Joel

According to Wikipedia, Williams re-recorded the fanfare for Empire Strikes Back and his version was used in the subsequent Lucas-helmed Star Wars movies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_Century_Fox

Incidentally, it seems that the “slanted 0” 20th Century Fox logo originally designated Cinemascope as well. Do we know why that particular version of the logo was used in Empire Strikes Back but not SW or ROTJ?

This is awesome news - congratulations on the great response!

I’m local but didn’t learn about the presentation until after it happened. If there are any more in LA that are open to the public (as the Cinnafilm one seemed to be?), I’d love to attend.

Unfortunately, none of the GUI solutions have worked on my 2017 mac, but as per GZK8000’s suggestion, I googled “Unrar” for command line (Terminal) and got the following two links that will walk you through it:

To get and install UNRAR:
http://best-mac-tips.com/2013/02/01/install-free-command-line-unrar-mac/

To unwrap the RAR files after installing UNRAR:
http://best-mac-tips.com/2013/02/02/extract-rar-archive-command-line-mac-terminal/

Meanwhile, this is beautiful! The reds are pretty intense (as was alluded to earlier in the thread), but it does kind of help Leia look healthier while visiting Luke in the sick bay.

The opening crawl looks a little soft to me. Is that just what it looks like? …And there is obviously some flicker.

Beyond that, what kind of things should I be looking for in order to actually be helpful in this process?

…that is, except The Asteroid Field - which seems to have most of the instruments bunched up on the left, with mostly low strings and reverb on the right. Really bizarre. I haven’t listed to all of these yet, but so far that’s the only track I’ve heard with such radical changes.

Well the good news is that it’s a very different sound from the 2016 hi-res copies I have. Very big, great size and weight.

I’ve only given it a casual and cursory listen, but the Empire stuff is a noticeably different presentation than previous releases, with lots of reverb. I’d love to know if it was added recently or if it was retrieved from the original multis (no liner notes come with the HDTracks download), but in any case, on first listen anyway, it sounds pretty great!

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

PSA the '2016 hi-res soundtracks" are different from the 2018 remasters. The new SKUs that came out the other day are entirely new masters.

It seems like there’s a little confusion in here.

Well that’s interesting! And I’m glad, as the stuff I downloaded (again, possibly not the real deal) was definitely not a good-sounding issue. I guess I’ll pull the trigger at HDTracks and see.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/03/22/original-6-star-wars-soundtracks-being-remastered

JawsTDS said:

Put them all in a playlist (as well as TFA and TLJ): https://open.spotify.com/user/brannontds/playlist/0k7LpNoWUGGPZESWIH1Ti9?si=T-Dl-E5DQgyPUCoHWSHLBw

SWEET, thank you! I will check these out!

JawsTDS said:

Listened to the new edition of ROTJ and ANH on Spotify, sounds noticeably clearer that previous editions. Can’t speak for the rest yet.

I can’t find these on Spotify - could you share a link?

GZK8000 said:

Again, you’re not understanding how Nyquist works.

https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/digital_audio.html
See the part about “sample rates” in the middle of the page.

Forgive me if I rely on my audio recording degree, 15 years as a recording engineer, and 30 years as an audio hobbyist over your ability to google something.

Nyquist stated that to reproduce a certain frequency, you need a sample rate of at least twice that frequency. This doesn’t mean that a higher sampling rate only gives you more high frequencies/more frequency response. It does allow for a wider frequency response, but the point of it is to capture more plot points to reconstruct the signal (as per the chart in the link above).

If you want to tell me more about what I don’t know, feel free to PM me here, but we can stop cluttering up this post with the technical discussion.

a_o said:

the new versions are on hdtracks and tidal. lapti nek is on the rotj album still. wonder why it’s not the ‘special edition’ 2-cd versions of the trilogy from 97/2004

i just got the 1993 4-disc cd set myself

Whoa! I’m glad I responded to this year-old thread - I had no idea they were back up on HDTracks - and actually affordably priced ($13.98 for the 192khz/24bit version)!

It’s a little strange to me that they’re still going with the original 70s album track listings. But I’m also worried that they’ll sound like the earlier set I got.

