dblake83

johnlocke2342 said:

Well a higher bitrate doesn't necessarily mean a better quality. For example it looks like there is less grain in my version, but while comparing both clips, I just realized they cropped the picture. I am uploading a clip of the same segment to my mega account so you can look by yourself, but I think there is no point in keeping this as you and Harmy said. I just wanted to be helpful mostly for Empire and ROTJ as I knew of this German broadcast for ANH but not for the sequels.

Grain is inherent to the physical structure of the film itself.  Many directors selected the film stock they used according to how much grain they wanted in the result.

In the pre-digital age; Grain = Detail. No Grain= No Detail and low quality.

To remove grain from pre-digital age filmed movies destroys the intentions of the director and the production itself. It is supposed to be there.

Removing what is inherent the original physical Film medium via Digital Noise Reduction will always result in a loss of detail and depth, many times resulting closeups of faces looking waxy and fake. As once again they are removing what is supposted to be there just like the color of the sky in effect. Remember grain isn't noise it's part of the nitrate.

It is mind boggling that somehow at this point in time most people think grain is bad. When is reality in is the exact opposite. Not sure how that got started but it is very sad.

For those that are interested in the best looking most lifelike films on home hi-res possible here is good and quick info on what removing grain really does:

http://filmjunk.com/2010/07/12/blu-ray-myths-grain-is-a-flaw/

less quick but interesting

http://www.avsforum.com/t/825293/lots-of-blu-rays-grainy/90

As for me before I purchase any blu-ray I wait for reviews to see if grain structure was left intact. If I see on a pre-digital age film no grain is mentioned [sadly, usually in a positive manner by the reviewer] they will get none of my money.

P.S. I am not refering to the effects of using film in "bad shape" for those physical restoration is light years better than digital scrubbing. But digitial srubbing is cheap fast and makes the common masses happy or so they think.....

cybrsage said:

I get an error when I try to play this file and it will not play.  When I try to use tsMuxeR to convert it to a BluRay.  I get "Invalid H264 NAL Unit Size; NAL Unit Truncated" error.

I downloaded it from MySpleen.

The NAL error is due to header compression that newer versions of MKVtool kit thus mkvmerge now uses by default.

You simply need to remove it.

Here is how: In mkvmerge, under options [file->options] on the mmg tab look for "Disable header removal compression for audio and video tracks by default" and check the box. Then in main window add your .mkv and "start muxing" it will be somewhat fast as in this case it will just be changing the header not really doing a mux Here is the commandline method: mkvmerge --compression 0:none --compression 1:none -o "path and file name of new .mkv aka output file" "path and file name of the mkv file to be processed aka input file"

BTW: I use mkvmerge 4.70 besides it being rock solid stable, mkv's made from later versions will not fast forward >> or reverse properly << on my Blu-Ray player.

yoda-sama said:

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this yet, but the project is getting a little more attention (a coworker that didn't know about this project or that I follow it found this article and showed it to me). 

http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/the-making-of-the-best-version-of-star-wars...-which-of-course-you-cant-get

press or publicity for projects like this is never good. I've seen too many dissapper under a flood of C&D's and other legal assaults as a result of getting noticed....

michaelkirschner said:If I were to use multiAVCHD to create a Blu-ray that contains multiple movies like say SW DEED 2.5, SW ANH Revisited SD, and Star Wars Begins would the 6 audio track limit be per title or is the 6 track limit across the entire disc?

I am not sure but I think per each video track you can have 6 audio but you can't do it under global.   

analog said: I was going to try this for kicks, just to see if it'd work, but get a "matroska parse error: invalid h264 NAL unit size. NAL unit truncated" error :(

Will wait for the "real deal" in any case... Just wanted to see if there was a quick way to burn for playback on a standalone player. Ah well.

The NAL error is due to header compression that newer versions of MKVtool kit thus mkvmerge now uses by default.

You simply need to remove it.

