Knightmessenger

skyjedi2005 said:

The shit quality of the gout does not allow me to recommend those dvd's to anyone much less purchase for my nephew who loves star wars.  I refuse to spend money on what a young kid would see as unwatchable quality after watching the restored 2004 set.  I call the gout the offcial Lucas bootleg because that is in fact what it is in terms of quality.

In a consumer based society you would think the originals being non restored and non anamorphic would prevent them from selling well. 

 To be honest, the official LFL dvd's are the best quality of the originals out there. I know that's not saying much but I'd certainly recommend them to anybody who wants to replace their vhs tapes or even laserdiscs. Especially with the new boxset that has both versions and sells for $30 on amazon.

Are the originals selling well? I think that's actually a good thing. I mean if people are buying them now, imagine how many people would pay good money for a proper release.

That still doesn't explain how the colors didn't look so screwed up. Even the scene of Anakin without his mask (heavily tinted blue in 2004) looked like a more neutral gray.

I also thought a clip for ANH on the RotS dvd didn't look like the Tantive IV walls were as blue. It makes me wonder if LFL realizes they screwed up the colors so bad. Although the wrecked colors would probably fit Mtv very well as the films now have the color tone of a music video. Would Mtv have done a quick brightening to the picture so that it would show up better on tv?

For a while seeing Jedi, it looked like it might be the 97 or original version since the colors looked proper. I tuned in during the Luke Vader duel but then saw Anakin didn't have his eyebrows so I didn't want to watch further.

But I swore during the final attack on the death star, right after Lando says "Split up and head back to the surface," there was a shot with the garbage mattes still there. Was that not even fixed in '04?

MeBeJedi said:

Well, the real question, now, is can we accomplish all that we originally were planning for, or do we just aim for what we can do right now. There's one biggie we're debating - something neither of us is particularly suited to do right now, so we're seeing who can help us with it, and may perhaps ask for some help in this thread, if need be.

 Would you consider putting it up for a vote or something. I understand the feeling as I sometimes can get stuck debating something for a long time. (even what to order in a restaurant!) Unless it needs to be classified or something, perhaps getting some feedback from others would give you a better perspective.

In general, I'd probably tend to favor releasing what you have (if it wouldn't be too much trouble) and then attempt to finish it further if you feel up to it.

charliesheen said:I've still not gotten any of Leononut's edits, I'm wondering where I can get them from? I'm especially excited by the Manhunter and the Leone films.

Same here except I'm interested in Legend. I don't know how to use torrents but I can send discs.

I remember something my film professor demonstrated numerous times. In our media lab, we had a white square on the wall to show videos. Well, he would always stress that well shot (and well lit) video would show detail that it would look so natural you could just walk right into the frame. And then he would pretend to bang into the wall. Obviously, it's nearly impossible (even with the best film cameras) to totally create a 3-d image but there are definitely certain things that work better than others. I think film grain helps a movie look more 3-D. It isn't very noticeable on close up images but stuff in the background will be less clear because of grain. And that's a good thing! You don't want your movie to look like it was shot on auto-focus.

I'm glad Ridley Scott released all the versions of his movies on dvd but Blade Runner and Legend both look to have a significantly different color timing on the dvd than previous versions. The same site with the Bond comparisons I linked to on page 1 has a similar comparison for Blade Runner. It appears to have a blue tint added in some sequences for the original version. (The final cut appears murky green) Watching the dvd's, they look too clean (as in having that soapy shiny look). However, the deleted scenes and clips from the documentary do not have this added to them.

I saw a Pan & Scan US version of Legend on Encore a year ago. It's probably the same master that was used for the VHS tape. The picture looked a lot warmer and without a blue tint that is on both the Director's cut and US version of the dvds.

They had plenty of screw ups with the Bond dvd's as well. Unfortunately, the older dvd's came out in 1999 and are so old that the digital compression is very noticeable in motion. I think some of the Bond special edition dvd's almost look as bad as the Gout.

you can find Bond comparisons and many more here.

http://www.bulletsnbabesdvd.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1900

They are the '97 versions, including Greedo shooting first. But they look pretty crappy.

Empire of Dreams mostly used '97 footage and that looked pretty good. Right in the beginning of that is the lightsabers crossing as they should look.

