Knightmessenger

The Aluminum Falcon said:

Knightmessenger said:

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1999 dvd without the opening sequence blue tinted, good transfer but print is somewhat scratched and damaged)

Not to be too much off topic, but that release is accidentally cut by a few lines.

In the Region 1 NTSC dvd?

Anyways, I looked up the specs of the dvd's I had my friend rip. I don't know much about the file format or how they can be opened so you guys will have to tell me if they would be of any help.

They are ISO image files, which apparently opens with roxio creator

My Neighbor Totoro- Fox dvd 4:3 P&S Macek dub
TOTORO.iso 3.42 GB

Aristocats- Gold Collection 4:3
ARISCATS.iso   4.27 GB

Jungle Book- Limited Edition 4:3
JUNGLE.iso    4.29 GB

On Her Majesty's Secret Service- special edition
ONHERMAJ.iso 4.28 GB

I suspect the ripping program he used automatically shrank the file size to be under 4.3 GB so that it could be easily burned to a single layer dvd. I think all of them were dual layer encoded discs.

what about the dvd of Hobbit: Unexpected Journey?

There should not be a blanket green tint in that movie. It was actually more colorful than the Lord of the Rings movies.

Ryan McAvoy said:

CatBus said:

Ryan McAvoy said:

Over saturated visual eye-sore like films like 'The Kings Speech', 'Skyfall' etc will date very quickly.

I certainly hope "films with more than two colors" isn't a description used in history books to describe how films from the latter twentieth century are visually unique...

Here's something I made,

The top two screenshots are from 2012's cutting edge digitally graded 'Skyfall, the bottom two are from colour-tinted silent films made almost 100 years ago when film was in it's infancy:

...or is that the other way around?

Let's hope films start looking like this again, sooner rather than later:

Also I did this GODFATHER 2013!!:

OH Yes! It's sooo much better!

(Rant over)

I hate unnatural film coloring with a passion. You may think I'm crazy but that ruined Lord of the Rings for me. LOTR was the first film that I remember going "those colors don't look natural." I know it's common to adjust the tint and color look of a film even before digital technology but LOTR was the first one that looked like it obviously was tampered with.

The Harry Potter movies suffered from this digital video look following the first two. I'm sorry but when a movie looks fake and unnatural, it's harder to believe that it's real for me. And don't say it's supposed to be tinted to show you how dark the movie is. That's what scriptwriting, acting and directing is for.

Seriously, why hasn’t this been done before. You are free to use any memes that relate to Star Wars whether you find them or make them yourself. I suppose there could be another thread for off topic memes but I don’t feel like making that one myself.

Because I just made a few and I’m really <span style=“text-decoration: line-through;”>shallow and desparate for them to go viral so I’m spamming the only Star Wars forum I’m actually registered for.</span> curious to know what everyone thinks.

if someone wants to fix it so the images actually appear here, feel free to but please keep the links intact.

one conspiracy Keeanu:-

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3us406/

two idiot nerd girls:-

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3us3sy/
 

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3us3qr/

most interesting man in the world/Dos Equis guy

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3t3eu8/

Quick, someone tweet them on instagram and tag all your friends on Reddit.

MrBrown said:

Its bad that LaserDisc is no longer produced, and that it is impossible to find a small private LD-pressing factory where this idead could be released for fans in the forum as LD. :) This isn't a joke, I would love to have adywans revisited on VHS or VHS style.. but in LaserDisc it would be really awesome!

Or you could use a slightly better tape format that gave comparable results to laserdisc. Such as S-VHS or Hi8.

I'd actually be interested in seeing how a modern transfer of Star Wars would look on a straight dupe to Video 8, Hi8 and S-VHS. You know to compare the formats.

Bingowings said:

Commercial VHS tapes were usually produced at high speed on industrial machines which often produced less than perfect (even for VHS) results.

A television broadcast taped at home would often be better quality than the commercially available version of the same material.

