Finally got to watch a little tonight, and I love the sound. The mix is, I assume, the standard stereo 35mm mix, and I haven't heard it sound this warm and nice since the 80s Betamax. Nice work!
Why SD for the OT?
I'm doing LTO back-up as part of my current post-production gig (LTO 5). Very cool winding/rewinding/loading sounds in those machines, slightly reminiscent of our old Beta Hi-Fi deck ca '86.
ElectricTriangle said:
In general, the sound is just carelessly mixed and poor sounding compared to the original mix.
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Edit: found Hairy_Hen's detailed description of what is wrong on the 2004/2011 mixes: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Star-Wars-1977-70mm-sound-mix-recreation-stereo-and-51-versions-now-available/post/548812/#TopicPost548812
What "original mix" are we comparing to? Isn't HH's is a reconstruction?
As CatBus mentioned above, I think we do tend to hold whatever we're used to as the standard of comparison. For me that'd be the first Widescreen LDs and the original, rental Beta Hi-Fi audio for Empire (no later digital release ever sounded that big and warm to me, but it had its own issues for sure).
re: the comparison link
I feel that mp3 (and 2 channel at that) isn't the best format for comparison (imagine watching a 240-line youtube video to see the differences between blu-ray and another format). I assume the second of each pair of samples is HH's, but, probably because it's an mp3, it's not obviously superior to the DVD audio.
First, poita, glad to see you posting *and* working, which I hope means you're feeling well.
Secondly, WOW for having someone make you a custom print! I can't wait to see what you do with it.
hairy_hen said:
That DVD shot of the uniforms looks ridiculous.
Ridiculous in what way? The WP is way more yellow, can we all at least agree on that? The DVD is more red, for sure.
So so far, everyone that responded thinks the orange uniforms look correct. Got it.
What about Leia's hair? It's light brown/veering into red during this whole scene, but not during the rest of the film. I understand that people have different preferences, but I have a hard time believing I'm the only one that sees this. 
Again with orange: I finally got around to checking against the DVD, and I still think the orange uniforms in the WP look yellow and washed out, while the DVD ones look more correct to me, as does Leia's hair.
I don't know that this will show up on the web with the colors intact, but here goes:
Is anyone feeling me, here?
But I will also add that the WP Hoth blue planet glow indeed looks correct next to the DVD, and I also liked the WP Hoth snow better than the "new colors" one.
I am an audio guy, and I'm curious as to Hairy Hen's opinion as well.
I owned the blu ray and spent a little time with it in 2011 and 2012. I don't remember any drastic changes other than in pure quality.
The audio on the DVDs is subtly irritating. I don't always hear something obviously wrong with it, but almost invariably I can only get through about 30 minutes without being on-edge and wanting to turn it off and do something else.
The Blu Ray audio, on the other hand, at least the DTS Master Audio, sounded expansive and completely free of the glare-y harshness of the DVD.
I don't mean to belabor the point, but it would seem, theoretically, that a 70mm print would be able to preserve more detail than a 35mm print from the same interpositive. Is this not the case?
I have not watched the whole thing, but I will share what I've found so far. Also, please know I am not comparing these to anything but memory and with other scenes within the workprint. Also, frame numbers and times aren't beginning frames of shots or scenes, I'm using VLC on a Mac and if there's a way to advance or reverse frame by frame, I don't know about it. With those disclaimers out of the way, here I go.
Frames 21729 through approx 22100, the lower left corner of the screen looks more teal than the rest of the shot on my monitor.
22527 (00:15:38:14) The sky on the horizon as seen through the cockpit, flashes wildly. This could be in all ESB versions, I don't have others immediately on hand.
31050 (~00:21:33:19) There is something very "right" about this shot. I wondered if it was 35mm? However, Luke's flight suit seems pale/washed out. I may just be used to the 2004 and newer vivid oranges?
~33921 (00:23:33:08) Display screen "grid" moves/flashes, and instead of looking like little squares displaying video, it looks like more like one big screen with dots all over it. They appear to crawl and move, and it gets worse the next time we see it, around frame 34110.
34368 All the flight suits are washed-out similar to Luke's in the scene listed above, kind of dull. Leia's hair is lighter brown, almost like red hair here, too.
46590 Luke's Flight suit is VERY bright here, almost fluorescent Yellow-orange
48357 (00:33:34:20) Smoke on the left side looks bright blue. Possibly intentional, possibly a blu-ray/DVD holdover?
51985 (00:36:06:00) The "glow" around hoth looks really bright, almost fluorescent blue. Is this correct? It looks too light and too bright on my screen.
