Phase3

It’s a great transfer – thank you so much for doing this!

JadedSkywalker said:

Jason is going to check the file from .bin to ISO. Maybe he can make heads or tails of it, if not it will have to rerecorded.

Edit: Whelp it was not the BIN to ISO conversion. I’ll wait to see what enater has to say.

That’s disappointing…Hopefully enater will chime in soon.

I can imagine that it would be annoying to have to capture it again, but hopefully it can be done again with no hassles.

JadedSkywalker said:

Nope you’re right the file has an issue in Leawo it misses Luke’s and company run on the trench and literally skips to Ben telling Luke to trust him.

Some kind or corruption in the file, i hate to have to say so.

Ahh that sucks…Hopefully enater will read these messages, and chime in with some further details.

I’m hoping that it was simply an encoding glitch, which can be rectified via a new capture of the video.

JadedSkywalker said:

VLC literally quits out for me after that point in the film. Can you tell me what Sofware you are using for playback.

I played the video in:
MPV
MPC
MPC-BE
VLC

They all had the same glitch, at the same timestamp.

Has anyone else had this glitch towards the end of the film? During the final trench run scene, there are multiple frames that have very heavy pixelation, for example:

It starts at around 01:52:59 and lasts until 01:53:07
I’m wondering if this is only on my download, or if others have found this too.

Both clips look fantastic! 😃

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

Oh yeah, I don’t think I ever told you but, Chase3, your upscales are certainly the best I’ve seen yet!

Thanks very much! 😃

I wonder if the paid version of Starlight gives you adjustment options? Or if not, do you think there are elements from the Starlight version you (or anyone) might comp in? maybe lower the opacity so it blends? I don’t know, I haven’t tried anything yet. 😛

I’ll check the system requirements first; my computer is getting quite old, so I’d need to find out if my current hardware could handle it.
I’m in the process of upscaling and restoring some other SW footage (ROTJ Jerjerrod scenes, Star Tours footage, ROTS shots from VFX reels), but I will definitely look into this Starlight model.

Mackey256 said:

I used Topaz Starlight pretty extensively in my Clone Wars restoration project and while it did great with animated footage, I often had to upload the same clip several times to get multiple versions. I then had to edit those versions together taking the best frames of each upscale. For some shots that was 8 or 9 different uploads of the same two second shot. In the end I still had to recreate some elements with Photoshop for the best version of a frame.

Ultimately it worked for what I was trying to accomplish, there isn’t a place for it here. Phase3 did a truly fantastic job on these shots!

Thanks for your kind words!😃
What you did on those Clone Wars shots was fantastic! 👍🏽

SomethingStarWarsRelated said:

So I used up all but 2 of my Topaz’s Starlight credits on old home video clips (which do look pretty dang good btw). With the 2 credits I had left, I ran a clip of Palps from the deleted senate scene in AOTC (Phase3’s upscaled version:

https://streamable.com/bjbpl8

This looks pretty dang amazing. Much more definition in the face.

Sorry, I couldn’t make a comparison video…you’ll have to compare it yourself! 😛

As per our PM conversation:

The image has too much AI processing; it now looks like an AI-generated image, instead of a human being.

Fine details have been scrubbed away, making his face look too smooth, almost waxy; plus there is less detail in his clothing.

Midtones and highlights have been exaggerated, and it’s slightly oversaturated too.

Take a look at his eyes, and areas around his mouth - compare this video to the original video, or my upscale, and you’ll see they’re quite different.

I’ve heard a lot about this Starlight model, however if this is what it produces, then I will stick with what I currently have.

hharlan23 said:

Just to be sure?

The blue tint was added for the 1997 Special Edition.
The walls are actually a brownish-red.

GabinDayback said:

These might as well be the best upscales of ROTS unused scenes. They would work flawlessly re-added with “The Skywalker Saga” blu-ray boxset.

Congratulations on a job well-done!👏

Thanks for your kind words – that’s very much appreciated!

JoyOfEditing said:

Suhweet! Shoot me a PM of that bad boy when you get the chance.

I’ll get the video processed and upscaled, then I’ll send it you. 😃

Dazman said:

Nice, we have some skin details on closeup shots! Thanks for your trouble again Phase3!

I’m glad that you like it!

JoyOfEditing said:

YES YES YES YES!!!

Are the other cut fighter shots on that same reel?

There is one other shot, of a different N-1 exploding, which at first glance appears to be longer than what is shown in the film. 😃👍🏽

O00ll00O said:

Of course, that’d be great!

