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MonkeyLizard10

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16-Sep-2019
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18-Mar-2024
Posts
266

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Post
#1582097
Topic
ORIGINAL CINEMA RECORDINGS
Time

Your TFA stuff sounds cool.

There are full to near full audio only recordings for SW and TESB. I think there may be a second set of much shorter partial recordings for those to. I think there are a couple videos of the very, very start of TESB. There are least two in theater audio only recordings of TROS (but recorded late in the game, months into the run) and a few short video snips of parts of the end credits. There may be more stuff.

Post
#1581848
Topic
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: original broadcast reconstruction project
Time

CannonShy said:

MonkeyLizard10 said:
Is often heavily compressed streaming audio actually better quality than VHS HiFi audio recording?

I agree that VHS HiFi can sound pretty good, almost as good as CD quality in the right conditions (good tape, good deck).

But: the streaming audio is 640kbit Dolby Digital 5.1 encoded from (probably) a 6 channel 48khz 16 bit PCM master.

If you have an off-air recording onto VHS, the signal has been on long journey before it hit your VHS deck. Starting from a comparable master tape (probably 48khz 16bit PCM stereo) -> C-band (NTSC) -> Beta SP tape (whatever your local TV station had at the time, maybe DVCAM or digiBeta towards the end) -> SDI (for adding station logos) -> NTSC over whatever medium -> VHS -> whatever you can digitize it with.

The VHS tape, even on a good day, is a couple of analogue generations behind the streaming audio.

I know the TV networks were shifting over to high-bitrate MPEG-2 based distribution of material (not sure if the audio was compressed or not in the MPEG-2 feed) towards the end of Buffys run, and digital tape like DVCAM was becoming pretty cheap - so for the later seasons, assuming you had digital cable (probably Dolby Digital stereo at 192kbits) fed from a digital-only station - it’s much closer. But it’s still adding a layer of wow-and-flutter and an digital -> analogue -> digital round trip to a Dolby Digital signal encoded at a lower bit-rate than the streaming.

That said - if you do have VHS recordings of any of the original airings of Buffy episodes - it would be great to confirm the openings I posted above are correct. It would also be great to clarify which “Tonights presentation is intended for our …”/“New Tuesday” bumper was used with which episode - if you can post any information you have that would be great !

Canon.

Although it should be noted that many cable system re-compress all the video AND audio and often the digital audio is very crappy compared to the original digital compressed audio so it is often hardly any sort of pure chain either and usally just 192bitrate. It all depends upon the year and the exact cable system recorded off of. But it didn’t seem that rare to me that taped HiFi VHS would sound better. It really depends.

But yeah I guess the streaming DD would be direct and most likely not re-compressed and could be higher bitrate, but could sometimes still just be 19s.

Post
#1581847
Topic
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: original broadcast reconstruction project
Time

CannonShy said:

Regarding the 5.1 mix - I’ve only reviewed one episode (S01E02) - but if that’s consistent with the rest of the series I can say the following:

  • I believe the 5.1 mix is the results of taking the stereo “music and effects” tracks, and running it through a Dolby surround decoder to get Left, Right, Surround Left, Surround Right and a low passed LFE channel - the mono dialog track is used to populate the center channel. My evidence for this is:
    – Zero dialogue leakage to left, right, surround, or LFE channels
    – Surround and LFE channel activity correlates pretty much 100% with activity in the left and right channels
    — Checkout the dialogue heavy section between 02:14 and 03:48 (Giles spins a globe and spouts exposition), no LFE, no surround.
    – Seems they’d likely have a M&E/Dialogue split so they could do other language dubs.

  • This means a mixdown should be transparent-ish (see below images)
    – A downmix of the 5.1 streaming track I made using ffmpeg looks pretty similar to the original soundtrack, there might be some minor equalization differences - but notice the ~15khz CRT whine in the spectrogram particularly at ~16 minutes present in both it looks to be identical (seems to be coming from the dialogue track)
    – There is a question of the relative phase of the surround channels to ensure correct Dolby Surround compatibility in the downmix - would need to check that

Assuming this holds, it should mean that the streaming soundtrack can be downmixed (with the right ffmpeg command) to produce something very very close to the broadcast stereo soundtrack at much higher quality than any actual recording of the original broadcasts we happen to have copies of.

