Williarob

schorman13 said:

CatBus said:

oohteedee said:

CatBus said:

“The good thing about standards are there are so many to choose from!”

IMO GOUT (NTSC GOUT to be precise) meets the “good enough” standard, and I’m for sticking with it forever. Adding a frame that was never actually seen in theatres would break sync for all projects (not that it would matter for subtitles, but I’m thinking of others), for a pretty esoteric benefit.

There’s a better argument to be made for matching theatrical prints, since they have fewer frames than the GOUT, but it does not seem that they do so in a consistent manner, so there’s no standard that would apply to all prints. And losing those frames would also break sync for all projects for a pretty esoteric benefit.

Theatrical prints are missing frames because of projectionists cutting them off from time to time and wear and tear on the print. 4k77 is GOUT synced because the one missing frame is at the end of reel 5 for which we didn’t have a 35mm source. We would have had to use a BluRay frame to add it, so it was just left out.
Jedi GOUT is missing two frames from the middle of reel 3. We have “perfect” 35mm 4K scans for those two non GOUT frames. Those will be included in 4k83. It would be dumb IMHO to exclude 35mm theatrical frames to maintain a flawed video standard like the GOUT.

So essentially back to the PAL GOUT for Jedi again, then. We’ve already been there.

I’m fairly certain the intention is to use all known frames for 4K83, including the one frame unique to the NTSC GOUT.

That’s correct. I believe there are 2 frames in the PAL version of Jedi that are not in the NTSC and 1 frame in the NTSC that’s not in the PAL version (or perhaps it’s the other way around). In any case, the print we have has all 3 of these frames so they will all be used.

Bluto said:

oohteedee said:
4k77 is GOUT synced because the one missing frame is at the end of reel 5 for which we didn’t have a 35mm source. We would have had to use a BluRay frame to add it, so it was just left out.

But if this frame was just left out, wouldn’t that mean 4K77 was no longer GOUT synced? Or was a blank frame inserted to compensate?

Bluto

There is a frame at the end of reel 5 that is in the Blu-ray but it is not in the Gout so 4K77 is Gout sync’d without it.

adywan said:

Williarob said:

dahmage said:

maybe it was a bluray frame in SSE 1.6?

Only missing LPP frames were replaced with the bluray.

I didn’t work on this section of the film for the SSE, but chances are good that the guy who graded it was consulting other post '85 sources during the color grading - like the GOUT and the Japanese Special Collection - and none of these references had this brightness so it was ‘corrected’ for the SSE.

Both the GOUT and the Blu-Ray have the extended brightness:

BLU-RAY:

GOUT:

Not for the entire shot - Bottom right is NTSC GOUT:

Video clip:

vimeo.com/278040945

Mavimao said:

Williarob said:

Mavimao said:

Holy carp! Nice find! I’m definitely paying attention to this thread!

A bit funny to call VistaVision an ‘old format’ when it’s just the 35mm still camera format.

Yeah you can just play this back with (or get it scanned on) regular 35mm film equipment - Sure the picture will be sideways, but rotating each frame 90 degrees digitally isn’t a lot of work. If you were trying to record as 8 perf vistavision, then you would need special equipment.

I guess Lucasfilm has digital backups of all this stuff if they’re letting it go on eBay? They went to a lot of trouble to track it all down when they restored the film in 1997. I can’t help wondering if they even know these are being sold…

Great find though and thanks for sharing.

Well, you’d need to rotate 90 degrees AND stitch two frames together in post if you were going to use a normal Academy aperture. VistaVision is 8perfs horizontal and Academy is 4 perfs vertical.

You could use a still frame negative scanner if you didn’t have the budget for a professional video scan.

Oh yeah I didn’t think of that - capturing it with one of our “home made” scanners that uses a regular 35mm film projector would only capture 4 perfs at a time.

Mavimao said:

Holy carp! Nice find! I’m definitely paying attention to this thread!

A bit funny to call VistaVision an ‘old format’ when it’s just the 35mm still camera format.

Yeah you can just play this back with (or get it scanned on) regular 35mm film equipment - Sure the picture will be sideways, but rotating each frame 90 degrees digitally isn’t a lot of work. If you were trying to record as 8 perf vistavision, then you would need special equipment.

I guess Lucasfilm has digital backups of all this stuff if they’re letting it go on eBay? They went to a lot of trouble to track it all down when they restored the film in 1997. I can’t help wondering if they even know these are being sold…

Great find though and thanks for sharing.

dahmage said:

maybe it was a bluray frame in SSE 1.6?

Only missing LPP frames were replaced with the bluray.

I didn’t work on this section of the film for the SSE, but chances are good that the guy who graded it was consulting other post '85 sources during the color grading - like the GOUT and the Japanese Special Collection - and none of these references had this brightness so it was ‘corrected’ for the SSE.