I thought there were taped versions of the last OOT airing in 1995 and they did not look as good as the official VHS tapes.

Of course if you had the master tape used by the studio (likely Betacam SP), that would of course be better than VHS and even an high end laserdisc capture. In fact if people want old transfers preserved, it might be worth seeing if anyone has a friend of a friend who they know at a TV station who would totally let them steal an old movie tape they used in the 90's.

For instance, were there any tv airings of the Star Wars THX versions in widescreen in PAL? A studio tape if it could be found and successfully smuggled out would probably be a lot better than the laserdisc rips.

Ditto for THX-1138 if it was ever aired on tv in widescreen. If such tapes were still lying around, the tv station would probably wouldn't notice if they went missing. They should have a newer digital tape they would use to air the movie today.

I know that sounds crazy and highly illegal but hey, it can't be as hard as acquiring a 35mm print of Star Wars and finding a place to scan that, right?

A Betacam SP tape would probably look comparable to the Gout dvd, maybe even better.

doubleofive said:

I've hit a roadblock. No matter how close I follow Ady's excellent directions/settings, I get framerate issues all over. Repeated frames, missing frames. I don't get it. And I only have 17 days left in my Sony Vegas trial.

Have you considered simply buying Sony Vegas. The latest version is I think 11 and it was less than $100 in a store. It is a very good editing system and I think very easy to learn and operate. I cannot understand why you never hear about any TV studio of production company using it. (you can always purchased a specialized software for more advanced video effects and graphics.) But a lot of people online say it works well for them.

Fun fact: My parents bought me version 4 in 2004. I think it was around $600 but with a student discount, I got it for around $400.

to be honest, season 4 was my favorite.

I thought 5 suffered from not revealing certain parts of the plot soon enough, especially how the audience found out some information before the main characters did. We find out the main identity of Glory about midway through the season. Yet the characters don't know this until almost the end. And we don't know why they don't know until Spike tells them who Glory is.

I just thought that we as the audience should have been not given away the secret until the characters figured it out, so as to mimic their experience.

msycamore said:

Just so people get what damage me and TServo were talking about:

it appears throughout at least one reel, and looks like some kind of damage caused by liquid. The above images are taken from the Special Collection (X9-transfer).

Someone made a transfer of the Special Collection Laserdisc using the X9 player?

Like with changing the Greedo scene, it cheapens the villains and mades them feel less threatening. This reduces dramatic tension and makes us worry less about whether our heroes will make it out alright. If a hired bounty hunter misses from 5 feet away, why should we worry about government soldiers hitting anybody from a further distance?

If Han can just brazenly talk back to his gang leader like that, why should we be worried about when they all get captured in Jabba's Palace in Return of the Jedi? Surely if Jabba is okay with letting Han off with a warning this time because he's been promised the money in advance, then there's no reason to believe Jabba won't gladly accept the payment in Jedi since Han can more than afford it on the spot.

What's that, Jabba doesn't care and would rather have Han killed and forgo an amount of money greater than what was owed him? But then why was he cool with it in A New Hope?

I mean imagine if a gang leader was like:

Gang Leader "Yo, I want your 2,000 you owe me."

Gang Member "fine just give me more time and I'll pay you a little extra"

Leader "alright since I'm a nice guy, I'll let you go with that. Just pay me 2,500 next month"

6 months to a year later

Leader "that's it, you didn't pay me on time, time to die"

Member "But I have the money with me. Just uncuff me and I'll get it out of my briefcase for you. Here, since I took much longer than promised, I'll just let you have 5,000."

Leader "Who do you take me for, a pansy forgiving doormat? I have plenty of money already and I don't care how much you can pay me now. I'm going to execute you anyways just to set an example for everyone else to see, that there will be unforgivable consequences for failing me."