52808 (00:36:40:07) EXCELLENT! The Star Destroyer lights on the left look like natural light photographed in '79… Also, I just love the colors of the ships during this whole sequence. Excellent blue TIE Fighters, etc. Nice work!
53057 (00:36:50:16) This cockpit shot is so beautiful! Is that 35mm? The colors are super warm and saturated.
55572 (00:38:35:11) Color palette seems to have gone Sepia here, more monochrome, definitely more brown- same with 55729 (00:38:42:00)
Color is awesome again at 55786 (00:38:44:09)
… And that's where I've left off. These were things that jumped out at me, they might all be absolutely correct and I'm just not used to seeing them.
In any case, it's looking great overall. I haven't gotten far enough into the movie to get to the audio sync issue, obviously, but everything I've seen feels more like Empire than it has in years. Thank you for that!
I have some questions about the Workprint. I've only taken cursory looks and thought I found some groovy 35mm scenes, but my questions are:
What should I be looking for in the Workprint? Has it been color corrected? Should I be noting weird coloring? Non OT stuff that may have slipped through? Aspect ratio changes? I'm just wondering how to best help.
poita said:
A quick look at the trench sequence from the last reel of the Derann Super 8mm print.
This was a great clip but the link has expired. Poita, can you re-upload and share it again?
And Anctufaalb, can we see a screengrab or three?
SilverWook said:
^Broken images, Ryan.
Joel, if you search on Ebay for "Star Wars Disco", you'll get a good sampling of what came out back then. Saw some there that I've never heard of!
Thanks, that seems to be the best way to find titles for sure.
I remember reading somewhere that there were several Disco versions of the Star Wars theme in the late 70s, but the only one the internet seems to acknowledge is the Meco version. Admittedly, that's the version that I seem to remember as well, but this video clip presents another that may or may not have been in wide release:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwMQt9LUP5I
Do you know of any other Disco versions (from the Star Wars era, 1977-1983)? I'd be interested in tracking them down.
That's what I thought, but couldn't articulate at 1AM. Thank you!
I suppose that Star Wars was such a juggernaut by fall of 1978, a press junket wasn't really needed? I'd love to see more contemporary mentions.
I just stumbled across this is in a search for Captain Cosmic videos (I'm looking for the end credits from the 70s airings of Space Giants, if anyone has this stuff?) - it's only 16 seconds long, but there is a brief discussion of the Holiday Special.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxuvGphCqnQ
TServo2049 said:
...whenever the camera was on Ewan McGregor it was almost as if I was watching the OT.
Agreed! I didn't think this would have such a profound effect on my enjoyment, but it really did. Video seems the best way to demonstrate how effective your changes are.
Everything might be pushed just a bit too far beyond "70s Star Wars" and into "faded 70s TV Show" for my taste, and If I were asked, I'd say lose the gate weave entirely. That said, I am aware that this is your project and I really enjoyed the clip.
Great work so far.
7.7, but I think I can do better. Trying again!
*edit* OK - serious eye burn 2nd time around. I got a few "perfects" but also more "average" and "good" scores than I'd like. This is fascinating!
poita said:
Grab a 2nd hand intel imac with a 2560-by-1440 screen and dedicated graphics card, you won't know yerself.
Thanks for the excellent advice!
I'm running a MacBook - It's an intel C2Duo but the graphics card prevents it from being able to use 3D in any of the CS6 Suite, and Lion (Not Mountain Lion) is the last supported OS.
It's FREE!? OK downloading now-- ooh, not available for my OS.
I keep finding reasons, but not cash, to upgrade my 7-year-old Mac.
I'm getting similar results to Laserschwert. I neutralized the greys, then adjusted the red hue but pulled the reds WAAAY back… hyped up the blue and green a little (the boxes look smooth because I average/blurred them). 
Still too pink, right? Let's see...
Yowza!
I think I'm learning my own Photoshop limitations in a hurry.
Right on!
FYI, you'll get better results Inverse-Telecine-ing (IVTC) rather than de-interlacing. There are tons of threads here (though searching isn't terribly easy) with good info on how to do this.
Were they sent to AnctuFaalb in .avi or .exr format?
It's 2MB/s (16mb/s)… so 36 hours of download time assuming consistent connection, etc.
AntcuFaalb said:
MySpleen will be a bit more difficult, as it's ~250GB.
It ended up quite a bit smaller than originally thought! Cool. I wonder if it'd be faster to send you a hard drive and a polite note than to download the whole thing….