danny_boy

Lol---just imagine the likes of Elisium,Pacific Rim and Transformers being released on VHS.

So many of these movies are marketed on just how good looking they are(both for Cinema and Home video).

Take away the good looks courtesy of High Defintion 2K/4K digital Cinema or 2K Blu Ray  and there is not much left.

I can watch Citizen Kane or Das Boot or All Quiet On The Western Front or Star Wars on VHS or a Sony 4K projector..

It makes no difference what the format is.

They are great films.

Simple solution.

Watch it lo-fi(VHS,Beta,V2000, laserdisc)!

It forces you to focus on the characters and the storytelling and nothing-else.

Effects and sets are obscured by the relatively low quality picture that you have no choice but  to follow the story.

Maybe Star Wars fans have been too obsessed with Pixels and picture quality in the last 17 years(at least since the advent of DVD-1997) that it forbids them from just enjoying the film itself.

I know that the counter aurgument is that the picture quality is so bad(for NTSC VHS in particular) that it is too much of a distraction to enjoy the flick.

Or is that because we are so used to being spoiled in the high -definition era?

I am fortunate enough to  own a 4K Sony 1000 projector.

I can watch the likes of Oblivion,Elisium,Looper,Pacific Rim,Man Of Steel and Star Trek Into Darkness on this projector  upscaled to 4K, enjoying every last ounce of pixel information/detail that these flicks have to offer.

They may look fantastic but IMHO all the above are just average movies---great style....but little substance---I re-iterate---in my opinion!

So yeah.....I get more of a kick watching my beat up ol' 1982 1st release(library rental) VHS video tape of Star Wars than watching  any of the above movies in 4K.

skyjedi2005 said:

ray_afraid said:

AntcuFaalb said:

So does anyone think this won't happen?

I mean, we've been fucked-over so many times over the years that I still don't know what to expect from the Disney acquisition of LFL.

 I haven't seen anything good come from Disney's purchase yet, so I'm not sold on this being a sure thing. And even if it happens, I doubt it will be handled with as much care as Harmy's Despecialized Editions. Are we even sure an unaltered print still exists in the LFL archives?

 They have to at least still have separation masters.  IP's, In's etc.

You don't not have these for a multi million and possibly multi billion dollar franchise.  Especially when Lucas apparently has saved every thing.  The only thing totally lost and not  recoverable or at least not in very good condition is the original effects work.  They recomped the stuff that was lost and that is not original only the pieces of film are.

The live action stuff could be taken directly off the negative if its not totally gone by now, with no generation loss.  However having to resort to the IP or prints for the original effects would not exactly match up well with the negative. 

To be fair I am not even sure that the original effects(on the original CRI stock ) that formed part of the original negative(o-neg) would have stood up to the live footage original  negative even back in the day before it had faded.

Photochemically speaking, you will always incur generation loss(be it on 35mm or 70mm) by creating Interpositives and Internegatives to produce  release prints

The one bonus of this generatation loss is that the qualatitive differences between original live footage( O-neg) and effects shots printed on dupe film stock are/were  obscured or reduced which makes/made  for a more seamless presentation.

But just imagine if you had had a 4K scanner(or even 2K)  back in April/May 1977!!!....... and you had scanned the then "new" Star Wars O-neg and projected it at 4K resolution the differences in quality between live footage and effects shots in terms of grain density would have been jarring.

*Delete *

 

Fang Zei said:

danny_boy said:

 

I actually have the Sony vw1000es 4K home cinema projector.

The Star War's blu's(both prequel and original) look absolutely phenomenal on it.

But.....

Due to the increased resolution offered by the projector....(all be it upscaled) the limitations of the analogue techniques used in making the OUT are far more pronounced.

In particular , scenes and shots which where optically composited exhibit noticibly softer looking images than 1st generation material.

4K(and to a lesser extent 2K) is ruthless in exposing these discrepencies.

By  their nature large portions of the original films featured such material.

A 4K master and a  4K Digital Cinema Package(DCP) may be too "harsh" on the OUT .

One of the reasons why Lucas opted for a 2K master.

And Lucas is not the only one.

Bob Gale said that Back To The Future(another film featuring optical compositing) was mastered from a 1st generation Interpositive for the Blu Ray release in 2010.

The original Superman films have also been scanned at 2K resolution from 1st generation interpositives.

Not because studios are trying to save a few bucks....but because 2k is good enough and scientific studies have confirmed this.

Blade Runner gets  alot of hype for having been restored in 4K  and is wrongly compared(by Zombie) to Star Wars.

But  Blade Runner's release package was downrezzed to 2K for distribution for the 25th anniversary in 2007.

It was never projected in native 4K

(i.e it was a 4K master downrezzed to a 2K DCP and then upscaled on a 1st Generation Sony 4K projector----which few cinemas had back in 2007)

It is also worth noting that the distinction between 2K digital cinema projection and Blu ray is not that great.

2K projection is 1080 vertical X 2048 horizontal

Blu ray is 1080 vertical X 1920 horizontal

A miniscule 6 % difference.

Th only real differences are not in resolution......but in compression.

The average DCP is estimated to be 250gb....blu ray maxes out at a compressed 50gb

2K projection also has slightly higher colour bit depths.

Just to make things more convoluted....an uncompressed 2K file maybe better looking than a compressed 4k file.

So resolution is not the only factor in delivering a good all round product.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I remember you bringing up the Blade Runner thing before. Are you sure there was no true 4K projection of The Final Cut? I saw it opening night at the Ziegfeld and it looked pretty impressive up on that bigass screen. I just assumed it was true 4K. Are you sure you're not jumping to conclusions based on that recent article at AVS Forum about how After Earth was mastered at 4K but only shown at 2K due to the lack of "true" 4K capabilities in many theaters???

