Interesting project. ...I might figure out how to crop this to remove the subtitles, and may get silly and see what upscaling can do, but it's cool to see a good capture like this. Whether or not the movie is great, it's nice to see the preservation of the original cut in good form. Thanks!
emanswfan said:
Jetrell Fo said:
With the DTS audio available for these theatrical releases it could prove to be quite a nice set of creations for the fans.
Yes, these will be released with 6.1 DTS-MA tracks like the blurays. I may age the audio a bit. I'll probably add some warping, old tube compression, slight clipping from time to time, and some EQ to make the audio match the theatrical sound of ANH. I'll also try to make the audio sound more on-set, as too many times voices sound dubbed.
Interesting concept for a project. I often thought the prequels lacked some visual character, probably due to II / III using the digital cams.
One thing, and it's just my 2 cents. I don't really know about messing with the audio to the extreme you're thinking.
Not sure I'm down with purposely making all of those changes. Perhaps the thought is less extreme that what you'll end up doing, but I just wanted to add my 2 cents here as "not hugely into all of those ideas on the audio"
One problem I have with many modern movies is the over use of the available dynamic range - dialog being barely audible, other effects nearly blowing your ears out. Not that it's really even a major issue with the prequels, but perhaps a small amount of dynamic range reduction in the form of light compression, topped with a light bit of EQ work wouldn't hurt.. certainly a lot of things to consider, but I'd rather not hear warping, lol ;) ... also, "old tube compression" can be interesting, who knows. I guess it's the "warping" bit that caught my attention, haha.
Carry on. Can't wait to see the results!
edit: and yes, some of the color changes are nice :) Hopefully the final bit seems more like a FILM than a cold digital capture. Interesting stuff, and I do dig the idea.
Harmy said:
Seriously? I say that v2.5 is finally rendered (it took two days during which I was virtually unable to use my computer for anything else) and you guys start nitpicking v2.1 now? No f*cking way :-D
LOL. ...seriously though, that is f*cking great news :)
Hopefully the audio work is also nearly ready. Can't believe the other wealth of good contributions here too, like all the subtitles. Too cool!
I think it'll be plenty awesome on a BD25 disc.. besides, the 50GB blanks are still kind of steep in price.
Looking forward to burning a few for some fine folks :)
..as for the audio, I'm cool with what I though was already decided by Hairy_Hen - DTS lossless with DD 5.1, as well as boatloads of others. Personally, I leave it all "as is" and don't bother taking extras out. Doesn't bug me to keep 'em.
On another topic - anyone have any luck authoring any tests with the "making of" clip? Just curious if there's been any progress on authoring, as that seemed like a pain last we were all talking about it.
Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:
stretch009 said:
There's only one problem with version 2.1 though. Unlike 2.0 there's only an AVCHD and not a higher bitrate version.
Still looks unbelievably awesome on my 58" plasma.
Yep, still looks great on anything I've seen it on.
As has been discussed a little bit before, the higher bitrate doesn't seem to have done a whole lot (for 2.0), but will improve some of the mild artifacting in places. The 2.0 MKV also has a boat-load more audio tracks, which adds some to the overall file size.
Overall, I believe Harmy was going for a good "in-between" bitrate - slightly higher than the current AVCHD (2.1), and a little less than 2.0, in order to accommodate for lossless audio, and the extras. Should be a great compromise :)
Minor side track I guess, but I don't think it's too derailed yet..
I'm still impressed by the SD sources, be they LD, LD-->GOUT DVD, and whether they are pieces that're rotoscoped, or entire scenes... The featurette/documentary Harmy did showed some amazing results of taking older (SD) footage, and cleaning it up quite well. Some of the "Project Blu" stuff is also nothing short of incredible.
Can't wait to see the 2.5 in all its glory, with whatever other minor tweaks have been done, as well as progress on the other two movies from the blu ray source. Will be exciting times ahead!!
The 2.0 MKV has a lot more audio tracks. I imagine one could remux a different audio track into 2.5 if they wished.
Also patiently waiting for the "3.0" action, though with getting menus involved, I only hope it's not something too tedious/messy to make happen. I think that once the final file is done, adding a quick menu, adding the slideshow(s), etc. it shouldn't be too hard to build, though blu ray authoring seems like a lot more of a PITA than DVD is/was.
Also very exited to see a "matching" set of updates for ESB/ROTJ some time after this gets the final touches. The Hoth test clip looked pretty good. Will comment over there at some point with my thoughts on that.
...not sure what # we're on now, but I'll go "one louder" than whatever the last # was for an audio featurette.
Very well done clip!!! Very, very cool to see some of the wipes showing several sources. I can't wait to show this to a friend who's recently been introduced to the "Despecialized" world :)
This is very professional, Harmy. The pacing on your commentary is also very well done, and nicely spaced out. Really enjoyed seeing this. Thank you!
