Harmy

I've been using madVR for some years now and I remember looking at my room-mate's monitor when he was watching HD films and thinking they looked horrible - like DNR was applied to them or something (I told him as much but he didn't care) I put it down to his monitor doing it, because he was using MPC-HC, just like me but then one day I installed MPC-HC on the new computer and suddenly videos looked exactly like on my friend's computer, so I started digging and found out, that I accidentally left EVR as the renderer and when I switched to madVR, the difference was night and day - I actually took these screenshots back then to show my friend to convince him to let me switch his settings to madVR too :-)

Well, for one, because unlike the prequels, they can yield higher detail but mainly because the 2004 masters aren't just only 1080p, they're shitty 1080p, with actual resolution hardly beyond 720p.

Well, they were "fine" projected in 2K (actually 1080p) since their inception - but even if they did get a 4K upscale, there's no reason for a restoration company to get involved.

We do know, that those aren't the original sabers in that video, which means, that it isn't the '97SE either and apart from color, they look an awful lot like the 2004SE sabers. But since evidence points towards this new transfer having been done in 2012, which would co-inside with the time the 3D releases were still part of the plan, Disney may have nothing to do with it and since Lucas was still running things, they probably would have bothered to add all the other changes for a Lucas-sanctioned 3D re-release.

Love the beat-up paint job - used universe indeed :-)

Yeah, just a bit of wapring - not much one can do about it without risk of introducing even more problems, plus it's barely noticeable.

As to the VLC vs. MPC+MadVR - that is why I use MPC+MadVR. Lots of people who use MPC use EVR Custom Presenter, which has much worse results. Plus, in MadVR, you can turn on an anti-banding filter, which works miracles for compressed gradients and it has a great full-screen exclusive mode, which helps those with slower computers to run MadVR (which is a bit more CPU heavy) smoothly.

"The weapon is much more powerful than the original's Death Star, capable of destroying entire solar systems!"

Yuck! I sure hope that's bullshit.

One Sith to rule them all, one Shit to find them...

And this sad miserable sod used to be one of the coolest, most bad-ass villains ever :-D

I'm pretty sure there were no scans in '97 (except for the shots, which were to be altered). For the most part, it was a good old-fashioned analog restoration.

imperialscum said:

http://news.moviefone.com/2014/04/25/william-friedkin-exorcist-curse-interview/

So this guy talks about 35mm that is idealised by so many fans around here. I completely agree with him.

I just came back from a 35mm screening of Slumdog Millionaire (I know, a bit ironic considering that the film was shot digitally) and it was the best quality of projection I've seen in years - sure, there were some scratches on the ends of the reels and the sound crackled a bit sometimes but the colors were gorgeous and there was no stupid raster like there always was on all digital projections I've ever seen (last film I saw before this was a digital projection of How to Train Your Dragon 2 and the raster of the projection was so horribly distracting, it took away most of the visual impact of this otherwise pretty great flick for me). It'd been so long since I'd last seen a 35mm print, I was actually pretty surprised how little grain there was visible in the projection too.

Fang Zei said:

This is kind of like when Jurassic Park got a new scan for its 3D conversion but the 2d transfer in the combo pack was still just the old blu-ray.

Yeah, but in that particular case it was probably good, because the 2D blu-ray is far better then the 3D one - it is of course possible, that the DNR and orange/cyan coloring were applied during the 3D conversion, so a 2D BD from the new master would have been fine but somehow, I don't think so.

http://caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleiche/multi_comparison.php?art=part&x=538&y=248&action=1&image=11&hd_multiID=234&cap1=21066&cap2=3016&disc1=2276&disc2=292&lossless=#vergleich

Well, over-all, I'd say it's good news, because the existing 2004 master was horrible, so even if it was the altered version, which we've now confirmed it almost certainly is, it's still good that there is a new better master. On the other hand, the fact, that they seem to have decided to restore/remaster the altered version doesn't exactly bode well for an official OOT restoration.

I think it does seem pretty likely, that this "restoration" was done in 2012 for the planned 3D release, for which the 2004 1080p master didn't cut it any more, so they hired these guys to do the 2004/2011 version over from new 4K scans.