Here is how:  In mkvmerge, under options [file->options] on the mmg tab look for "Disable header removal compression for audio and video tracks by default" and check the box. Then in main window add your .mkv and "start muxing" it will be somewhat fast as in this case it will just be changing the header not really doing a mux

Here is the commandline method:

mkvmerge --compression 0:none --compression 1:none -o "path and file name of new .mkv aka output file" "path and file name of the mkv file to be processed aka imput file"

BTW: I use mkvmerge 4.70 besides it being rock solid stable, mkv's made from later versions will not fast forward >> or reverse properly << on my Blu-Ray player.

P.S. It's worth spending 1-2 hours to figure out how to use MultiAVCHD for the do-it-yourself menu. You'll be able to use the knowledge for future endevours. Of course, I had to limit the audio choices down to 6 due as that's all that will display, but it's great solution until an "official" one is available from Harmy and his helpers. 

duplicate post

pittrek said:

No, "creation of 1:1 copies of any unprotected BD media" means that Nero allows you to copy unprotected BDs, not to CREATE unprotected BDs. At least that's how I understood it. Nero ALWAYS reencoded the video. which is the reason why I stopped using it ages ago.

Correct Nero always reencodes. IMHO it's crapware.

It's possible the authors of MultiAVCHD could be contacted about the limitation as to number of audios ?

I have requested a myspleen invite many times over the years but never received one. So usenet will be my only hope and I know I'm not alone. I'm patient and sure it will show up over the next few weeks. Huge Thanks in advance to the future usenet poster.

Hello - with teh "'dox" folks possibly down for the count, hoping we can get this on usenet in the coming days or weeks.

Once again thanks to Harmy and all who assist.

hairy_hen said:

Feel free to request a re-upload if the links expire.

 Hello - I would like to humbly request reupload of the stereo flacs. Many thanks!

Excellent.

Many thanks to those responsible for their efforts!

Looks incredible from the caps I've seen posted.

Hoping we see the avchd and especially blu-ray [when released] on usenet as I've no other realistic way to obtain.

chyron8472 said:

joed424 said:

i have very little skill and no good software

MakeMKV converts DVDs/AVCHDs/BDs to MKV.

AVI2DVD converts MKVs to DVD format

DVD Shrink drops the file size to DVD5 (if you tell it to)

ImgBurn burns the data to a disc.

 

oh... and Handbrake encodes nearly any movie format to MKV/M4V, while dropping the file size to a managably portable/streamable size without greatly reducing picture quality.

 

All of these programs are free.

Also tsMuxer which is free as well.

chyron8472 said:

joed424 said:

i have very little skill and no good software

MakeMKV converts DVDs/AVCHDs/BDs to MKV.

AVI2DVD converts MKVs to DVD format

DVD Shrink drops the file size to DVD5 (if you tell it to)

ImgBurn burns the data to a disc.

 

oh... and Handbrake encodes nearly any movie format to MKV/M4V, while dropping the file size to a managably portable/streamable size without greatly reducing picture quality.

 

All of these programs are free.

Harmy said:

Now, for the BD, I'm going to make the m2ts file downloadable separately from the rest of the BD structure, so those who want the whole BD can just download the rest of the BD structure and put the m2ts file in the right folder within the structure and burn to disc. Those who only want the mkv will only need download the m2ts file and remux it to mkv

Excellent and perfect plan. Easy to remux to MKV but near impossible to do opposite.

Hoping some one can do usenet upload as for many it's the fast and safest method and for those of us who have SSL usnet provider connections the only way to make it untraceable to our ISP in order to avoid being throttled as per the new torrent agreements between ISP's and RIAA/MPAA

TK-423 said:

And how come the MKV of Star Wars 2.0 is nearly twice as large as the AVCHDs of all the 1.0 releases?

This topic has alrady addressed that. Here is a brief recap:

With either the right playback gear OR the the right eyes/vision compression in the data packets is highly noticable via artifacts, color depth and so on...

Harmy is spending what may amount to thousands of hours, to have it ruined in the absolute final phase in order to save a few GB would be a huge crime. It's 2013 not 1999, rather hard to believe there are those concerned with an extra 10-15GB.  Regardless of the compression method there is ALWAYS loss.

