Williarob

captainsolo said:

hairy_hen said:

The 70mm picture quality could potentially be quite nice, though with an aspect ratio of 2.2:1, some image would be missing from the sides.

The soundtrack is quite the most desirable aspect of it, of course. I know there is at least one privately owned 70mm print of the first movie out there, but nobody seems to know who actually owns it. Most likely this person would be unwilling to loan it out for scanning. I’ve never heard anything about whether there are any existing copies of the other two.

poita said:

Re 70mm, I have seen two 70mm Star Wars prints, only one was in projectable shape and both were far too faded to red to be useful for restoration of the image, it is extremely likely that they all are far too faded now.
Plus 70mm is cropped at the sides, so I don’t think it will be a lot of use for the visual restoration.

Any 70 prints would be Eastman likely and virtually all from that vintage are typically in tatters or so faded they are unprojectable. Additionally the mag tracks can go if not properly stored.

Imagewise, the only benefits would be the finer grain and what if any visual changes were induced through the blowup–albeit those you could tell through heavy fading. The big draw will be the Dolby 70 baby boom in the six track mag stripe. If it could be found, transferred and turned it would become a most powerful ally. 😉
But of course all this would be much easier if we could access the source and do a straight transfer, much like some 70mm mixes that got direct transfers to LD and DVD. Like the earlier Criterion 2001, any magnetic we might be able to work with would likely have some distortion or damage after all these years.

The IB will be the best image overall and the most filmic/organic feeling. The Eastman/LPP will be what you’d have seen in 1977 and what the movie should look like from the processes of the day on general release.

Timing is everything. Team Negative One’s 70mm film scanner is now up and running and we’ve already scanned The Empire Strikes Back 70mm, in 4k*:

http://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com/starwars/post/2016/02/04/70mm-Empire-Strikes-Back-in-4k

• Well, as much as we have of it anyway. If anyone here has a 70mm print of Star Wars you’d like scanned, please let us know! 😃

alexp120 said:

ScruffyNerfHerder said:

bishabosha said:

At the end of the training remote session with Luke talking to Ben, what are the green ovals in the top right with white scribbled lines for?, in the last sentance or so before you cut to the Death Star board room

I think those are just reel change markers. It’s something we no longer see in digital projection, or on home video, but would definitely be present in 1977. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cue_mark for more info.

Hope that helps. 😃

Or you can watch this scene from TV’s “Columbo” …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_ol8PbN_94(at 50:01)

…when the detective gets a crash course in reel changes. This is where I learned what that bright colored oval flashes were. 😃

Me Too! Saw it way back in the 80s and never forgot it.

I ran the test again, this time using the X0 Audio for both versions of the crawl and the clip from the main film. This time, something went wrong with my buttons that allow you to select which branch to choose from (they still work, but they appear and disappear) I could fix it, but it’s all just temporary.

In any case, both the audio and the video transitions are now as smooth as silk. (Note: this version of the 81 crawl is missing one frame which I looped to keep it in sync). And again, I know the video and audio quality are not all they should be, this is just a test of the Seamless Branching system…

http://we.tl/Qu9f9XX9mT
http://we.tl/9IyqrT9uJ5

I’d love to have some professional looking menus. If anyone here wants to come up with some nice buttons / menu graphics / motion menus, etc., that would be fantastic. Buttons should come in three states - Active, Selected and Normal and should be PNGs. Ideally we’ll need a main menu, with the branching options - just 77 & 81 - and links to the other menus, which would include: chapter menus, Audio / Subtitle Selection Menus. I doubt there will be any room on the disc for any bonus features, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a menu for some extras just in case we end up going the DL route, or create a 2nd DVD5/9 disc of Bonus Features… Oh, and of course popup menus!

If that sounds like a lot of work, well just imagine how long it will take me to wire it all up…

towne32 said:

Tested the image. It does seem to be working!

Though the use of alternate audio tracks has kind of complicated things. Both versions have an audio hiccup at the time of the cut, so it’s hard to tell if it will actually be clean when the appropriate audio is in place.