Well, I compared it to the I.B. print and these are definitely the recomposited lightsabers - the thickness of the cores is actually almost exactly right (in the GOUT, the sabers are way too thick) but colored glows are far too opaque, just like the ones in the 2004 version.

Not really - like Neverar pointed out, based on the pictures he posted, this is indeed a completely different scan.

The thing is, the post-'97 versions ('04 and '11) were never marketed as Special Edition or any specific version of the movies, so I can easily see a situation, where the people currently in charge of this new restoration aren't even aware of any of the subsequent changes and they think that by making a restoration of the 97SE, they are making a restoration of the "George Lucas approved director's cut" version, which they think is the same version seen on the '04 DVD and '11 BD.

m_s0 said:

Harmy said:

I'm pretty sure, that the pieces of film added to the negative in 1997 should be recognizable not only by their content but also by their markings, so should they want to really do a proper OOT restoration using the negative, it shouldn't be a problem to identify exactly which shots have been changed.

You're assuming competence and dedication on so many levels here...

Cataloguing all of the original elements properly I believe in. I've got some doubts concerning storing them properly afterwards. Giving enough of a crap to keep them that way for 20 years I just cannot see happening.

Call me a pessimist, but I've seen and read horror stories about film restoration. The original film elements are never in good shape, even if they were supposed to be handled well. It would be a pleasant surprise to learn that someone did indeed take care of them.

 Not really - what I was saying was, that when we're trying to determine what was changed and what was not in this or that version for our own restorations/recreations, we have to actually look at the content of the frames and compare them closely to see if for example a particular shot was recomposited, which is a time-consuming endeavor, which involves a lot of guess-work and we could quite easily miss something and I don't see them (Disney, Fox, Lucasfilm) being this thorough anyway -- BUT if they wanted to recreate the original version from the 4K '97SE scan they probably already have by replacing the shots put in in '97 with something like an I.P. or even distribution print scan, they should be easily able to determine which scenes were added in '97 by the markings on the film - they wouldn't have to bother comparing the content at all, so in fact, it may well be easier for them to replace all the shots, which were replaced/added in '97 with some other source, rather than cherry-pick which shot to replace and which not to.

I'm pretty sure, that the pieces of film added to the negative in 1997 should be recognizable not only by their content but also by their markings, so should they want to really do a proper OOT restoration using the negative, it shouldn't be a problem to identify exactly which shots have been changed.

I'm so glad we have someone on the case!

TV's Frink said:

Beatleboy99 said:

From their Facebook page

WOW -- STAR WARS IV A NEW HOPE-(SPECIAL EDITION) WE WERE ABLE TO SEE THE FIRST 20 MIN OF THE FIRST EVER DIGITAL DCP PRINT !!!!

 

WOW-WOW-WOW

 

YOU ARE ALL IN FOR A BIG TREAT !!!!!

 

STUNNING PICTURE AND SOUND!

 *yawn*

 I agree completely, Frink - many misguided people have said this kind of thing about the BDs after all.

gizzy2000 said:

That is true, but i've heard that you can tell by the colors that it is not the 2011 version or 2004 version.

 Not really, you can tell by the colors, that it is a new master- whether or not was the new master then conformed to the version seen on the BD is another question entirely.

Wow, I must say, I never even thought to look at it that way - but it's still a bad idea to start with the prequels, because they are such bad films, so I still think the best way to watch Star Wars for the first time is to start with Star Wars, because it simply works best as an introduction to the universe, then watch ESB and ROTJ and then stop watching. But this is definitely an interesting point of view.

Well, for me to pay this kind of money, it would really have to be a Blade Runner type deal with a flawless restoration of all the versions and a shit-ton of never before seen bonus material, including a detailed feature about the restoration.

All they'd need would be a bit of clever marketing to play on the nostalgia string and most of those who don't know or care about the changes will get to know and start caring.

Yes, but this is the eternal debate here - who should determine which changes to make and which not to? It's a matter of taste and there can be a million different altered version based on a million different opinions, whereas the original version is just that, the original version.