Williarob

Wow! That’s impressive!

I know I told everyone in the main project thread that this was not something I was going to bother fixing for v1.5, but as it turns out I had to re-encode the video again anyway, so while I was at it I did restore the laser bolts accidentally deleted from these two frames.

The official Blu-ray has Seamless Branching too - between the Spanish and English versions of the Crawl - and there is no shortage of projects (or MKV files) based on that…

sergejames said:

Does anyone else see “ghosting” (not sure if that’s the proper term) of the crawl that is visible before the real crawl as the crawl moves on?

Yeah, I see that too. I fixed the grain problem, but clearly it needs a little more work…

Here’s a new hybrid version for you:

https://we.tl/ZSo7zbwdMi

SSE sourced Fox / Lucasfilm / Longtime ago, Eastman Star Wars Logo and Crawl but this time with Darth Lucas’ starfield behind it, my own custom pan down using his starfields (not perfectly animated I’ll admit, but not too bad), then Darth Lucas’ Flyover. A little grain has been added to make it fit with the SSE a little better… Presented as visually “lossless” MP4 (sorry - no audio), Starfield Pan down .PSD included.

@Darth Mallwalker: Sorry I guess I missed that one! Makes sense though - anyone trying to GOUT sync it would spot it. One thing I noticed and maybe you noticed too, was that whoever was chopping the print up for plattering, would usually keep the first and last frame of each reel (presumably lopping them off with the Head/Tail). Over time, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th - 20th frames of the reel became ratty and were removed, which left us with, for example in Reel 6, the first frame, then 2 or 3 missing frames, and then the rest of the reel. This is why the leg got removed, whether the cleanup was automated or manual, when the software took pixels from the next available frame, the leg just wasn’t there anymore. However, I went back to the uncleaned frame and put the leg back in and was then able to use the “Fix Frame” Effect to re-create the missing frames through interpolation of the motion between the first frame and the next available frame. So, Reel 6 is now complete. In fact, I was able to do the same thing at most of the Reel changes so all of the frames should now be present and correct.

As I mentioned previously, there should not have been any missing frames apart from at the reel changes. Now that I have the master project files used to create v1.0 I can see what happened. There was an attempt to GOUT sync v1.0, but the GOUT Source being used was missing all those frames, so (rather ironically) in order to maintain the sync they were removed from the SSE. I was able to simply put them back in.

For reference: SSE 1.5 on top, Gout underneath:

I will have a look at our Empire prints and see what the starfields look like.

Interesting, I did not know that. I stand corrected.

However, this being the case, I hope you won’t mind if I use your '81 Crawl for SSE version 1.5?

If you took the crawl from the '97 version then isn’t that the '97 Crawl (where the Star Wars Logo races quickly away instead of slowly as it did in '77 and '81)?

I recently restored the actual '81 Crawl from an Eastman 35mm Print for use in v1.5 (This is the same one that was distributed with the SSE, but which at that time still had almost no stars. The Fox Logo, Long Time Ago, Pan Down and Flyover are all SSE, but the Star Wars logo and complete Crawl are taken directly from the Eastman print, stabilized and placed on top of the SSE star field…

https://we.tl/pqX2WuCgSh

If you need a version with less compression let me know.

slumberdore said:

Have the lasers which were accidentally removed in the cleanup been restored?

No, I didn’t even know about that until a couple of days ago, and by then the video was all encoded. I did confirm that the lasers are there in the original frames, and will make sure that if there is another version (probably from Poita’s Scan) that they will be restored, but I’m not going to waste a couple of days just to put back in a single laser bolt that is visible only for a single frame, and which you won’t miss when it’s gone even if you know it should have been there. If YOU want to restore it after you download 1.5, by all means do so.

I did restore the technician’s leg in the very first frame of Reel 6, which had also been cleaned up accidentally in version 1.0, though nobody seems to have noticed that one yet. I only fixed this because I happened to see it while GOUT syncing the reel changes.