ETA:

That's a good point about 2K versus 1080p. Actual 2K cinema projection can look phenomenal when projected on to a 30-40' screen. The independent movie theater only three blocks from where I live just upgraded to a Christie 2K projector. Star Trek Into Darkness was the first movie they showed on it and it looked way better than a blu-ray could ever hope to look. Yes, the pixel count isn't that different, but you're talking about the DCI color space vs rec. 709, 4:4:4 color sampling instead of 4:2:0, and intraframe compression instead of interframe compression. You're essentially seeing 24 high-quality jpegs per second.

Hi Fang fZei

BladeRunner was never projected at native 4K in 2007.

It was just projected through a 4K projector from a 2K hard drive(in some theaters).

And it was projected at 2K in all the other cinemas that were equiped with digital 2k projectors at the time.

Dave Mullen(Cinematographer ASE):

Posted 12 November 2007 - 08:36 AM

The DCI cinema master is 2K(of Blade Runner) even though the restoration is 4K, that's the reason.

 There really aren't many DCI servers in digital theaters that can handle 4K anyway -- most 4K demos bring in their own computers and whatnot to show the material.

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=26843

 

We are very excited to present the final cut of "Blade Runner" in a 2k Digital presentation.

Widescreen Weekend 2008

Thomas Hauerslev
Film Programmer
NMM
Bradford
England

 

Saturday, June 14th(2008) was a day to remember here in Los Angeles – it was the day of the perfect Blade Runner experience. The one-time-only charity screening took place on the Warner Brothers backlot (where the film was made) and director Ridley Scott, co-screenwriter Hampton Fancher and a host of others were on hand afterwards to take questions from the audience.

2K DLP image was nothing less than perfect; it was as if someone had plugged the film directly into our brains and I think all in attendance would agree that we shared the rare pleasure of experiencing – for the first time – every last drop of Blade Runner.

http://darthmojo.wordpress.com/2008/06/18/scott-on-blade-runner/

page updated: 11/13/07

 

The studio has just informed us that the limited theatrical release of Blade Runner: The Final Cut is expanding to select markets around the country, and some of the screenings are expected to be in 2K resolution digital projection where available. Here's a list of dates and locations (look for more updates on the film's official website):

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/site_archive/mytwocentsa145.html

You said you saw Blade Runner at the Ziegfeld:

In 2007 it was equiped with this:

NEC's STARUS NC2500S Projectors Installed in Historic and Nationally Renowned Fox Theatre in Atlanta and Ziegfeld Theatre in Manhattan

 

NEC's STARUS NC2500S is the world's brightest DLP Cinema projector for large-sized screens 49 feet wide or larger. Delivering 2K resolution and high contrast ratios (2000:1), the STARUS NC2500S digital cinema projector is easy to operate and requires minimal maintenance. It can easily achieve the industry required standard of 14 foot lamberts on the largest cinema screens casting a remarkable digital image and delivering amplified brightness, sharper graphics and eye-catching color.

http://finance.paidcontent.org/paidcontent/news/read?GUID=162781

adywan said:

danny_boy said:

 

I actually have the Sony vw1000es 4K home cinema projector.

The Star War's blu's(both prequel and original) look absolutely phenomenal on it.

But.....

Due to the increased resolution offered by the projector....(all be it upscaled) the limitations of the analogue techniques used in making the OUT are far more pronounced.

In particular , scenes and shots which where optically composited exhibit noticibly softer looking images than 1st generation material.

4K(and to a lesser extent 2K) is ruthless in exposing these discrepencies.

By  their nature large portions of the original films featured such material.

A 4K master and a  4K Digital Cinema Package(DCP) may be too "harsh" on the OUT .

One of the reasons why Lucas opted for a 2K master.

Can't disagree with you more on this. They look terrible projected at 4k. TPM is actually worse than any of the OT, but AOTC & ROTS do look good. The problem you are seeing has nothing to do with the techniques used at the time of filming, but the way the transfer was mastered. The worse shots are the ones that weren't recomposited. Instead they just DVNR'd these shots to death. You can even see that they did this to some elements that they did recomposite. Plus, the scanning done in the 90's for these elements produced a lot softer results than a scan done today and, with the special edition, we're pretty much stuck with that. That's you problem right there as to why they look so soft. Add Lowry's so called clean up into the process and this is what you get.

Now, the person who invited me to the 4k viewing , also had something that came as a little surprise. He had a 4k scan of a 70mm reel from ESB (which is why he invited me really it turns out). It was unfaded, which came as a bit of a surprise. Now we compared this to the blu-ray and the 4k scan looked so much better, even if it was dirtier. Now this shouldn't have been the case, right? we did some side by side comparisons with some screenshots and there are effects shots that are smeared to hell on the blu-rays and have some very bad artefacts caused by this. I just wish that he had more than one reel so i could have done some more comparisons (and that he would have given me a copy of the scan). He also had a full scan of a tecnicolor ANH, which we only had time to watch bits. That looked amazing but it was noticeable which shots George deliberately downgraded.

So, redo all the compositing using todays tech and don't scrub the hell out of the elements and you will see a hell of a lot of difference.

Why did George only scan the OT in 2k? Because of the 2 PT films being shot in 1080p? Does he really want his older films looking better than he new ones with the tech that he was pushing so hard for? Probably not

But the job i can't see how anyone can say they look amazing, because they don't, especially when projected @4k.

