So Macs suck, what's new? Alternatively just go buy a blu player that does mkv...or a media streamer that also will. Either will run you less than a hundred bucks and will serve you well in the future. If you're having this much trouble it's a route worth exploring.
Gotcha - I'll chalk it up to either my crappy-ass default work player/codec, or compression for web. Regardless, I don't remember seeing it in v2.0 so would've been surpirsed.
Off topic a little bit, I was just realizing I remember seeing the original post someone had long long ago for a 'partly-despecialized' version of SW. It's stunning to see how that more modest project has grown to represent the absolutely unquestionable BEST possible version of the films as they originally existed yet available, concerning itself with every last minute detail of putting these films back together the way they are supposed to look. Like so many others have said, thank you again for making your work public and letting me watch the movies I grew up with, and see them with my kids the way they were meant to be.
Loving the new colour on the latest tweaks, Harmy! R2 particuarly is great to see, as it was a bit oddly muted before. One teeny-tiny question...did you comp in the homestead separately from the rest of the frame in the sunset shot? It seems to wobble ever so slightly against the BG.
Eh, Pegg, whatever...kind of a whiny fanboy. Hopefully LFL will treat it like Topher Graces' little project and continue to ignore it, but then again, that didn't get distributed across every channel anyone could think of...yikes...
Okay, but the point about LFL missing a marketing opportunity just because of Lucas means some of you have to give up your constant rhetoric of the man being a soulless, money-grubbing hack. If anything, you kind of have to admire Lucas sticking by his convictions and NOT caving to an opportunity to pocket some quick cash. Obviously we'd all prefer a proper new scan and presentation of the theatrical films, but he's said all along this is an artistic preference and by god he's sticking to it.
Now that said, even that useless sack of crap McCallum has gone on record as saying he would like to see a proper release of the theatrical cuts, so you know it's a prevalent sentiment at LF. It WILL happen.
Not to get too far ahead, Harmy, but for ESB have you considered reaching out to Snicker to see if he would produce a source benefitting from his channel recovery tricks? I contacted him to see if there was any way to help by volunteering to run part of the process on other computers, but he informed me that the process relies on numerous liscensed plugins.
I know the general consensus is that ESB is in better shape than the other two films, but for me the lack of dynamic range, partcularly in all of the space shots (seriously, look at the first imperial fleet shot - there's more shadow detail in the GOUT for chrissake) makes me wince every time I see it. The asteroid chase in particular is so bad that parts of the TIEs dissapear into the starfield and make them practically invisible at times. It's even more of a shame as ESB is without a doubt the best shot and lit film in the OT and it's dynamic range and pallette have been mangled since 1997.
I actually was starting to collect bits and pieces to manually play before running Harmy v2.0. In terms of a North American experience (Canada specificaly) I was thinking actually more along the lines of Drive-In promos and ads, which I grabbed from a terrific online repository of drive-in vintage stuff. Not strictly perfect, but it did remind me of seeing the teaser for ESB and a few years later the teaser for RotJ, and the drive-in. Might make a fun alternate opening.
Having had work based on someone else's IP on my animation reel, I can say it's not a legal problem. You're not selling that work, you're just demonstrating your ability. In animation it's better to show your own stuff rather than someone else's IP, but in this case I think it wouldn't raise any eyebrows.
WHOA! It`s a humdinger of a `humdinger`! Sorry this is going to tie up your processor for another week...we gotta have a whip-round and pitch in to buy you a render-machine, Harmy.
In other news, the new pan-down is looking VERY good! Well done, once again, Harmy! This was one that I mentioned a few months back, and was distracting in the otherwise perfect opening. Also, have you gone back to a more saturated Tatooine in that shot? Looks really solid!
At the risk of derailing things, I hope when it comes time for ESB there's some way to take advantge of the proceedure Snicker has described. ESB bothers me the most in terms of the black crush, and missing colour info, primarily through the asteroid chase and all of the imperial fleet stuff. There's so much missing info that anything halfway shadowed blends with the starfield background. Any way to rescue some of that would be nifty!
Yay! New WP!!!! YAAAAAYY!!!! ULOZ DIDN'T DROP THE CONNECTION 12 TIMES!!!!!
