It was just that your saying that PCM is better than DTS was in response to a post, where I said, that while there wasn't PCM in this release, there was DTS-HD in the MKV version, so I made the (apparently wrong) connection :-)
Oh, and just to clarify, I had nothing to do with making that mix - it was all hairy_hen, so it's not my mix ;-)
Oh, I'm sorry, I misunderstood, I thought, since you said this elsewhere:
"Why not leave PCM as is? I just don't buy into compressing it down. 16 bit LPCM cannot be beat and should be left completely alone."
that you meant that PCM would sound better than the DTS track here.
Man, you seem like a nice fellow but please do a little reading before you comment on something! The 5.1 DTS-HD sound mix here is a fan restorations of the 70mm mix created from LD PCM and upmixed using Pro-Logic II on professional equipment, with the LFE channel recreated separately. Read more about it here.
Matt_Stevens said:
Anyway... Last night was an absolute blast. This was the most fun I have had watching STAR WARS since the 80's. Harmy's work is jaw dropping. I would do some things differently, yes, but I can respect and admire the incredible effort that went into this.
I'm really glad you and your nieces had a good time watching this :-)
I hope that in the future a higher bit rate BD will be available. At 720p squeezed onto a DVD9 compression issues are obvious to my eyes, though admittedly few will care or even notice. Most people wouldn't know artificial edge enhancement if it smacked them across the face. I'm guessing the 17GB mkv looks better. Unfortunately I can't see it on my current setup.
Yes you can - or I assume you can, since when you say you'd prefer a BD version, I assume you do have a BD burner - if that's the case, you can simply use TS muxer to remux the MKV to a BD folder or ISO and burn a fully functioning Blu Ray disc. It doesn't have PCM sound but it does have the three original tracks in DTS-HD, which to my understanding should be exactly the same quality, only at much lower bitrate.
Also, SW v2.5 and ESB v2.0 AVCHDs and DVD5s are now up on paradox on mega.
Yeah, cut him some slack - he got introduced to Star Wars when he was 5 on DVD.
I certainly think it would be a good thing, if the '97SE was also restored an released - I wouldn't be too disappointed if it isn't but I do think it would be good - like with Blade Runner - did the release really need to contain the DC, when the FC is almost the same cut? Well, yes, because it's similar but not quite the same and it's an important piece of the films evolution.
That post you quoted wasn't really aimed at you specifically, it was more general and it's just that I have literally given the answer to those same questions at least 50, possibly a 100 times and I'm happy, when someone else steps up and saves me the typing, that's all.
Now, here then is my answer, specific to your post:
That ROTJ v1.0 was done like 4 years ago and was far less high profile at the time and I was far less experienced - I looked at the eyebrow scene again yesterday and yes, it doesn't look too great and today, I could definitely do it better, even with only those same sources but at the time, I was quite proud of it and I previewed it here before putting it into the edit and most people praised it and I don't remember anyone saying, that it would better be left as it was - because the quality of these edits was measured by a different standard then, so when you come in and start complaining about this old piece of work using such strong words as terrible or atrocious (I fail to see how that is "constructive criticism"), it's like telling a 10 year old, that that finger painting hanging in the kitchen that he made when he was four, is absolutely horrible.
If you had said it normally, without being rude about it, it would have been ok to suggest, that if some rather minor change can't be undone with high enough quality, it's better left alone (this was the case for example with the Rancor matte-lines, which I would have loved to restore but I just wasn't able to pull it off at the time) but then you went on and started suggesting, that even fixes, which were quite easy to revert should have been left in, such as reverting R2 to black (I'm not sure what you mean in the finale of IV - R2 was never recolored there) that just goes completely against the spirit of these edits - if I could pull it off, I would undo everything down to the last matte-line and the "where do you draw the line" reason for that I already explained extensively in this post.
walking_carpet said:
imperialscum said:
riddler95 said:
Robert Harris would do anything he could to perfectly color correct the Original Theatrical Versions to match exactly how they looked when they were originally released in 1977, 1980, and 1983.