Those films could look hell of a lot better than they do now if only someone who gives more of a crap about the quality than just getting the job done and maximize the profit

What was the projection method of this 4K scan of a 70mm reel?

Was it from a hard drive plugged into a commercial 4K cinema projector?

Or a High def disc which featured the 4K master of a 70mm reel down rezzed to 1080p?.....and then projected(and upscaled again  through the Sony 4K 1000es?)

ON Edit:

The reason I ask is because playback at native 4K is not possible at the moment in the comfort of one's own home(Only upscaled 1080p through a 4K projector or TV is possible)

Both RED and Sony are working on releasing 1st generation 4K playback devices this fall.

Also you said your friend had a 4K scan of a 70mm print.

This makes no sense.

Conventional 4K scanners can only handle 35mm film.....that is what they are designed for.

The larger size(film gauge) of 70mm would neccesitate having to use a different type of scanner.

But scanners used for 70mm apart form being very expensive............ scan to 8K and that is really only for 70mm negative.......not a 3rd/4th generation cinema release  print which would be well below 8K in terms of resolution and not even 4K......especially as the ESB 70mm reel you are refering to was only a blow up from a 35mm negative in the 1st place(and hence would suffer from optical degradation )

Here is one of the few scanners that can scan both 35mm and 70mm film stock.

The Millennium ‘data-cine’ is the only film scanner capable of real time SD and HD film transfers as well as 2K at 15fps and 4K at 5fps from all the major film gauges including 8mm/S8mm/MAX8mm, 16mm/S16mm, 35mm/S35mm and 65/70mm.

http://www.cintel.co.uk/home.php?action=news_display&id=124

Even if that 4k scan was possible......you would still have the issue of playback which would only be possible at 1080p( all be it upscaled at best).

So i doubt the validity of you or your friend's claims.

And the Star wars blu rays ...when upscaled from 1080p to 4K do look amazing.

Some screen shots from a professional review web site of the Sony 4K:

http://www.projectorreviews.com/outstanding-product/outstanding-projector-2012.php

I actually have the Sony vw1000es 4K home cinema projector.

The Star War's blu's(both prequel and original) look absolutely phenomenal on it.

But.....

Due to the increased resolution offered by the projector....(all be it upscaled) the limitations of the analogue techniques used in making the OUT are far more pronounced.

In particular , scenes and shots which where optically composited exhibit noticibly softer looking images than 1st generation material.

4K(and to a lesser extent 2K) is ruthless in exposing these discrepencies.

By  their nature large portions of the original films featured such material.

A 4K master and a  4K Digital Cinema Package(DCP) may be too "harsh" on the OUT .

One of the reasons why Lucas opted for a 2K master.

And Lucas is not the only one.

Bob Gale said that Back To The Future(another film featuring optical compositing) was mastered from a 1st generation Interpositive for the Blu Ray release in 2010.

The original Superman films have also been scanned at 2K resolution from 1st generation interpositives.

Not because studios are trying to save a few bucks....but because 2k is good enough and scientific studies have confirmed this.

Blade Runner gets  alot of hype for having been restored in 4K  and is wrongly compared(by Zombie) to Star Wars.

But  Blade Runner's release package was downrezzed to 2K for distribution for the 25th anniversary in 2007.

It was never projected in native 4K

(i.e it was a 4K master downrezzed to a 2K DCP and then upscaled on a 1st Generation Sony 4K projector----which few cinemas had back in 2007)

It is also worth noting that the distinction between 2K digital cinema projection and Blu ray is not that great.

2K projection is 1080 vertical X 2048 horizontal

Blu ray is 1080 vertical X 1920 horizontal

A miniscule 6 % difference.

Th only real differences are not in resolution......but in compression.

The average DCP is estimated to be 250gb....blu ray maxes out at a compressed 50gb

2K projection also has slightly higher colour bit depths.

Just to make things more convoluted....an uncompressed 2K file maybe better looking than a compressed 4k file.

So resolution is not the only factor in delivering a good all round product.

Fang Zei said:

timdiggerm said:

Ryan McAvoy said:

The most mind-blowing release of an old film back into cinemas in recent years...???

Answer... 1985's 'Back To The Future' in stunning Digital 2D for it's 25th Anniversary. The remastered picture quality was so sharp, you almost needed 3D glasses just to make the image all blurry and dark, so that your view wasn't obscurred by tears of joy.

If you release SW in crystal clear Digital/70mm film 2D, on today's big-ass screens with a thundering soundtrack who needs Stereoscopy?

Digital, huh? I saw it on October 23rd (they gave me a free poster!) and it was almost certainly projected from 35mm - I think I remember the characteristic wiggle and shake.

But it was worth the money to see that movie on the big screen.

It could've still been (probably was) a digital projection. The wiggle and shake could've simply been from the film going through the camera "on the day," unless you definitively remember cigarrette burns and splices, of course.

I wasn't able to catch a screening of BTTF (did they do one here in the States?), but I remember hearing about it. A new 2K master was created for the blu-ray release and thus could be shown in theaters in an up-to-modern-standards digital form.

The 4K projection of the final cut of Blade Runner I saw on opening night at the Ziegfeld back in '07 gives pretty much anything else a run for its money, though.

The Blade Runner Digital Cinema Package(DCP) was only 2K.

That DCP was downrezzed from the original 4K master.

The 2K DCP was then projected through a 1st generation Sony 4K projector.

Back To The Future was culled from a 1st generation interpositive and scanned at 2k.

Heilemann said:

Thanks for the heads up. I've found those other shots about, but I'm specifically looking for the shot of Lucas as a tie-in to my The Editor post. For a guy who loves editing so much, it's surprising that there are no shots of him at a KEM or Moviola (or EditDroid for that matter).