5.1 Streaming mix
5.1 Streaming mix

DVD Audio 2.0
DVD 2.0 Audio

Streaming mix downmixed to 2.0 in ffmpeg
Streaming audio downmixed to 2.0 in ffmpeg

Don’t forget that many stereo TV broadcasts were actually surround sound and meant to be decoded with Dolby Pro Logic if you had that capability so even during the original TV broadcasts.

"Dolby Surround Pro Logic is the full name that refers to the matrix surround format and decoding system in one. When a Dolby Surround soundtrack is created in post-production (Dolby MP Matrix), four channels of sound are matrix-encoded into an ordinary stereo (two-channel) soundtrack. The center channel is reduced in level by 3 dB and summed to the left and right channels; the surround channel is attenuated by 3 dB, passes through a band-pass filter (cutting frequencies under 100 Hz and above 7 kHz), passes through Dolby B noise reduction and is encoded on the left and right channels with opposite polarity (this is achieved by applying a +90-degree phase shift to the left channel and a −90-degree phase shift to the right channel).[2] The surround channel was often used for ambient background sounds in the original recording, music scores and effects.

A Dolby Pro Logic decoder/processor “unfolds” the soundtrack back into its original 4.0 surround—left and right, center, and a single limited frequency-range (7 kHz low-pass filtered)[3] mono rear channel—while systems lacking the decoder play back the audio as standard stereo. "

"Note that the original Pro Logic had mono surrounds so the side surrounds were the same signal, but Pro Logic II has some additional processing which creates separation in the side surrounds. The end result is a reasonable spacial sound-field but due to nature of matrix encode/decode U are limited to about 20dB separation between channels while with a Dolby Digital 5.1 encode/decode process will yield >50dB. "

I’m not quite sure if NTSC TV broadcasts got switched to try to deliver split surrounds and LFE in 2000 or not.

Anyway, the point is that there is no need to downmix any of the 5.1 sources to try to get the ‘original’ stereo TV broadcasts since they were surround sound to begin with. That said probably for the first four seasons the surrounds were probably not split so technically the 5.1 digital sources wouldn’t be quite the same though I guess (assumg they even actually feature true split surrounds).

Post
#1581277
Topic
70mm print of the pre-SE Star Wars film on Saturday in Academy Theater in CA!
Time

Ronster said:

Cliffs71 said:

As for the print itself… Holy Jeebus! I can’t imagine it looked any better opening day of any of the 70mm re-releases. It was gorgeous and other than that 2 seconds of damage (which, BTW, didn’t require any frames to be lost to repair and didn’t affect the sound), the print was pretty immaculate. Dykstra did say there was considerable effort of the part of many to get Lucas’s approval, so I sadly wouldn’t hold out much hope that this print suddenly finds its way into more and more screenings. I think it could be seen again, but my gut tells me (to quote Indy) only on special occasions. The bigger news to me though is just the knowledge that this exists in the first place and therefore it IS possible should that occasion ever happen.

It is not all that surprising that this 70mm version exists more so what is weirder is that it could have been used and scanned ages ago and released Instead of the GOUT or alongside the SE.

Simply Scanning this would have probably yielded better results than the Digital Restoration work for 2004 and onwards?

I think it’s strange that this could not have been used as a source for a Restoration. Ok it’s a Blowup but it’s still good.

Is this something that could have been found recently or forgotten about?

Yeah would be a great thing for them to have scanned and released as an original version on home media. It could even make it easier since they could say since it is lower res and has grain and so on it won’t compete with the true SE version. And the original 6-track magnetic sound in full quality! And the original colors too!

Post
#1581266
Topic
Some of the snipes and attached trailers that ran before TPM in the U.S.
Time

from the Cinema DTS for TPM we see that it lists:

dts - DTS Flying Disc non-original (of course only played in theaters using DTS) it seems like it is this particular variety of the DTS Flying Disc snipe intro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmhZB5cKlxQ

mann1 - a snipe promoting Mann Theaters (of course only Mann theaters would run this) and I think it is probably this variety most likely:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF2v-D_b90s

thxbrdwy - THX Broadway intro (only THX theaters would play this or depending upon what they felt like one of the other THX below instead) probably this 1994 version since I think the next version was in 2000 which would be too late but would have to verify:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjyGQggQF6I

thxgrand - THX Grand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9idIJ_LMn0

