I’ll have a bit more free time coming up and thought it’d be fun to work on some of the intros and next week’s segments. Unfortunately, I haven’t had any luck finding those segments online. I know it’s a long shot but does anyone have a source or know where I might be able to track them down?
Any suggestions on where to start looking at that stuff? I’m completely new to all of this.
I ran some of the low-quality Clone Wars video through Topaz Project Starlight to see how well it could clean things up. While it did improve sharpness and reduce some noise, the results were ultimately limited by the original footage; bad in = bad out. It’s a decent quick fix for minor enhancements, but don’t expect miracles if your source is garbage.
Just for fun I’m experimenting with a few shots to see if I can improve them. It’s been fun analyzing how this show was put together.
For instance, I’ve been working on cleaning up this speeder shot, as it gets cut off early in the DVD version.
Chapter 9 - Opening Shot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV7bljJZA40
Very few “Next Time” and “Previously” on segments are available online from what I can find. The “Next Time” segments are literally 3 second teasers for the next episode while the “Previously” segments are a bit longer but easy to edit.
Chapter 9 Previously & Next Time HD Rebuild
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpeEHE4Lp0c
I did take a stab at a few missing segments which were replaced by wipes on the DVD Versions.
Chapter 8 Ending - Replaced with a wipe on DVD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzV4LRUd2og
Chpater 9 Ending - Replaced with a wipe on DVD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJSl9X54A50
While neither of these two tests are prefect, they are blink and you’ll miss them changes. Both shots are under 15 frames of content. It would still be nice to have them back at some point.
Chapter 9 - Replaced with a wipe on DVD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGTfRVtQKcU
One more blink and you miss it shot. This is also the result of a wipe being added to the DVD version of this shot.
Like I said, I’ve just been playing around with these in my downtime. I just wanted to share what I’ve been playing with.
I appreciate the thanks but all the credit goes to @GabinDayback who did the real work. Without their knowledge to start from I wouldn’t even know what was different.
Alright this is a video version showing the TV vs DVD differences.
Hopefully that clarifies things for folks.
Drats
In that case ignore my previous message…
I guess I don’t have access to the TV Versions. If anyone wants to share them I’d be happy to create a side by side comparison though.
If anyone is curious I made this quick video to show what is missing from the TV versions and the DVD release. It’s really less than I thought.
Link Deleted (<-- NOT THE TV VERSIONS - MY BAD)
Just watched the updated versions and they look and sound great. Thanks for the continued effort on these.
Yeah thanks for the hard work thus far. It’s a fun way to watch the series for sure. Greatly appreciated.
I assumed it was a lot more footage left out. Would it be possible to make those three episodes as separate downloads for completions sake?
This is good news all around and I can’t wait to check out version 2.0
I watched this today and it turned out really good. Congrats on the restoration project!
It’s in the first post
Here are both frames on top of each other with the top one set to difference in photoshop.
Great news. Thanks for all your hard work on these projects. It is greatly appreciated. 😄
These look amazing. Thanks for all the hard work Rob!
Terrible news about the computer. I’ve had hard drives die and take out full projects in the past and it’s always a terrible feeling let alone losing the whole computer. Good luck with your projects in the future.
That’s a total bummer. Sorry Harmy.
You can also check the end credits to see what version you have. Harmy puts the version number at the very end of the credits or he did on the newer versions anyway. Older versions might be missing that.
It is sad to get confirmation that we won’t see a commercial release of the theatrical versions.
I can rest easy knowing all the hard work that has and is going into making these available to the fans.
Thanks to everyone who has helped with that work. It is greatly appreciated by a lot of people.
Thanks for the info ChainsawAsh. You are always a big help when we are trying to sort all this info out. 😃
@Danfun128 ah yeah the grindhouse version…totally forgot about that one. It really is a labyrinth of versions to keep track off. Thanks for mentioning that.
It took me a bit to track down this information as well so I wanted to post this here for people to stumble upon this thread later in time. As of posting these are the current best versions of restorations we have available to us. (Thanks ChainsawAsh for helping me get an understanding on all this)
2011 BluRay Versions OT and Prequels
Buy the BluRays and rip them to your computer. Super easy to get those.
Original Trilogy - Theatrical Versions*
There are various options for this. The 4k77 (4k80 yet to be released) and 4k83 are really good 35mm scans of the films in 4K. The Harmy’s Despecialized versions are really great too. Pick your poison. (*There is also the 1981 rerelease of Star Wars that added the Episode IV to the crawl. This version is available online as well as an offshoot version of Harmy’s Despecialized.)
1997 - Special Edition Trilogy
Harmy made a 720p “Respecialized Edition” for Star Wars. Adywan made a 1080p version of The Empire Strikes Back. The best currently available for Return of the Jedi are laserdisc rips.
2004 - DVD Trilogy Changes - OT and Prequels
Schorman’s HDTV Preservation is the best for HD versions of these.
Prequel Trilogy - Theatrical Versions
Episode I - Best we currently have are laserdisc rips.
Episode II - Best we have is a cam recording from a theater.
Episode III - Schorman did a really good restoration of this and it sounds like the new one in the works.
I’m not getting into the mess of audio mixes but from a visual standpoint these are the current releases. Thankfully a few projects are in the works to make the missing versions in HD. Hopefully in time we’ll have everything in HD. 😃 Lots of great projects around here.
Thanks for all the hard work Schorman13. Can’t wait to give these new versions a look. 😄