Meanwhile, the 1993 4-disc is my favorite!

GZK8000 said:
Sampling does not work as you’re describing it. The reconstruction filter reconstructs the original analog signal up to a certain time resolution, which is very high in Redbook audio. I also think the time resolution only depends on the amount of bits per sample, rather than the sampling rate, but I don’t remember where I read that.

It actually does work exactly as I’m describing it, unless I did a poor job above. A 20khz sine wave sampled at 44.1Khz gets exactly 2 samples to describe it. At 192Khz? it gets 8, or quadruples. But the bigger difference is in the dynamic range anyway. Meanwhile, frequency is a time-based phenomenon (cycles per second). The word length determines the bit depth, or dynamic range.

The “reconstruction filter” is just low pass-filter at the analog output. That’s catching the high-frequency spikes, or the “steps” between each sampled part of the wave, and is there to smooth out the rough edges caused by the reconstruction.

Anyway, the purpose of this thread was to ask about the hi-res versions. If you don’t believe that there are real benefits, I’ll refer you to the following website:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5891db5329687fadaad172d7/t/59c0e856cd0f6804b6b43ed3/1521034351544/?format=1500w

Density said:

Just FYI, “high res audio” is a fraud, a marketing gimmick based on pseudoscience. It is not physically possible to hear frequencies that high. A standard CD already captures everything within human hearing range and then some, after you’ve reached the age you’re likely to care about audio quality your hearing won’t even be able to reach that, and the vast majority of music does not make use of anywhere near the dynamic range supposedly offered by this “higher resolution.” All it does is waste disk space. It’s useful only in studios for purely technical reasons, utterly useless for the end consumer.

Unfortunately, this is misinformed and based on misunderstandings about sound, among other things. There’s nothing “pseudo” about the science, it is what is. While it’s true that humans can’t hear fundamental tones above a certain threshold (20K if you’re a kid, for instance), high frequency response is only part of what’s happening with high res audio. I won’t go into a lengthy discussion about it, but, as an example if you are trying to recreate a waveform, the more plot points you have, the more accurate that waveform is going to be. Higher sample rate = more accurate waveform.

Secondly, all music is extremely dynamic, and while most popular music is compressed and doesn’t make use of 120+ db of dynamic range (nor would you want it to), dynamic range isn’t the entire point. It’s the fact that going from 16bit to 24 bit gives you way, way more info: 16 bit = 65,536 possible volume levels, and with every bit, that number doubles. So at 24 bit, we now have 16,777,216 different volume levels. Further, the digital noise present in every digital recording (the “noise floor”) is moved even further into the background.

Anyway, maybe you don’t/can’t hear the differences - and I believe you absolutely could hear them given the right playback system - but that doesn’t mean the differences aren’t there or that other people can’t hear them.

***** Meanwhile ******

I got ahold of a download purporting to be the high-res release. It’s VERY weirdly different than all other versions I’ve heard of the soundtracks: thin, no low-end… not sure it’s legit, but if it is, it’s bizarre.

poita said:
It is in two parts, download both and use WinRar or similar to decompress to a single file.
https://we.tl/KTFi9G8t9B
https://wetransfer.com/downloads/53e6c1141a27d2891c9bb2a15bffe3dd20180503053533/8258e5aa2b976c5a31ddeb3fac69704820180503053533/ce0e7c

I’m on a mac and I’m having a bear of a time trying to get these open. I generally get “incomplete” or “file damaged” error notices. Is anyone on a Mac able to watch these, and if so, what did you use to unwrap?

I believe the term is “Mono” whether it’s encoded as a center-channel-only file or the same file in both stereo L and R tracks.

“Dual Mono” is usually used to describe amplifier circuit topology in which each channel of a stereo pair is processed/amplified separately.

So the reference slide is being scanned, then the resulting digital image (assuming a properly calibrated monitor) is compared to the slide to make sure that what is seen in the monitor matches the slide perfectly? After this is dialed in, we can assume that anything going through the scanning process is accurate, too. I think I have it.

Thanks for the explanation!