Does that sound like the gang leader has the same character and personality? Does he/she behave the same way in one instance as another? This is contradictory behavior without any explanation as to why

Incidentally, if you watch all three back to back to back (like I did this May 25th), you might notice something similar with Darth Vader. He's just one of what is presumed to be many fear imposing people working for the Empire. Then he's an unforgiving badass in ESB. Then right at the beginning of Jedi, he's like "the Emperor is not as forgiving as I am" and kind of is a weak character who feels trapped in the situation, rather than someone who gets off on being a BAMF.

There's nothing wrong with a character having an arc but even in the original versions of the films, Vader's transformation feels rushed, abrupt and yes even forced. (get it?) 

the first time I watched Star Wars in its entirety was in 2004 on a dormmates full screen Special Edition vhs set.

Watching the special edition documentary before, I was thinking to myself "wait, Han steps on Jabba's tail? Isn't Jabba a scary guy that Han would get in a lot of trouble for doing that?"

Overall the movie seemed very cliche, like I had read it a thousand times before. Well, I had just read Eragon and yeah, that was the story with the cliche and unoriginal plot.

I thought the landscapes looked dull and dreary, I was mad that the Death Star blew up Alderaan because it looked like it would have made a very scenic location.

I had heard that the stormtroopers were notorious for missing. However, when it got to the Greedo scene, I first was confused. It happened so fast that I couldn't tell who shot what and which one hit. When Greedo fell over dead, I thought "that's so cheap, two guys are sitting at a table and the good guy hits while the bad guy misses. Did Han Solo have invincibility turned on like in a video game? Cliche and lame." Because it happened so fast, I wasn't even sure if Han hit his target and Greedo missed or it was just a case of the dead guy falling down, regardless of whether the scene showed the hit connecting.

A few days later, someone was watching the movie at our school library and it was at that scene. I watched it again to get another look but it confused me further because it didn't have the same shot.

Later after getting the 2004 dvd set for Christmas and watching Empire of Dreams, I became really curious about seeing what was different in the original version. So I found an online website that listed the major differences. Then seeing that the VHS from the library were from 1995 with Vader's face, I decided to borrow those and watch it in a friends dorm room who had a vcr. After seeing the original Greedo scene and knowing that it was later changed, I was amazed at how good the scene looked.

You see a close up of Han and then hear a blaster fire that you didn't see. Only when Greedo falls over dead in the wide shot do you realize Han must have shot Greedo from under the table. It just is more suspenseful this way and it makes us feel that the main characters are vulnerable. A lot of people point out that it changes Han's character. What I haven't seen people say nearly is much is that by having Greedo miss from that close, it cheapens not just the threat of Greedo but any bad guy in the movie. We don't feel like the main characters are in as much danger and thus there is less dramatic tension.

Same thing with the Jabba scene. If Han can just brazenly talk back to his gang leader like that, why should we be worried about when they all get captured in Jabba's Palace in Return of the Jedi? But I'll save the rest for the Jabba thread.

Here's something I just thought of.

http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/savingstarwars.html

Reading this, it says that they had to restore the original films completely before making any alterations. (Why they didn't make a video transfer from that restored negative and make that the "One Last Time" vhs/laserdisc set I do not know)

To make the alterations they scanned that restored negative at 2k and added computer effects, then basically printed that to film and either spliced the modified scenes into the original negative or just made a new print. From there they made the 1997 theatrical prints and video versions.

Now, at the time a 2k scan for something that was going to have added CGI was pretty good. However, by the time Disney gains control of the films, there will probably be demand to make a new transfer for a theatrical re-release of the OT. (like how Episode 1 got a new transfer because it had a 3-D re-release) The existing Blu-ray is sourced from a 2004 1080p scan. That looks pretty good on video but it certainly won't cut it for the big screen or IMAX, especially with improved video technology in 5 years.

So if Disney wants to get a 4k scan to use to show any version, they will have to go back to the original negative. But they can't use the SE parts, that will only get them 2k. So they would have to rescan the unaltered negatives at 4k, then if they wanted to either upscale or redo the CGI over the existing scenes.