There is video footage of him editing/analizing Empire on a KEM/moviola:

Goto  1:50:45 in the video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoQ1mOrV8Nc

@Mycasore

Yes I agree.

I always wondered where this information came from.

The only official confirmation came from the packaging back in 1984/85.

But I have never found any reference of Ben Burrt himself saying that he remixed the sound in the mid 80's.

In the DVD commentary for Ep IV Burtt refers to a 2 channel stereo mix.

Trooperman said:

This is why I believe the true version of a film SHOULD be the 4th generation theatrical print, because that is the version everybody saw and THAT is the format that everything, from the cinematography to the special effects work, was intended for. 

Plus, 4th generation negative although it may have the same resolution as a DVD or similar, looks nothing like a DVD blowup (looks much better, more contrasty, different grain structure). 

It is a disservice to old movies to display them from the O-neg where you can see wires on the ships, matte boxes, etc.  It's not just because they were "old" that you see these things- if the o-neg was the final viewing format, those directors back in the day would have found the effects just as off-putting as we do! 

I would be inclined to agree with you.

One of my prized possesions is a recording I made in 2007 of Superman The Movie straight from TV(ITV---UK channel) to standard def DVD.

The telecine that ITV(the rights have passed onto Channel 5 in the UK now) use is a 30 year old telecine.

Superman debuted on ITV way back in January 1983----it was a telecine of an already beat up 35mm theatrical print. I taped this January  1983 broadcast at the time to my V2000 video machine(since taped over).

The problem was that VHS/Betamax/V2000 recordings of these broadcasts involved the usual loss of quality (relative to the quality of the original TV broadcast).

Amazingly ITV continued to use this same Superman telecine throughout the 80's,90's and into early 2000's----as soon as I got my 1st DVD recorder in 2005 I made a promise that I would record  that Superman telecine the next time that ITV showed it(which turned out to be in 2007).

When I play this  DVD recording on my projector it immedietely reminds me of seeing the film in the cinema back in 1981---more so than the obviously superior(but digitally manipulated) 2011 blu ray.

The main drawback is that the telecine is 4:3 as opposed to widescreen.

Some where in their vault ITV have the telecine of Star Wars(which debuted in 1982 on UK TV)----it may even be a telecine of one of the rare  technicolor 35mm prints(like the one that surfaced in Baltimore 2 years back)----the colours of the ITV telecine are richer than the contemporary 1982 VHS/laserdiscs.

I would love to record that telecine to DVD/blu ray too! 

Too bad ol George wont let that happen.

timdiggerm said:

danny_boy said:

I actually have the priviledge of having watched them on a Sony 4K projector and it is brutal on optical composite effects shots/duplicate negative  material.This is not the fault of the projector---it is merely accentuating the limitations of the technology used during the making of these films.

Limitations that were obscured by the photochemical analogue dulpication processes of the late 70's("less is more") when the film was running in theaters(be it 35 or 70mm) and also by the low resolution displays when these same films hit VHS/Beta/V2000/laserdisc aswell as (8mm and 16mm home movies).

And that is why, despite what some on this forum hope, we'll never get the OT released in HD with the original compositing.

Personally I hope that it does see the light of day on blu ray---BUT---be prepared to tolerate the quality differentials between those non effects and special effects footage(despite Lucas's attempts to eradicate this descrepancy by using intentionally degraded non special effects shots).

I was watching Raiders Of The Lost Ark Blu Ray on the Sony 4K the other day. There are a few ugly transitions(fades and dissolves and opticals) where  you can clearly see the lower quality of the film material used for these scenes(e.g the maps showing Indy's plane travelling from Nepal to Egypt).

Watching Raiders in a theater in 1981 this degradation would have been "smoothed out "  by the fact you were watching a 4th generation copy(where the entire film was relatively "soft")+ you also have to take into account that audiences of the time were not sensitive to these anomalies(a 4th generation 35/70mm print was still superior to TV broadcasts/VHS/Betamax of the same era after all!)---I should know----I was one of them!.

TV's Frink said:

Jaitea said:

TV's Frink said:

danny_boy said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just saying.

Why leave so much space?

J

Exactly.

Sorry--fixed!

Fang Zei said:

The 35mm frame, if shot in cinemascope, is 1.175:1. The squeeze of the anamorphic lens is exactly 2x, so you get a 2.35:1 image.

As for the quotes, I can understand the confusion but what they mean is that it's the o-neg conformed to the special edition. When they were preparing the SE in '95/'96, they actually cut all of the changes directly into the o-neg, presumably (we would all hope) placing the original pieces into storage.

The Jim Ward quote was from an audio recording of a press conference I downloaded from TFN way the hell back in September of '04. I listened to it so many times (there's some great bits from Hamill and Kershner) that I've got a phonographic memory of what was said. Ward's exact words were:

"For this one (the dvd), we went back to the original negative. When we did the previous video transfers they were off IP, one generation away from the negative. Detail has never been seen like this before."

There are multiple sources that back this up. It would be great if you were right, but think about it:

GL considers the SE his definitive vision for the movie. Why would he use a second or third generation source as a basis for all copies (prints, telecines, etc)??

Thanks and very interesting.

My supposition is that the 1997 special edition negative has material that is  closer to the original negative(i.e the actual negative that was in the Panavison camera on set in 1976) than the final master negative(o-neg) that was used for theatrical distribution in 1977.

The reason being that the final negative from 1977 has/had huge portions of it's running length that were at least several generations(copies of copies)removed from the original negative (used in the cameras on set).

