You_Too

I agree with DJ, it should be taken in account what the source is. In SW for example, the resolution of the film itself without black borders is 714x274. Some of those pixels have to be cropped for the shake reduction, and because the left side of the image contains desaturated/discolored pixels I had to crop just a couple more pixels there, otherwise the shake reduction would shake those pixels back into the picture sometimes due to horizontal movement stabilization.

What we're left with is something with a horribly low vertical resolution, and the jaggies in the picture is following the vertical pixel lines somehow. (Probably a result of some very bad deinterlacing done by Lucasfilm or something similar.)

I also agree with Sharkiesf: Just because blu-ray is a larger medium doesn't mean it has to contain higher quality material. Anyway, I don't think anyone here is expecting some miracle either!

Erikstormtrooper: I understand you're just curious! Anyway, when looking closer on completely removing the jaggies, I found that it would require a vertical blur to completely do it. They can be reduced a lot more though, but it also results in a less detailed picture. Considering how low the vertical resolution was to begin with, the result would be lower than youtube quality if you completely remove them.

Nevertheless, here are some comparisons of greatly reduced jaggies vs the latest script, so you can see for yourself:

Here's a closeup comparison of 3PO's arm from that last shot:

Looks great now!

The jaggies sure does stick out a lot to me as well. I've tried lots of methods to reduce them, and found that the methods that would completely smooth them out would result in the picture having much less detail left. (And looking very "DVNR"-like)

The key was to find a balance between reduction of jaggies and preservation of detail. After a lot of work I think I've found a great balance. Some jaggies CAN be seen here and there but they are reduced a lot, and they need to be left there to keep detail intact.

Check this comparison, raw GOUT vs the script:

Harmy said:

That looks awesome! You realize I'm gonna start begging you for clips now, right? ;-)

Thanks!

Haha, you'll at least have to wait until me and DJ has decided if this will be the final script. :)

Ok, with the blessing of DJ, here's a little update/teaser for you guys.

Me and DJ decided to work on this together, and during the time his computer has been broken I wrote a new script from scratch, which I've worked with a lot lately.

What V2 will most likely feature is a color corrected, carefully upscaled, slightly shake-stabilized, slightly anti-aliased, dirt-cleaned and grain-preserved GOUT. I've spent many hours on perfecting the dirt-cleaning part of the script, which removes a lot of dirt in all three films but preserves all detail. Still needs some more testing though.

In the style of Harmy's earlier comparison, here's a new one:

Before someone judges this as "edge-enhanced", compare it to the raw GOUT upscale on top, and know that detail has been dug up carefully on grain-level. Also keep in mind that the script may not be final.

Harmy said:

A script wouldn't really help, since it would have to be used very selectively and it would be crap not being able to see the results right away.

Yeah you're probably right. But I know After Effects have vibrance. I don't know if it can be applied selectively though, since I haven't used AE much.

Actually I suggested the use of vibrance in some post long ago. It would probably give a much better result than just raising saturation. There is a vibrance script for avisynth as well, in case Premiere doesn't have it.

Well, first of all the GOUT is not sourced from technicolor prints. Actually only SW was ever printed by technicolor. What I'm trying to do is bring back the original look of the prints that the GOUT is sourced from, or at least bring back the life in them and correct them as good as I can, without any real professional knowledge about the prints.

Unfortunately, the skin tones in SW are a bit more pink-tinted than in the other 2 movies, and because of that, it's impossible for me to get everything to look as good as Mike's pics. If I correct the skin tones, everything that's supposed to be red turns orange. I gotta say though that the current result looks very good, just don't expect a technicolor look!

Anyway, I won't be posting more samples here now, since me and dark_jedi have started to work on a "surprise" for you guys. :)

I haven't completely watched the whole WP yet, but some select scenes, and I liked what I saw. Good job as always Harmy!

After working a lot with restoring the GOUT, I realize how extremely screwed up the colors in the blu-ray version are. You're doing a good job regrading the movie. Maybe some scenes here and there could use a saturation boost? Or maybe I think that just because I'm used to looking at the color-restored GOUT now.

Harmy said:

OK, in the end I decided to use RS. I'm going to start sending PMs.

Thanks in advance Harmy! By the way, next time you could try multiupload.com. After uploading a file there, they upload it automatically to 9 different file sharing sites so everyone can choose the one that works best for them.