thxtex1 - THX TEX original https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Uiac8Qs_RU

simpsons - THX Simpsons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQfiUlIiGBg

tex2moo - THX TEX 2 MOO (it is quite possible that this THX version was often chosen to go with showings of TPM since it was apparently produced for the premiere of TPM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i0GlkevMuQ

hollywd3 - Hollywood Theaters Promo 3 snipe (obviously only Hollywood Theaters would run this) not seeming to find a scan on Youtube, it talks about adjusting the rear speakers, having a killer sound system plus THX, has a surround sound demo, talks about clearview seats, go Hollywood or you know go blonde especially in the summer, etc. etc., it is quite long

cntryrem - Century Theaters snipe (" ") not easily finding the correct version on Youtube

carmtrap - Carmike Theaters Across America snipe (" ") pretty sure it is this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAR5PwVyLEs

cinemtrl - Cinemark Theaters The Best Seat In Town 1999 snipe (" ") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgdp215NqUI

cineimax - some sort of Cineplex snipe (" ") it is very vaguely like this one but definitely quite different all the same, can’t seem to find the right one on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AvXrXNZDd8

wilrog99 - Will Rogers Summer 1999 PSA FOX NFL SUNDAY snipe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNcEURa5-xE

staratta - Star Wars attached teaser trailer set A which goes as follows:
It starts by saying “Now a quick look at three films currently in production.”
Then it has 50 seconds for Anna And The King teaser then about 50 seconds for Fight Club teaser then about 35 seconds for Titan A.E. teaser.

starattb - Star Wars attached teaser trailer set B (so it seems like maybe they printed three different U.S. versions of the prints each with a slightly different set of attached teaser trailers, the trailers are so short I wonder if some or all might not be versions exclusive to U.S. theatrical prints of TPM) which goes as follows:
It starts by saying “Now a quick look at three films currently in production.”
Then it has the same 50 seconds for Anna And The King and then maybe 35 seconds of something I’m not quite sure. It sounds almost like Leonardo DiCaprio saying the line “You hope and you dream and you never believe that something is gonna happen for you. A man dies. Leaves you the mystery map to a secret island. And your life is different. It won’t ever be the same again.” So I’m thinking this must be a teaser for The Beach. And then it continues with what sounds like the same 35 seconds for Titan A.E. as on attached teasers A.

starattc - Star Wars attached teaser trailer set C which goes as follows:
Then it has the same 50 seconds for Anna And The King teaser then about the same 35 seconds for Titan A.E. teaser.

So it sounds like they printed up three different versions of TPM for the U.S. and that the attached trailers were:
Version A -
Anna And The King mini teaser
Fight Club mini teaser
Titan A.E. ultra teaser

Version B -
Anna And The King mini teaser
The Beach ultra teaser
Titan A.E. ultra teaser

Version C -
Anna And The King mini teaser
Titan A.E. ultra teaser

sil2sec - two seconds of silence

I can’t say that I have any particular familiarity with any of the theater chain specific snipes above as we mostly had AMC and indies in my area and then that plus Loews or SONY and Clearview Cinemas and a few General Cinemas and Reading Cinema. And AMC and Loews/SONY were pretty much exclusively SDDS as fas as I recall and Reading Cinema was exclusively DD I believe. I think some Clearview and General Cinema had DTS but DTS didn’t seem to make any DTS audio chain specific snipes for them ever it seems. I think the only THX in my area were one auditorium at maybe three General Cinema locations?

There are standalone trailers called “Titan A.E. (w/Anna & King combo)” and “Anna and the King (w/Titan AE combo)”. I have to check to see if they are the same trailer or whether they swapped the order. Maybe one or both of these standalone trailers is the same as the attached set for TPM Version C?

If neither of the standalone combo trailers listed above is the same then the Anna And The King mini teaser and Titan A.E. ultra teaser are likely exclusive to the TPM feature prints. I have a bad feeling that the Fight Club and The Beach mini and ultra, respectively, teasers might be exclusive to TPM feature print versions A and B exclusively.

Post
#1580207
Topic
Info: Theatrical AOTC Discussion Thread
Time

Fang Zei said:

MonkeyLizard10 said:

Does anyone happen to know off-hand which DTS trailer(s) would have been the ones played before DTS showings of AOTC?