Think about  the entire final 20- 30 minutes(the death star attack)Nearly every shot such as this one below:

..... is a copy of a copy.....with all the intrinsic degradation that you get in a photochemichal dupllication process.

And that is just in the final(master negative).

As you make several more copiesfrom this final(master ) negative to get to the theatrical release print you lose even more quality.

Now we do know that Lucas(in order to create consistency in terms of quality) between effect shots such as the the one above and shots which featured no special effects(such as the one below---Dodonna and Leia reacting to the attack):

...intentionally degraded the quality of such "non-effects" shots by making duplicates/copies of them too......so when they were run side by side with effects shots in the finished film(the final negative) the discrepancy in resolution would not be so apparent.

It is not a case unique to Star Wars.

Superman The Movie,Close Encounters,Star Trek The Motion Picture,The Black Hole and Alien(the 5 contemporary big optical special effects rivals to Star Wars) incorporated this technique too.

Now these films have all had 2K or 4K scans of their "final negatives"(or 1st generation interpositives) for their respective transfers to Blu Ray(except Black Hole) and the jumps in quality between effects shots and non-effects shots are very apparent when you view them on a high quality display set up.

I actually have the priviledge of having watched them on a Sony 4K projector and it is brutal on optical composite effects shots/duplicate negative  material.This is not the fault of the projector---it is merely accentuating the limitations of the technology used during the making of these films.

Limitations that were obscured by the photochemical analogue duplication processes of the late 70's("less is more") when the film was running in theaters(be it 35 or 70mm) and also by the low resolution displays when these same films hit VHS/Beta/V2000/laserdisc aswell as (8mm and 16mm home movies).

For the restoration in 1997 Lucas was able to pull out original camera negatives(that were never used in the final negative of 1977 ) and use those for the special edition....hence the reason why Jim Ward used that term "direct off the negative".

Hope that helps!

Will post more.

peter_pan said:

danny_boy said:

Baronlando said:

danny_boy said

 

My opinion is  that when the original negative was washed back in 1995 it was re-assembled without the insertion of any new material

I hope so, but is that based on any specific info?

 

Unfortunately only my very literal interpretation of this statement!

That meant dissecting the original Star Wars negative, washing it, and then reassembling it. "That made everybody suck in their breath, " Kennedy says, recalling the stressfull situation. "Thankfully, Robert Hart, the neg cutter on the second and third films, came in to put the negative back together

http://www.theasc.com/magazine/starwars/articles/sped/ssws/pg1.htm

There is no mention in the above paragraph of any insertions of new  negative(featuring CGI effects).

Also inserting new negative into the original negative would be counter productive----it would mean that you would have to run the entire original negative(with the new inserts)  through a pin registered mechanism in order to print off a new 1st generation interpositive......running the risk of doing even more damage to that original neg.(much like the situation with the Godfather)

Much easier to go back to the original negs(that were not part of the original negative---confusing ain't it!) and use those for your new(as it would have been in 1997) special edition negative....combining these new negs(featuring the CGI) with 3rd generation internegative material.

Sorry I know it is infuriatingly confusing.....when I get time I will do a pictorial representation which should help to better illustrate the points I am trying to make.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wasn't the O-neg washed and cleaned, scanned, CGI special edition adjustments made plus other elements that were also scanned, then this master digital file is then printed out to a new master negative?

This negative was then rescanned at 1080p to save compression problems from using the 2K digital file.

This 1080p scan is then what Lowry worked on ahead of the ILM coloring.

Correct me if i am wrong please.

Also I have been reading these forums for many years but only just started to post and add my two pence worth.

To scan the entire 2hr  film back in 1997 would have been prohibitively expensive and logistically impossible given the relatively limited digital data storage capacities of the time.

Only the negatives that were to feature CGI additions were scanned.

And this is where the confusion can arise.

A lot of the negative that was used in the master negative for theatrical distribution back in 77'  was not original negative.

here is an example:

Now this is 1st generation negative that was in the camera on set.

But because it was designated  to have optical effects(Luke's saber)added to it  then it  could not be used in what would become the master negative to generate release prints.

Instead it  went through one of these(an optical printer):

 The other piece of negative film  that will comprise this effect shot is the lightsaber:

The optical printer photographs both of these 2 seperate negatives to generate an optical composite(or duplicate negative):

Now due to the erratic quality of both optical printing  and  film stock  this duplicate negative containing this lightsaber optical effect was grainy and not aswell defined as the original constituent negs.

But more importantly when such a duplicate neg was contiguouse to a 1st generation negative such as this(Han's reaction to Luke's training)

Then the difference in quality would be very prominent.

So Lucas and Co took 1st generation negatives such as the one above(Han's reaction) and reduced the quality by making a duplicate neg of it so as to make the quality more consistent.

It was duplicate negatives such as these that would comprise large parts of the so called o-neg in 1977.

To be continued:

Fang Zei said:

1828 x 1556 is the resolution at which the '04 scan was likely done. That's 2K for cinemascope, the format in which the OT (and, for what it's worth, TPM) was shot. Multiply 1828 by the 2x anamorphic squeeze of the lens and you've got 3656 x 1556, a 2.35:1 ratio. Or, if you'd like, simply cut the horizontal resolution in half and you've got 1828 x 778, also 2.35:1. Since the raw scan itself is only 1828 - less than even full 1920 HD res, nevermind 2048 - I guess some kind of magic is worked. Beats me.