I doubt it. Computers are stupid. Have you ever had a photo editing program with an auto fix mode? I think they just didn't bother to have an actual person double check if the automated coloring done by machine was correct. Considering, you can use a computer to take the Gout colors and recolor the 2004 versions that way, it's pretty lame they got it so wrong. At least they transferred the 1993 master tapes faithfully. By Lucasfilm standards these days, that's an amazing accomplishment.

Wasn't the opening shot of Grafitti an improvement? I mean the movie takes place at night so instead of some boring mid day shot with an ugly building behind the diner, we see a sunset. I think it works much better.

And the scenes that were reinstated for the movie were always intended by Lucas to be in, the studio took them out. So really wouldn't that be no different from Spartacus?

EDIT: I think the problem with George Lucas is what he says about Anakin in the Episode III preview on the OT bonus disc. He can't let things go.

Well, I did get around to posting the video in 12 segments. (long applause!) I even made a playlist which I can't seem to get to show up in searches. Or if someone happens to click on one of the videos, I want the playlist box to always show up on the right side.

Anyone know more about that?

EDIT: here's the playlist

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D9E59BE5669880CB

This is getting off topic again but has anyone with a similar high end player considered preserving other laserdiscs that aren't on dvd (like THX 1138).

I can't remember if I posted this before but I think this project being attempted might have discouraged others from trying to take the Gout and use that as the source to removing as many scratches or splice tape as possible. Obviously the dvnr smearing couldn't be taken out completely without using the 97 SE or special collection but there is certainly room for improvement. So I can't help but wonder if a lot of people have been waiting for this to be completed before spending some serious time trying to enhance the Gout.

devils_syndicate said:

I have the Fullscreen Version in the Gold/Copper Box, which I got right after Christmas of 2004.  I remember watching and thinking to myself "I don't recall many of those scenes, celebrations, or songs" in that part of the movie.  But I figured it had been so long since I seen the movies I just forgot or something. 

 Yeah, you should be able to find the slim 2008 box for $30 on Amazon. Or buy the individual movies for $13 at Wal-Mart. I suppose you'll have more of a reasons to rebuy the movies since you can get both versions in widescreen.

Keep the bonus disc from the 2004 set.

Back in 1997, the official star wars site said the original movies had to be restored before any alterations could be made. Why they didn't use that new unaltered print for the "One Last Time" release instead of using the same master from 1993 is what really puzzles me.

Lucas would have been crazy to physically splice in the new scenes rather than make a new print. Even if he wanted to, the restored unaltered print was very fragile, it would have been very risky to cut it any further.

I think the slim box set shows LFL realizes people want both versions. I've even seen the 2004 dvd's being sold individually but with the '06 dvd included. LFL could just say we're no longer selling the originals individually but they go to the trouble of putting them in unlabeled (except for the front sticker) anyways. Maybe the Gout did sell well enough after all.

The 1995 THX set is identical to the gout dvd's.

Some spots on the 97 SE tapes might look better than the same spot on the Gout due to better compositing and a cleaned up source.

But even with a good vcr, it's going to be hard to get as clean a capture as the gout, without all the fuzzy lines and noise.

C3PX said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

I'm not 100% sure I agree. They're celebrating, and really happy, but they celebrated and were happy at the end of 'Star Wars' also.

The celebration at the end of Star Wars was of a different kind with a different tone. The ROTJ celebration was an end-of-the-war it's-all-over we-don't-have-to-worry-about-the-future kind of celebration.

In other words, it was just like an Obama supporter's "Yes We Did!" victory party. The next day they wake up, take a look around, down a few pills for their hang over, and say, "What the fu... the stock market is still down? I don't get it? What went wrong?" Only in this case, they wake up next morning, down a few pills for there hang over, and realize, "My goodness, seems the Empire is still around! What do ya have to do to get rid of a damn Empire around here?"

I think the new ending theme gives a sense of finality while the yub nub makes it sound as if it's just one more chapter finished. Anyways, on one of the dvd commentaries (III maybe?) , Lucas states the empire can only be defeated when both sith are killed off. Which happens at the end of Jedi. So Jedi may have been thought of as just another chapter at one point but Lucas decided that he wanted to wrap it up with the third ot movie.