Here’s a change that ZaneFlare92 spotted and brought up in the 4K77 thread. I don’t think it was a deliberate change, but it is a change to the original theatrical version…

It looks like all versions of the film prior to the creation of the new Interpositive in 1985 had an artificially extended bright scene as Luke makes his foolhardy first attack pass on the Death Star:

All 3 film scans agree, Luke is supposed to stay bright - Video clip:

vimeo.com/278040945

What this probably means is that the effect was produced as part of the color correction process - they artificially turned up the brightness to achieve this look (as opposed to using on set lighting to produce an in camera effect). This would mean that the extended bright version is not on the negative. The last interpositive created for home video releases was made in 1985, and that would have been created directly from the negative - so the extended brightness wasn’t there and I guess nobody thought to re-add it, so none of the home video releases from that point on have it. However, I just looked at the 1982 CED release, the 1983 HBO broadcast and the 1982 rental tape and they all have the extended brightness, which makes sense as they were probably created from the same color timed interpositive as the release prints.

This frame is from the CED version:

Here’s something that came up in the 4K77 thread…

It looks like all versions of the film prior to the creation of the new Interpositive in 1985 had an artificially extended bright scene as Luke makes his foolhardy first attack pass on the Death Star:

All 3 film scans agree, Luke is supposed to stay bright - Video clip:

vimeo.com/278040945

What this probably means is that the effect was produced as part of the color correction process - they artificially turned up the brightness to achieve this look (as opposed to using on set lighting to produce an in camera effect). This would mean that the extended bright version is not on the negative. The last interpositive created for home video releases was made in 1985, and that would have been created directly from the negative - so the extended brightness wasn’t there and I guess nobody thought to re-add it, so none of the home video releases from that point on have it. However, I just looked at the 1982 CED release, the 1983 HBO broadcast and the 1982 rental tape and they all have the extended brightness, which makes sense as they were probably created from the same color timed interpositive as the release prints.

This frame is from the CED version:

This isn’t a Special Edition change, but if Despecialized is striving to replicate the original theatrical version of the film, this is perhaps another change that you might want to undo…

ZaneFlare92 said:

I apologize Williarob. Having grown up with various vhs releases dvd blu ray and other stuff it was just something new to my eyes. Look like we may have found something new that was altered from the original none the less.

No worries. What this probably means is that the effect was produced as part of the color correction process - they artificially turned up the brightness to achieve this look (as opposed to using on set lighting to produce an in camera effect). This would mean that the extended bright version is not on the negative. The last interpositive created for home video releases was made in 1985, and that would have been created directly from the negative - so the extended brightness wasn’t there and I guess nobody thought to re-add it, so none of the home video releases from that point on have it. However, I just looked at the 1982 CED release, the 1983 HBO broadcast and the 1982 rental tape and they all have the extended brightness, which makes sense as they were probably created from the same color timed interpositive as the release prints.

This frame is from the CED version:

The Japanese Special Collection laserdisc (1986) does not have it, as that was from the later IP.

All of which I find very interesting - this is something I wasn’t aware of until you pointed it out and I started looking into it.

Or perhaps that’s actually how it is supposed to be:

All 3 film scans agree, Luke is supposed to stay bright - Video clip:

vimeo.com/278040945

alexp120 said:

deathstar1138 said:

Here’s a sample video preview of the work that was done on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_W3gDvNzT8

What is the music used in that preview, it sounds great.

It’s called “The New Order” and it’s one of the royalty free audio tracks available from Youtube.

Maybe the version you saw was just cropped to fit the screen on the plane.

Chewielewis said:

But the question is were any of the effect shots optically recomposited? Particularly this shot in ben’s hovel which would need to have a new rotoscoped saber element created.

I don’t think so. I don’t think all of the effects shots were redone, but from what I’ve read, those that were were done digitally. The negative (or in some cases the IP) were scanned in at 2k, digitally manipulated and then output back to film as a new piece of negative.

“Soon all was ready to cut into the original Star Wars negative. Before doing that, however, Tom wanted to check something with George. He explained to George that everything was ready to cut in, but he wanted to know whether they should order a duplicate negative of the original version. It could easily be done, he said, and then there would always be an original version of this historic movie. George said, “This is the original version,” meaning that what everyone else had described as a restoration, he considered the final version of the movie.”

• Inside The Star Wars Empire" by Bill Kimerlin, P 185

I’m more inclined to believe that the saber differences are simply due to the different path the media takes for telecine, but that’s just my opinion.

However, I do have evidence to support the claim that “All of the wipes and fades were redone optically for the Special Edition,” rather than digitaly:

“He found the original negative at Fox and the separation masters in a salt mine somewhere in the Midwest, but he couldn’t find the original negatives for the wipes. They looked all over Los Angeles—no luck. Nobody asked me. They were in my ILM editorial warehouse… We had the negative and everything else he was looking for.”