For my edit, I already have the TPM Blu-ray transferred, plus I have the SFX-only track along with separate music tracks for the film, so it will be very easy to rearrange that scene!

Awesome work again on the deleted scene footage by the way! It’s fun seeing it in Joys edit 😃 A lot of people think up-scaling is just dropping a file in and hitting “upscale”, but I know it’s a ton of work tweaking things to get it right and appreciate it!

Thanks for your kind words! Haha I wish it was as simple as just clicking one button to upscale a video! 😄
There’s a huge amount of testing and tweaking settings in order to get a good upscale.

With regards to the N-1 starfighter getting shot, the footage on the DVD documentary is of very low quality, so it didn’t upscale very well.
Bobson Dugnutt informed me that there was a higher-quality behind-the-scenes shot on the Blu-ray bonus disc. I will upscale this shot and create a new composition, so there will finally be a higher-quality version of this deleted scene.

O00ll00O said:

I propose:

1.) Anakin’s ship is hit, THEN R2 screams
2.) Make the shot that hits the wing slightly louder as it must’ve done decent damage to make him spin out, crash land, and eventually shut down
3.) Add cockpit error alarms/warnings right after the blaster hit
4.) Once he starts flying through the hanger, after the first person view in the cockpit, it cuts to R2 and then play a sound effect of him slightly fixing the ship

I love that idea! It would be very easy to implement; O00ll00O would you mind if I borrow your idea for my own edit?

That looks great! 😃

Mackey256 said:

For those wondering about my process I made this quick video talking about the changes I’m making. Hopefully it helps someone with a similar project in the future. (Sorry it’s long)

https://youtu.be/yGyl9eoWi00

That is a fantastic video, which I hope more people will see, as it clearly shows the huge amount of work that goes into restoring footage. Rotoscoping, plus creating clean, accurate background plates is not easy by any measure; I hope that people who see it will appreciate the work that went into it!

Mackey256 said:

Nice work! These look great!

Thanks for your kind words!

I’ve upscaled the deleted scenes from ROTS, which were all sourced from the ROTS NTSC DVD. Each video is a H.264 1080p MKV, with 5.1 AAC audio plus captions.

To note:
No colour correction has been done; I’ll leave that for each individual editor to decide upon how they wish the video to look.

If you’re interested in these upscales, send me a PM and I’ll send you a link. Requests made in this thread will be ignored – simply send me a PM instead.

Screen-shots:
Original video:

Upscaled:

Original video:

Upscaled:

Original video:

Upscaled:

Original video:

Upscaled:

Original video:

Upscaled:

Original video:

Upscaled:

kg1977 said:

help with a cantina shot

does anyone have this shot from the original in 1920 wide or even UHD format they can PM me.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15Y2VtdgAAs5KqaUqjmlEooH5qWJrKRB8/view?usp=sharing

My clip I have is 1280 and has some pixelation in the shadows so when uplscaled to 1920 it’s noticeble, rather have a clean clip. I don’t have UHD despecialized as a download but I am sure its in that too. If anyone can cut the clip and PM me (with or without audio doesnt) that would help…thanks in advance

I’ll send you a high-quality version of that clip today.

Mackey256 said:

That said, I’m still quietly working on my own version of the series. Mine’s aiming to be a 100% broadcast style cut, recreating how the episodes originally aired, complete with intros and outros where possible (aside from a couple of truly lost bits we just don’t have). I’m still refining a few tricky shots and making some last tweaks before it’s ready for prime time, but I’m hoping to have it finished in the next few weeks.

That sounds fantastic! The more restorations and preservations we have, the better! I’m definitely interested in seeing your version. 😃

kg1977 said:

wow these are great!. The Upscaler I use (Hitpaw) is ok for clean shots but these B rolls I think it struggles. Even with AI enhancement it still is not this good. Are you using Topaz? or something more robust? This is fantastic!

Can you share the files upscaled so I can color match align and crop to aspect ratio as replacements? would be great to have these as better quality. I have some B roll for ANH that could also benefit from a boost…working on ANH up to fight int the cantina (3 more days) than was planning to jump back to raiders and try hammer out the 2.0 in the next 30 days after that.

Thanks

I’m glad that you liked them! Yes, this was done using Topaz. I have only upscaled that one jungle scene so far; I’ll export the video and send you a link via PM.

Mackey256:
Background replacement and making new compositions are difficult tasks to do; you’ve done a fantastic job at restoring these scenes – well done!

Thanks also to GabinDayback for all of the work that has gone into this project!

Mackey256 said:

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.