Agreed! Another thing that frustrates me that I think about a lot is the fact that they won’t even allow the originals to be booked for shows. Most other films a cinema can select whether they want to screen a print or a DCP.
As this post triggered a new page I’ll quote poita’s post:
I’d love nothing more than to get ESB done, it is difficult to prioritise one project over another.
The main scan the 4K77 project is using exists in part because many years ago I sent them $3000 worth of hard drives to store it on. The 1977 crawl exists because they lent me the film to get the 1977 crawl scanned on a pro level scanner, the ESB print got scanned in part because of Harmy’s followers. If Mike Verta hadn’t started on his project, some of these prints never would have been found and scans would not have been done.
We all help each other out behind the scenes, and make massive sacrifices of time and money to do so. It often means sacrificing time on your own project to help out with someone elses.
I got a PM the other day from someone who just wants me to upload the entire 21TB scan to their computer for them to use in their own experiments. Just doing that requires days of my time to restore the scan from LTO to hard drives, to tie up a computer for weeks to transfer the files, a computer that then can’t be used for doing any work on any of the projects. They just expected that it would be done for them, with no thought to the time and money costs involved at this end.
I also copped some flak on PMs as to seeing that I am so rich and can throw this sort of money at projects, why do I need donations anyway. I get this assumption quite a bit.
The reality is, I have 4 kids, two have medical issues, one has severe mental and physical disabilities and I am her primary carer. This means I can only work on short professional projects, or ones where I can work remotely from home. This means I typically make around AUD$30K a year in income, about $23,000 US a year, and my time is split between the work I can do and the needs of my kids. The time inbetween those spaces, I spend on this stuff, and we live very frugally and I spend probably more than I should on this stuff as well. Anything I would have spent buying a coke or a magazine or a coffee or something, I throw at this instead. I love it, I love working on it, and being part of a community that has done something that the studios are unwilling to.
The purpose of mentioning all this is that it boils down to I have limited resources of money and time. I have amazing resources of access to equipment and expertise, but am severely hampered by time and money. It is frustrating for me, and for everyone waiting on these, and without the help coming in from all of the amazingly generous souls here and on FanRes, none of this would exist. You all are truly amazing.
It is so frustrating sometimes, I wish we had a Zuckerberg style sugardaddy behind our cause, for about $40K per film, we could get the OT restored to a truly spectacular 4K that would knock the socks off the Blurays, and get it done in a few months, but we don’t have that kind of money available. It is a pity, as we could genuinely restore all 3 films for less than they spent re-doing the sound for the ANH SE.
Anyway, enough of a look behind the curtain, I just want everyone to know that I am as impatient as you all are to get the OT fully restored, in a glorious 4K deep colour version that it deserves, but other projects sometimes get priority, it all helps in the end, even if it delays things for a while.
In addition to all the help that poita has been to TN1, Harmy, and MikeV working on Star Wars projects, he has also been a huge help on other projects. Several of the early scans that are released on Myspleen came at poita’s expense, not to mention all the help he has been with other projects that are not yet released. For example, The Good The Bad and The Ugly Italian, poita found a vanishingly rare print after searching for a very long time “I have been looking for an IB of the original for a long time, this is the only one that has come up after looking at over 5000 lists in Italy (I’m not kidding).”! And he then provided someone to repair the film and scan it. And that’s just our community. He has helped others with setting up scanning systems, and I’m sure that he has done a lot more too than I am even aware about or would be able to disclose on an open forum! Poita is an unsung hero. Above all, poita is an extremely generous person, and one of the nicest people there is.
Thanks again for the amazing work you have done for scanning poita!!
not to be rude but don’t you think you should preserve the 35+ year old films that are degrading vs the 21 year old SE ? and will they all be in 4k ?
like i said not trying to be rude thanks for doing this cant wait for ESB and ROTJ in 4k to go with 4k77
Like poita said, this was a limited opportunity, and to be honest you have to take opportunities when they come up. Look at the prices normally charged by labs in LA or NY that provide triple flash scanning, the costs are in the order of $20,000-30,000 per 2hr film.