EDIT: actually the DTS disc for it should give it away so long as the names are not too short and cryptic

Like Mike and that first teaser for the Matrix sequels are two that I still remember from my opening day screening.

Total guess as to what else would be on the dts disc.

Minority Report, The Bourne Identity, and Men in Black II are other possibilities.

According to the DTS disc, for DTS theaters, either the regular DTS trailer or the DTS SONIC trailer were used.

For THX it seems that many seem to think that the first theatrical (as opposed to home video) premiere of the relatively new 2001 THX Cavalcade trailer was with Attack Of The Clones.

Yeah Like Mike trailer ‘A’ is for sure that was supposed to always run as well as the built into the first reel Minrority Report trailer ‘C’. They are the two with audio on the AOTC Cinema DTS feature disc.

I was a little unsure about The Matrix Revolutions since it didn’t come out for over a year later and if it was true figured it must have been the teaser so it is cool that you confirm that you saw The Matrix Revolutions teaser.

Apparently some say the film was supposed to only run with 4 trailer max limit opening week, although it is unclear if that meant max 4 in addition to the built-in Minority Report or max in addition to that plus Like Mike so whether it was supposed to be 4 or 5 or 6 total. Most seem to think probably the limit meant max 6 total but maybe 5 total and few think it meant 4 total.

Apparently Star Trek Nemesis, Men In Black II, Die Another Day, Austin Powers Goldmember were other options.

Probably it was Minority Report ‘C’ + Like Mike ‘A’ and then some mix of 4 of: Star Trek Nemesis, Men In Black II, Die Another Day, Austin Powers Goldmember, The Matrix Reloaded teaser. There also seems to have been a Star Trek Nemesis w/Men In Black II combo trailer not sure if that was supposed to count as one or two, maybe ones that showed that then also shows The Matrix Reloaded teaser or something?

Post
#1579824
Topic
Info Wanted: Which trailers accompanied the actual Star Wars movies?
Time

The AOTC feature itself has Minority Report directly on Reel 1 itself at the start.
The Cinema DTS disc for it also lists:
sandrew (not sure if this is a trailer for a movie or something else, the other stuff all looked to be THX/DTS/various cinema snipes and stuff, maybe this is too)
lkmktrla
minrtrlc

So it seems that all proper showings of it on opening day were to show Like Mike trailer ‘A’ and Minority Report trailer ‘C’ and then perhaps sandrew (if that is a movie trailer). And then beyond that I guess various other things they felt like attaching like various ones mentioned above.

Post
#1579823
Topic
Info Wanted: Which trailers accompanied the actual Star Wars movies?
Time

For AOTC special trailers (for DTS and/or THX) it turns out that it was most likely this DTSSONIC and perhaps instead or also one called vaguely DTS (need to look into this DTS labelled one more):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT0jRA4b78s

And the THX trailers would have most likely been one or more of:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSi0n4nDVDY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9idIJ_LMn0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05COcAUq3Z4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOgWbjzFgj4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGo8Sg0VDEY

Post
#1579816
Topic
JURASSIC PARK 35mm 4K scan + 35mm 4k scans of many trailers Mega Project including the rare Spiderman Twin Towers Teaser, Blade Runner, Pretty In Pink and numerous, some rare, others, see post (WIP - 6.5K scans of JP and trailers complete. Scan data now in hand! Funding of the project is a little past half-way now. Contributor only project for feature. I can't publicly distribute it. Small preservation project.)
Time

Nothing too much, just more images, all in ProPhotoRGB wide gamut format so you need a color-managed browser/viewer to see them (and a wide gamut monitor if you also want to see the extra colors, some of them don’t really have any wide gamut colors in them but the DTS ones definitely do, two of them have tons of wide gamut extension and look way muted and color-altered in sRGB/REC709 display viewing compared to wide gamut viewing, note that is nothing to do with HDR as these are all SDR, just the colors are extended to more saturated shades than regular gamut can show):







Post
#1579268
Topic
JURASSIC PARK 35mm 4K scan + 35mm 4k scans of many trailers Mega Project including the rare Spiderman Twin Towers Teaser, Blade Runner, Pretty In Pink and numerous, some rare, others, see post (WIP - 6.5K scans of JP and trailers complete. Scan data now in hand! Funding of the project is a little past half-way now. Contributor only project for feature. I can't publicly distribute it. Small preservation project.)
Time

PMs sent

Post
#1579221
Topic
Jurassic Park Theatrical Recreation Project (JPTRP)
Time

JRSSCPRKFAN said:

blinky8 said:

Any chance you’ll scan the sequels after you finish this project???

