style edit of the scene lead me to prefer keeping the SE version wholesale. But it does seem weird to focus on the CGI dewbacks in this scene, never to see any again.

Don't worry about the time factor. I'm complimented that you'd dedicate your time to this for me. Good luck with exams, and I'll wait for the FX shots. I've been playing around with ANH in the meantime.

Yes. 

Sounds good. I've already added you to the end credits of my edit. Looking forward to what you can cook up!