Here are some examples of the LOOKS grade with THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. If there’s any interest, I could release these onto the spleen – for people to base their own edits on.
I found by restoring some green and boosting the saturation back (I had lowered it initially), the difference in color in regard to the outfit was more noticeable. However, this leaves Tantive IV with slightly green walls – whereas I had always believed it to be pure white.
Is it pure white, or is it slightly green?
Here are proper screenshots – the video color seemed to have shifted.
Thoughts on levels and fleshtones?
I’ve been tweaking this more and more over the past weeks. Here’s a sample of something I did using the same idea as the Magic Bullet grades.
I looked to Legacy and Harmy’s own as samples, but mainly went for the look of the '97 SE. Did I raise the shadows too much, though?
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1-W6ByLSZVKazg5QTJqZDY1SzA
BIG NEWS: i just checked the Intro and it’s of Course SE But it says indeed “Krieg der Sterne” and i noticed some picture Artefacts. I Really think this Could be '97 SE. Will Check Jabba scene tonight After work. This Seems Great!
That’s great so far, please keep us updated!
I am of the opinion that the '97 SE colors are pretty damn good, minus some imperfections in the telecine (red-faded Mos Eisley), but has there been any sort of project to give the 2011 Blu-ray files the '97 colors? Those versions would actually be watchable.
Didn’t want to create a new thread for this, so thought I’d ask here…
You know what? I’m going to go out on a limb and say 2004, because of the prequelisms. The argument that the 1997 cut is superior because it doesn’t have the PT references doesn’t really work for me, because if you’re trying to ignore the PT, you should just watch the OUT, because they’re just better movies. The only thing the SE can really claim to bring to the table is smoother visual continuity with the subsequent installments of the saga, and in that regard the 1997 version is kind of obsolete.
This is a refreshing read. Great points!
Oh, so the NTSC masters have slowed down everything, including Carlin’s narration? That’s real convenient.
You do know that it’s possible to edit the speed of Carlin’s narration without it affecting the pitch at all right?
There’s no need. Nothing was ever slowed down or sped up – Thomas was shot/edited/recorded in sync to 25fps standard in the U.K.
When brought to the US, all they did to the footage was apply pulldown. It wasn’t until 2012 that they started converting the series to 24fps (CGI era only).
Would love to see this done. Not that there’s anything ruined by the changes on the Blu-ray / DVD, but I would love to have all the films in an unaltered state – which seems highly unlikely for AOTC.
Thomas was recorded in sync to the 25fps footage. Nothing was ever adjusted.
Sweet! I have questions.
So this is the audio from the Amazon release synced up to the remastered PAL DVDs with many errors corrected and custom titles?
Correct, most if not all is sourced from Amazon’s audio, but with many (and I mean MANY) fixes applied and certain episodes put back into sync.
This looks to be done at 25fps. I’m assuming the Carlin dub is sped up but then pitch corrected? It doesn’t sound pitched up. Does this mean a PAL DVD release?
Thomas has always been filmed in 25fps (used pulldown for US releases to 60i), so nothing was adjusted. I will do the initial release in PAL.
Would you consider a version with the original Thomas the Tank Engine logo? It is how it was originally. Also, I don’t think the HiT logo needs to be there for similar reasons.
I had thought about leaving it was THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE & FRIENDS, but I wasn’t sure. I could revert it back, but that would be a lot of extra work, because I remastered every single title card ala the restored versions.
So, I have actively been working on this for the past months, so here is all Seven Classic Seasons in BETA form – meaning they’re bound to have errors. Before I release these on the Spleen, I would hope some fans could sit through these YouTube uploads and see what errors there are, as I can’t do it alone.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL92p-PgkOB_1bTSWva-ix3Nuq-ksKoB7k
Aaaaaand now the theatrical version is up on Netflix. sigh
Well, this version isn’t as highly compressed, but it is disheartening that they didn’t use it for the Blu-ray.
I know TPM was heavily DNR’ed, but I think that AOTC looks much less noisy compared to the HDTV version.
Isn’t the Blu-ray of AOTC DNR’ed too? I recall getting an HDTV rip and seeing much more noise than on the Blu-ray. ROTS seems to be the only “good” transfer in the set.
It’s no secret that the digital home video releases of the OT have always been terrible – from the non-anamorphic GOUT to the SE Blus, something is always wrong.
One issue that I hear brought up multiple times in regards to the current masters of the SE is BLACK CRUSH (or crushed blacks). I understand the term in concept, but was wondering which films in the Blu-ray set suffer from it? I’m assuming that all three OT films have crushed blacks, but I noticed that TPM seems to be darker too. Do AOTC and ROTS suffer from this problem?
I took the Blu-ray files and threw them into Vegas and boosted the gamma a tad, does this look to eliminate the black crush, or am I doing it entirely wrong? If so, what is the correct method to fix crushed blacks?
Pardon my ignorance, but can someone explain the significance of the changes to the Emperor scene in ESB?