I think that’s because of how I cut the audio : I did it in TS Muxer by setting the cut Start and End points, but when I created the second part I used the audio starting at the next frame instead of the last frame of the previous section (some small # ms difference).

I’m going to test it again soon with different audio and I’ll let you know whether or not that corrects the issue.

hairy_hen said:

Yes, it would be rather silly to use different audio for the '81 crawl in a seamless branching mode. Prints that had the newer crawl spliced on still used the same original Dolby Stereo audio track for the whole movie.

Cool. I wasn’t sure if there was a difference or not, but it made sense to test with a different audio track anyway just to see how it would work.

towne32 said:

Lasz said:

maybe one could make a blu ray with both options…

Unless TN1 has some great insider secrets, not a single person on this forum (or indeed, apparently, the internet) has gotten homebrew blu-ray seamless branching to work, despite many efforts. If you want to read about it I can try to find the threads and PM you, since it will take us far off topic here for the sake of discussing (so far) completely fruitless efforts.

But yes, it would be fantastic if it would work.

Our Blu-rays will have the 77/81 crawl as a seamless branching option. Here is a preliminary test:

part 1: http://we.tl/4xP7y4t4dq
part 2: http://we.tl/e2yo3mPb4Z

A few notes:

• Yes, I know the audio needs some tweaking to make it more seamless - the volume of the 81 is higher than the 77 and remainder of the film, and there is a brief moment of silence between the 77 opening and the main film. Both of these are issues with the audio tracks and will be fixed. The important thing is that the video transition IS seamless and those of you who care to reverse engineer it will see that the seamless branching flags are set.
• Also this is NOT an indicator of the final Blu-ray quality / menus / layout / or contents!!! The menu and buttons were created purely for this test because we had to have some way to choose which version to play.
• The video and audio tracks were both re-encoded from the content already distributed - not from the masters - so please don’t whine on about how the quality hasn’t improved at all or the encoding settings need more tweaking. (The audio for the 81 crawl was taken from the X0 project files distributed by Zion)

I just wanted to see if I could do it, and I can, so that’s nice.

Carry on.

Harmy said:

Whatever the situation with the actual number of users of that account, team_negative1 always uses the pronoun “we” and never “I”, which means they are not speaking for themselves, but for a whole team of people and therefore it either is a team account or pretending to be one, and so, by the rules (and common sense logic) this account has no business posting personal opinions on anything other than the team’s own projects.

That’s the Royal “We” 😉

towne32 said:

That certainly would have been nice to know a long time ago, and would have probably cut down a lot of the animosity if people thought of the account as Team_-1_Representative or something.

It was assumed otherwise due to:

1. Not being stated (or if it was one time, it isn’t generally repeated or emphasized).

2. The posts will spontaneously be in negative_1’s poetic format for a short while.

3. The possible assumption that as admins have IP logs, they wouldn’t have raised any fuss if it was all from one person.

If Team_Five_Guys ends up registering, I hope we can let them slide in exchange for some good coupons.

In hindsight I agree with you. But it is really only an issue because certain people made it such an issue - bringing it up over and over again, year after year. If they had just moved on, would anybody really care?

I almost added to my post that the IP logs should support this, but I’m not so sure that they will: while ISPs will occasionally change the IP address on your connection, it remains static most of the time, but people don’t. They can now log in from anywhere using their phone, often on Wifi at a coffee shop or anywhere they happen to be, so there are probably multiple IP addresses associated with everybody’s account by now.

Edit: Also, I am constantly connecting to my company’s Virtual Private Networks, which changes my IP. We have offices in England, California, Virginia, Pennsylvania… So I may connect to this site from an IP in London at 10 am and one in California at 11 am, all without leaving my office. So, IP Addresses prove nothing either way.

Jay said:

team_negative1: Please stop creating non-project related threads. Team accounts may ONLY start topics directly related to their own projects and may ONLY post in those same topics. Any further topics or posts outside the rules will be deleted without notice.