To add to the discussion of the sunset scene, here's how it looks in my current GOUT restoration script:

I'm also interested in the new work print, of course!

Looks great as usual! :)

msycamore said:

It has been talked about in several threads since its release, here is one of them: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/GOUT-improved-versions/post/405901/#TopicPost405901

Thanks! Interesting, ROTJ is cropped differently in each version too, but here the PAL version has more detail.

What can I say? Lucasfilm sure knows how to mess their releases up.

And now I suddenly feel like a newbie again... haha

Btw, it sounds weird to me that ROTJ would look better in PAL if the others look better in NTSC. Any idea of what exact differences there is? Maybe somebody could point to an old thread somewhere, because I don't seem to find anything.

Update: After doing some research, I've found out that at least the NTSC version of SW is less cropped and has more fine detail than the PAL version. Maybe this is common knowledge? Either way, I'm going to try and get my hands on those instead, and base my scripts on them.

frank678 said:

Putting aside the presence accurate colour settings add, in your judgement what adds the greater presence in the post-processing stage - is it the stabilization or the dirt removal - or both equally?

I'd say the stabilization alone makes the movie much more pleasant. I have a 40" tv so it's not THAT much of a big deal to me, but on bigger screens I bet most people would find the shake distracting.

And about presence, I'd say if there was a way to remove dirt and scratches but leave grain intact, that would be the ultimate thing, since there's a lot of detail that gets lost when reducing grain. We'll see what solutions I'll find.

And Asaki, thanks for Stab. It seems that's the very script g-force had implemented in his stabilization.

Exactly the way I think. But actually I think the most "annoying" thing about the raw GOUT is the image shake, and g-force's script does a good job on stabilizing that. Maybe there is a way to tweak the script so it keeps the grain and detail but reduces the shake? Gotta ask g-force.

Anyway, here's the same clip but without g-force's additional script: http://www.multiupload.com/OEW1F4QTZZ

Yeah I'm considering a release, but I gotta ask dark_jedi first in case he wants to use my color corrections in his project blu V2, because if he does, the quality of those will be so much better that releasing mine would probably be a waste of time. :)

And yeah I'll reupload that clip later, without g-force's script.

What g-force's script does is that it analyzes the movement in the picture, stabilizes the motion and flickering, and reduces some of the worst dust, scratches and grain. Anti-aliasing is added to reduce the jaggedness of edges. The result comes out with a slightly processed look, but with much reduced dust, scratches and jagged edges.

I'm using a slightly different anti-aliasing plugin than g-force did though, and I also set it's threshold a bit lower so it would still keep a bit of sharpness.

Here are some samples. In this first shot, compare the lines on the wall and wall panels.

In the second shot, compare the edges of the lights on top of the picture. You can also see a bit of the overall difference, though note that it looks much better in motion.

In the third shot, look at Obi-Wan's clothes, the helmet hanging behind him and the right side of the picture, and see how much g-force's script reduces the dust spots.

Thanks Frank! Well of course it's not as sharp as the raw GOUT since I added g-force's script, but I did mod it a bit to keep a some sharpness. I added his script simply to try it out, and if you guys want the same clip but without anti-aliasing and motion stabilization I can reupload it.

pittrek said:

Luke's lightsabre is blue - that must be an error,or ? Everybody knows that his lightsaber should be green or white, or white with bright cyan border, or bright white with huge cyan border or ... :-)

:)

Asaki said:

You_Too said:

Now if there was only a way to completely remove smearing!

That's what I hate about projects like this: the screen caps always look so amazing, but then I remember that seeing it in motion is where the problem lies =/

Yeah unfortunately there's nothing I can do about it. :(

And here comes another sample clip from SW: http://www.multiupload.com/J9TB5L2E54

For this clip I've used the latest settings + modded g-force script.

ADigitalMan said:

Are the deleted scenes (both prequel and OT) presented in 1080p or something else?  I'm planning to re-do my edits in HD if the source material is up-to-snuff.

At least some of the OT deleted scenes are in 1080p but some are upscaled from DVD resolution. Check my posts in this thread.

I'm sorry I forgot to tell you where to find it! It's on rutracker. You guys can PM me and I'll give you the link.

It seems there is an HDTV broadcast. It seems a bit compressed and is in 1080i but it also looks less cropped on the top and bottom than the blu-ray. Looking more closely it looks slightly horizontally pixelated too. But it might be the best pre-BD version there is.

Here's the difference: