Harmy

This is glorious!!! I already started working on the next DeEd using this and Neverar’s regrade of the BD as a source. (I know I said I would do ESB v2.5 first but this makes me a lot more motivated 😄 )

I would just say though, that I wouldn’t rush to buy an expensive new video card, if you don’t need it for anything else, because for normal viewing, the benefits of the 4K version over upscaling the 1080p version are negligible, since the detail just isn’t there in the prints.

Here are a few comparison screenshots:
https://i.imgur.com/oABAiva.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/RiFs4wO.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/o5kSdDU.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/5rsTD7d.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/1AK3isK.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/jE6WvED.jpg

As you can see the only thing that is visibly sharper in the UHD version are the scratches on the print. Not even the grain is sharper.

I talked to a guy organizing an independent sci-fi film festival and he said they wanted to screen Star Wars and Disney wouldn’t let them - not even the SE, the prequels or even TFA. He said that the oldest they’d let them screen is Rogue One, so they’re showing that one.

New important video:
https://youtu.be/vrwKZHv4OS0

analog said:

Quite an interesting workflow. Reminds me of some other software out there for completely unrelated tasks (process automation). Makes sense to see such concepts applied in this realm of working with video. Kind of wild to see it in action. Looks like it will take a lot of time to work through each scene, and then work on rendering so many pieces.

Yeah - it is time-consuming but in that it’s no different from my v2.0 workflow.

In v3.0, the recomped shots will be restored using 35mm for sure. In v2.5, the number of Despecialized shots will be more or less the same as in v2.0 but those using GOUT heavily will be replaced with 35mm based ones.

That reminds me, that I probably should have posted these here, since the shot I’m showing is from Empire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuXb2BuUpJ4&t=135s&ab_channel=HarmyDespecialized
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S12n6IXAhE0&t=158s&ab_channel=HarmyDespecialized

For Star Wars, yes. I will make some adjustments to it (I think he left some scenes a tad too dark) but mostly it will stay as is in Neverar’s version.
For ESB and Jedi, I will be starting from scratch but I will probably be sticking to similar CC as the previous versions.

I was actually trying to preserve the movement of the elements in relation to each other, since that was always there.

Eh, potato-potahto… 😄

Here’s part two of my last video, this time introducing how Nuke will be used in my new v3.0 workflow.😃
I listened to the complaints from the last one and made this one on one monitor, so you guys can better see what’s going on 😃

https://youtu.be/S12n6IXAhE0

If I was working on one monitor, the image part would be just as small, if not smaller. I had to make the monitor with the interface and the task-sheet larger, to make the text readable.

Here’s the promised new video. 😃
https://youtu.be/XuXb2BuUpJ4

Yep, that’s Despecialized.

I actually realized while doing some test image-sequence exports, that I have Neat Video 4 for Premiere, which has pretty awesome auto dust busting (unlike Neat Video 3, which I have for AE), so together with Warp Stabilizer, I can do all the auto cleanup and stabilization that will be needed, directly in Premiere and won’t be needing Avisynth at all 😃

OK, that actually settles two of my problems - I’ll be using png - it’s 8bit only, but so are my sources anyway and I should be able to use it in everything. I was considering tiff as well, but that would be huge files.

OK, say my image sequence is ESB-R1-S00500-0001.dpx - ESB-R1-S00500-0128.dpx - what exactly will the line in the script read?

Also, I’d like to make a video, showing me making the first few v3.0 shots, which would introduce my new workflow and how the spreadsheet will be used in it.
Can anyone recommend a good screen-capture software, that will be able to handle two 4K monitors, ideally saving each to its own video file, and won’t slow the computer down too much?

Another thing I could use some opinions on is what image file format to use for the image sequences.

Also, how can I load an image sequence into avisynth?

OK, so I locked the editing access to the spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NwFnvrRp3CnyDOdr9W1__8PLBGwH8WOKkl8mjke8LQs/edit?usp=sharing

If the people, who helped me create it could, please, PM me their email addresses, I will add them, so they can still edit the sheet, if needed. Thanks 😃

Report the listing on ebay for selling bootlegs - and put the link here, so others can report him too.

The rule is if you want Despecialized in HD, you need to own the official release in HD. If you only own an SD official release, you can download the DVD5 version. As others said though, it’s a moral-based code of conduct - there’s no way of enforcing it and it doesn’t make it officially legal in any case.

I decided to go with this in the end: https://www.amazon.com/20TB-Desktop-External-Drive-WDBFBE0200JBK-NESN/dp/B074R34DD3

This will enable me to transfer all the stuff from my internal drives and have those free for working on Despecialized.

I got it for 15,000 Czech Crowns (about 680 USD), which is a bargain, because normally HDDs cost around 1000CZK per TB.

I had my eye on 5TB ones - I need external, because I don’t have any more free HDD slots inside my computer.

THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH FOR ALL THE DONATIONS!!!
I’ve now got the one-year Adobe license and enough to spare for a couple of large HDDs!!!
Will start working on v3.0 this weekend and start filling in the tasksheet, so you guys can see my progress 😃

I don’t think this is a task for Despecialized, since it would be about restoring a very specific version, which is only a curiosity for the most devout purists, so a 35mm preservation, if a print of this version was found, which would be 100% theatrically faithful, would be much better suited for this kind of task.

There’s plenty of time before final release formats are an issue anyway. 😃

Certainly something to consider - it sucks that we can’t get seamless branching to work properly - I’d love to have one disc where you’d go to the menu and select between the US 1977 Version, US 1981 version or one of the foreign language versions, each with their own crawl, burned in subs and (for some) credits. I’m not sure if we have scans of both but it would be awesome to have both versions of the English credits as well, where one would run with the '77 version and the other with the '81 version.

And then the MKV release would be the US '77 version.