alexp120

Thanks to RU08’s link to this thread, I was able to DL your scans of the trailers. My thanks to you for your time and effort in producing them. This slightly grainy quality will be my preferred viewing version.

I was able to sync schorman13’s work on the Theatrical DTS English audio of the trailers to your scans of the trailers. Now I can crack my home theater and watch these, right.

I would love to take a crack at it. Read the PM when you have a moment.

Just to give you a heads up:
I just uploaded a GOUT-sync’d version of this recording into the website of the human organ.

To address the missing 6 seconds of audio from the Wampa sequence…

morgands1 said:
…the audio of the Wampa cave fight - prior to Luke using the force to retrieve his light saber - is about five-and-three-quarters seconds shorter in 70mm than the 1985 and 1993 transfers,

morgands1 said:

Here is an MP3 comparison of the Wampa scene.

http://www.wideanglecloseup.com/Wampa_comparison.mp3

It begins with the scene from the 70mm in-theatre recording, followed by the 1985 BetaHifi tape. Then I put the two in sync - 70mm in right channel, 85 tape in left - which results in a nearly six-second gap.

David

…I just put silence over it.

I do realize that there has been speculation over the missing audio of the said sequence. Perhaps the cause of the speculation was the fact that the edit didn’t come with an anomaly, like a “pop” sound, as you would hear it on an optical track from a 35mm print. But, because this audio is from magnetic tracks of a 70mm print, and since no one from this thread…
http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/70-mm-print-of-the-Empire-Strikes-Back-Differences/id/2321/page/1
… can recall any footage missing from this sequence, I’m going to go with TServo2049’s theory

TServo2049 said:

If some accident occurred and that section got boogered up, the projectionist might have had to cut it out just so they could continue running the print. 70mm was expensive, so it was probably a lot harder to get a replacement print, especially on short notice.

In other words: the film broke during a previous screening of this print and the projectionist was able to rejoin the broken ends together, even the magnetic tracks, so, that the audience didn’t hear the “pop” in the film splice.

As for the alternate edit of the Rebel Fleet sequence where these 3 GOUT SFX shots …



…didn’t exist at the time of the screening, I left those shots silent, too.

So, for the moment, this recording is the closet we’ll ever get to the first-released cut of ESB.

My thanks go to OT member morgands1 for capturing the audio and for making it available to us.

EDIT: I had a link of a video I’ve made of the said alternate ending with the In-Theater recording unedited, but I 've later found out that there are several videos of this scene out there on YouTube.

poita said:

Also if anyone has the DTS discs, drop me a line.

If I can ask you to be more specific. Do you need the actual discs or do you need the audio from the discs.

The ISO disc image of the Cinema DTS-CD ROMs from all the SW films, SE’97 and the prequels, can be found on the usenet circuit. I am sure there are people here that have the ISO disc image files and can extract the .AUD files from the discs to open the 6 channel audio files for sync’ing.

Last June of this year, this member announced a TPM reconstruction,

http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-Phantom-Menace-HD-Theatrical-Reconstruction-First-very-rough-draft-uploaded/id/55461/page/3

however, no updates from him as of that said month.

KK650’s ESB Semi-Specialised Edition does include the theatrical Emperor courtesy of Adywan. See description:
http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/kk650s-Star-Wars-Semi-Specialised-Edition-HD-The-Empire-Strikes-Back-Semi-Specialised-Edition-HD-Return-of-the-Jedi-Semi-Specialised-Edition-HD-Help-Needed-Please-/id/16001

kk650 presents: The Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialised Edition

Technical Specs:

Name: The Empire Strikes Back Semi-Specialised Edition

Size: 15.4 GB

Video: 1920x824 H264 23.976

Audio Track: Uncompressed PCM track based of Belbucus’s 1993 PCM audio mix

Subtitle Track 1: English Subtitles

Subtitle Track 2: Spanish Subtitles

Like many, I was unhappy with a lot the changes that were made for the Special Editions and most recently the blu-rays.