About the Obama thing. Anyone see the Onion video describing just that, supporters the day after.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3_95F5e-Ac

Do you have any idea how that works? One response in the help forum mentions something about being a partner.

EDIT: Seems you have to apply for it. Sounds kind of silly.

I have some videos that I want to upload to youtube but they're over 10 minutes. Is it still possible to upload them without cutting them up further into segments. I've seen some videos on youtube that are longer than 10 minutes and I was just wondering if there's any special trick.

I should be able to get the rendered files to be under 1gb.

Fang Zei said:

First we got Close Encounters and Blade Runner, with the original versions included. Now we're getting the original versions of all the Star Trek films. Call me naive, but I'm getting more and more hopeful that GL won't get away with simply pressing out an SE-only Star Wars BD set.

If he trys to only put out a new version for blu-ray, there's only one solution: DON'T BUY IT!

I'm probably preaching to the choir here but I just don't think that can be said enough. I think people are sick of buying the same stuff again and again anyways.

Ziz said:

That's not what I mean.  "Video" looks different than "film".  It's hard to put into words.

Look at a home family video.  Look at the dimensionality of it.  Look at the way things look.

Now look at a film.  It has a different feel to it.  It almost makes video look fake, as backwards as that sounds.

Film looks "real".  Video looks "live".

______________________________________________

OK, after looking at my sister's TV again today and investigating exactly which make/model she has, I figured out why I noticed this film/video difference - 120Hz.  The 120's make film look "live" because of the doubled frequency rate.  My new Westinghouse 42" is the standard 60Hz and TESB on Spike still looks like film.

 I think I know what you mean. Though I feel the videos from my family's vhs-c camcorder look more film like than 90% of all digital camcorder videos today which mostly suck.

If someone does this, would they please consider removing the green tint from the movie. I thought the color timing looked horrible, as if it was a music video on Mtv.

drsd2kill said:

Well, I edited mine together using the Japanese LD, the Hong Kong LD, and the entire "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah" sequence as released on the ALICE IN WONDERLAND deluxe LD and DVD editions. There are no subtitles on my version, using the Hong Kong LD to replace subbed shots.

Wait, there's footage from Song of the South on the Alice in Wonderland dvd? Which one and where?

I'm interested in the 2 disc copy as well.

Isn't there a new dvd of Saludos Amigos out now? Maybe that has what you're looking for.

And for some unknown reason, there is a new anniversary edition of Mary Poppins. Does anyone know if that has the aspect ratio proper this time? The dvd lists it again as 1.66:1.

I have the dvd set but after seeing them air on Encore, I got the idea. Why not edit the scene from part II where Loraine gets her dress and Biff talks all big about how he's going to marry her and gets his car fixed. Then cut it before Old Biff is seen in his car.

That way you have a scene from 1955 inserted in the first movie which was not affected by any of the actions in the sequels. So it happened anyways.

So many movie trilogies have a great first one, a decent second one and a forgettable third one. (Matrix, Spider Man, X-men [Ive heard], Indiana Jones 4) The Back to the Future series is solid all the way through. There's probably a bigger drop off from Empire to Jedi than II to III. And the entire storyline had already been written for the Star Wars trilogy, Lucas had to take the first third and make that the original movie. They had to make the sequels for Back to the Future from scratch because it wasn't known the first movie was going to be a success.

Thanks for replying MBJ. I'm sure whatever was done, something great can result. I have a feeling new possibilities have opened up since this whole project was started. I could be wrong but I bet some of the advanced technology you guys were using might be more accesible to others because it has become more affordable on the consumer level. Hard drives have become incredibly cheap for instance. More computers even at the basic level are now powerful enough to handle video. It seems like more people here are capable of doing some amazing stuff too. (Adywan comes to mind) Personally, I know a whole lot about black levels and color correction and I had no idea what any of that was when this project started.

The only good news about missing part of Jedi is that I didn't notice a lot of smearing on that movie compared to the other two. Plus, after the Sarlacc, nothing is changed until the ending. (well actually the speeder bikes might have been recomposited but that's minor)

With this, the '97 super set, the Revisted and Puggo Grande, there'll be no reason to give George any more money unless the blu-ray includes the originals restored.