I’ve watched the original and the '04 version – I just now noticed the “the young rebel who destroyed the Death Star” line, but I’m not really getting what the issue with the changes are. From what I gathered, Palpy mentioning that Luke is Anakin’s offspring works just as well as just saying “the son of Skywalker”, in the modern world. In 1980, the scene made sense as is – we didn’t know yet that Vader is Anakin.
Granted, for those who will never watch the prequels, this change ruins the big twist that everyone and their mother knows by now…
Can someone dumb it down?
It would be fruitless for me to go on about out the OOT is superior in every way. However, many of us (myself included), grew up on the '97 SE cuts of the trilogy. Then, once the official DVDs came out, the world was plagued with the '04 SE. One could argue that the '11 SE deserves a mention, but it’s almost identical…?
Although there isn’t a tremendous difference between the '97 and '04 cuts of the OT, which one do you have more positive feelings towards? Either way, the OT is changed – one edition is meant for upgrading the effects, while one edition is meant to tie the entire saga together.
For myself, I actually enjoy the '97 SE. You still get the original Anakin force-ghost, original Emperor, and the colour timing isn’t as terrible as the '04 masters. I like the idea of the '04 SE, but it was executed poorly and is disrespectful of the works of Sebastian Shaw and Jason Wingreen.
Your preference?
How did you make your 25i footage 50p in the first place?
EDIT: Please post an untouched sample from your source file.
I bobbed the frame rate in Handbrake. Here’s a raw sample of the 25i footage. However, Snell did take the original 25i file and make it 60p without any additional processing on my part.
Here’s an untouched clip: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1-W6ByLSZVKR1F2eDREN1Y4YXc
I recently used a trial of a Snell’s Alchemist to convert some 50p material to 60p via “motion compensation”. Needless to say, it looked wonderful and far superior to anything I’ve ever tried in all the NLE’s I’ve used.
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2oU65eR1s0
Being that the software costs loads of money – $15,000 for a single license, I was wondering if there was a way to do this via AviSynth, VirtualDub, or even some much. much cheaper software? I understand I won’t get the same high quality result, but I would love to have something to convert the rest of my 50p assets to 60p for DVD output.
User: https://twitter.com/housetohalf has two screen shots.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CpNSMQHUEAA2LWH.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CpOagRAUMAAnW4o.jpgSee what I mean? The Blu-Ray has this weird “blueberries and cream” complexion for everything. Those two definitely look like what I remember! It was very golden, very appealing (to me, anyway).
When compared to this shot from the Blu-ray (http://i0.wp.com/bitcast-a-sm.bitgravity.com/slashfilm/wp/wp-content/images/princess-leia-stormtroopers-high-definition-star-wars.jpg), it does look slightly different – but there could be variables with the camera that could be creating the illusion.
A local theatre nearby issues this statement about their STAR WARS TRILOGY screenings – very close to the actual event itself. Hadn’t realized until today.
Lucas Film Ltd. has pulled all scheduled national theatrical screenings of the films of the original Star Wars trilogy, including those slated for August 5-7 at the Carolina Theatre of Durham. As a result, those films will not be screening in theaters this summer.
Source: http://www.carolinatheatre.org/films/festivals/star-wars
If this is true, how are the ALAMO screenings going on?
The project IS finished. Will be exporting a 1080p MKV with Dolby Surround 2.0 AC3 in good time – you should see it on the Spleen within the next couple of days.
“It was me James, the author of all your pain.”
Walking out of SPECTRE in November of 2015 left me confused. Besides having a terrible script, the editing / colour timing to the film made things much, much worse. To me, the film ran about 30 minutes too long and featured a very underwhelming finale for such a promising concept.
That’s where this edit comes in!
A couple months ago, I began toying with the Blu-ray and have condensed the film down by 14 minutes – to a more effective runtime of 2:14:44. I have also fiddled with the colour timing to remove the strange “piss hue” that is noticeable on the Blu-ray. I don’t recall it looking like during it’s theatrical run…?!
The main goal of this edit to trim down the pointless “back and forth” of some of the dialogue, along with scenes that could have ended much earlier (i.e. the first Spectre meeting in Rome). Additionally, I’ve moved back the love plot between Bond and Swan; their first kiss is during Bond’s torture scene. I can’t get to specific right now, but I will release a complete list of cuts once the actual fan-edit is in the can, so to speak!
For now, here’s the most important edits:
CUTS:
ADDITIONS:
NEW COLOUR TIMING:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/180673
PREVIEW(S):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwz3eFO3zso&feature=youtu.be
TECH BITS for Output:
1920x1080p MKV
640kbps Dolby Digital AC-3 5.1 (sourced from DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1)
To be honest, my colour timing skills are not perfect, so if you think that I have an excessive hues / artificial saturation, please let me know.
This fan-edit is not yet complete, but is in the final stages – just need to smooth out the cuts I’ve made so far.
If there’s any interest in a preservation, I have both the Signature and 1995 letterbox LDs and can capture the raw PCM mixes. I also have the rare 2 hour cut of THE SHARK IS STILL WORKING, which was recently released on the Blu-ray, but was cut down by Universal and rescored due to licensing issues. I think a definitive JAWS Blu-ray could be made with the resources on this site.
