Memorex

I really enjoyed the documentary! The whole thing looked very professional!

Seeing the examples of the color correction side by side in motion was quite a shock as I've only seen small stills before. I have not yet watched either 1.0 or 2.1 as I've kept holding out for 2.5. So seeing it in motion was a very nice experience. 

I was also really amazed how good the clips from Project Blu looked!

Great job everyone!

Thanks for the clip! :)

"Some people.."

Skimmed through it earlier today, looked good! Will give it another spin after I've burned it :) 

Would be cool to see some comparison shots to other versions, especially the cropping!

michaelkirschner said:

If anyone wants an invite I just checked my account and I have 9 to give out

I sure could use one of those! :)

Didn't mean to encourage further derailment, kinda got caught up in the moment.. Is there a "How I got into SW" thread somewhere were these posts can be moved? Quite an interesting read :)

1984 here! When I was little my dad kept talking about these Star Wars-movies with two robots walking around in the desert. But since vcrs were to damn expensive back then I never got to see it. I forgot all about it, then finally in late 1993, IIRC, swedish channel 4 started to run trailers for Star Wars and the hype at school was huge! 

One fateful saturday night the family gathered up in front of the tv and when the score started playing with the opening crawl I was hooked! Original cuts in all their pan&scan glory! Taped the entire trilogy and watched it over and over. 

In 97 the SE arrived on vhs, and I bought the P&S set. Being a naive kid I swallowed Lucas' propaganda how he had finally been able to complete the movies and restored peace to the galaxy and blah blah. Becoming a teenager I started to lose interest and stopped watching the films. Think it was about 8 years ago I started to get more and more into nostalgic movies and the craftmanship they presented, feeling a bit fed up with all the cgi that flooded the market. I got curious wheter there was a dvd of the original trilogy without alterations. Diving in to the topic I found out about the TR47/Cowclops set and a bit later, this forum. Very glad I did! 

jdh2424 said:

My take is have it be the best possible picture/sound all around, the movie and extras. File size be damned. If it take me 24 hours to download 15gigs whats another couple of hours to get it in better quality/sound. 

Anyone can get handbrake to "dumb" it down if needed, pull out the extras etc.... Upscaling on the end user side it a completely different story.  

 

I agree, but the space available on the BD is the catch.

Oh, I see. Well I'm sure you will make everything work out in the best possible way :) 

I'm getting the same feelings of anticipation waiting for this BD as I got around 20 years ago when I waited for the movie to air on swedish television (first time I ever saw it)

I'd much rather see a bitrate compromise on the extras than the main feature.. :) 

Is the BD going to feature the more recent digital capture of the '77 stereo instead of the older analogue one?  

penguinofgreatness said:

yoda-sama said:

I keep seeing people ask if Hairy's 5.1 reconstruction is 'better' than the Blu-ray audio, to which the response is always that it blows it out of the water.  What I'm wondering is in what aspects exactly does it best it?

The best way to truly understand is a direct comparison. Listen with headphones or good speakers for the best effect!

Here is a direct comparison of the Bluray and the one used in 2.1 (Hairy_Hen posted this awhile back, but the link went down). The differences are very noticeable. The bluray has added effects, a flat droning bass sound and is first in the comparison. If you listen, you will notice that the Bluray is very muddy (lacking much of the treble sound) and lacks any dynamic range. The sound levels are noticeably clipped and distorted when the death star blows up

http://www.mediafire.com/?avv1d8izol8hy3t

Here is also a description of what is precisely wrong with the "official" mix: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Star-Wars-1977-70mm-sound-mix-recreation-stereo-and-51-versions-now-available/post/548812/#TopicPost548812

The hum from the lightsabers almost drowns out Vaders dialogue. Quite intrusive.

Harmy said:

They are all distinctly different mixes. The mono mix is very quite different from all the others.

I so want to a have a little featurette on the BD about all the different mixes, explaining how they're different and why they're all there but I don't have enough knowledge of the matter to do it by myself.

Such a featurette would be awesome! Nothing fance required, plain text will do :) Mavimao's summary was very good and informative. 

Mavimao said:

 

Guspaz said:

I find all the different audio tracks a bit confusing, to be honest. Not complaining about having them, just want to know what the differences are so that I can figure out which to use. Using the v2.0 MKV as a reference here:

There is three 1977 tracks, the difference seems to be the number of channels. Is there a difference between these three? I could understand why there could be a 5.1 and 2.0, but what is the mono track for? Is it different somehow?

What is the difference between the 1977 and 1993 tracks?

Why is does one of the "isolated score" tracks have a bunch of the sound effects and dialog, but only some of it, and the other doesn't?

I guess ultimately it boils down to, should I be listening to the 1977 or 1993 tracks?

Star Wars was released in 1977 with 3 different sound mixes. First there was the dolby stereo mix: a 2 channel matrixed surround sound system that was pretty new back then and wasn't quite mature. You find this mix in LDs and VHS tapes prior to 85.