DrDre said:

Using the scanner and the color calibration slide, I will be able to provide accurate digital color references for a large number of shots of a technicolor print of Star Wars, that I will share with you all through a dedicated thread, where all the scans will be collected. These will naturally be useful for any color correction project for Star Wars in the future. As far as I know no such project has yet been undertaken, and these will thus be the first color references, that will accurately represent the hue, contrast, and saturation of a technicolor print of Star Wars, by using calibrated scans rather than correcting a complete scan of a print by using the projected print as a visual reference.

Is that how a color-reference slide works?

In audio, when you get a tape, there are tones either before or after the progam material that will help you calibrate your equipment for that tape, but the calibration is only for that tape.

I assume film works the same way, in that you’d have a color reference on the same piece of film you’re attempting to color-time. If it works like that, having an outside reference color slide doesn’t seem to be of much value here.

Or am I missing the point of the slide?

It appears that the rights to the high-resolution (192Khz/24Bit and 96Khz/24Bit) Star Wars soundtracks have reverted to Disney, and they are no longer available for purchase.

Did anyone buy them? I logged on to buy Star Wars and Empire this last weekend when I was informed by HDTracks.com that they are no longer available.

robertelee said:

Now that we have such a good first generation copy, is it even possible that a better condition version could be made? Was this videotaped origionally, or was it filmed and then transfered?

It was taped originally, with some filmed elements (the Star Wars footage and cartoon?) used.

GrindhouseGuru said:

What is the version of the special that starts with some of the local news anchors before they go to the special. The one that I guess was a HUGE upgrade that was taken directly from a master videotape. Someone authored a GREAT dvd of this version with menus etc. Is THAT the best quality one? Any help would be tremendous.

I believe you are conflating two versions: The one with the news anchors at the beginning was someone’s fairly clean, first-generation VHS tape from the broadcast on WHIO in Chicago. I believe that one was significant in that it was the first widely-seen version that had the entire, uncut intro to the Special intact, and it was significantly better than other bootlegs that had circulated before. That one has been distributed as a DVD with great menus, etc.

The one from the broadcast master tape was shared by EditDroid and is significant for being far and away the best-looking, clearest version. Being a broadcast master, there were no commercials or station identifiers. For picture and sound quality, this is the best.

Downloaded German Reel 6 preview. This is my favorite capture so far by far, for both the look AND the sound. Thank you!

As an audio guy, I really hope the tapes were captured more recently than 1993. 1997 might be good. Early 1990s digital equipment isn’t known for its excellent sound quality.

That said, If anyone has the 1977 soundtrack captured digitally (and not converted) from the ld, I’d love to hear it!

It’s funny, I’ve been feeling nostalgic for the 80s video experience as well. Mine was betamax dubs from VHS, and later Superbeta dubs from laserdisc. This was all 1986-87, well before I knew about any widescreen releases.

As kind of a retro project, I just made a VHS dub from the Force Awakens DVD. It’s not the same, being 16:9 with letterboxing, but hearing the electronic buzz of the VCR is kind of cool in its own way.

But to your point, at least the Star Wars (or Ep IV, or ANH if you like) '82 Rental VHS has been preserved. You can find it in the usual places.

TV’s Frink said:

My wife and I have long suspected George has Asperger’s. This is not an insult (those who know me understand why) but an observation on both his strengths and weaknesses.

This is a really profound idea that makes so much sense as to seem obvious in retrospect. Obsessed with details but not a great understanding of the workings of relationships… wow.

Ronster said:

https://youtu.be/GN5XoI_BzW4?t=118

This ^

Wow - I ended up watching most of this. While this is fascinating, by “animation” I was actually referring to the rotating monkey graphic at the beginning of the film, shown here at 41s in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABfTn4XjcQI

Has anyone else watched the Blu Ray yet?

So far, I see one opinion that it is a little blue-shifted. I’ll be out of town until next week and won’t have a chance to watch, but I’m curious about how it looks/sounds.

Fascinating! I appreciate all of your input. The monkeys just must’ve been at the beginning only.

I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a VHS documentary about it, but I was also pretty sure there were rotating monkeys at the end of 12 Monkeys…