Anyway, I had a couple paragraphs typed up about how the o-neg is probably still in its '97 conformation (despite how I'd love for danny_boy to be right), but this stupid ipad had to go and refresh the page after I opened up another tab to look up the exact numbers I just posted. Ugh, I gotta get a new laptop at some point. Anyway, to quickly summarize, Jim Ward said in '04 that they went back to the original negative for the dvd (the lowry master that was also used for the blu-ray). He said that the previous transfers were from IP and even specified that this meant "one generation off the negative." So, if the o-neg was still in its original 1977 conformation, it wouldn't have made much sense for them to scan it in and then meticulously "respecialize it." They might as well have just scanned the '97 IP if that had been the situation.

Hi Fang

If you could find the link where Ward says they used the o-neg for the scan that would be great.I have had a quick search myself but to avail so far.

This 2004 article that coincided with DVD release states explicitily that it was the special edition negative that was scanned(and not the 1977 o-neg)---therby implying that there is a physical distinction between the negatives of 1977 and 1997.

Interestingly, the negatives that were scanned were not those of the original releases but of the 1997 Special Edition reissues, because of their additional effects sequences (more of which are said to have been added in the DVD releases). Defects such as dirt and scratches from the original negative, then, had made their way through to the 1997 negative

Restoring the Star Wars Trilogy.

Article from: Videography | September 1, 2004 | Hurwitz, Matt

The above article also states that the scan was done at 1920 X 1080 resolution which obviously conforms to a 16:9 frame.....but this does not  correlate to the geometry of the  35mm anamorphic imaging area.

The anamorphic 35mm framing  of the special edition negative(or the 1977 negative) has a 12:9(commonly known as 4:3----yup...just like TV!) aspect ratio.

I'll do a quick pictorial representation:

Here is the original 1st generation anamorphic negative that was in the camera on the set.

It is converted into a 1st generation anamorphic interpositive(of very high quality)

This interpositive is then converted into a new internegative:

The above internegative is then converted into a theatrical interpositive to be distributed in cinemas.

Rough estimates say that an internegative can produce upto 500-1000 to maybe even 2000  prints before wearing out completely.

Now when the above 12:9 interpositive anamorphic frame goes through a projector equipped with the approprate lens----this 12:9 image is optically stretched to 21:9(cinemascope)

Baronlando said:

danny_boy said

 

My opinion is  that when the original negative was washed back in 1995 it was re-assembled without the insertion of any new material

I hope so, but is that based on any specific info?

Unfortunately only my very literal interpretation of this statement!

That meant dissecting the original Star Wars negative, washing it, and then reassembling it. "That made everybody suck in their breath, " Kennedy says, recalling the stressfull situation. "Thankfully, Robert Hart, the neg cutter on the second and third films, came in to put the negative back together

http://www.theasc.com/magazine/starwars/articles/sped/ssws/pg1.htm

There is no mention in the above paragraph of any insertions of new  negative(featuring CGI effects).

Also inserting new negative into the original negative would be counter productive----it would mean that you would have to run the entire original negative(with the new inserts)  through a pin registered mechanism in order to print off a new 1st generation interpositive......running the risk of doing even more damage to that original neg.(much like the situation with the Godfather)

Much easier to go back to the original negs(that were not part of the original negative---confusing ain't it!) and use those for your new(as it would have been in 1997) special edition negative....combining these new negs(featuring the CGI) with 3rd generation internegative material.

Sorry I know it is infuriatingly confusing.....when I get time I will do a pictorial representation which should help to better illustrate the points I am trying to make.

Jaitea said:

danny_boy said:

.........It was this special edition negative that was scanned completely in 2004 to create the high def masters for DVD and Blu Ray.

As far as I understand Lowry were handed the 2k files of the 97SE versions, which they were expected to clean up.

J

Yes that is correct.

Rick Dean of Lucasfilm/THX scanned the special edition negative at 1080 X 1920 resolution.

Seeing as that negative consisted of 3rd generation material----a 1080 X 1920 scan would capture all the information on that negative.

On edit:

Interestingly.....Star Wars's negative was shot in anamorphic.

The ratio  of a 35mm anamorphic frame is actually 4:3 or 12:9.

Seeing as 1920 X 1080 resolution corresponds to a 16:9 frame

then 12:9 would correspond  to 1440 X 1080

So an anamorphic frame scanned at 1920 X 1080 would leave unused 240 vertical pixels on either side of the 12(1440):9(1080) 35mm frame.

Once this is scanned into  the computer this 1080 X 1440 image is stretched(scaled) horizontally to 1080 X 2500 to achieve the original scope 21:9 dimension.

CGI work/digital clean up  is then done at this resolution.

skyjedi2005 said:

Never mind the status of a blu ray release of the oot, what is the current actual condition of the negative itself.  And how long before it is gone forever and all they have is the 2004 master stuck at regular HD 1080P resolution.

I mean supposedly the sep masters were incorrectly done so you cannot make a new negative from them, and falling back on the IP's as a source is possible for blu ray release, but not to restore the film for a true restoration they must return to the original camera negative.

A lot of the original negative of Star Wars was not technically "original negative" anyway!

Star War's 1977 edit  is saturated with duplicate negatives (wipes /dissolves/opticals)

In order to maintain a visual qualititive consistency  Lucas and co intentionally used some 2nd generation internegatives regarding some of the live actions shots(which featured no special effects) so as to make them seamless when they were adjacent to optical composite negative.

My opinion is  that when the original negative was washed back in 1995 it was re-assembled without the insertion of any new material.

This cleaned negative was then used to produce a 1st generation interpositive of high quality (which probably explains where they got that intro for the GOUT from)

This interpositive  was then converted into a new internegative(again of good quality---and capable of producing upto 1000-2000 theatrical prints) 

It was this internegative  that was then disassembled.

