The Griff

My pleasure.

Harmy said:

Thank you very much for that Griff, I can totally wait that long, it's not like I'm anywhere near being done anyway :-)

Happy to help!

Well, I just got home from the airport and I'm still up and at 'em so here you go, the 20th Century Fox logo from the ALIEN blu ray (with no further compression):

http://www.filesonic.com/file/1573724454/foxlogo.m2ts

Lemme know if you have any issues.

Harmy said:

Could someone PLEASE send me the logo from the Alien Blu-Ray? Pretty please! :-)

No offers, yet?

I can help you out but it may take me up to 48 hours. I'm currently 750km from home (and my ALIEN blu ray disc).

The cleverly re-created opening crawl aliases on my display somewhat - is that just me?

Harmy said:

But I never noticed it till now and it's really minor.

Same. I had to watch a coupla times while looking for it to even notice. Its there for one frame on the Death Star's surface while your focus is (meant to be) on the TIE fighters.

I'm not worried about it. I'd suggest to anyone truly bothered about it to fix it themselves or go elsewhere. Who knows? There might be a version 2.0 someday but this small glitch certainly doesn't necessitate one.

I just sorted through about 100 discs I had randomly stashed on spindles and found this set - I'd completely forgotten about it! Great stuff, I'm looking forward to going through it all again.

Anyway, its been a few years now... anyone interested in doing DAY OF THE DEAD ultimate edition? The behind the scenes footage that's floating around is 3 discs alone... a 4th disc of supplemental stuff shouldn't be hard to come up with. I've got a few rare vintage tv news stories that I could contribute.

Anyone...?

The Czech dub on the AVCHD seems a little off-sync to me. Can anyone else confirm?

Wow, wow, WOW.

Just watched this on my 130" 2.35:1 projector screen. The picture held up exceptionally well.

I can safely say that this was my most rewarding viewing of STAR WARS in 15 years. Ever since the 'Special Edition' there's always been a sense of anxiety, a certain level of apprehension, when watching this movie.

I was finally able to completely relax and just enjoy myself while watching. What a movie. Christ, I can't believe that Lucas is embarrassed by this, his greatest achievement.

Anyway, thank you so much, Harmy. You've restored a classic and arguably the greatest movie of all time.

Thanks for making STAR WARS fun and guilt-free again.

As I understand it, Harmy, you did your very best and I just think that criticism at this stage (wasn't that what the workprint was for?) would make you less inclined to try harder (if at all) in future, y'know? I've always found that compliments can be more encouraging than criticism. A true artist will never be satisfied, regardless...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z45EB4TiYz4

I'd feel terrible for you if the blu rays were a substantial improvement over the hdtv broadcasts but I won't pretend that I don't hope it to be so.

doubleKO said:

Thanks Harmy! This is the first preservation that can really replace the GOUT for me. I will mention a few issues, and I apologize if these have already been addressed:

You added back quite a few shots that I would not have noticed or worried about but left the Leia hologram with vertical lines :(

The scene when the droids reach Tatooine looks the tiniest bit strange - did you use a shot from the GOUT as a static background image? There is no movement in the grain/noise as Threepio moves. This is not really a problem, just curious.

The background wobbles quite a bit where the second floating droid has been removed, but it is infinitely more preferable to seeing the floating droid :)

Overall this is excellent, my favourite version for sure. I also had no synch issues like I did with the PDE. Thanks again for your hard work Harmy!

Chances are Harmy is well aware of these issues. After all, he's toiled away on this project for many weeks and restored things to the best of his current abilities, all things considered.

I personally wouldn't bother bringing up any imperfections unless they're glaring technical errors. STAR WARS DeEd is complete and has been released to the public. There's no turning back, now.

Unless Harmy announces a 2.0 version somewhere down the line, there's really no point in nitpickery at this late stage in the game. Enjoy as is or feel free to make your own alterations.

That's my take, anyway.

Ooh! Ooh! Links please!

skyjedi2005 said:

Is the WOWWOW version of Raiders anywhere and being shared, could not find it on tehparadox.