• Inside The Star Wars Empire" by Bill Kimerlin, P 183

Ironically, just as ILM was retiring optical printers and moving into the digital realm, the technology was resurrected again. Pacific Titles had eleven state of the art, modern optical printers with new lenses, which, when combined with Kodak’s finest film stock, gave “a boost in resolution and color saturation,” according to company vice-president Phillip Feiner. They re-composited all wipes and transitions (the “bread and butter” opticals, as Feiner calls them).

• Industrial Light and Magic - Into the Digital Realm, P.285-295.
• Secret History of Star Wars

Yes, the crawl is just upscaled SSE.

johnkimble said:

looks great - better than the Bluray . is there any chance the PCM track is available i’d like to sync it up to my bluray for now
Thanks!

There are some frames missing so it has a few gaps, but if you’re interested, send me a PM.

Reels 1 & 2 I think, which were the only two I had LUTs for. The lights do look a little pink in the image above, but that is how it is on the print. Reel 5 was white balanced using the optical track. White balancing to those lights throws off the colors in other areas of the reel - I tried it, and other shots in that reel with those same lights (without the red lightsaber in them) are not pink. This seems to be a side effect of their rotoscoping process.

Looks great!

towne32 said:

I wasn’t aware that the layer thing was to suggest a color problem with the non-DNR 4k77 that is in circulation. My mistake, if so!

No, there were no accidents with hidden/unhidden layers in the non-DNR 4K77 in circulation - I was just speculating that this could have happened with the DNR sample I had just created. However, if the colors on that DNR sample are the same as the non-DNR version then this is not the case there either.

I’m guessing that the slight pink push that appears on Reel 1 (but is not part of Dre’s LUT) is the result of the PC -> TV levels or sRGB -> rec 709 colorspace conversion, as I didn’t deliberately alter his colors at all.

You_Too said:
… I’d actually love to see an official before/after comparison of some shots. 😃

This shows the cleanup progression - with an early color grade…

https://vimeo.com/202843716

Here is another “Before”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJoEadLlaMc

I’ll create some more soon.

dahmage said:

NYC or DC or nearby

I second this.

Ronster said:

Williarob said:

The DNR version is coming along quite nicely I think:

Ok so I get you are preserving the color of “the print” this is without the light shining through it…

So if this has a purpleish tone and the light from a projector has a yellowish tone would this not equate to the image looking more or less neutral basically what the home video releases tried to achieve?

I find it quite fascinating how when confronted with the problems the answers reveal themselves and you have to do the same sort of thing that has already been done but the full understanding becomes apparent?

But obviously not drastic yellow faces just it comes up neutral in most instances I would imagine.

Possibly, but surely it’s better if I give you the actual colors that are on the print than to pretend I understand the physics involved in shining a light bulb of a certain color temperature through the film with this color and reflecting it off of a white screen?

As Poita said:

poita said:

When it comes to colour, unless you are sitting in a cinema with the print, and doing your colour adjustments based on that, and revisiting them again by watching the print etc. then the grade is going to be revisionist, from a certain point of view.

However if you take a straight scan, and do a ‘one light’ correction to each reel, then the scenes will keep their colour relative to each other. i.e. you can see that the background space colour is lighter in scene 3 than in scene 2, but darker than scene 4. You can see that the Falcon walls are more towards yellow in shot 27 than in shot 14. The presentation will reatin the relative colour and shade values that the original had, so you are closer to seeing how the print looked originally.
Your base might be off, but each scene maintains its relative relationship to each other scene.

Trying to get to the original theatrical presentation colours is a very tricky exercise.

Besides, not all of the Home Video releases are neutral. This early 1982 laserdisc still has green in the wall panels, not the grey of later releases:

towne32 said:

Williarob said:

Those of you who are experiencing jerky playback in the UHD version: Try remuxing the streams into a new MKV container - somebody on another forum did this when adding/subtracting some audio streams and the problem went away. It was originally muxed with the latest version MKVToolnix, but perhaps there is a glitch in the container. Try it and let us know if that fixes the problem for you too.

I tried that when I first noticed the problem. Though I probably also had the latest mkvtoolnix, I did mux it with only a single audio track. I also tried m2ts. Jerky playback with everything. As I’ve said once or thrice, MadVR in MPC solved the problem completely.

Thanks, I’m kind of relieved that’s not the problem…

Those of you who are experiencing jerky playback in the UHD version: Try remuxing the streams into a new MKV container - somebody on another forum did this when adding/subtracting some audio streams and the problem went away. It was originally muxed with the latest version MKVToolnix, but perhaps there is a glitch in the container. Try it and let us know if that fixes the problem for you too.

KranixZero said:

Williarob said:

The DNR version is coming along quite nicely I think:

This looks amazing!! Just out of curiosity, will you be redoing the 2 trailers that you made for this restoration using the DNR version?

I might - though I think I would prefer to recreate a different trailer or TV spot.