Overall it's looking really good, as usual Harmy. I was waiting and waiting for the dead-end hallway shot to be all jiggly, but there's no way you'd ever know that shot had been screwed with - nice!
Haven't looked at the new compactor sequence, but sounds like that's been sorted, so won't bother mentioning anything there. There does appear to be some weirdness around 1:24:30-1:24:46 with a magenta-y, pinky wash over part of the frame (I'm looking at 1:24:45 particularly - Ben has a weird wash, which includes some, but I don't think quite all of the lights in the wall pannel behind him). Not sure why that should be as I don't think there's anything that would have been altered within the shot.
Other than that, looking good! I still think it would be awesome to include the film leader on either the menu, or the film itself, and maybe the Scofield recording as an alternate language - let's go all the way back to '77 baby!
Edit - one other thing I noticed, when the Falcon is leavng the docking bay, there's no gap in the glow around the opening as there is when it's flying into the docking bay earlier in the film (I think it's where the mocon stand was supporting the model). I honestly can't remember - is that how it's always been, or was that an SE fix?
Recreation has always seemed like a very silly conspiracy theory to me. The hallmark of every single release of these films from 2004 on has been that the work is half-assed. Why on earth would anyone think that LFL would have put any more effort into the crawl spliced onto an after-thought bonus disc than they put into the flagship DVD presentation? Couple that with the fact that we know Lucas kept every scrap of original film? No reason at all that this would be a recreation.
Oh good god, it didn't even register exactly what was wrong with these shots when I was watching them. What the hell was going on here? Is this introduced in the telecine, or in mastering? How works from such a technologically innovative company constently be treated so poorly from a technological standpoint? Mind boggling.
Rehnquist said:
...LoveSac...
Heh heh....LoveSac...hehehehe.....c'mon, I'm not the only one, right? Okay, yes I'm really a 12 year old....
ehhhh.....This is what happens when I'm deprived of workprints for too long....
The Scofield project is usually either right above or right below your thread the last few weeks. Pugo did the transfer from analog, so Ièm guessing itès as good as any contemporary recording is going to get. It is (from all accounts - havenèt heard it myself yet) a pretty clean (relatively speaking) audio recording from a theater in 1977 with a full audience. I can imagine it being a very cool addition to watch a proper 1977 version of the film along with a contemporary audience during the first run. Nice to remember what kind of a fun, visceral impact the film had at the time.
In any event, what the heck are you doing in hereÉ Go study!
While we all play the waiting game, Harmy, any though that you might work the Scofield project in as an alternate audio trackÉ Seems like a natural - theatrical presentation, 1977 theatrical audience participation. Anyways, just a thought. Best of luck with finals!
And now back to the waiting game......forget this, the waiting game sucks, let`s play Twister.
Please...PLEASE tell me this is ending up on the despecialized edition. A gotod quality audience track is such a natural companion track for Harmy`s project.
While we patiently wait for Harmy to finish finals, has anyone seen if Snicker has got a thread up anywhere yet? That's some promising looking stuff and I haven't seen any action yet in terms of a dedicated thread.
At the risk of derailing a bit - Ben things at the RPF settled down after the "Wolverines" attacked :) The site is now at www.thereplicapropforum.com, and it's business as ususal. There's an AWESOME foam (!) R2 build going on, and I thought that might have been you.
Hey, Ben, you aren't coming over from RPF by chance, are you? If so, I said he ended up not adding the burns back :)
Doesn't seem like there's any reason to be dicks about it. He didn't suggest totally redoing the shadow to be a better effect; he was just looking at transparency, and using the existing shape of the animation. Given how shit the GOUT is and how low-resolution the available LD rip alternatives are, unless Harmy's got some reference he's posted showing that the shadow was always totally opaque it's not outside the realm of possibility that the shadow element was printed at partial transparency originally. I mean, they knew how to do it a couple of years later, and a black blob is pretty easy to hide optical compositing lines in. YEs, everyone knows what the goal of the project is. Don't be such elitist douches.
And honestly, I just can't wait to get a peak at the next reel :)
Any idea if and when we'll get a look at WP3_3, Harmy? Once we get to Mos Eisley, that's where things get reeeeeally interesting for 'DE-ing' the shots :)
Is there any particular trick uloz? Been trying since last night and I think the most I've been able to get before the connection crapped out is 200mb.