Then there was the 70mm 4.2 discrete channel surround sound version. This has never been officially released, so Hairy Hen took it upon himself to take the 93 mix - which was based from the 70mm mix stems but had additional sound effects - and recreate the 70mm mix. This involved splitting the matrixed 93 mix into discrete channels, adding an LFE channel and splicing in the 85 mix where ever needed to get rid of the 93 additions.

In terms of content, there aren't really any differences between the dolby stereo and the 70mm. Although note that "close the blast doors" is never said and c3po doesn't give instructions on how to disable the death star's tractor beam.

Then we come to the mono mix, which was created last and was deemed necessary since most theatres in that day only had monaurual sound systems and even though dolby stereo was supposed to be backwards compatible, they didn't want to take that chance with such a new technology.

Now the mono mix has a lot of surprising content changes. There's a new dubbing for Aunt Beru, new alarm sound effects, "Close the blast doors" first appears (not an SE addition like so many people thought in 97), C3PO gives instructions on how to shut down the tractor beam, the radio sound effect at the battle of Yavin is different, etc etc. Here's a more detailed list:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/russdawson/mono/mono1.htm

So the Mono mix is an entity unto itself and has surprisingly never been officially released despite it being George's final approved mix in 77. We have a restoration that was done by a member a while back that was sourced from Europen VHS broadcast recordings.

Now the home video mixes: the 85 mix is probably what you heard growing up in the eighties. It's the stereo version but EQed to sound better on tvs of the time and CPOs speech on how to disable the tractor beam is added.

The 93 mix, like mentioned above, is based on the 70mm mix but has added (some say distracting) sound effects including crashing glass in the detention block shootout. This mix was used on the Definitive Collection LDs, the THX "Faces" collection from 95, and the GOUT.

 

I hold out for the blu as well, since I want the best possible experience of this project! :)

About all these different audiotracks and the confusion that might occur; a detailed description on each track somewhere on the future bd would be quite nice :) Such as historical value, origins/source, how and by whom they were preserved and stuff like that. 

Harmy said:

OK, now,before I can start building the BD, I need to put together all the material that will go on it - that is the video (I will use v2.0 MKV's video as a temp for now) all the audio tracks (so I'll need the other lossless audio tracks asap) and all the bonus material.

Are you planing on including the deleted scenes from the BD as an extra? :)

Harmy said:

Sad story, bro.

Yeah, well.. time heals all wounds I guess. Just gotta focus on awesome things, like the impending release :) So happy I found this forum some 8 years ago! *Getting sentimental.....*

Halfway through the new comparison now; the new timing on the first meeting with Obi-wan looks great! And the "look sir, droids" shot really stood out among the improvements!! And nice job with the details on the Tantive walls. Damn nice job with everything, Harmy! 

My girlfriend has been nagging for almost a year that we should watch some SW and i've told  her to relax untill this sweet jewel was released. Really happy to see that its finally coming! Too bad the GF kicked me out last month.. 

Still I won't let that ruin this glorious experience for me! :)

Does one dare to ask for a spleen-acount around here nowadays?

Yeah, let's hope it's all just a misunderstanding.

Pointing out things one "can't stand" doesn't really seem like constructive critisism to me..

And what can be refered to as original? Vhs? Gout? LD? Can theses sources really be trusted as 100% representative of the original theatrical version which these releases aim to replicate? 

msycamore said:

Memorex said:

I was ofcourse referring to your raw capture of ANH that was uploaded months ago, nothing else :) 

But I haven't uploaded any raw capture, that's why your post scared me. :)

I think you might refer to the X9-capture of ANH? But that wasn't uploaded by me.

Ok, now I'm scared! I have to investigate this matter!

Edit: I'm afraid I mixed it all up, I was refering to the SWE release presented in the very first post in this very thread. I thought it was a raw transfer since I read you were doing a color corrected 2.0 of it now.  Hm, I think I've sorted it all out now :)

Heh, the IF was just the accidental result of some sloppy editing,,

I was ofcourse referring to your raw capture of ANH that was uploaded months ago, nothing else :) 

Lovely pics Tater! :) No complaints from the neighbours I hope?

Oh, okay, so they were Arnies captures to begin with.. I was too lazy to re-do my research :) I havn't checked the X9 ESB for a long time, have stored on an external HD somewhere. Remembered it to have way less smearing than the gout though!

I have you'r raw SWE capture as well, if  :)

I also have DJ:s V.3, which was a great improvement of the gout-discs, but a smear-free, color-corrected LD capture would also be great to have.

Nah no problem, just curious :) I'm always interested in smear-free preservations! I have the ESB  that Chewtobacca made from the other JSC, but that was a raw transfer iirc.

Would be interesting to see how the framing compares between the two pressings! The clip looked very nice!