Unlike digital colour record where everything is clearly defined (RGB, HSV etc.), in case of analogue medium (i.e. film) colour is a very complex matter. "How they looked when they were originally released" is big variable and is really impossible to determine.
can someone explain this further? i remember when i saw the making of the superman II donner cut, they had all these original production notes of everything that was shot with specific details. and I know that things like lens type, shutter speed, tracking, etc are also noted - wouldnt the same thing be done for color timing? even though it was analog, wouldnt they have various color 'gradients' defined by some sort of numbering or naming convention so you dont have to guess?
I guess they would but those same settings will affect the negative completely differently based on how much it has faded. Also it would depend on not only the exact stock, but the exact batch of that stock you were printing on and so on - there's a huge wiggle room and too many variables, where these optical analog processes were involved, for these production notes to give you any 100% definite answers.
I guess if I were to make an analogy, its kind of like when you get new tile installed - if something were to happen, they go back to the original dye lot so a replacement doesnt mismatch.
is that not the case or it doesnt work that way?
That's actually a pretty good analogy - you do that and the tiles will still be a little different, because your old ones have changed a bit over time, or the new batch didn't come out looking perfectly the same due to different unpredictable factors - it happens all the time. Or as another example, my dad had a custom paintjob on his car, then my mum crashed it and when he went to the paint shop to have the replaced parts painted and asked for that same paint (he knew the number and everything) the new paint-job still didn't quite match the old one.
I disagree - we often saw the negative impact of what happens when people who were originally involved in the process are calling the shots on a restoration or a new master - most obviously of course George Lucas, but then you have all the new restorations of James Cameron films Like Terminator, Aliens or Titanic, supervised by Cameron getting a teal and orange look, same goes for the Blade Runner Final Cut, LOTR FOTR EE BD, Matrix and others - the best way in my opinion, is to have it done by a competent expert colorist, who knows the processes that were involved at the time of the movie's making and is able to replicate them. And you say:
"someone who had nothing to do with the film (i.e. what people refer to as "professional") subjectively decide the tone"
to which I would counter, that such an expert, unlike someone who did have something to do with the film, is actually far more likely to decide things objectively.
And worn out film stock, if it's non-fading, like the I.B. Technicolor, is definitely a better source of information, than somebody's memories of something that happened 30 years ago - memories get distorted in unbelievable ways.
This is true. With the analog technology, no two prints looked the same - so taking a few low fade prints as a reference and making a sort of amalgamation of that would give you something approaching the "original" colors. So, I don't think it would be a good idea for a major professional restoration to stick religiously to one particular print, if they have access to more and they probably should keep the clors somewhat consistent throughout the film. What I think should however definitely be done, is to keep the over-all color schemes of each sequence as they appear on the original prints - it would be very wrong for a restoration to attempt to make the film look modern.
The Godfather restoration is a great example of that - the colors are nice and consistent and probably better than even on the initial release, but they have that beautiful vintage look fitting for the era in which the movie was made.
I hope so too. But to be honest I'm not thrilled by the possibility of them mixing up with the Avengers - I like this as a separate story.
@n00b: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/What-is-your-favorite-versions-of-the-following-movies-Apocalypse-Now-Alien-Aliens-Blade-Runner-and-Terminator-2/post/723923/#TopicPost723923
@Turisu: Actually, the sharpening isn't from the downscale script but rather from the upscaling. Here's a simple bicubic upscale in PS. There is some detail loss off course but it's super minor.