I don't believe the raw transport stream is readily available but there are a few mkv conversions floating around. The 'W23' 1080p series is what I settled on.

e.g.:

"Raiders.of.the.Lost.Ark.1981.1080p.HDTV.x264-W23"

Harmy said:

OK, I'm all done with SW, now I'll just be waiting for the rest of hairy_hen's list and the subtitles for Greedo.

Amazing!

As soon as this is ready, I'll be showing this to my nephew (he's 6) on my 130" 2.35:1 projector screen. I'm then gonna torture him for a coupla months before I show him EMPIRE. Then hopefully a coupla months after that, JEDI will be ready to go.

I can't thank you enough, Harmy. This is gonna be great.

Jambe Davdar said:

Spent the afternoon working out how I can do this project in HD with the resources I've got. Snore.

Griff, not sure what I need yet! Will probably be in touch though.

Fair enough. I guess if your final product is gonna be 720p, you may as well down-convert your RAIDERS source to 720p prior to working with it. It'll be a lot less demanding than 1080p.

Jambe Davdar said:

 

The Griff said:

I have 1080p versions of both the old CGI cliff transfer and the new (2009), non-CGI cliff transfer of RAIDERS.

The new one looks fantastic, much better than the DVD and its HD equivalent.

EDIT: I found some comparitve screencaps illustrating the difference between the two transfers:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=18556256&postcount=2106

 

Any chance you could send over a copy of the new 2009 transfer please?

 

I'd be happy to. Its about 10GB (mkv format), however, so I'd have to split it over 3 discs.

Its worth noting that I'm in Australia and it could take a coupla weeks to get there.

Alternatively, you could try downloading it yourself. The version you want is:

"Raiders.of.the.Lost.Ark.1981.1080p.HDTV.x264-W23"

It should be easy enough to find some links to use with Jdownloader or I could PM some to you if you'd prefer.

Lemme know!

Oh, and if you need a 1080p file of that CGI shot, just say the word.

Well, the rumour was that the 2003 DVDs were gonna have the CGI cliff but the South Park episode 'Free Hat' made Spielberg reconsider!

I have 1080p versions of both the old CGI cliff transfer and the new (2009), non-CGI cliff transfer of RAIDERS.

The new one looks fantastic, much better than the DVD and its HD equivalent.

EDIT: I found some comparitve screencaps illustrating the difference between the two transfers:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=18556256&postcount=2106

Moth3r said:

 

Not sure if anyone else noticed this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfSq0VG3sC8

Look at the strip of sky in the top left corner. It darkens noticeably a fraction of a second after the wipe finishes.

 

Could that be a youtube compression issue?

Revisiting that shot, the guy on the dewback does seem rather...static. Doesn't his staff kinda wobble ever-so-slightly in the original?

I feel like such an ungrateful scumbag pointing that out. I'll go now...

Leonardo said:

I wonder why they zoomed in..?

Just been going through this thread (amazing!) and got to the bit about the zoomed in Falcon shots from ESB.

Anyway, I have a theory. In Rinzler's Making of ESB book, its mentioned that the Falcon cockpit was constructed to be slightly larger than the one in SW because of all the extra action that was to take place in it. Apparently when Lucas found out he was displeased - he thought that the cockpit should have remained small to emulate the cramped conditions that feature in real military aircraft cockpits.

I wouldn't be surprised if he zoomed in on these shots to compensate for the roomier design. As Harmy pointed out, it focuses more on the principals - and, I would say, provides an increased dramatic effect.

Amazing. You're doing the Lord's work here, Harmy.

This looks like an absolute must-have. A PM would be most appreciated.

1anakin said:

I meant no offense!

That's cool. I guess I just misinterperated your tone. Happens all the time on the internet!

Back to the love...

1anakin said:

I have already downloaded Adywan's ESB theatrical reconstruction. Your edit has the HD footage with the unscaled theatrical footage, I want a whole HD experience. With the minor tweaks to the '97 SE HD version will allow me to watch the whole movie in HD with less of the annoying Special Edition moments. 

Ha. Get a load of this guy...

Very interested in these - a PM with the relevant links would be most appreciated.

The recent-ish Japanese "WOWOW" high-definition broadcast of RAIDERS retained the original "cliff shot". The transfer quality was excellent - much better than the previous HDTV version with the CGI-enhanced shot. I'm almost certain this'll share the same source as the eventual blu ray.