Good question - probably so. It's probably on their threshold of "too grey" an area, and it'd probably be taken down pretty quickly.
Cannot wait to see the clip :)
Really loved the comparison galleries, so I think this will be nice to see in video form! Thanks for putting that together, and for letting us have a "sneak preview" of it!
Made a couple folks very happy by showing them 2.1 recently, and am still looking forward to a disc with menus etc. The comparison shots will be especially great I think, so more folks can appreciate seeing all the work that went into the changes. Still in awe of many of the parts, and all the tiniest details.
Iceempress66 said:
I'm so sorry to be a bug. I'm not a techie in any way, i don't understand half of what i'm reading but i am extremely passionate about these movies being their original. if i could find the old VHS tapes i'd settle for them! I don't understand how to download these movies, how to even tell which one is witch. if someone could just give me a link that i can burn with a macbook i would be so grateful. Please don't ban me, this is probably in the wrong place and everything but i'm desperate! desperate and confused i tell you! I'm like a poor little ewok over here who got taken into space and is like WTH? This is nothing like endor. HELP!
Step one - read page 1 of this thread. You might also benefit from reading the rules thread. One such rule is that direct links are not allowed.
True enough, they did a great job with what they had to work with.
Have a great memory of watching old VHS SW and commenting that "this was way ahead of its time"
chyron - understandable. I've certainly got bits of memory like that, where one thing or another seems different or odd to me.
Probably saw the 80's VHS copies so many times as a kid that it's the version I specifically remember the best. Getting the SE VHS set in '97/'98 was nifty, but all the changes were just odd (edit: by "odd" I mean fucked up beyond repair, esp. the ROTJ Jabba scene with a pathetic excuse for 'music,' the Ewok song being re-written terribly, Empire having a bunch of weird additional scenes, and "A New Hope" having tons of awkward changes...).
In many areas, however, they seem to have not screwed up the colors as badly as the later DVD set that I got ('06). Swore I'd never get another edition, until the originals were published on DVD, which I did finally buy when they came out. The crushed blacks, weird color choices were just absolutely horrible though. When I first played those SE discs, I thought my setup was somehow broken, that Macrovision had been accidentally triggered, or that my TV was dying. I tried again one other time to watch the '04 DVD set (silver box) that a girlfriend had, and it was also beyond hope to tweak the LCD being used at that time to make it look even halfway watchable.
edit: (in reply to yoda-sama) - I feel the same. There are bound to be tons of people now who have no idea what it was really like. .
The first movie laid the groundwork for a lot of things. Nobody had pulled off a movie like this at the time with anywhere near the level of effects. It was quite a feat for ALL involved to make something like this.
Call me old fashioned, but models really do make for a much more real experience than just about any CGI, even of the latest/greatest variety.
I think the tan looks about perfect. There will be differences in shots due to lighting, environment, etc. for sure.
Caution: Repeated viewing of SE can cause memory damage, false memories, and may turn you into a fan of Justin Bieber.
Well, seems like I haven't missed much here, other than some dirty socks and other debates which probably belong on other corners of the internets.
Sure, it's been argued to death that some of the changes might not affect the story too much, perhaps, and even that the movies are still generally "close enough" blah blah blah, but to say that it doesn't change the film is silly. To each their own. This is obviously not the place to have that debate.
The fact that in 2006, they could not have even done an SD transfer in proper "anamorphic" widescreen is a little sad. I wonder if they didn't just take some existing bootleg and make new menus.
Regarding menus, I might have a very tiny amount of time this week to attempt a test with Arcsoft, which is what came with my burner. Don't see any way to add options for audio track selection though - other software might have better options there.
The more I look at this, the more challenging it looks to create exactly what's envisioned.
Sweet. Nice to hear there's thought taking place concerning an eventual 3.0 some day :)
This looks promising - exactly what I was thinking was possible for authoring a menu, or set of menus (you mentioned a couple slideshows...) - - - http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1119634#post1119634
Seems like it is indeed possible to simply create a "fake" project, then throw in your rendered m2ts file(s), tweak a couple things, and it should work as expected.
Not sure if chapters would come across as functional, but it's worth a shot.(see: http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/afterdawn_blu-ray_encoding_tutorial_lesson_3-chapter_points_and_bitrate.cfm)
Subtitles may also need to be 'rendered' with something like this - http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/afterdawn_blu-ray_encoding_tutorial_lesson_8-convert_text_subtitles_to_images.cfm
I'd be willing to give this a try, making a 'fake' project, trying the 2.1 m2ts, adding a slideshow, but I don't know when I'll have time. Crazy busy month ahead.
