Stinky-Dinkins

If you look at the Technicolor caps the flesh tones are far more natural than the SE's.

Like I said, the SE's have an absurd red bias and that is precisely what gives everyone that boiled, been-dipped-in-tanning-cream look. That's why one of the suns isn't nearly as red in the Technicolor caps, nor is R2's light, nor is Luke's face, etc.

Trying to replicate that extreme red push isn't the way to go in my opinion. 

Not the end of the world obviously and like you said the worst case scenario is me custom calibrating my TV for a Star-Wars only setting, but I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in since opinions were requested.

If that's true it's completely insane, it's the most inaccurate flesh tones I've ever seen. I've never seen an original reel presented theatrically unfortunately but I do know until the SE every home video release had something resembling accurate flesh tones but in the SE everyone looks like cooked lobsters.

I've never seen any caps from the technicolor presentations with anywhere near the amount of red bias the SE has either.

http://savestarwars.com/technicoloribscreening.html

The SE is just too oversaturated, way too oversaturated, the red bias is off the charts.

In that technicolor presentation there the flesh tones are 1 trillion times more accurate than they are in the SE.

Harmy said:

I don't know but it seems like we're not looking at the same pictures. The GOUT is grossly undersaturated, there's no question about that and the only picture in which you can see skin tones is the one with Luke, which is over-all redder than either the SE or the GOUT (both very blue cast), because I colour timed it to resemble the technicolour photo (while compensating for its overexposure). And the red skin is very natural in that shot, because he's looking at a red sunset and is illuminated by it. And as to the saturation, it's already considerably lowered and I'm not going any lower with it, because that way I'd soon get to the GOUT levels.

The GOUT isn't grossly undersaturated in any sense; compared to the SE it has a much, much, much more sensible color timing. The SE is oversaturated to the brink of absurdity.

In the original presentations (as better presented by the GOUT or Technicolor transfers) Luke has an exceedingly more natural skin tone. In the SE it is crazy, without question, in yours it's between those levels.

I'm sensitive to proper color timing, and the SE has the polar opposite of it. Even considering the overexpsoure and aging of the Technicolor print if you think it displays anywhere close to the amount of red bias as the SE I don't know what to say. Luke is almost a redhead in the SE.

Look at Luke's flesh tone. It is absurdly orange / red.

The SE is hardly a source to use as a baseline.

You do unbelievable work Harmy, but the color timing is off.

Seriously though, the red is pushed like a motherfucker.

A color timing that makes it impossible to achieve proper flesh tones... as was seen in the theatrical presentations.

Harmy, you are a fucking wizard and your work is unreal, but just dialing down the saturation would work wonders.

The SE's should not be used to achieve a middle ground, they were absurd in that department.

Honestly.

You and I both know what is and isn't still on the table Frink.

Harmy said:

Thanks again, guys, I'm really happy about all the positive responses :-)

I'm full on in the cutting and colouring process now. Just now, I'm reviewing a workprint of the 1st 45 minutes and am generally really happy with it.

I considered compositing in the original Leia hologram from GOUT but after I tested it out, I decided to just try and colour correct the SE one to make it look closer to the original.

With the colour problematic scenes such as the capture of R2 and the sunset, I'm going with a sort of a middle ground approach for now, here are a few screenshots, please let me know what you think:

 

To my eyes it would look much better shifted more towards the color timing of the GOUT or Technicolor presentations and quite a bit more away from that of the SE's. The SE's color timing was atrocious, at times it was so grossly oversaturated it looked like some of them were wearing red Indian war paint. Your shot still pushes red a little too much in my opinion, Luke starts to look less like Mark Hammil and more like George Hamilton.

Apart from the reds though fantastic work as always.

Harmy said:

Stinky-Dinkins said:

On a completely unrelated note how the fuck do you make these 24p? I noticed when playing back Empire it was flagged as 24p. Do you use some kind of wacky 2:3 pulldown on the interlaced broadcast/DVD/LD sources?  

Sorry, I somehow overlooked this before.

I work at 25fps progressive and if some video isn't 25p, I convert it before I use it. I usually use TS Muxer for it, because no reencode is required and it has a remove pulldown function, so I use that when necessary.

And then, when everything is finished, I use TS Muxer again to convert the final output file from 25fps to 23.976fps (which is what ESB is in, not 24p).

 

Yeah, by 24 I mean 23.976.

If you're working with all (LD, DVD, and broadcast) interlaced sources meant to refresh at 60hz, converting everything to 25p and then to 24p in the final stages, how exactly does this work? Is it able to take the two halves of the interlaced image at every 1/60th of a second and combine the data to make one solid frame? Wouldn't that leave you with it running at 30p?

Are frames dropped?

Hey Harmy, what's your plan for releasing these with file sizes meant for BD's (hopefully double layer) with a more efficient video codec (and maybe a nice lossless audio track or two tossed in there as well)?

Think it'll happen anytime soon after these are released? Difference would be minimal obviously given the sources but I was just curious, it can't hurt.

On a completely unrelated note how the fuck do you make these 24p? I noticed when playing back Empire it was flagged as 24p. Do you use some kind of wacky 2:3 pulldown on the interlaced broadcast/DVD/LD sources?  

Tweak color for dirtbike. Always on table.

Rob said:

(except action figures).