Harmy’s Despecialised Editions are great for those that want to see the films exactly as they were when they were originally released theatrically, but some of the changes (especially the updating of special effects) actually make the films better IMHO, so I decided to make ‘Semi-Specialised’ editions of these films to remove what I considered the bad changes while keeping all the good changes/additions.

After working on and off on these three films for almost two years, the Star Wars Semi-Specialised original trilogy is finally finished.

I hope that you enjoy these releases as much as I enjoyed making them. Do please let me know whether you like this release and if not, feel free to say why. If you run into any problems, also let me know and i’ll see what I can do.

Below is a brief summary of the changes made to this film:

The Empire Strikes Back:

Audio changes:

The emperor’s original dialogue from the theatrical release has been restored

The original voice of Boba Fett from the theatrical release has been restored

Luke’s line ‘you’re lucky you don’t taste so good’ after R2D2 gets spat out has been restored

Darth Vader’s line ‘Bring me my shuttle’ has been restored

New lossless pcm audio track created to fit this semi-specialised edition, based off Belbucus’s excellent 1993 Empire Strikes Back PCM audio mix

Video Changes:

Regraded to remove blue tint running throughout the whole film that was introduced for the first time in the special edition DVD and was carried over to the blu-ray

The original emperor from the theatrical release has been returned (my thanks goes to Adywan for the original emperor footage taken from his Empire Strikes Back colour corrected ‘purist’ edition)

The digitally added sparks for the blu-ray in the scene where chewie is trying to get c3po from the dwarves have been removed

All extra shots of Darth Vader going back to the Executor and the arrival on the star destroyer that were not in the theatrical release have been removed so they do not interupt the escape of the millenium falcon

Lightsabers made more consistant so they are not constantly changing colour, Vader’s lightsaber is now red all the time rather than turning pink.

The latest, v2.6 in 22GB, is on the 'spleen.

Just to give you a heads up: I just uploaded a GOUT-sync’d version of this recording to that website of the organ.

There are some silent patches in this version I’ve made and they exist for the following reasons:

• The tape began recording at 30 seconds into the film
• As the film was running, the tape had to be turned over, so, at the 01:00:53 mark, silence comes-up. This lasts for 16 seconds.
• The release print that ran the film at that screening had missing frames, so I left silent patches in those areas. They occurred at…
  • The head-end of the first shot of Reel 3 (where Luke, Ben and the droids are at the sandcrawler’s torched remains): the start of the trumpet solo from the music is missing. Scofield A (00:38:24), GOUT (00:38:44)
  • The head-end of the first shot of Reel 6: The announcement’s line,”… to your stations” is heard instead of “all pilots to your stations.” Scofield B (00:17:49), GOUT (01:40:08)

I purposely didn’t patch-up those silent areas. I know that members, here, will be studying the sound-mix of this version and I didn’t want to distort the content of this recording by using sound from other home video editions or even use bits from the recording to cover the silent patches up.

Besides, I’d be a real rat if I took away the pleasure of having y’all work on replacing the missing audio.

Just so that you won’t be twiddling your thumbs in-between silent breaks, I’ve made a no-frills .srt file that displays captions and a countdown clock

If there is no sound and no message, then the sound will return in no more than two seconds. This would be for the frames missing from the release print and other audible interruptions from the recording that I left in.

In all, there are 4 silent patches in my audio file.

The challenge was in the sync’ing. The recording on the 2 audio files had different speeds changing every 1 to 3 minutes. In other words: if I sync’d a part of the Scofield file to the GOUT, it would stay in sync for about 1 to 3 minutes, then the file would drift out of sync—sometimes the audio would be faster in duration or slower. In the end, I had to create multiple copies of the same audio file with different durations for each file, all in the same pitch as the original file. I had to select one Scofield audio file, sync it to the GOUT, find the point in the audio where it drifts out of sync and trim it, select another Scofield file of a different duration, sync’d that to another part of the GOUT, find the point of drifting and trim it, join that with the other portion of the file with the different duration, select another Scofield file, and so on. The tedious part is searching for the right duration of the file to fit the pieces of the GOUT.