Frink: You aren’t a mod here. Please stop provoking team_negative1 within their legitimate project threads. If your post has nothing to do with the project, please don’t post. If you have a problem with their activity outside their project threads, report it to the mods and we’ll act on it based on our discretion.

Thanks everyone for your cooperation.

Jay, to the best of my knowledge, only one member of the team has ever logged into that account. The account was setup to promote the activities of the team, but is not used by the team, only by a single individual.

If a user creates an account with the username “Five_Guys” because he like’s their burgers and fries, would that be considered a team account? Must be, right? I mean there are probably 5 guys using that account. The point is, “Team Negative One” is the name of an entity, like “Five Guys” but the account is a single user account like anybody elses. No forum rules are being broken here, so please, everybody, let it go!

Memorex said:

Williarob said:> >

But did you spot the 26 frames I replaced using the LPP? If you look at the lightsaber duel, there are several frames that were missing from the Tech and I replaced using the LPP. At full speed it’s hard to spot unless you are looking for it, but if you slow it down, you’ll see it gets much grainier.

Initially I replaced 23 of those first 26 using the LPP, but I trimmed them from the final sample because they looked pretty rough and I didn’t want it to be judged on LPP frames…

I’m a bit confused as well… Were those 26 frames absent from both Tech and the Eastman? I assume the finished version will have no LPP frames at all, or it would be called a Tech vs Eastman vs LPP preservation?

You stated that it’s based on Eastman with Tech references, but the sample is entirely from a TECH reel, minus the missing frames?

The sample posted is indeed mind-blowing, I just feel I could still use an even more pedagogic review of the details regarding this project. You guys have my full support!

I don’t know where the Eastman print fits into this either. But perhaps this will help: the sample clip is missing 52 frames. 26 at the start and 26 more in groups of 2, 5, 8 scattered about in the middle. The LPP is missing only 3 frames at the start of the reel. I replaced all the frames I could using the LPP, but the beginning of the sample would then have been LPP, so I removed the frames at the start.

Does that make more sense?

STENDEC said:

Has anyone seen my jaw? It hit the floor while I was watching that preview of Reel 5 and I haven’t been able to find it since 😛

Seriously, this is truly amazing. I figured that SSE v1 was as good as we could hope for, but this Technicolor footage goes beyond my wildest expectations. Can’t wait to see the finished product!

Also, it might be too early to ask, but since you guys have been able to up the scanning resolution from 2K to 4K, does that mean we may get a 4K release somewhere down the line?

We do have several prints (including this Tech) scanned in 4k, but 4k processing requires more computing power and more disk space than we have at the moment.

If there is ever a time when everyone has 4k TVs, then maybe. Hopefully we won’t need to, though. Perhaps by then Mike V’s Legacy Edition will be on sale in stores in 4k.

Lust-In-Phaze said:

Could it be because it hasn’t been cropped yet?

I cropped off the optical audio track, but did not crop the frame at all. The aspect ratio in this sample is slightly off. If you resize it to 2048 x 880 then it should look about right.

Asaki said:

team_negative1 said:

http://we.tl/8s0ABfcoLG

So to be clear, is this actual Technicolor footage, or Eastman film re-graded to match it? In the flood of newbies posting in the SSE thread, I may have missed that information.

This is actual Technicolor footage.

Darth Mallwalker said:

Williarob said:

Edit: But I will add one more teaser, just for the OT crowd.

http://we.tl/8s0ABfcoLG

This video was produced using this technique (plus a little post processing to clean it up a little more), and it only took about a week… It has not been color corrected.

Missing 26 GOUT frames from the start of the reel (these things happen)
and none after that!

But did you spot the 26 frames I replaced using the LPP? If you look at the lightsaber duel, there are several frames that were missing from the Tech and I replaced using the LPP. At full speed it’s hard to spot unless you are looking for it, but if you slow it down, you’ll see it gets much grainier.