New CGI material(Jabba /Mos eisley/Death Star battle ect) was then scanned out to film(in negative form and presumably in anamorphic)to create "new negs"

These "new" negs were then attached to the relevant points/parts of this diassembled internegative which was subsequently reassembled.

This is the special edition negative.

It was this special edition negative that was scanned completely in 2004 to create the high def masters for DVD and Blu Ray.

The original negative has been left untouched(although cleaned up substantially)

@Gregatron

Agree 100% with everything you say.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

danny_boy said:

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

danny_boy said:

The highest resolution that the assessors could still discern in the sharpest part of the screen(not neccassirily it's center) in the most performing movie theater was about 875 Lines/PH

 

I could see that, for the "most performing movie theater".  I'm not interested in the quality of the "most performing movie theater".  That's irrelevant for high quality film restoration.  A proper restoration would try to achieve the quality of the highest quality projection, such as in a high end 70mm theater with a brand new print.  Do your studies indicate the resolution of high quality 70mm projections of brand new prints?

 

And 70mm contact printing will suffer the same degradation through an analogue duplication workflow as 35mm.

Point taken, although I still question the "most performing theater" source.  I saw SW in three theaters in 1977, with quality ranging from stunning to grungy.  And wouldn't I want to get a source from the "least performing" theater?  It would seem that a print from there would be less worn out.

I envy you for having been there at the beginning!

Were those all 35mm presentations that you saw ---or was the stunning one a 70mm projection?

I  first saw SW in 81'(back to back with ESB) and again in 83' (as part of a triple bill with ESB and ROTJ)---now I would be lying if I said I could remember what the quality of the picture was like on either occasion -----other than the image was  huge and spectacular!

Until we can get a roll out of an original 35mm,70mm and digital print---run them side by side and compare them all together---all we can do in the meantime is speculate.

AntcuFaalb said:

I'm probably speaking only for myself when I say that I don't like movies to look too realistic.

I prefer the appearance of a pristine (I hate dirt and scratches) 16mm print. The hazy glow, the softness, and the grain structure all help to provide an aesthetic I find pleasing.

Puggo GRANDE is too dirty for me (sorry Puggo!) to enjoy, but this sample frame from it demonstrates how I'd prefer to watch most movies.

Note: This isn't AR-corrected. Also, I uploaded it to imageshack.us so as to not kill Puggo's bandwidth.

Also, do realize that this isn't because of nostalgia. I'm 25, so I definitely wasn't around during the heyday of 16mm.

Interesting!

In 1999---as they were prepping the digital projection for the Phantom Menace---the technicians had to soften the image not only in order to make it more "film-like" but also  to make it easier for the audience to suspend their belief.

Here is the account of David Schnuell of THX(who was responsible for producing the 1993 Star Wars definitive collection Transfers to laserdisc)

Some years ago, Doug Trumbull decided not to shoot fiction in the very realistic-looking Showscan format. Does being in the room with the actor make it more believable, or does film grain and the 24-frame temporal sampling of film allow us to fill in the fine details in our mind? In other words, is it easier for us to believe what we see on the screen if we manufacture part of it in our minds?

http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/esearch/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000692250

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

danny_boy said:

The highest resolution that the assessors could still discern in the sharpest part of the screen(not neccassirily it's center) in the most performing movie theater was about 875 Lines/PH

 

I could see that, for the "most performing movie theater".  I'm not interested in the quality of the "most performing movie theater".  That's irrelevant for high quality film restoration.  A proper restoration would try to achieve the quality of the highest quality projection, such as in a high end 70mm theater with a brand new print.  Do your studies indicate the resolution of high quality 70mm projections of brand new prints?

No those studies do not take into account 70mm projection.

But star wars was not a 70mm production---it was merely blown up to 70mm from it's 35mm source.

And 70mm contact printing will suffer the same degradation through an analogue duplication workflow as 35mm.

According to this member of the Film Tech forum 70mm blow ups from the 1980's are not as good as 35mm prints made within the last 10 years(even if these same 70mm blow ups were better than their 1980's 35mm equivalents)

Brad Miller(film projectionist)

Still though I have to point out that since most 70mm prints were actually blowups, and of those we're talking mostly 80s, that is the basis of my post. With that being said, lets take a blowup from the 80s. Comparing that to a 35mm print of the same title (from the same printing), the 70mm blows it away. Its not even funny how much better the 70mm is. (If Joe was comparing it, he would probably use an analogy of a high bitrate blu-ray vs. a 3 generation "EP" VHS dub.)

BUT...compare that 70mm print from the 80s against a general release print made at a Technicolor lab (not the crappy Deluxe high speed prints from Canada) over the last 10 years and suddenly the 70mm print isn't so special due to technology advances in printing and filmstocks. I've seen regular release prints over the last decade that are superior visually to the 70mm blowups from the 80s. I can make that statement fairly because I have the capability of side-by-side comparisons today, whereas most of the people on the internet do that comparison based from their memory 20+ years ago, which is not fair nor accurate at all.

We also have to consider what happens when we take an 80s 70mm print and compare it to a recent 35mm re-print of the same title. Its sad but true, the 35mm reprint made within the last several years HAS A SHARPER IMAGE than the 70mm original print! This is no joke. Welcome to reality.

http://www.film-tech.com/ubb/f16/t000659.html

zombie84 said:

I agree: Blu-ray is often better than 35mm prints. I went to a screening of the Evangelion remake in the best theater in Toronto and they were projecting a blu-ray, and it looked better than most animated films I've seen on film.

But that is much different than a study saying the typical/average range of a projection is 500-800 lines. Lucasfilm is just quoting that study.