Other than up-converting the 44.1k sampling rate on the original recording to a sampling rate of 48K (for adding this to a Blu Ray), and the said time-stretching/shrinking of that same audio file, no EQing has been applied to my audio file.

Another suggestion:

Make a collection of audio files featuring the extracted Leia Hologram speech that contains parts of the speech that are clean and parts where there is still music leakage. These groups of audio files would be made up from several music mixes from either the CD or film, whether it be just the left channel, just the right channel, the sum of the left and the right, just the rear channel, the sum of the left, right, and rear, etc. You are basically throwing every music mix in any combination and seeing how much clean parts you can get.

Hopefully each extracted audio file will have clean parts of the dialog but not in the same places. Go to each audio file, select the clean parts, put them all in a separate blank audio file and edit them together into one clean audio file.

If after you do all that and you still have portions of the speech with music leakage, then listen to each portion and see what music instrument(s) is heard predominantly. Make up a music mix where that instrument is heard at that high level or try EQing.

@NeverarGreat:

In case you are still in search for a better quality of the Leia hologram dialogue, have you tried to use the one from “The Story of Star Wars” LP. The sound on the LP is mixed directly to 2 channel, no matrix-surround encoding, and you can try using the 2 channel music mix of the variety of LP releases. I would start with the music LP presentation that came out on CD from the Polydor label and work your way up.

EDIT: A correction:
The music over the Leia hologram at the Lars garage was available commercially in 1977, however, the music over the Leia hologram at Obi-Wan’s home would begin to be available in 1997 by RCA Victor and later Sony.

This is the media player I used, KDLinks HD720

In addition to playing MKV files with DTS tracks, it will play Blu Ray ISO disc image files—2D and 3D—complete with menus. It will play 1080p 3D MKV, also known as MVC, but since these files don’t have a flag to tell the player to switch to 3D, you would have to manually set the player by selecting to Top/Bottom option in the 3D menu.

I’ve not used the subtitle function, but one owner of the project posted this on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/KDLINKS-HD720-Extreme-Internal-Gigabit/product-reviews/B00CHDSPSM?pageNumber=5
“The player also has a great subtitle feature. If the subs are either a separate .srt file, or if they are embedded meta data in an mkv file we can adjust the position, font size and color of the subtitles. My eyes are bad, so I’m delighted to have large yellow subtitles for the Asian films and anime that I enjoy.”

I’ve used this unit for three years, now. The only thing is that when you turn it off, press and hold the on/off button and wait for the light on the button to change from blue to red. If you pull the plug out when the unit is on, you’ll risk shorting the unit. Although the LED lights will turn on and the on/off button will light blue, the machine will not operate. I found that out the hard way.

I don’t have an answer for the 4:2:2 output.

…otherwise it is a good unit…and, now, for $160

Edit:
For the Blu Ray ISO function, this can be useful for testing a Blu Ray ISO that you’ve created before burning.

If you don’t have a Blu Ray player, you can use your computer to play the Blu Ray ISO.

You would have to “mount” the ISO file, make that file into a virtual (disc) drive. If you have Windows 8 or higher, you can simply right-click on the mouse, and select “Mount.” Otherwise, you would have to download a free third-party software, like Virtual Clone Drive, and do the same thing. Either method you use, you can access the m2ts files—play, copy, etc. To un ”mount” the file, right-click the mouse and select, “Eject.”

If your computer has a HDMI output port, you can play the ISO through your computer and send the signal to your TV.

Here is the grindhouse release of ROTJ.

http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Harmys-RETURN-OF-THE-JEDI-Grindhouse-35mm-LPP/id/48258/page/1

I’m bumping this just to let you all know that this event is about a month and a half away.