Because hard drive space is no longer such a premium like it was in 1997, it would be very easy to save a digital 4k copy of the unaltered parts and the new SE version. And digital editing makes it a snap to assemble either version in high quality simultaneously without splicing film any further.

With a high quality copy of the originals acquired anyways through the process of making a new master, Disney will probably figure "well a lot of people are interested in this version. Since we have it available, we might as well sell it."

There's no reason to believe if Disney obtains a high quality version of the OOT, they won't make it available. What I'm not sure is that if Disney will want to restore the OOT if it require extra effort on their part beyond what they will do to present the films in 3-D. But if they're going to get the unaltered version restored along the way, then why not. But it's not like they're going to be in any rush, this is the company that only makes their most desired animated films available for a limited time so they can keep people interested in them. So they probably figure that by 2020, the unaltered dvd's will be even harder to find and more sought after so that the demand will be greater if they wait until then anyways.

So what do you guys think? Am I right? Did I get the specs correct from the article. Does this make sense?

has there been a Star Wars meme thread? or any kind of meme thread besides the one for OT.com inside jokes?

is there a thread for posting Star Wars related memes?

Because I just made a few and I'm really shallow and desparate for them to go viral so I'm spamming the only Star Wars forum I'm actually registered for. curious to know what everyone thinks.

one conspiracy Keeanu

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3us406/

two idiot nerd girls

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3us3sy/

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3us3qr/

most interesting man in the world/Dos Equis guy

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3t3eu8/

Quick, someone tweet them on instagram and tag all your friends on Reddit.

I could have sworn there were more threads about this but this was the only one I've seen. After all, I'm pretty sure I first heard about this movie here.

I got back a few hours ago from seeing 5-25-77 at the Michigan Theater in the Cinetopia film festival. Even got a picture with the director.

Very cool film. Still not completely finished so somewhat of a rough cut.

Anyways, he said they were close to getting some kind of distribution deal done so no need for a torrent anymore.

There's also going to be a documentary about the making of the movie called Hearts of Dorkness, and more info can apparently be found at the site with that name.

By the way, I had someone in my anime club rip 4 dvd's for me to my hard drive. I don't know what exactly he did and I don't know how to utilize them but I could look them up and see if I could somehow share them.

They were:

My Neighbor Totoro (2002 dvd with older Macek dub)

The Jungle Book (first dvd in original 4:3 aspect ratio)

The Aristocats (2002 dvd again in original 4:3 aspect ratio) think the picture quality is outstanding.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1999 dvd without the opening sequence blue tinted, good transfer but print is somewhat scratched and damaged)

I don't know if anybody else noticed this but Laputa and Kiki are both cropped in their 2010 dvd editions compared to the previous region one versions. I noticed in Laputa right away when the first wide shot we see of Laputa after they've landed, cuts off the top and bottom of the castle in the new dvd. I'm pretty sure this was not intended to be cropped that way by the animation, why would you use a really wide panaramic shot and then clip part of the main object?

Anyways, it's not clipped in the 2003 dvd. I've been meaning to take basic screencaps along with that and the color timing of Blade Runner from the documentaries compared to the archival versions. Same with Truman Show, the older dvd is less cropped.

But I've been meaning to take comparison shots since 2010 and never gotten around to it.

have you seen this upload?

http://youtu.be/qfqVGgwVa5w

and this commercial.

http://youtu.be/EnRLMztdwsM

Surely with all the tv commercial breaks that have been uploaded to youtube over the years, there have to be more Star Wars TV ads that have surfaced since the ones that were included on the Rowman unofficial bonus discs.

I think there was even a PSA from the cantina scene telling people not to drink and drive.

laserdisc was similar quality to what could be obtained with S-Vhs or Hi8 tape. Even original Betamax was better than VHS at providing a cleaner picture. I think Video 8 was also similar to VHS detail but again, cleaner picture and less fuzzyness.