Sorry, to revive this old thread, I just wanted to move the Blade Runner discussion from here to somewhere, where it was on topic:
n00b said:
Harmy said:
Oh, no! "Minor" corrections like those in Blade Runner FC would be absolutely unacceptable for an OOT release - it would destroy the historical integrity of the movies and while it would be the same cut, it wouldn't be the same original version - I've said it a million times before but I guess I'll have to say it again - if you say some fixes could be made, then it is up for debate, what's still acceptable and what is not and you'll get a million different people with million different opinions - some would draw the line at matte-lines, some at blue R2 and others at expanded Cloud City windows, whereas, if you say the original version warts and all, there's nothing to debate - the goal is to restore the movie as close as possible to the way it looked on opening day.
I understand your point and have to agree but as I said, minor corrections are unacceptable for the Despecialized Edition as they would make it a mixture of official versions. Shaw's eyebrows are a different thing though but there's still hope that the manual stabilization pays off. If not, I also think that they should be omitted unless there's a 35mm source.
Of course, I also favor the historical integrity of an unaltered theatrical version but a slighty polished release by Disney would still be ten times better than any official release right now.
Oh, and talking about Blade Runner, some of the new composites in the Final Cut actually look worse than the old ones and you don't have to go far into the movie - the 1st shot will do:
http://s25.postimg.org/nsyjfoaa5/Blade_Runner.jpgThe top is the original, bottom is the FC - now it is not quite as obvious in a still frame as it is in movement, so if you have the set, I recommend popping the discs in and checking it out for yourselves but those circled dark areas, which are nice smooth gradients in the original, become weird shimmering black blobs in the re-composited version and they bear unmistakable signs of bad digital keying - it caught my eye immediately the first time I put the disc in and I was like what the eff!?
Question: Which version do you prefer overall? In my opinion, the Domestic Cut is the awful version while I don't have real preferences between the Director's Cut and the Final Cut. For me, the developement of this movie is the complete opposite of Star Wars.
I do actually prefer the original international cut - I saw the DC first, because that was the only version, which came out on DVD before the big box set but didn't really fall in love with the movie until I found a LD rip of the original cut and I was super happy, when that version was part of the official release. I rented the Final Cut on DVD, when it first came out and then re-watched it, when I bought the BD but I just love the noir-like narration, which while perhaps unnecessary to the story just adds to the atmosphere for me, and I even prefer the happy ending (sue me). Plus, in the FC, the movie lost some of it's magic by re-compositing the effects and altering the colors, so even if I wanted to watch the version more in line with Ridley Scott's original vision, I'd go for the DC.
OK, now while I'm at it and I posted in this three years old thread, why not answer the other questions as well:
Apocalypse Now: I've only seen the Reudx version once, when I first bought the BD and it dragged on horribly, the theatrical cut is definitely better in my opinion.
Alien: I'm not even sure I've seen the DC. The extra scenes can be played on the BD as deleted scenes, so I've definitely seen them but I'm not sure if I ever watched the moive with the scenes integrated.
Aliens: Definitely prefer the SE - much more emotional and character driven cut of the movie.
Terminator 2: I don't really have a preference here. It just depends on how long a film I'm in the mood for.
The sharpening is only done to counteract the blurring effects of the remove int. flicker filter. And yes, these artifacts are definitely something weird and different from normal interlacing artifacts.
I went ahead and applied some post magic to the "interview" part of the doc:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88841
Pretty neat, huh?
Yeah, I did get that clip but I didn't use it in the end because I thought what I had gave better results. I can do just the color if you want but I'd still recommend doing this kind of processing now, rather than on an already re-compressed source.
You shouldn't be tempted, you should seriously already be downloading! The 2.X versions are so much better it's not even funny. But that discussion belongs elsewhere ;-)
So, to stay on topic, I will confess this - before I saw ESB and ROTJ, I had this sticker album, which came out as part of the 97SE campaign and had the stories of all three films in it, so I already knew the basic story before I ever saw ESB and ROTJ and when the '97SE VHS came to the local video-rental store, my parents would only give me money to rent one movie a week, so since I'd already seen the original movie on TV (albeit, like 4 or 5 years ago) I wanted to see the other two and my friend who saw all three SEs in the cinema (I still can't believe, that I saw Titanic and Jurassic Park 2 in cinema that year and not Star Wars) told me, that ROTJ was much much better than ESB (we were 9 years old you know) so I went and rented ROTJ first and only saw ESB for the first time a week after ROTJ.