Luckily for mankind Harmy agrees and his efforts will not be comprimised by a small faction thats seems to be only concerned with getting 2.1 or 2.5 [I like 2.5 better] small enough to fit on a phone or some other device with a teeny tiny display. Don't get why anyone woudld want to see it that way myself, as this is meant to be seen in full glory on a large screen. Kudos to harmy for not yielding to the faction who seems to desire a result worse than what Lucus would allow us.

Those who for whatever reason want smaller file size there are plenty of free tools that will allow you to do (ruin) that ON YOUR OWN and google/yahoo/duckduckgo/etc can be your friend unless you are too lazy of course....

TK-423 said:

And how come the MKV of Star Wars 2.0 is nearly twice as large as the AVCHDs of all the 1.0 releases?

Harmy said:

wabid said:

Respectfully I disagree with you on all counts. I see the difference and so do others. These releases need to be kept "archival grade" IMHO, you can never get back what is lost.

Then it should be released as a 1080p 40gb mpeg2, or even some lossless codec.  Pretending a 720p 15gb mp4 is archival grade is silly.

You being able to see the difference is more placebo than anything.  You really do need comparison software to see the difference.  The "tiny faction" is people who can actually see a difference, although plenty claim to.

If an archival grade copy is important Harmy should release a HUGE lossless encode into the wild.  It is overkill for 99.99% of use cases, but just having access to it benefits many people.  If it were 1080p, then yes, 15 gigs would be necessary, but since 720p is half the resolution, 8 is plenty.

 

That's not strictly true - while I myself must admit to see little difference here between the AVCHD and the MKV, it really depends on the size of screen you're watching it on and of course the viewing distance - there is a clear difference between a 16GB 1080p and a full BD encode - while the 16GB version is likely to look great, the BD will look even better, especially with grainy film, because grain is hard to compress, so it stands to reason that with half the resolution, you need half the size - that is 8GB for very good quality, 15-20GB for retail BD quality compression-vise. A 40GB 1080p would of course be pointless, since I've been working at 720p from step one, so it would have to be an upscale, but I don't think BD25 size is an overkill for 720p (the mkv release is a BD25 size once you add lossless audio, menus and some extras).

Exactly Harmy! Grain does not compress well, not at all. That is why you are THE Expert.

I have 20/18 vision [it used to to 20/15] and my Screen is 55" .  I notice needless compresssion in a heartbeat.

I find it a bit mind-boggling that in 2013 that saving a few GB has even entered into the conversation. Anyhow glad that the only one who is critically important to the Despecialized Edition understands.

Once again Harmy, thank you for restoring my early childhood memories in HD!

P.S. if you do wan to release 2.1 in a "special" 20GB+ version as well I know I'm not the only one who will be all for it.

Chewtobacca said:

jdryyz said: I still think that might be too much compression. :)

It's not. The original file-size is excessive.

Track down the AVCHD version, which is barely distinguishable from the MKV in terms of quality, and see if it plays. That might save you some bother.

Chewtobacca said:

jdryyz said:  How is it that I can get away with compressing the 16GB file down to 8GB and not notice any reduction in quality?

Higher file-size does not necessarily mean higher quality.  The MKV was much bigger than it needed to be, so your recompressed file ended up being considerably smaller.

I would like to give my my heart felt thanks to Harmy for restoring my memories in HD! Excellent, phenominal work!!!

Mr Chewtobacca,

Respectfully I disagree with you on all counts. I see the difference and so do others. These releases need to be kept "archival grade" IMHO, you can never get back what is lost.

A 16GB file in 2013 is not large. If someone has issue be it connectivity-wise or patience-wise between a 10GB or say a 20GB file then perhaps the owness is on them not Harmy to do things differently.

Harmy, 

I beg of you,  please keep 2.1 "archival grade" and do not reduces the size via compression merely to cater to a tiny faction. I bet you like me can see the difference. Keep up the great work my friend and my eternal thanks!

Chewtobacca said:

jdryyz said:  How is it that I can get away with compressing the 16GB file down to 8GB and not notice any reduction in quality?

Higher file-size does not necessarily mean higher quality.  The MKV was much bigger than it needed to be, so your recompressed file ended up being considerably smaller.