Initially I replaced 23 of those first 26 using the LPP, but I trimmed them from the final sample because they looked pretty rough and I didn’t want it to be judged on LPP frames…

Edit. Moved to the new thread.

Laserschwert said:

Please reserve you samples until then!

Sorry, my fault!

team_negative1 said:

We’ll start a new thread for the Eastman vs Technicolor version when we are ready to discuss more about it.

Team Negative1

Right - we have to finish the LPP first!

Edit: But I will add one more teaser, just for the OT crowd.

http://we.tl/8s0ABfcoLG

This video was produced using this technique (plus a little post processing to clean it up a little more), and it only took about a week… It has not been color corrected.

towne32 said:

Williarob said:

towne32 said:
…
Is it going to be split screen, where the split line continually shifts back and forth as Eastman fights Technicolor, and one side eventually wins out?

We could do that if you like.

We should probably start a new thread for this, but here’s a sneak peak at what is going on with the Eastman vs Technicolor project…

http://thestarwarstrilogy.com/starwars/post/2016/01/22/Team-Negative-One-Star-Wars-v20-sneak-peek

Nice post. I understand what you are doing on a technical basis, but, to be clear: what is the actual end goal for 2.0? Technicolor source and color for as much as possible, with color matched and aligned LPP simply for the damage repair or missing frames when needed?

Exactly. The LPP is only there to fill in the dirt and replace the missing frames. This project is all about the Technicolor version of Star Wars. It’s sharper, and the colors are much nicer than the LPP, but it’s also has a lot more damage. As a bonus, using the techniques demonstrated here, we may also end up with a version of the LPP color timed to match the tech 😃

towne32 said:
…
Is it going to be split screen, where the split line continually shifts back and forth as Eastman fights Technicolor, and one side eventually wins out?

We could do that if you like.

We should probably start a new thread for this, but here’s a sneak peak at what is going on with the Eastman vs Technicolor project…

http://thestarwarstrilogy.com/starwars/post/2016/01/22/Team-Negative-One-Star-Wars-v20-sneak-peek

Darth Mallwalker said:

Chewtobacca said:

So the list should be as follows.

``

42593-42604
45153-45156
55746-55750
56085
56926
58476-58479
60759 60651
64864 64771
70506-70507
78664
83448-83451
86658-86715
113649-113650
113652-113655
144051-144052
144054-144056

Got it! Thanks!

FYI: First round of Encoding Trials has been completed: http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Encoding-tips-and-ideas/id/47664/page/1#899482

OK. As promised here is the first round of encoding tests. This test uses footage from the start of the film where the Tantive is swallowed up and we first see 3P0 and R2. I will also try the same tests on a desert scene, a cantina scene and maybe a battle of Yavin Scene if time permits.

First Download the source file, a 1.8 GB 59 second clip Pro Res Quicktime:

http://we.tl/OpnATUbsDZ

This is not a re-encode of the MKV that was released - this is straight from the master. (I don’t have the full master, yet, just some clips to test with)

And then compare it to the encoded files here:

http://we.tl/lHuDPvG6Aj

Let’s start with the settings we used for our MKV.

StarWars_Opening_TN1.m4v

Encoded with a recent build of ffmpeg using a command very similar to this one (here the audio is ommitted):

ffmpeg -i G:\Uploads\FullRez_SilverScreenClips\StarWars_Opening.mov -c:v libx264 -level 4.0 -pix_fmt yuv420p -preset veryslow -tune grain -crf 19 -g 24 -threads 6 -x264opts bluray-compat=1:vbv-bufsize=20000:vbv-maxrate=30000 -an -y “G:\Uploads\FullRez_SilverScreenClips\tests\StarWars_Opening_TN1.m4v”