Cheers to that. It's probably the best we're going to have for quite some time. Someday there'll probably be a "lost" reproduction in "extra HD+ gasm" format with "perfect everything." Until then, I think this is pretty much "it" when it comes to a "remix" of original-ness. Honestly, I wonder if they'll even bother with continuing on the 3D stuff, and then release that as yet another 4th or 5th gen "SE" of the movies.
Can't wait for a "2.0" of ESB / ROTJ after this gets finished up. Would just be flat out awesome.
As far as authoring goes, any thoughts on making it more something "simple" and easy, or "all out" on the structure? ...too bad the tools for this are still kind of a mess to deal with. Hopefully it can get sorted out soon and work can progress on these "finishing touches."
I wondered if my eyes were playing tricks, now that you mention it. Not too distracting, but it is weird. One thing right after that which caught my eye was the movement of the planet as the escape pod flies toward it - seems ever so slightly jerky, though that could be a consequence of framerate more than an actual flaw.
Cool - I thought there was some on that scene (originally), just wasn't sure. It only really got my attention with the isolated score. The other areas with a little bit are tastefully done, this one seemed like it might've had a tiny bit more, but it's not distracting.
Can't wait to make some blu ray discs :)
I always smile a bit when Mac users find this sort of thing out.. "what's the root account??" hahaha
analog! wait, I'm analog! This VHS stuff is entertaining.
On another note, I dig the title clip. Spiffy 3d movements.
Watched / skimmed the whole thing last night with soundtack audio channel. For some reason, my HTPC defaults to this track, while other players don't. No big deal, I just switch to the 'real' 1st one usually. Was kind of interesting to watch it this way, though I do admit doing 30-sec skips through some of it.
One question on the scene towards the end where they're getting ready to launch fighters (1:40:46). Is there "gate weave" there due to GOUT use for that brief segment, or was that added?
^ (edit: yoda-sama has some) sound advice. Avsforum.com, or another sub-forum here might be better suited to such questions.
I think we're all in agreement on 'best' no matter what ;)
Honestly though, the differences between the 2.0 MKV and AVCHD are very, very slight. If Harmy goes with a minimum bitrate that is about twice the AVCHD, and the max is 30Mbps, it's going to be very nice.
At a certain point, I think it's a matter of diminishing returns, especially since it's going to be at 720p. Even the official blu rays are 30Mbps max, and that's at 1080p, so I think we'll be looking at a very, very, very nice encode at what he's thinking (12-30Mbps).
File size difference of the final m2ts would maybe 1GB different, if that, when you're talking about the final encode - it's the 'max' bitrate we're looking at being different, which is not constantly used. If you average the 10Mbps difference across the whole 2hrs., I doubt it's ever peaking to 40Mbps (in 2.0) more often than about 15-20 min. through the whole movie. Even then, the final visual difference will be so minor that I doubt anyone would be able to tell, even on a 100" projector screen ;)
Also, the way this codec works is far more efficient than you might think. Even the "average" being considered is more than twice the average "HD" Netflix stream ;)
Harmy said:
Yeah, well, you can see some compression artifacts when you're looking for them but a lot of them are already in the source and the BD really won't be that different. I was actually thinking about lowering the bitrate of the BD encode a bit - not much, it would still be quite a bit higher than the AVCHD but enough to be able to put in more lossless audio tracks and not to have to compromise too much on the bitrate of the extras.
Currently the AVCHD is set to average bitrate of 6500 and max. of 15000 and the settings I used for the v2.0 MKV (and I was going to use for the BD) were avg.15000 and max. 40000, and considering how little difference there is between the v2.0 AVCHD and MKV, I guess going with something like 12000 average and 30000 max could make the encode smaller with very little loss of quality.
Being that we're talking 720p, I don't know if much higher bitrate would benefit the final output much. 30Mbps is about what the source blu ray is encoded at, for reference ;)
edit: ...and that is for 1080p... 30Mbps (max.) should be excellent, and have no issue.
Probably wants the 'official' codec, generally available on blu ray software like arcsoft, powerdvd etc..
Some good info here: http://www.makemkv.com/dtshd/
"The dtsdecoderdll.dll is part of Arcsoft TMT player software. So, if you are using Windows and have TMT installed, you already have the DLL - just set its path in MakeMKV preferences. If you don't have TMT installed, you can always download a free trial from Arcsoft website. Once you install the program, the DLL will be in program directory. You don't have to even run the program once. You may as well copy the DLL from TMT directory and uninstall TMT completely. If you use Mac or Linux, you may install TMT on a separate windows machine, in bootcamp or inside virtual machine, and copy the DLL from there.
If you don't have access to Windows machine, several internet sites offer this DLL as a free download. Just search for "dtsdecoderdll.dll" and you'll certainly find one. As mentioned before, MakeMKV will safely refuse to load any modified version of dtsdecoderdll.dll ."
edit: that's cool you have full usb 3 capability :) should be pretty fast to use that drive, almost as if it were another SATA drive.