The typical resolution of a modern print is about on par with a 720p HD video, something around 700-1000 lines of resolution. That is as much as twice the resolution as what that study is reporting, and their figures are an average figure, the implication being that there are prints far lower in resolution than that. What the hell were they looking at? Part of the reason they used Bollywood prints, I must assume, is because of legality and affordability: Hollywood doesn't sell it's own prints, or easily loan them, and they are always way, way more expensive than something from most overseas countries. There is no Bollywood market in North America, so prints might be cheap and available. That is my take, since it seems unusual for a western produced study to use so many examples from the east.

I can tell you from first hand experience as a working professional in the camera department, in the biggest and most widely recognized camera organization on the planet, who conducts these sorts of tests himself, that that study makes no sense. The fact that it is mainly Bollywood prints probably has a lot to do with it.

But if someone said that your typical print of a Hollywood movies is about 800 lines of resolution, I would believe that. Some are more, some are less, but that is a realistic figure, something believable at least.

HOWEVER....

and this is a big however...

One must also compare against the actual resolution of HD video. If I transfer and upscale my VHS to blu-ray, that VHS transfer is technically 1920x1080 lines of resolution. But it's really not. When we measure film resolution--because it's not digital, it has no fixed pixel dimensions--we measure the resolving power of the lens, in other words how many lines you can visibly discern. On the negative, this is 4 or 5 thousand lines of resolving power, to go by the commonly quoted figure (again: depends on the specific example). On the release print it tends to be between 700 and 1000, give or take. But the "resolution" of HD--1920x1080--is not the actual resolving power. It's a measurement of the image dimensions, in pixels. So, 1080p images don't always have 1920x1080 lines of horizontal and verticle resolution, that's just the size of the image. I think people forget that.

I think it very important to clarify that neither of the 2  studies I linked to  analized "Bollywood" prints---they used film stock provided by Kodak(5274) which has excellent exposure ranges aswell as fine grain coupled with good blacks.

In other words they used the best(or amongst the best) that film has to offer.

But their conclusion was resounding:

In the current environment, a 2K digital projector will exhibit higher resolution than is currently delivered on release prints to the theatre, and will exhibit substantial image sharpness and clarity due to the better system MTF that preserves higher contrast in the mid frequencies. The images produced should be more striking than the competing (release) film images. Scenes will still exist where the digital structure of the system will be apparent in the image, and a comparative film clip will be smoother

http://www.etconsult.com/papers/Technical%20Issues%20in%20Cinema%20Resolution.pdf

Roger Deakins(who shot Skyfall using ARRI digital cameras----but used film for decades) has said that he will never go back to film.

Wheras digital images may contain artefacts/aliasing---film contains swirling grain---so says Deakins himself:

when I go to the cinema and I see the grain i dont like it! I have seen some  some tests for the IMAX of SkyFall on film projection and even when the focus chart came up it was kinda moving with the grain ----I dont like it ---it is too much for me now"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBvA1ChExAI

captainsolo said:

You know, I understand and agree with the numbers that are continually posted, with a standard print starting at 2-4K and then degrading form there but truth be told I have never seen a home disc or digital print look better than 35mm no matter the condition. I've seen the poorly kept only surviving MGM copy of For a Few Dollars More and that is stupendously towering over the DVD/BD. Even all-digital productions printed back to film look better than their all-digital counterparts. Sure you may be able to remove almost every imperfection for a BD master but these eyes it is not the same.

I guess my overall case in point would be my preferred version of Psycho. I've watched the film on everything from VHS to film easily over 50 times throughout my life, sometimes going scene or shot by shot. And now with the fantastically detailed BD....I still prefer the open matte 16mm reduction. Wow, despite the wear and tear talk about razor sharp detail! And on that point, perhaps the sharpest film I've ever seen is Touch of Evil, and the restored cut in 35mm is something to behold.

But I admit to being a crazy celluloid nut.

And the digital TPM being better? IIRC they had some huge issues with getting the digital systems to work properly in 1999 and even then the resolution was quite inferior.

You have to make a distinction between sharpness and resolution.

Erich Heynacher(from Zeiss) concluded that humans attribute more value to the contour defining details that constitute an image as opposed to the finer details that make up this same image----in other words higher contrast in an image can compensate for lack of resolution----something Technicolour prints were famouse for(such as the Star Wars one shown in baltimore)

Regarding 16mm film:

According to ARRI(german fim camera manufacturer) a 16mm camera negative has the capacity to store 2048( a little higher than the 1920 of HDTV/Blu Ray) pixels in the horizontal direction.

But once that 16mm negative is subjected to an anlogue duplication process to produce the positive print(such as your version of PSYCHO) it will lose a lot of this resolution.

Again it may just be that your 16 mm print of Psycho has rich contrast----but the Blu Ray will definately have more resolution.

AS for the digital version of TPM being better than the 35mm print----here was the conclusion of those who saw a split screen comparison back in 1999:

So how is the quality of the digital image? During a press conference held on June 17 at the AMC Burbank 14 multiplex, a short clip was shown in a split screen: Half the image was from a new, high-quality film print, and the other half was from the digital "print." Once the two images were manually synchronized, the difference was remarkably clear: The digital image was much sharper, with much better color fidelity than the film print. For example, the Jedi council room has large windows through which the sky is visible. In the digital image, the sky and clouds were clearly delineated, but they were blurred into a bluish blob on the film side of the screen. Rick McCallum, one of the producers of The Phantom Menace and a press-conference panelist, said the digital version is a much more accurate representation of what they shot than the film version.

http://www.ultimateavmag.com/content/electronic-cinema-debuts-beautiful-downtown-burbank