Laserschwert said:
I've made an image comparison between the shots from that Star Wars Blu-ray Up Close at LucasFilm: Part 3 of 3 and the HDTV-broadcast, and guess what? Nothing has changed, except for a little more brightness (and even that done so badly, the black bars aren't black anymore, but dark grey). For a better comparison I've also brightened up the HDTV-shots, and they look almost the same after that:
TESB 1: Blu-ray (?) / HDTV / HDTV (levels changed by me)
TESB 2: Blu-ray (?) / HDTV / HDTV (levels changed by me)
TESB 3: Blu-ray (?) / HDTV / HDTV (levels changed by me)
ROTJ 1: Blu-ray (?) / HDTV / HDTV (levels changed by me)
ROTJ 2: Blu-ray (?) / HDTV / HDTV (levels changed by me)
ROTJ 3: Blu-ray (?) / HDTV / HDTV (levels changed by me)
ROTJ 4: Blu-ray (?) / HDTV / HDTV (levels changed by me)
Just open them in different browser tabs and compare.
The article specifically mentions that Lucasfilm wants them to be called "HD Stills"... not "Blu-ray Screenshots" or anything, so maybe they're still not finished doing the color corrections? On the other hand it's pretty stupid to promote a Blu-ray with stills that don't represent the product...
Thanks for the work. Looks pretty much the same. I am looking forward to see the faces of the guys still believing we don't see real blu-ray snapshots, like it's all WIP or mockups.
The problem I see with reusing the 1080p transfer, done for the 2004 DVDs and HDTV broadcasts, that digitally you can't get back lost video information .
The production order for the 2004 masters was the following
1. Negatives --> 1080p transfer --> FILE001
2. FILE001 --> color correction --> FILE002
3. FILE002 --> Lowry clean up --> FILE003
4. FILE003 --> HD Encoding --> FILEHD
FILE003 --> SD Encoding --> FILESD
I am sure the 1080p transfer could hold up quite okay, but the big problem the 2004 OT DVDs had happened in step 2 during color-correction. There they lost basically most of the information from the picture: due to crushed blacks and we did not get the original colors - due to bad color-timing. The color correction happened before the Lowry clean up which was step 3.
Now let's move to the blu-ray production:
Lucasfilm choses not to rescan the OT.
They chose not to go to Lowry again for the blu-rays.
What we will be seeing on the blu-rays is a tweaked FILE003. Why? They can't use FILE001 without going to Lowry again, because FILE001 is full of dirt and scratches.
They can't get back information in FILE003 that got lost between FILE001 and FILE002. Step 2 did output less picture information, due to crushing blacks and bad color correcting.
These are the logical reasons why this blu ray release can't look that different than the 2004 HDTV broadcasts. The more you re-color correct digital images the more information you lose at the end of each range.
To sum it up, this is how the video got onto the blu-rays:
1. Negatives --> 1080p transfer --> FILE001 [2003]
2. FILE001 --> color correction --> FILE002 [2004]
3. FILE002 --> Lowry clean up --> FILE003 [2004]
4. FILE003 --> re color correction --> FILE004 [2010]
5. FILE004 --> HD Encoding --> FILEHD [2011]
Mistake 1: decision not to rescan the OT at higher resolution
Mistake 2: decision not to reinvest in a 2nd Lowry clean, even at 1080p (in order to use FILE001 and not have crushed blacks/wrong colors again.
No press release no matter how good it is written can deny these facts. Why do you think the press releases concentrates on such small things like the wampa arm, or ONE cross-lightsaber fix?
