Haha yeah, I remember noticing stuff like that when analyzing SW shot by shot for mine and DJ's project.
Too bad I forgot to report this to Harmy. Here's his version:
Well the problem is that the 1080p versions of each movie won't play on computers, since they know we have the screen capture softwares like Fraps for example. They only stream them to consoles and such.
And like I said, if one downloads the raw file from them, it's encrypted and can't be used, otherwise it would've been pretty easy.
I don't have any new console or a HD PVR box so I can't try and record while streaming, that's why I'd like some help with this.
UPDATE: Seems it wasn't the theatrical version of Conan. They've put the wrong movie length info there.
Does anyone know if it's possible?
VuDu is a site which streams Full HD movies to devices with a VuDu app or consoles like Xbox360 and PS3.
What I could find out when googling was that if using a stream capture software to save a raw stream file from them, it is encrypted and unplayable. What I thought is maybe it's possible to for example play a movie on a PS3 and plug the HDMI output into an HD PVR box or something and record it.
I would be extremely grateful if anybody knows anything and could help, because they do have some movies on there that me and dark_jedi are interested in turning into blu-rays and share with everybody.
For example Conan The Barbarian theatrical cut: http://www.vudu.com/movies/#!content/5007/Conan-the-Barbarian
(I did help DJ make a blu-ray of that one but we were unable to get the theatrical color timing so the VuDu version would be very useful.)
Also interested in The Night Of The Living Dead 1990: http://www.vudu.com/movies/#!overview/14626/Night-of-the-Living-Dead
The blu-ray release of that movie had been re-colored and darkened in a horrible way, crushing almost all shadow detail and removing almost all color but blue.
Tried this script on it:
ImageSource("samplee.png")
ConvertToYV12()
ChromaShift(C=-2)
Now it looks like the reds are slightly too far to the left instead of the right.
Maybe the chroma needs to be squeezed a bit instead of just shifting it? Or is it only the reds?
I bet for the 40th anniversary they'll just release all the Special Editions in 3D.
It will be us fans who save the originals.
@msycamore: You're right about the glue. I just checked Puggo's version of ESB and it's there.
This makes me wonder if the glue marks in SW is in the technicolor prints as well.
The way I got it, the Raiders blu-ray was re-colored to look like the original? Though Temple of doom and The last crusade were horribly oversharpened. At least that's what I've seen from screencaps from the raw blu-rays. I don't know if I want to support the oversharpening and all that by buying them.
dark_jedi told me he's interested in this VuDu version too.
Does one have to use a capturing software to get it from there or can it be downloaded?
And do you know if the VuDu version has the original color timing?
EDIT: Would also like to request the LD PCM track if somebody has it.
I think the reason they used what they did to make the GOUT DVDs was just so Lucasfilm could tell people how much the films had "improved" since then with their Special Edition, when the truth is the other way around.
If they had put scans of clean theatrical prints in anamorphic widescreen on those "bonus DVDs" it would've been obvious that they looked better than the 2004 SE.
I've read lots of reviews from 2006 about the bonus DVDs and a lot of people says "the films' age shows". That's exactly what Lucas wants them to think, that the films looked that bad when they were new.
Probably the worst thing to ever come out of my country... haha
And what they say there is a bit of a lie. They didn't use it mainly to reduce grain, they used it to remove dirt. It would've been better if they had just cleaned the interpositives before scanning them.
I wonder why the interpositives used for the GOUT was so rough by the way? Shouldn't they look cleaner than the theatrical prints, being two (is this correct?) generations closer to the negative? Just look at all those glue marks between almost each shot shift, especially in ESB. It's like they let some kid cut and glue it together.
From my experience, it sure can't be undone. Please prove me wrong! haha
Welcome uno1971!
Like none said, the GOUT (or 2006 bonus DVDs) are very often referred to as the "original theatrical versions", but they're simply a DVD version of the 1993 Laserdiscs, which while being the original versions without CGI additions, does not represent the original look of the films.
The 1993 versions have too much red and too little other colors, are too muted in the contrast, and has lots of problems like smearing due to the noise reduction which was applied to it when they made the Laserdiscs. The original prints showed in theatres back in the day were colorful, balanced and much more lifelike.
There's lots of nice restoration projects going on here though which are aimed for a better "true" original experience. You might want to look at Harmy's Despecialized Edition, negative1's upcoming 35mm release, or mine/dark_jedi's upcoming Project Blu V2.
Most of the stuff on here can be found on myspleen.org where you'll need an invite to become a member. I have some invites left so feel free to send a pm. :)
The DVNR that was applied to the GOUT is apparently something that tries to copy information from frames before (and/or after?) the current frame to remove dirt and grain.
The closest thing I've seen is an avisynth plugin called Clense. I think it's part of the RemoveDirt plugin.
Here it is applied to Harmy's DEED:
Yep, only Verbatim here too. :)
AntcuFaalb said:
So the question remains: what the hell did they do?!
I know only one guy who could possibly have the true answer to that question. His initials are MV...
I think he said once that he had seen the master tapes and that they didn't have the fake-looking grain for example.
msycamore said:
All decisions about content, colorimetry, etc. are made by the film company, and many times the director, producer, or cinematographer is present. THX engineers are present in an advisory capacity only. Much of the look of a movie transfer is the responsibility of the telecine artist and the studio advisor.
So either George was there or they were all sleeping. :)
EDIT: Sorry for double post! haha
AntcuFaalb said:
Thanks for the information, You_Too! I wonder why it only works on that shot...