Unfortunately not. I didn’t exactly scan the film. I took a french scan that was in the public domain and then I synced the english audio from the newer copies. This was the only reason I could make this scan a free for all. If I had to buy a print and scan it, it would have cost me a lot of money, and then people would have to pay to watch mine. My mission was to make the original (emphasis on original) Jurassic Park available to the entire world, and not just the few that are interested in this project. As John Hammond once said: “This park isn’t only for the super rich. Everybody in the world has the right to see these animals.”

There is no way whatever the French scan of the film is is in public domain. If your plan is still to post this whole film directly on Youtube I can’t see it working. (On a side note, some people pledge $3-$5 for scan projects so it’s not really like they are locked in to the super rich only. That said I get the idea of wanting everyone to see a scan, but I don’t think you can really do that necessarily.)

Post
#1577959
Topic
JURASSIC PARK 35mm 4K scan + 35mm 4k scans of many trailers Mega Project including the rare Spiderman Twin Towers Teaser, Blade Runner, Pretty In Pink and numerous, some rare, others, see post (WIP - 6.5K scans of JP and trailers complete. Scan data now in hand! Funding of the project is a little past half-way now. Contributor only project for feature. I can't publicly distribute it. Small preservation project.)
Time

rwzmjl said:

The scan looks gorgeous.

I’m not sure if putting an SDR transfer in an HDR wrapper really increases compatibility. Basically any player that supports HDR10 4K is also going to support SDR 4K. I’m curious if you have encountered a situation where that isn’t the case. Is the colorspace of the transfer rec 709 or rec 2020?

122Mb/s is fantastic.

Thanks!

The color gamut is that of REC2020 not REC709 so that is why I put it in the HDR wrapper (I believe every player automatically turns on wide gamut in HDR but even though they should be able to do SDR wide gamut, I think some players fail to turn on wide gamut when the SDR flag is there and then you’d have to manually select wide gamut on the display, although for an SDR wide gamut monitor you need to do that anyway regardless).

Post
#1577879
Topic
JURASSIC PARK 35mm 4K scan + 35mm 4k scans of many trailers Mega Project including the rare Spiderman Twin Towers Teaser, Blade Runner, Pretty In Pink and numerous, some rare, others, see post (WIP - 6.5K scans of JP and trailers complete. Scan data now in hand! Funding of the project is a little past half-way now. Contributor only project for feature. I can't publicly distribute it. Small preservation project.)
Time

85% funded

Post
#1577852
Topic
JURASSIC PARK 35mm 4K scan + 35mm 4k scans of many trailers Mega Project including the rare Spiderman Twin Towers Teaser, Blade Runner, Pretty In Pink and numerous, some rare, others, see post (WIP - 6.5K scans of JP and trailers complete. Scan data now in hand! Funding of the project is a little past half-way now. Contributor only project for feature. I can't publicly distribute it. Small preservation project.)
Time

undefined said:

MonkeyLizard10 said:
I already PM’ed you

ThanQ! Whoa… Quality looks amazing! Keep it up!

Thanks!

I have a re-freshed download link for the sample if anyone still needs it.

Post
#1577716
Topic
First new, verified change between AOTC 35mm theatrical and AOTC home versions!
Time

Mocata said:

It’s perfectly aligned with the frame and has a string of perforations on one edge. So a physical object of some kind, surely?

A quick search of Attack of the Clones film cells for sale shows that they have a strip this same teal color along the edges (part of the audio). But the reason for this artefact will have to be explained by someone else.

Although if it is a real, physical object that somehow fell into the path of the scanner when they scanned the ON back in to create the final digital master (although I still have doubts they did such a thing since they kept going on about the purity and trueness of their pure digital master as well as an incredible rush for time, so would they really take pure digital master, digitally print out an ON, then scan that back in and then use the scan as the final digital master for the digital theatrical (and all future home) release?) it would seem surprising that it would fall in the way so perfectly aligned and just for so few frames (although perhaps someone spotted it and nabbed it out right away after having knocked it off a table into the path or something and the time was so rushed they had no time to start the scan again??). The potential performations also seem odd.