OK, Puggo, here it is:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88830
I would recommend the Mild Sharpen + Reduce Interlace Flicker, because it gets rid of the artifacts and otherwise it keeps the image almost the same (as seen it the lower left corner of the comparison).
Also, don't worry, now that I figured out the problem, I should be able to get you the files in exactly the same format as you gave them to me :-)
Oh, no! "Minor" corrections like those in Blade Runner FC would be absolutely unacceptable for an OOT release - it would destroy the historical integrity of the movies and while it would be the same cut, it wouldn't be the same original version - I've said it a million times before but I guess I'll have to say it again - if you say some fixes could be made, then it is up for debate, what's still acceptable and what is not and you'll get a million different people with million different opinions - some would draw the line at matte-lines, some at blue R2 and others at expanded Cloud City windows, whereas, if you say the original version warts and all, there's nothing to debate - the goal is to restore the movie as close as possible to the way it looked on opening day.
Oh, and talking about Blade Runner, some of the new composites in the Final Cut actually look worse than the old ones and you don't have to go far into the movie - the 1st shot will do:
http://s25.postimg.org/nsyjfoaa5/Blade_Runner.jpg
The top is the original, bottom is the FC - now it is not quite as obvious in a still frame as it is in movement, so if you have the set, I recommend popping the discs in and checking it out for yourselves but those circled dark areas, which are nice smooth gradients in the original, become weird shimmering black blobs in the re-composited version and they bear unmistakable signs of bad digital keying - it caught my eye immediately the first time I put the disc in and I was like what the eff!?
Maybe he's not allowed to reveal anything, because with his connections, if something like this was actually happening, I doubt he wouldn't know about it.
Actually, upon even closer inspection, all the files have those artifacts but they don't seem to be normal interlacing artifacts, because they show up as these short comb-like lines along the edges of vertical lines, and they are short, regardless of the speed of the movement and they don't appear in all frames. Here's an example - these are taken from three consecutive frames, the 1st of which doesn't have the artifacts and the other two do:
http://s25.postimg.org/tpxtir21b/Jabba.png
(I doubled the size to make the artifacts clearly visible.)
EDIT: In After Effects, thwere is an Effect called Reduce Interlace Flicker, which seems to take care of these artifacts without any significant loss of detail. I'll post a sample soon, for Puggo to decide, what he'd rather have.)
TV's Frink said:
TV's Frink said:
This isn't 100% on-topic, but that never stopped me.
uloz appears to be down. Not sure what's going on.
Just wanted to mention that I checked a few of those "is it down?" sites and they report it is indeed down. At least it confirms it's not a problem on my end.
Curious if other USA/Comcast users are having this problem...
Well, that sucks. Anyone know some other good sites I could re-upload to? Mega seems good but it has a 50GB upload limit for free users.
I noticed, that Mike V. has been kind of silent lately and doesn't comment on this whole situation. Is it possible, that Disney already approached him and he's actually working on the restoration for them? That would be awesome.
OK, I'm sorry guys, all this was pretty much for nothing - the combing in the problematic clip is actually already there in the source video - something must have gone wrong with Puggo's capture for that particular file. The whole issue was, that AE recognized the files as interlaced, so it set "Separate Fields" to "Lower Field First", which resulted in loss of vertical detail and therefore in both the jaggies and the hiding of the combing artifacts- once it was set to progressive, the jaggies disappeared and the combing became visible. I have another capture from Puggo of the same section, which however has badly blown out whites, so I will have to see what can be done.
Yeah, I'm really hoping to get 35mm sources for this whole sequence for v2.5.