Once these are complete, and they will be the absolute definitive versions to own regardless, I would fucking kill for a version that you tweak for accurate color timing and real-to-life skin tone Harmy.... Fucking kill for. They look killer as it is but with accurate color timing my eye would love that shit. The Despecialized alt. color timing editions if you will. I'd do it myself but I can't do the work you do, you're just too fucking good. Adjusting my set strictly for these releases seems tricky without a proper baseline and will likely vary greatly for each release. Everything is 110% excellent otherwise but I'm friggin sensitive to the oversaturation. I noticed in Empire despecialized there was a lot of pushing red, tweaked with faces. I never remember that kind of drastic alteration in color timing until Lucas' SE's.

The dirtbikke is still on the table Harmy.

Chicks with Twix smiley comin' at ya buddy.

:trannysurpise: 

Will anyone be making a custom DVD cover sleeve and DVD art for this? Someone should. I need one. Wicked bad. If not, can you link to a place with an archive of good custom covers?

Rob said:

Harmy said:

Yes to all :-)

 You're work will bring more happiness to more Original Trilogy fans than chocolate and pussy combined.

 This makes me think of a chocolate vagina. Cadbury's chocolate vagina.

If I know Rob, and Christ knows I do, this thread will end with a handful of his mustache hairs two inches above your anus. Right outside the combat zone.

Hal 9000 said:

I guess you could just leave the Jabba scene in.

 And then when it's put on a DVD it'd make a good coaster.

ChainsawAsh said:

You could always get the Blu, demux the lossless audio tracks, and remux them with an MKV conversion of the V3 DVD video.

I say that because that's probably what I'll be doing for myself.

 Yeah, but still, this dirtbike isn't going to ride itself.

Imagine if it could though.

dark_jedi said:

Stinky-Dinkins said:

Any chance of compressing the unupscaled video using whichever codec you're planning to use for the upscaled version to maximize bitrate and including the lossless audi track with it as well? Just thought I'd give it a shot, my BD player has a Marvel Qdeo processor so for me it'd be better to let the hardware handle the upscaling.

No, that is not what my project is, just stick with the V3 then.

 What if I put a dirtbike on the table, would that change your mind?

hairy_hen said:

Sometimes having things left to the imagination is much more effective . . .

 

Like whether or not your avatar has a penis for example.

dark_jedi said:

hairy_hen said:

As far as the picture quality goes, how much of an improvement you'll see over the dvd versions depends largely on how good your player is at de-interlacing and scaling.  Compared to lesser upconversion, the Blu set would be a significant advance; but something like the Silicon Optix HQV or ABT DVDO processing found in high end players and external sets might well be able to exceed it.

This is precisely why I have already said more than 1 time that this set is NOT for everyone, it is not only about the video, it is also about having all the LPCM audio that will not fit on DVD, this whole thing started out as an idea for myself only, but then I decided that I might share this with whomever is interested, also what turned me on to this is reading what jdobbs posts at doom9, but personally I do not care about the hardware upscale vs software upscale debate, the video is done and I am very happy with it, way more so than the V3 DVD, and to top that off with ALL the various forms of audio files, it just can't be any better, my opinion only ofcourse.

 

What codec are you using to compress the video on the BD, are you sticking with MPEG2 or going with VC-1 or AVC or something?

Any chance of compressing the unupscaled video using whichever codec you're planning to use for the upscaled version to maximize bitrate and including the lossless audi track with it as well? Just thought I'd give it a shot, my BD player has a Marvel Qdeo processor so for me it'd be better to let the hardware handle the upscaling.

dark_jedi said:

and the main audio will be h_h's 5.1 in DTS-HD MA 5.1, but his DD 5.1 will also be on there,

 Has he provided you with a higher quality LPCM track to use for the DTSMA track or something? I didn't realize he had that mix in anything but DD.

What exactly is done differently with them? What equipment did you use to upscale them? Are they compressed using AVCHD?

Any chance of keeping the bitrate as high as possible and designing them for dual layer BD's?

Are you creating a version for BD release? Noticed it was in the title.

What are you doing with it, compressing it less or something, upscaling it, including a lossless audio track?

Fucking killer presentation man, good job, just finished watching.

My only complaint is that the colors are still blown out, still quite over saturated. I know you said you dug that look but it makes faces look red at times (among other things)... You think you'll ever tweak it?

Thanks man.

Has Harmy done ANH?

Can I get in on this action?

Asaki said:

So throwing all of that onto a BluRay is not going to make them instantly watchable.

 I'll throw you on a Blu Ray!

I have an Oppo BDP-93. If someone tosses these pristine LD transfers onto BD's they'll look pretty damn good after my Oppo is done with them. With better-than-decent upscaling a sub-480 res can look surprisingly good. Looking good is relative, and when the alternative looks like shit on a stick by comparison it would look good.

The reason it has to be BD is because of space. Even after compression it wouldn't fit properly on a dual layer DVD. You can compress this with AVC and put each film onto its own BD - 25 gigs each should be plenty. Audio could use a lossless codec on BD, too.

What would be the point in not releasing it after going through all that shit with the X0 player to actually get the transfers?

Do you have some magical better option? A pristine 35mm print you're going to scan?

If this transfer is put onto a BD it would be the definitive version of the GOUT. Better than the shitty version included as an extra on those DVD's a few years back, especially considering that they were stored as 4:3 letterboxed so they're windowboxed when watching on an HDTV (which is kinda like watching the friggin' thing through a porthole.) It would be better than anything else out there.

To spend years getting the transfers and to stop at the final step, the easiest step, makes no sense at all... it wouldn't be hard to get these onto BD's.

Do you know of a version of the GOUT that's better than the X0's? I'd like to know.