You're welcome! :)
When generating histogram files with Colourlike, you can choose if you want it to analyze one frame, or more and make an average setting for a whole clip.
This shot might not represent the full luma and chroma of all shots, so when using the same conversion in other scenes with the histogram files from this shot, weird things happen like whites being red, shadows being purple etc.
Actually, I personally don't have any interest in the 97 SE, at least these versions. I'd love to see the theatrical prints though, if the colors are much better like people say.
I'm just helping DJ because he wanted to do an upscale. And it's not going to be something advanced. Just a simple upscale with minor color correction.
AntcuFaalb said:
Can someone with a bit more color experience than I try to take one of -1's images and GOUT-colorify it?
There's a nice avisynth plugin called Colourlike, which can make a histogram conversion of two images or videos.
A shot from -1, with applied auto color balance and 16-235 to 0-255 conversion:
Same shot from the raw GOUT:
-1's image converted to GOUT's colors:
Using the histogram files to backward-convert the GOUT to make it look like -1's shot:
This generates the same result I got from trying Colourlike to convert the GOUT to look like the 70mm prints. It looks weird. And these histograms only works for this shot. Other shots look very strange.
AntcuFaalb said:
This is excellent information. Thanks, You_Too!
Can you share some examples of the over-represented reds (alongside, possibly, examples of the reds reduced to levels that make more sense)?
First of all, thanks goes to msycamore for pointing out most of the color errors! :)
About the reds: I think maybe a better explanation is that the most saturated colors are there, but when it comes to less high saturation there's mostly reds.
It's like the rest is underrepresented, except for the most saturated. And of course the fact that the GOUT has a very muted contrast range compared to the original prints.
I think this shot shows it a lot:
The rest of the colors are so underrepresented that the pinkish red is also in the skin tones.
Since it's been messed up so much I don't think there is any complete cure. When I made the settings for mine and DJ's project, I tried to balance it better, bring the reds down, bring the rest up, and get back a bit more of the contrast range:
I think for now this is the best we can do.
I've tried histogram matching and things like that, using for example the 70mm shots as reference, but the result always show the flaws of the GOUT and don't look good enough.
@msycamore: You're right, after more analyzing it seems TB is not that bad. Not as bad as it looks on those screenshots.
And yeah, Gkar seems to have some added DVNR or something. Weird.
Actually, me and DJ are probably gonna use TB to make our upscale.
So these shots are from the 97 SE?
Since I've been working a lot with the GOUT for mine and DJ's project, I can tell you at least some things for sure.
Well first, you should probably list ROTJ as PAL, because for some reason the NTSC versions of SW and ESB have the most resolution/detail intact while for ROTJ it's the PAL version which has the most, making it superior to the NTSC version.
Second, the reds are overrepresented in all three. That's why me and DJ could use the same color settings for all three and it worked. They all have the same overall color errors, except SW is more desaturated.
Third, the aliasing is there in all three. Just look closely on any half-diagonal line in scenes with a moving camera and you'll see it.
The chroma shift is unique to ESB though, and only happens at some parts of the second half.
There are other color errors here and there too though. Can't list them all since I haven't gone through all three movies completely yet, but some I know so far:
SW:
When Darth Vader appears for the first time, his belt glows red/pink instead of green.
In the scene in Luke's workshop where 3PO gets an oil bath, the lights on the wall behind him, a blinking light behind Luke while he's playing with his spaceship toy, and R2's blinking light all appears blue or purple, instead of green like they all are originally. The reflections on 3PO when he comes up from the oil bath are also purple instead of green.
When Luke uses his binoculars at night to look for R2, the stuff on the left side and the bottom appears orange instead of green.
When Luke gets hit by the practice orb in the Falcon, before Han laughs at him, that shot has a pink tone overall and everything that should be blue has been shifted to purple.
At one point in the death star where Vader appears in a corridor looking for Ben, his belt lights are red/pink again.
In ESB I know there are some desaturated or color shifted laser beams from star destroyers and ties, and some in ROTJ as well as the Falcon's laser being green instead of red at times.
Thanks! Too bad that is far from enough to make matched subs for ANH and ROTJ. At least we know what the font looked like in ANH.
I don't know if this has been discussed before, but here goes:
Since me and DJ are planning to eventually release an upscale of the 97 SE's along with our project Blu V2, we would of course like to include subs for Greedo and Jabba.
Are there any reference shots of how those subs looked in the theatrical prints in 97?
msycamore said:
You_Too said:
I've been comparing the 97 SE versions to help dark_jedi with an eventual future project, and I can tell you that the Flunk version is not the best.
Interesting, how did he take it? I recall he went berserk when I explained the shortcomings of that transfer.
Berserk?
Well, DJ said he might wanna do some upscales of the 97 SE's too, along with the Blu V2, so he sent me samples of each version which I compared, I told him that Gkar looked the best and he just trusted me on that.
Anyway, just to clarify to anyone interested: We won't clean up the 97 SE in that case. Just upscale it and maybe do a minor color correction.
EDIT: After some more analyzing of Gkar vs TB, I think they both somehow have their ups and downs. Gkar is indeed blocky because of the compression, and has some kind of weird edge sharpening maybe?
TB doesn't seem to have crushed shadows like I first thought, they're just darker. TB is more soft but has more grain preserved than Gkar, but also has another kind of compression artefacts, especially in the shadow detail.
The best thing would be if somebody would layer both on each other, because when cropped, they both are a perfect match. It's just the subbed parts of Gkar that would have to be layered with only TB or something.