I don't know much about the different sources used for the home video releases but this guy seems to have a pretty good collection of many of them.

I suppose if someone wanted to, they could email him more info about some of his tapes and discs. For instance, he didn't know that the 2008 boxset was basically the same discs as what was in the 2006 individual dvds.

http://swonvideo.com/

what really interested me was that a UK vhs set from 1994 was labeled "Digitally Remastered" yet did not have the THX logo on them. What was that source?

I also believe there was a special vhs boxset in place of the Definitive Laserdisc that just had a different lightsaber color on the box. It also came with a bonus tape that had the 1993 extras. I think that was the Executor set and that was UK Pal but that is not pictured and I don't know if that's the same as the "Digitally Remastered" set.

I'm from the US so I only know that there were basically 2 identical THX certified laserdisc sets in 1993 and 95.

SilverWook said:

They never learn, do they? Seems like an awful waste to destroy a perfectly good print. Do the studios require proof of destruction?

Now I'm having visions of some crazy person concealing old film prints in their house, like a scene out of Fahrenheit 451. Or maybe it's just someone I know...

Has anyone else seen the restoration documentary on the Gone With the Wind 4 disc dvd edition?

They talked about how even technicolor prints could turn out differently and that sometimes people would get excited about finding a technicolor print from a middle of nowhere theater. And it turned out to be one that was a bad printing so they sent it somewhere not important.

I'm pretty sure that was also the documentary that mentioned how for the 60's rerelease, the studio wanted it to be in stereo because that was all "new" and "better." And they wanted whatever source of the mono mix tossed.

However, somebody kept the print hidden and tucked away knowing it would be worth saving and it would have been very hard to present the original audio mix on dvd if that source had no longer existed.

if people are using early vhs releases as a color reference, wouldn't it make sense to get a Betamax tape transfer?

I assume the corresponding video releases would be the same, other than the much less fuzzy picture Betamax had.

http://youtu.be/CT6UlAvKz88

this was a promotional video I found posted, to highlight why Betamax was better. (of course, on televisions of that era, the quality difference would not be as easy to discern like it is now)

Is this fairly close to the actual difference? Because in the promo video, Beta looks like it could compete with laserdisc quality. I'd be interested to see a vhs vs Beta comparison of Star Wars simply because seeing so many screenshots of that movie, I know what to look for.

Here's another sample that's apparently from a Betamax tape.

http://youtu.be/G0FyGeaC_mI

Again, it doesn't have the fuzzyness or tape deterioration that you see with a lot of old video uploads on youtube.

https://plus.google.com/photos/109609428403596349302/albums/5781873106061439201?banner=pwa

this is more what I was looking for. To be honest, at first some of the shots on the left look "more correct" than those on the right which often seem too yellow or green tinted.

But again, that's probably because I'm used to seeing the THX colored version which had the best contrast levels of any transfer.

Seeing an older transfer with level adjustment so it doesn't look so murky really brings out an alternate view of how the film could or should look.

reading this thread has also helped sort through what might have been the original look

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Calling-all-Color-Correctors-Can-this-source-yield-a-different-set-of-results-to-Gout/topic/13746/

god I am so sick of getting a green or bluish tint on movies. I hate it when they do that with new movies because honestly do you want your movie to look like an instagram photo? But it's even worse when they can't get a classic film right. Maybe they should just scan a theatrical print. It will look better than a dvd because it's in HD and is true to the theatrical experience.

Honestly, the fact that the star wars deleted scenes weren't remastered didn't bother me. I liked seeing the grain on them.

Anyways, I'd rather see a version of Lord of the Rings without the weird coloring that's been in every version. Why'd it have to be so grey and blue or desaturated? This is a fantasy movie shot on film, it should have color. The idea that a film needs to be tinted blue to tell the audience that this is a sad scene simply has no respect for the audience or doesn't know how to tell a story effectively.