Next up: StarWars_Opening_Ru08.m4v

If I recall correctly, RU.08 simply wanted us to use the same settings, but make the CRF value 16, I apologize if there were other tweaks suggested by RU.08 that I missed, but that seemed to be the main change being requested:

ffmpeg -i G:\Uploads\FullRez_SilverScreenClips\StarWars_Opening.mov -c:v libx264 -level 4.0 -pix_fmt yuv420p -preset veryslow -tune grain -crf 16 -g 24 -threads 6 -x264opts bluray-compat=1:vbv-bufsize=20000:vbv-maxrate=30000 -an -y “G:\Uploads\FullRez_SilverScreenClips\tests\StarWars_Opening_Ru08.m4v”

Next: StarWars_Opening_Jan.264

Jan sent us to this page: http://www.x264bluray.com/home/1080i-p so those are the settings I tried:

x264-64.exe --bitrate 24000 --preset veryslow --tune grain --bluray-compat --vbv-maxrate 40000 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --level 4.1 --keyint 24 --open-gop --slices 4 --colorprim “bt709” --transfer “bt709” --colormatrix “bt709” --sar 1:1 --pass 1 -o “G:\Uploads\FullRez_SilverScreenClips\tests\StarWars_Opening_Jan.264” G:\Uploads\FullRez_SilverScreenClips\StarWars_Opening.mov && “d:\Firefox Downloads\x264-64.exe” --bitrate 24000 --preset veryslow --tune grain --bluray-compat --vbv-maxrate 40000 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --level 4.1 --keyint 24 --open-gop --slices 4 --colorprim “bt709” --transfer “bt709” --colormatrix “bt709” --sar 1:1 --pass 2 -o “G:\Uploads\FullRez_SilverScreenClips\tests\StarWars_Opening_Jan.264” G:\Uploads\FullRez_SilverScreenClips\StarWars_Opening.mov

Chouonsoku. This command produced my own personal preference. Now that Chouonsoku has a good source clip perhaps this can be tweaked more, but even as is, it produces a very fine looking clip in my opinion, also one of the smaller ones, and fastest encodes. So unless anyone can find a frame where this encode looks worse than all the others, this is probably the way we’ll go with future encodes.

StarWars_Opening_Chouonsoku.264 was created using this command:

x264-64.exe --level 4.1 --bluray-compat --preset veryslow --bitrate 24000 --deblock -2:-2 --open-gop --slices 4 --ipratio 1.2 --pbratio 1.2 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --vbv-maxrate 40000 --qcomp 0.7 --no-mbtree --psy-rd 1.10:0 --no-dct-decimate --no-fast-pskip --colorprim bt709 --transfer bt709 --colormatrix bt709 --aq-mode 3 --pass 1 -o “G:\Uploads\FullRez_SilverScreenClips\tests\StarWars_Opening_Chouonsoku.264” G:\Uploads\FullRez_SilverScreenClips\StarWars_Opening.mov && “d:\Firefox Downloads\x264-64.exe” --level 4.1 --bluray-compat --preset veryslow --bitrate 24000 --deblock -2:-2 --open-gop --slices 4 --ipratio 1.2 --pbratio 1.2 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --vbv-maxrate 40000 --qcomp 0.7 --no-mbtree --psy-rd 1.10:0 --no-dct-decimate --no-fast-pskip --colorprim bt709 --transfer bt709 --colormatrix bt709 --aq-mode 3 --pass 2 -o “G:\Uploads\FullRez_SilverScreenClips\tests\StarWars_Opening_Chouonsoku.264” G:\Uploads\FullRez_SilverScreenClips\StarWars_Opening.mov

and I also doubled the bit-rate to see what this would look like on a BD 50 for StarWars_Opening_Chouonsoku_DL.264:

x264-64.exe --level 4.1 --bluray-compat --preset veryslow --bitrate 40000 --deblock -2:-2 --open-gop --slices 4 --ipratio 1.2 --pbratio 1.2 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --vbv-maxrate 40000 --qcomp 0.7 --no-mbtree --psy-rd 1.10:0 --no-dct-decimate --no-fast-pskip --colorprim bt709 --transfer bt709 --colormatrix bt709 --aq-mode 3 --pass 1 -o “G:\Uploads\FullRez_SilverScreenClips\tests\StarWars_Opening_Chouonsoku_DL.264” G:\Uploads\FullRez_SilverScreenClips\StarWars_Opening.mov && “d:\Firefox Downloads\x264-64.exe” --level 4.1 --bluray-compat --preset veryslow --bitrate 40000 --deblock -2:-2 --open-gop --slices 4 --ipratio 1.2 --pbratio 1.2 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --vbv-maxrate 40000 --qcomp 0.7 --no-mbtree --psy-rd 1.10:0 --no-dct-decimate --no-fast-pskip --colorprim bt709 --transfer bt709 --colormatrix bt709 --aq-mode 3 --pass 2 -o “G:\Uploads\FullRez_SilverScreenClips\tests\StarWars_Opening_Chouonsoku_DL.264” G:\Uploads\FullRez_SilverScreenClips\StarWars_Opening.mov

Finally, I also tested out an older version of Cinemacraft HDe (ver 1.14.02.00, built in Nov 2011). From what I have read on the internet (so it must be true), Cinemacraft HDe may have been bought by Sirius Pixels. In any case, StarWars_Opening_CCHDe_3_pass was produced using this build, as a 3 pass VBR encode with an average bitrate of 24000 to match that of StarWars_Opening_Chouonsoku.264 for a fair comparison.

CCHDe was also the fastest encode despite making 3 passes, but that could have been because it only works with uncompressed sources.

Anyway, as time permits I will encode and upload some more scenes for you to examine with your magnifying glasses, and look forward to reading your conclusions.

For the less technically savvy who would also like to check these clips out, I recommend you download the Combined Community Codec Pack which will install a player called Media Player Classic Home cinema, that will play the .264 files nicely. On my system, I found Windows Media Player could also play them, but they were sped up.

For the source clip you will need Quicktime Player and possibly the Pro-Res decoder for windows

After all the belly aching about the original Encode* I expect to see page after page of magnified screen comparisions pushing for your favorite settings, otherwise we’re just going to take Chouonsoku’s advice and ignore the rest of you 😃

• Which were all valid points

althor1138 said:

towne32 said:

yoda-sama said:

If I might make one suggestion. Whether you decide to GOUT sync or not, if you want credit for your work it might be best to do as Harmy did on his releases and put your credit at the end of the film. I suggest this since anyone who would want to mix in their preference of the plethora of audio and subtitle options out there to your footage would either have to offset or modify everything they add or, more likely, do as the current 720p GOUT synced copy on the spleen did and remove your credit at the beginning of the film. I added hairy_hen’s DTS-HD MA 5.1 track quite simply to that 720p GOUT synced version, and the result was glorious, even despite the occasional missing frame placeholders, and is about how I think I would preserve and distribute this with respect to your final version; it would be regrettable having to do so without credit to you.

I think this is a good idea for mkv releases. But for the BD ISO, they can just have their credit reel in a separate m2ts container, regardless of which way they choose to go (or have it show before the menu, etc).

This can be done with an mkv as well.

That would be great! Can you provide instructions?

FrankT said:

Williarob said:

slumberdore said:

I was watching the silver screen edition and paused on this frame: http://i.imgur.com/nd4LBgO.png
Is this an encoding glitch? I don’t know what the frame number is but it happens right after wedge pulls out during the final trench run.

It could be, or it could be an artifact introduced during the clean up phase. Either way, it is something we should be able to fix.

Where’s the glitch? Where am I looking?

Left side of the image, towards the bottom. There are two squares of odd looking pixels. They look too big to be the blocky compression artifacts we are used to seeing, but at the same time, our clean up tools don’t fix in squares or rectangles either.

Fortunately, played back at 23.976 fps you won’t see it at all.

slumberdore said:

I was watching the silver screen edition and paused on this frame: http://i.imgur.com/nd4LBgO.png
Is this an encoding glitch? I don’t know what the frame number is but it happens right after wedge pulls out during the final trench run.

It could be, or it could be an artifact introduced during the clean up phase. Either way, it is something we should be able to fix.