Anyone want to take-one for the team and make an audio capture of the performance from, at least, any one of these concerts?

To those of you in the east coast of the USA who are interested, there is a “free” 35mm screening of the film at New York City’s School of the Visual Arts Theatre.
Time: Sat, September 16, 2017, 7:30 PM – 11:30 PM EDT

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/titanic-a-free-35mm-20th-anniversary-screening-and-qa-tickets-36566709011

As part of After School Special: The 2017 School of Visual Arts Alumni Film & Animation Festival, we are pleased to present a special free 20th anniversary screening of the Academy Award-winning blockbuster, Titanic (1997), followed by a Q&A with the film’s Oscar-winning sound mixer, Mark Ulano (1975 Film and Video). The movie will be screened on 35mm film.

Synopsis: A seventeen-year-old aristocrat falls in love with a kind but poor artist aboard the luxurious, ill-fated R.M.S. Titanic.

Titanic is rated PG-13, and some material may be inappropriate for children under the age of 13. Children under the age of 5 will not be admitted.

… And come early to enjoy virtual reality and music video experiences in the lobby.

Ticket Information

All After School Special festival screenings are free and open to the public. General Admission RSVPs via Eventbrite are appreciated, but not necessary, and do not guarantee admittance. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors will open approximately 30 minutes prior to each screening.

If you would like to attend this event, but require assistive devices and/or accommodations, please email svatheatre@sva.edu or call 212-592-2980 at least one week prior.

Concessions Information

A limited amount of free popcorn and water will be offered at all screenings. Otherwise, concessions are not available for purchase at SVA Theatre. Guests are welcome to bring food and drink. Glass bottles and alcohol are not permitted.

Please contact svatheatre@sva.edu with questions. Guests subject to change.

Edit:
From the look of it, the theatre doesn’t look bad

The G said:

Can an office store do it? Is it high quality? I don’t feel like buying a whole new printer for one specific thing.

Office store chains like Staples or Fed-Ex Office won’t do it because of copyright material, but some independent printing stores will, as long as you assure them that this is for your own personal use.

This Russian print of The Phantom Menace just came up on eBay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ULTRA-RARE-35mm-color-Star-Wars-1999-Sound-Feature-Film-Dolby-Digital-/332299195671?hash=item4d5e935517:g:CbMAAOSwRMtZY2x6

Perhaps there is hope in this other TPM Theatrical preservation in-process:
http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-Phantom-Menace-HD-Theatrical-Reconstruction-First-very-rough-draft-uploaded/id/55461

poita said:
I do a basic Primary grade using the wheels via a control surface, and check the scopes to see if I need to bring the black and white points to where they should be.

Can anyone explain that part?

Can I assume “the wheels” is a color reference?
If so, where would one find it?

Then, perhaps, you should have not mention it in the first place until you, at least, have details about your projects that you can share with us.

Last year, I’ve created a group of 5.1 DTS audio files containing the 1997 Cinema DTS theatrical sound mix of the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition that are edited to play in sync with this forum’s released GOUT versions (Harmy’s editions). All you would have to do is mux these audio files to the MKV videos. They are all available on the ‘spleen.

The material that I used came from the group of 5.1 DTS audio files (also available on the ‘spleen) that was prepared by our member, CapableMetal. CapableMetal extracted the PCM mono wave files from the CinemaDTS CD-ROMs and sync’d them to TB broadcasts of the Special Edition trilogy. I took CapableMetal’s sync’d DTS audio files and spliced them with the 5.1 DTS audio files of hairy_hen reconstruction of his 6-track, 70mm sound mixes for the GOUT versions to fill-in portions of the GOUT footage where the special edition audio would be inappropriate.

There were some attempts:

1. Our member, nightstalkerpoet, uploaded on the 'spleen a DTS file of the Cinema DTS '97 theatrical sound mix of ANH sync’d to the Blu Ray. But, at this time, there are no seeders.