I still think that the archival versions of Blade Runner are too blue or teal in some scenes (not as bad as the final cut) but I'm still holding onto my 1997 dvd as well. Also some of the footage in Dangerous Days doc looks different from any version on dvd. It should be noted Charles de Lazuirika did post online in a discussion about Blade Runner and said they attempted to preserve the original look of the films for the past versions.

Speaking of Ridley Scott, what about Legend? I've seen the theatrical cut (in pan & scan) on tv before and it looked much warmer than the dvd. Is there a widescreen version that came out before the 2002 directors cut? Or is there a comparison to the international dvd screenshots somewhere?

Oh yeah and pretty much any Disney animated classic has been recolored. Pinnochio just looks terrible, I prefer to watch the VHS.

sorry for the rant. Maybe movie censorship.com should make a companion site just for color timing issues.

emanswfan said:

Speeder Chase on Coruscant:

emanswfan said:

Coruscant Meeting:

I like the more subtle recoloring better. I think the top image is too drastic an overall shift in color. The bottom one looks the same at first but only if you look at some of the flesh tones, and then the colors in the background are much more naturally saturated.

But I'd rather not see a drastic retinting of an entire frame like in a basic color editing software.

The grain added in the Naboo palace is just amazing. It looks so much more lifelike and yet the overall color tint isn't really changed much.

Normally I would be wary about any edit that used either the 2004 or 2011 video since the colors were so screwed up. But after reading more on the first page about how various sources were used (including 1997) and it was color corrected, I'm very impressed.

Is there a section where you have screenshot comparisons or examples of the differences or how you undid the SE shots. For example did you use any early VHS/LD captures as a guide to how the colors might have looked before the film faded as much?

I had heard about this edit before but I never really read this thread until today and I certainly don't want to read through the whole thing. (sorry don't have time.)

frank678 said:

This is trying out the idea of taking a snapshot of a still in vlc, then changing the settings and taking a second snapshot, then merging the two together. The idea behind it is to increase the range/depth of a single image by adding additional information to it. Using the 82 LD which does not have a lot of image depth it does seem to work to a degree, the only problem was it added too much darkness where I just was aiming for just adding depth. I wonder has anyone here ever tried merging moving images (i.e. clips/or the whole films) with slightly different settings (i am unable to try this out).  

 

original 82 ld:

 

settings changed:

 

the above two merged:

 

The following stills are the end results only (all using the same settings - i.e. this is meant to be a one step/automated process which either improves on the original in one 'fix' or not.

 

 

 

 

the sky has a much more vivid blue in it than I remember seeing in the 2006 dvd. I think these are two instances where the older transfer had some benefit of being from a less faded print than what they had to work with when doing the THX mastering in 1993. And while the THX color correction did restore a lot of the movie to how it should have looked without being faded and featured still very good black and white points, these scenes look more colorful than I ever remember seeing them.

                                            Middle: ADJUSTMENT             Right: 2006 DVD

The middle shot here is another example of getting much closer to how the film should look on video without being damaged by fading. At least that's what I think. I've never seen the sky look as blue as it does in the middle shot but somehow, it just looks right to me. So this might be another shot that the THX color correction couldn't get quite right.

Seems like the outdoor Tatooine footage either faded the most or was the hardest to color correct to undo fading. But we have better color correction technology on home PC's than THX mastering did back in 1993.

Honestly my reaction to seeing some of these shots is like "when did Tatooine ever have such a blue sky?"

Would you still be interested in blank Blu-ray discs? I don't have much experience with torrenting stuff so I would prefer to have the discs sent to me.

If you would like a donation of blank discs, I would consider it. I suppose the easiest way would be to simply order the specific brand you want on Amazon and then have it shipped to your address.

Correct? I don't have much experience with capturing raw video or encoding so I would be happy to help in alternate ways, provided the cost was not extremely high.

I have wanted a better version of the '97 edits for a while now. I found the widescreen VHS version at a rental store closing but we all know VHS was never that good.