Also, 4k77 is a different project to poita’s, it’s Team Negative 1’s project. I understand for you that Empire and Jedi may be priorities because there are other restorations already of the first film, but poita may wish to get the first film done first for his restorations.
Actually after seeing the current prices I decided to go with a 1050 Ti for now. But if the prices come down later this year as they’re projected to then I may get second GPU.
The 1050Ti is the cheapest that gives you any real advantage for editing and grading, but it depends a lot on the software you use.
Thanks! I’m thinking about the 1060 6GB.
I don’t understand what you’re saying, but there is nothing to stop someone else doing their own scan (if they can access the film) and then releasing it royalty-free if they want.
Poita when you have a chance I have a question for you - what reasonably priced graphics card would you suggest I get for video editing? I have an i7-4770 and 24GB of DDR3.
The scanner was repaired, then broke again then after much fighting with the scanner manufacturer, was repaired correctly.
That sounds like a PITA! Unfortunately with trade equipment there are few people who can service/repair them, and it’s often the case that only the manufacturer can provide servicing. At my old job we had equipment that would break down and the closest serviceperson isn’t in our city so we would have to wait 2 weeks or more (usually) for it to be fixed. The serviceman I’m thinking of though was very good at his job and always eager to see the equipment working properly, but he was always very busy and in-demand.
This project looks awesome! Is this also going to be triple flashed like the SE 97 Trilogy or just single?
It’ll be done at the same facility the same way. I’m not abreast of the exact technical details.
No - the restoration is owned by MoMA (and subsequently licensed to Criterion).
This is the correct answer.
Lowry did a good job on most of the Sean Connery films, but they clearly were not given the time and resources needed to do the best job for all (then) 22 Bond films. That’s not their fault and I wouldn’t blame the restorers, the blame lies solely with the distributor, MGM (and EON if they had input), for deciding to do a rushed job. Also the US Kodak prints probably looked a bit different to the UK Fuji prints.
Cool to hear this will be going ahead!
To be honest, if you’re going to do it you should do it right: use the best available video source (the Bluray), then splice in the scenes you need from the webdl, and encode back to Bluray compatible 1080p 38000kbps video (or whatever the Bluray bitrate actually is) and either PCM or DTS-HD MA audio.
Sorry I didn’t fact-check, perhaps I should have checked Trump’s twitter feed first? 😉
There’s no reason it shouldn’t on Blutopia… maybe ask the uploader of “Aladdin” if he can upload this there? 😉
@Doombot & TomArrow - exactly. From the description:
“Overall condition is very good. No one ever played it.” 😉
Best to ask in the correct thread. This is the last update so far:
Things are on hold for a week or two, the scanner is being serviced to fix the focus problem. Should result in faster scans though once rectified.
As soon as the scanner is back up and running I’ll post a few more images.
Guys please stop asking for invites, it’s annoying. Members have to earn and then exchange reward points to make invites there, your requests for invites are not practical.
I’ll be taking a look at the Prores files in a month or two.
@Superrayman3 There is already an uncensored track using the CD but it’s not perfect, the wind sfx definitely needs to be handled better. Hopefully you can do a better job! Also, the optical audio is better quality than the LD so do it as well, your best option is to convert the CD audio to 48.0 KHz to match the LD & Optical tracks not the other way. Quality aside they are to my understanding two different mixes, the LD being near-field and Optical far. Ultimately we’ll have to find an uncensored print and get the audio from it.
There is OPEN registrations at Blutopia until new year, if you want an account head there quick and sign up.
Anyone know who produced this release? Would love to get in touch with them to work on a 4k release with a 10bit DCI /P3 gamut.
It’s the same team behind the other releases mentioned above (and now also TRUE LIES as well). Check their other threads if you want to send one of them a message.
To everyone else I think you will find your stockings have be filled. 😉
It’s looking great!
Well it’s here to be shared, and 'tis the annual season for sharing. 😃
Maybe I have an alternate link that can be shared if you’re interested… 😉