2. There was this STAR WARS (AHN)- RESPECIALIZED EDITION '97 which is a presentation of ANH: Special Edition '97 that features, among the audio options, the 1997 theatrical sound mix from the CinemaDTS CD-ROMs

Good news about the acquisition of the ALIEN print.

If there was a film that I would like to see in a grindhouse-quality, it would be that film. Seeing all the print-marks and color deterioration mixed with the film’s production design—the unkept, dirty quality of the Nostromo–are a good fit.

Count me in.

alexp120 said:
If you look at williarob’s “Restoring Color to Red Faded Film” video

http://thestarwarstrilogy.com/starwars/post/2016/09/12/Restoring-Color-to-a-Faded-Eastman-Print-of-Star-Wars

…beginning at the 15:47 mark, he explains how you can build a model containing a wide variety of colors. You are grabbing sample frames of the shot that you are working on from both the reference video and the test video, and creating LUT’s of all the colors in that shot.

I noticed that the number of sample frames of the shot from both the reference video and the test video is 16. Why 16?

lansing said:

DrDre said:

lansing said:

DrDre said:

lansing said:

DrDre said:

It’s generally much faster to export a LUT for use in Davinci Resolve or Adobe After Effects, than to do it frame by frame in the tool. Shot-by-shot correction still takes a lot of time though, as each LUT is good for roughly 100 frames, and there are roughly 2,000 shots in a two hour film.

Thanks, I imported the generated LUT into Premiere and it applied instantly, with the cost of spike in RAM.

I’m testing it out on my dragon ball now, and I have a panning shot where there’re noticeable ringing artifacts along the lines. I have to turn smooth up to 0.9 in order to get it away. Is this normal? Can you take a look? I uploaded the reference and test image.

reference: http://i.imgur.com/id8AiRx.png
test: http://i.imgur.com/I54GI7O.png

Did you make sure the cropping is the same for the test and reference frames? If so, could you also share the raw test frame?

I tested on 3 other scenes, they all work fine even without cropping. I did try cropping this test image to match the reference, but it’s still the same problem with the white ringing between the character and the sky. I also tried sampling from the last frame of this same scene and it works fine again without the need to pump up the smoothing parameter.

reference: http://i.imgur.com/YOCkH0E.png
test: http://i.imgur.com/sRUrxNw.png

The fact that it works without cropping is fortunate, but the method is not developed specifically assuming the image content is exactly the same, except for the colors. It may work fine for some frames, but give artifacts for others.

The reason you get ringing is, because the ringing is already present in the test frame, a side effect of DNR:

The ringing has rougly the same color as the clouds next to it, both being light blue.

The clouds in the reference image are more white, than in the test frame, while the sky is a darker blue:

By color matching the color of the clouds, you automatically also give the ringing rougly the same color as the clouds, causing them to be more apparent against the darker blue background. Sadly there’s very little that can be done about this.

By increasing the smoothing parameter, you reduce the color gradients, as the algorithm tries to keep the gradients as close to the original gradients as possible, while also trying to find the best color match. This may reduce the ringing somewhat, but will generally also result in a poorer color match.

Thanks for the explanation, so I think the best approach for this is to find a frame in the scene that has the least amount of ringing + covers a wide variety of colors, build a matching model out of it and apply it to the entire scene and hope for the best.

If you look at williarob’s “Restoring Color to Red Faded Film” video

http://thestarwarstrilogy.com/starwars/post/2016/09/12/Restoring-Color-to-a-Faded-Eastman-Print-of-Star-Wars

…beginning at the 15:47 mark, he explains how you can do just that–build a model containing a wide variety of colors. You are grabbing sample frames of the shot that you are working on from both the reference video and the test video, and creating LUT’s of all the colors in that shot.

carrickcharlie said:

I’ve only got a TiVo box so havent a clue how to extract the recording from there

Could you make a capture of that program from your TiVo box?

You could use a HDMI splitter and a game capture device.