I still am not sure whether it is a real object that somehow ended up in the image or some digital processing artifact (I did notice on the UHD for ROTJ that in one frame you can see a perfect circle or fairly large size where the image is all totally smoothed out, like someone accidentally droped a large radius smoothing brush on part of the frame). And then there is this error in the first pressings of the Grease UHD where they applied some sort of ‘power window’ to enhance red and then forgot that Travolta’s head would pass through it for a few frames and you got this weird mistaken effect below:

original blu-ray:

initial UHD:

Post
#1577629
Topic
Info: Theatrical AOTC Discussion Thread
Time

As someone else pointed out elsewhere, of course this sort of thing is common enough with normal productions. There are often more than one IN and IP and thus different chain paths can make different prints have different mistakes/defects/etc.

But here we had an initial digital master and we have a “clean” 35mm and a “dirty” digital set of releases.

Anyway, it seems that for AOTC they digitally printed out an original negative (ON) straight from a digital master (I guess pre-color timed to how it and the print stock would react?) and then struck the release prints from that. So release prints for AOTC went through less stages than normal no OCN->IP->IN->RP. Just digital master->ON->RP. Maybe they made more than one of these direct 1st gen digitally printed ON to produce release prints from. Whatever, that doesn’t matter since the print in question doesn’t have the weird thing.

But what did they produce the DVD/HDTV/blu-ray/UHD from? If they just directly used the initial digital master and that had no blue blob then how the heck did it get into the chain? But maybe they did not do that? Did they really go and print out a new ON and then scan it back in and then use that scan as the final true digital master? If so, I guess a blue thingy could’ve fallen in the way for a few frames when they printed out the ON for the digital theatrical release (which would’ve been produced almost two weeks later than the one(s) for the 35mm prints). And maybe the way it was printed made the ONs have virtually no grain so it wouldn’t show up much at all in the digital releases after it had been scanned back in? But do you really think they would have bothered to go digital master->directly digitally printed ON->final digital master produced from scanning back in the ON rather than just go digital master directly? If they wanted it a touch more filmic why then DNR all the home releases up? Why have the grain basically not noticeable I think even in the digital theatrical version? So what would have been the point of going DM->ON->TDM? Maybe to give the digital theatrical a more print film set of colors and contrast? Then why seem to go to a more digital set of colors and contrast for the digital home releases?


One thought is that they maybe wanted to give the digital theatrical a slight filmic touch and digitally printed out an ON for the digital version and then some blue thingy fell into the scanner for a few frames and then they scanned this ON back in to make the new final digital master and that is what the digital theatrical and all home versions are based on. The digital release of AOTC theatrically was cut so short they had like zero time to redo anything so even if they did see a blue thing fall onto a few frames they would have had no time to reprint and scan a new ON.

But since the home ones at least don’t seem to have filmic contrast or colors and they did some DNR why would they have bothered doing the above instead of straight. Also, since the digital theatrical was such a close call for timing would they have even had any time to slowly print out a digital negative and then scan it back in?? Wouldn’t they just go straight from digital master? In which case we are back to no explanation again.

Post
#1577627
Topic
First new, verified change between AOTC 35mm theatrical and AOTC home versions!
Time

As someone else pointed out elsewhere, of course this sort of thing is common enough with normal productions. There are often more than one IN and IP and thus different chain paths can make different prints have different mistakes/defects/etc.

But here we had an initial digital master and we have a “clean” 35mm and a “dirty” digital set of releases.

Anyway, it seems that for AOTC they digitally printed out an original negative (ON) straight from a digital master (I guess pre-color timed to how it and the print stock would react?) and then struck the release prints from that. So release prints for AOTC went through less stages than normal no OCN->IP->IN->RP. Just digital master->ON->RP. Maybe they made more than one of these direct 1st gen digitally printed ON to produce release prints from. Whatever, that doesn’t matter since the print in question doesn’t have the weird thing.

But what did they produce the DVD/HDTV/blu-ray/UHD from? If they just directly used the initial digital master and that had no blue blob then how the heck did it get into the chain? But maybe they did not do that? Did they really go and print out a new ON and then scan it back in and then use that scan as the final true digital master? If so, I guess a blue thingy could’ve fallen in the way for a few frames when they printed out the ON for the digital theatrical release (which would’ve been produced almost two weeks later than the one(s) for the 35mm prints). And maybe the way it was printed made the ONs have virtually no grain so it wouldn’t show up much at all in the digital releases after it had been scanned back in? But do you really think they would have bothered to go digital master->directly digitally printed ON->final digital master produced from scanning back in the ON rather than just go digital master directly? If they wanted it a touch more filmic why then DNR all the home releases up? Why have the grain basically not noticeable I think even in the digital theatrical version? So what would have been the point of going DM->ON->TDM? Maybe to give the digital theatrical a more print film set of colors and contrast? Then why seem to go to a more digital set of colors and contrast for the digital home releases?


One thought is that they maybe wanted to give the digital theatrical a slight filmic touch and digitally printed out an ON for the digital version and then some blue thingy fell into the scanner for a few frames and then they scanned this ON back in to make the new final digital master and that is what the digital theatrical and all home versions are based on. The digital release of AOTC theatrically was cut so short they had like zero time to redo anything so even if they did see a blue thing fall onto a few frames they would have had no time to reprint and scan a new ON.

But since the home ones at least don’t seem to have filmic contrast or colors and they did some DNR why would they have bothered doing the above instead of straight. Also, since the digital theatrical was such a close call for timing would they have even had any time to slowly print out a digital negative and then scan it back in?? Wouldn’t they just go straight from digital master? In which case we are back to no explanation again.

Post
#1577624
Topic
Info: Theatrical AOTC Discussion Thread
Time

towne32 said:

Some, like this guy on movie-censorship, say the DVD was produced from the digital theatrical master. I’d really like to find more information written before the DVD was released, though, to be certain. Padme’s awful “Yes” line had to have been a later fix, after reviewers mocked it, right? If nothing else, there would have been people arguing and defending the film as they did not witness it with “yes”.

Here is something weird:

Thanks to user Phase3 for spotting a weird teal rectangle going across part of the top upper left of a transition between scenes at around the 28m mark I was then able to find the 35mm frame and note that the weird rectangle was NOT there in the original 35mm theatrical release.

This weird teal rectangle has been on all versions of AOTC going back to the UK and german HDTV broadcasts that we have caps of as well as the initial DVD (and thus very likely initial VHS) release and it has been on all releases since, all the blu-rays and the new UHD and D+. But it is not on the 35mm. It would be easy to imagine the other way around. Some IN used for a print had something dropped across the scanner a bit for a few frames and so any print from that has the blob and then everything from other IN and the digital master does not. But in this case it is like more the opposite.

So potential proof of muddling around with things post theatrical. Almost looks like teal power windows brush hah. I wonder what the story with it is.

It is not the most momentous difference ever hah! And certainly not really the sort of ‘change’ you’d expect at all, looks more like a weird mistake of some sort that apparently got backed in super early post-theatrical (perhaps even for the digital theatrical?) and has been there for at least the whole HDTV through UHD release.

Also, assuming it was not there in the digital theatrical then it also proves that the UHD was also sourced from the same modified for home versions as all the rest and not a going back to an original digital master or anything (again, assuming it was not there in the digital theatrical and I doubt anyone would possibly remember that or have even noticed it if it was there).

And with the UHD also seeming to lack some of the wide gamut insane teals/greenblues found on the 35mm and the odd trace teal blue “A long time ago…” intro text even though UHD CAN show those colors it seems like the early home revisions might have accidentally (?) been done in REC709 and then they were stuck with that gamut unless they were to go back and re-do all the little changes for home??

Here is a snap that Phse3 made of one of the home versions:

And here is the original 35mm:

So what the what is this weird blue blob??:

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#1577622
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Info: Theatrical AOTC Discussion Thread
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The Aluminum Falcon said:

IIRC, Roger Ebert hinted at the time that the 35mm prints may have been deliberately struck poorly, with low brightness, density, and saturation, in order to push the thought that digital, which was then poor resolution, was ready as a theatrical format.

The funny thing is I saw amazingly rich looking 35mm prints of AOTC and when I saw it in digital it was uglier and flat and bland (maybe that theater had the digital set up poorly). When I saw TPM digitally it looked good though, really popping at both theaters (one of each projector type).

And the 35mm print of AOTC I see now has reallllly rich colors, super vibrant and saturated and really rich, deep blacks. If you read Lucasfilm stuff they were also bragging about how they had a better process for producing release prints with less film stages.