@AntcuFaalb: It doesn't only show as motion blur, it sometimes make moving things appear doubled or leaving trails of itself and things like that.
If the smearing is only present in the Luma, wouldn't shots like this look a bit more weird, like the color not matching the double eyes of the stormtrooper?
Congratulations on your exams. And the awesome Despecialized Edition 2.0!
@captainsolo: Thanks!
And yes, please somebody invent a magic anti-smearing plugin for avisynth. :)
I kind of understand why they did the DVNR back then though. It was probably considered state of the art back then, as it did remove lots and lots of dirt and stuff, which can clearly be seen if comparing it to msycamore's Technidisc capture.
And back then, people were used to see smearing on TV. Basically everything shot on video had smearing.
Of course I still dislike the smearing very much, but I understand how it worked to release this back then.
jimjimmyjones85 said:
I would also suggest uploads to places where you can use uTorrent, jdownloader or even Vuze.
Myspleen is a torrent site, so uTorrent will work fine. :)
You just need an invite for myspleen unless you're already a member.
As late as last page in this thread, I explained why the GOUT can't be corrected to look like the original prints.
Of course I would want it to look like the technicolor print but it's impossible since the colors are not separated from each other in a way that would allow that color correction.
I compared the aspect ratio to the official blu-ray, and if you change the height to 95% it matches perfectly. That is 1920x1026, or 1920x764 without black bars.
I also suspect that since the black bars are all at RGB 16/16/16 that the jpg's have gone through a faulty conversion from 16-235 to 0-255.
After fixing that and the aspect ratio it looks like this:
That last shot looks great!
I think the aspect ratio is a bit too tall though?
People seem to forget that the photos Mike posted was from a screening using a warm 70's bulb. If Harmy had wanted it to look like that, he'd have to add a warm curve to the whole movie.
I also remember Mike saying that the only thing that could be 99.9% trusted in those pics (if aiming for a 70's projection look) was the hue.
If I remember correct, Harmy was not aiming for a 70's projection look, but the 1977 version "remastered" to today's standard which is not as warm.
Ok here's an update for everyone!
I've been helping DJ a bit with this one and the reason he didn't upload it yet was because one scene needed a bit of fixing to make it look like the theatrical version.
This scene was originally night/early morning, and was changed into daytime (in which it was probably originally shot) for the cut that's on the blu-ray. You who are interested in this project probably knows about DJ's decision to not change the colors to look like the theatrical, because that would take too much work. So this scene is now color matched with the blu-ray version except it's darker.
DJ posted this side-by-side sample to show you: https://vimeo.com/48708770
Here's also an uncompressed screenshot comparison:
(For those thinking "why not color time it like the theatrical version?" I'll explain a bit. The blu-ray release of Conan has a thin layer of grain over the whole film which doesn't change in brightness. The theatrical version seems to also have this. If one wanted to make a correct-looking theatrical color timing, first one would have to somehow filter out all grain from the entire movie, then match each scene in both contrast/brightness and color, then add the grain back. A lot of times the blu-ray and theatrical aren't even consistent in it's contrast/brightness changes between shots.)
Anyway, DJ wanted me to tell you that he's going to upload it to myspleen soon, and that he wanted ideas on where to upload it on the newsgroups.
He's also made some nice cases for it, check them out:
The pics look like that because they're compressed jpg's. I bet we'll be pleasantly surprised on how good this will actually look when uncompressed in full resolution.
Those last few shots you posted are looking frickin good!
Thank you to everyone for your nice comments!
vbangle said:
It may not as crisp as the bluray but defiantly better than broadcast TV or VHS tape! Which is the way most have watched the non SE's. I even think it superior to standard DVD's.
I grew up watching some TV broadcast recordings on VHS in 4:3 pan & scan, so this sure is a nice upgrade for the original unaltered trilogy!
I wouldn't say it's superior to standard DVDs though. Since the source has so much jagged edges, it can still be seen a little even if downscaling it to DVD resolution, even though they've been greatly reduced.
vbangle said:
PS. The snapshots do look very nice. Hurry up and getter done already, wink wink...
I really do wish we could just clap our hands and it'd be ready. :)
Unfortunately it's such a long process with all the cleanup. I think that's necessary though, because the contrast and colors have been increased so much that all the downsides are also much more visible.
Yes, it looks great in motion too. :)
Considering the source being the GOUT, of course. While it looks much more HD-like, the smearing is still there. That's something we'll have to live with.
@pat man: Not to criticize your new topic there, but what you list in the first post is not a real calibration, it's basic setup.
Calibration means using a colorimeter, spectroradiometer or similar to set the grayscale and each primary and secondary color to the reference, which for grayscale is D65 and colors is Rec 709.
Also, one cannot trust gamma being 2.2 even if the TV says so. Gamma is usually very unevenly divided over the grayscale.
That said, doing the basic setup usually improves things a lot and takes you much closer to a calibration, but there is still no way for you to know if what you're watching looks correct.
About the issue with crushed blacks: Some scenes are impossible to fix, since they've simply removed the shadow detail completely for the blu-ray release.
This is a very good example, 70mm scan vs blu-ray with increased gamma:
I really can't wait to see how this looks.
I remember seeing those very blue screenshots of C3PO and R2 in the Tantive on your website before, and your early corrections of them. It looked a lot better but still not quite there.
I bet you've improved it a lot since then?
Happy Birthday Harmy! Thanks for your extremely hard work and enthusiasm. And for being such a nice and helpful guy.
Side note: I've run out of myspleen invites now.
Ok here's a couple random ones from each movie.
Some of you might not even see the difference, but I can tell you it's there, especially if layering the images on each other and switching on/off. The saturation was originally increased using Satmask in avisynth, and was taken down to 75% using Satmask again. And of course, the yellows are more correct now too.
So that's what he's doing the rest of the year!
I have 10 invites it seems, so anyone who needs one just pm me.
pat man said:
The bottom is the new one right?
Yep.
I'll post more comparisons soon.
Maybe it's that old guy, you know, long white beard, red clothes, can get you anything you want as long as you're nice.
Good luck Harmy, and Happy Birthday in advance! :)
Well either that, or they sold their souls to get access to Lucasfilm's archives. :P
negative1 said:
just imagine if you could get all the things you
were hoping for..
but it meant you had to deal with someone
that you didn't think you would ever have to.
Ok I won't say who I think is your "Lando", but let's say I think it's a certain person you've been in touch with earlier, who knows the right people with the right material, who might have come up with a deal so you can scan a couple certain low-fade prints of ESB and ROTJ, (or maybe more?) as long as the restoration is kept completely underground.