I did actually scan through most of the film and perform additional clean up, but it’s considerably more difficult to spot things that are missing, unless they are also on adjacent frames. Anyway, my point is that there are probably thousands of clean up errors like this throughout the entire film. We cleaned as much of it as possible, by hand, frame by frame, but we’re only human. The task was monumental, and tedious, and sometimes mistakes were made or shortcuts taken. (This isn’t Legacy Edition, kids, but hey, at least you get to watch this one.) At 23.976 fps, almost none of these little things are visible, but go frame by frame, especially in a split screen with another source, and you’ll probably find a lot of things that were accidentally removed and a whole bunch of other little pieces of dirt that are still there.

Newly restored 35mm '81 crawl vs '77 Crawl. Just pick the version you want to watch.

BobaJett said:

Forgive me if I overlooked this, but what are the changes/upgrades for this version?

Fully GOUT Sync’d with all of the missing frames restored, additional cleanup, improved color correction, some problem scenes replaced with alternate 35mm footage, higher bitrate / better encode / no framerate issues, 35mm Spanish Audio, New capture of the Mono Mix from Jaxxon’s 16mm print, 1977 English Stereo Mix from Japanese Laserdisc (all PCM), no annoying/loud/long intro, Fully authored Custom Blu-ray (BD50 - you’re welcome) with Seamless Branching, menus, correct Chapter stops, and subtitle options…

Basically everything we all hoped v1.0 would be. Still not the Holy Grail we are all seeking, but it will hopefully be at least a small step up in quality from the original release.

Some people will still hate it, others will prefer the original release, but some (myself included) think it is better than 1.0…

The front bumper is gone for v1.5. It’s just black, fox, long time ago…

GrizzlyAdams said:

Absolutely fantastic artwork! Hopefully this comes across as helpful rather than nit-picky… but there’s another typo with the word “dialogue”

No worries, mate! I spotted a few more issues too and Stephen was kind enough to fix them all. You may need to refresh your browser and/or empty your cache to see the changes, but I think it’s all good now.

Darth Lucas said:
…
Looks great! This is the scene that turned me off from the SSE.

Yeah, it was the one scene in the whole film that made me wince!

Mavimao said:

Looks VERY nice, Willarob! Will 1.5 use parts of Poita’s scan?

No, Unfortunately Poita’s scan hasn’t arrived yet - as you know Poita had a catastrophic computer disaster which has delayed things somewhat, but the scan has not been lost or forgotten and will hopefully arrive in the next month or two. Hopefully the new scan will be sharper and less smeary, and will raise the quality level still further…

towne32 said:

Looks very nice. Any samples from Ben’s hut?

Some effort went into improving this scene!

The Blue tint has been greatly reduced for v1.5:

New, Original, Star Wars Silver Screen Edition Artwork now available!

http://thestarwarstrilogy.com/starwars/post/2016/04/22/New-Star-Wars-Silver-Screen-Edition-Artwork

Dreamaster said:

… Did TeamNegative clean and stablilize the movie BEFORE any color correction was applied? Or did they do the color correction first and then clean it?

It was cleaned and stabilized and deflickered BEFORE any color correction or sharpening was applied.

towne32 said:

That sounds great. So this is closer to what was previously planned for 2.0, and 2.0 is now more of Poita’s scan?

Correct.

v1.5 will not include anything from Poita’s scan, that hasn’t arrived yet.

Please don’t waste too much time on this - a fully GOUT sync’d v1.5 is already completed, with all the missing frames restored, some additional cleanup, 35mm Spanish Audio, and some problem shots replaced from other sources.

Coming to a galaxy near you, very soon.

Great Work, Dre! These look fantastic. I’d love to use this on Poita’s scan of the LPP when it arrives. Could it be used to correct a whole reel at once? Do you just point it at a folder or do you select all the frames you want to correct? And then it just spits out corrected copies?! It all sounds too good to be true! - I do hope you’re not just building it up only to knock it down on April Fools Day! 😃