emanswfan

Pre-Production on Season 2 has started. Also explains further into the revolutionary in-camera VFX being used on the show.

http://collider.com/the-mandalorian-season-2-filming-jon-favreau/

Shuggy said:

Hey emanswfan, any chance of rendering up a full 4k shot of something with your film grain/grade applied? These upscales look promising but I think many of us would love to see what they look like absent that nasty digital sheen. 😃

For sure, I’ve just wanted to try out upscaling with gigapixel and esrgan which seem to be the best two AI upscalers, although they do bring weird artifacts that non-AI upscalers don’t have. So I’ll still have to figure out the best method which may vary from shot to shot, or a combination of several. Previously, I’ve also used Waifu2xPhoto (AI upscaler), Detail-Preserving Upscale (Adobe, non-AI), and RedGiant Instant 4K (non-AI).

For AOTC, I will now be using Schormann’s HDTV preservation over the Blu-ray It has the theatrical/DVD colors (which saves a hell of a lot of work not having to deal with shitty bluray colors) and once denoised to get rid of compression artifacts, actually carry over more fine detail.

Bluray (original vs upscale/denoised) https://i.lensdump.com/i/WPdnTP.png

HDTV (original vs upscale/denoised) https://i.lensdump.com/i/WPdvOm.png

Of course, there is the strong possibility of a 4K release by Disney premiering this November on Disney+, and later in May 2020 on UHD Bluray. These may look better in detail by them going back to the original files and possibly re-rendering VFX. Hoping though, that AOTC has correct colors, TPM isn’t poorly DNR’d, and that ROTS just stays mostly the same.

Proper filmized screenshots should be coming soon again.

Until I build my new computer next year, I’m pretty much stuck to doing tests and samples on my Macbook Pro, but I can at least save grading work as presets for future work.

Just thought I’d post upscales of the OT here as well. It’s been denoised and upscaled to 8k, although these are sourced from Adywan’s new 1080p ANH SE grade from last year. If I ever carry out an OT restoration, it’ll be based on the rumored upcoming 4K releases that I assume will debut on Disney+ in November, and come out on UHD Bluray May 2020. The project will be rendered out at 4k, but I may upsample to 8k and sharpen and denoise at that resolution, which is how I was doing this project previously. Of course I hope to be building a new computer next year and add plenty of hard drive space for my PT project, and this one if I decide to afterwards.

https://lensdump.com/a/anh-8k.W1ShD

There are some artifacts, and the denoising needs some tweaking, so very much see these as drafts. Also, I have not applied the 70mm regrain yet, as to show off the raw amount of detail added.

I may also try to mess around with squeezing more detail out of 4K77, 4K80, and 4K83 in the future, if I want to make the best out of the theatrical versions, assuming Disney doesn’t release official versions of the unaltered cuts.

Matt.F said:

I showed ESB Revisited to a friend a few days ago, and noticed the resolution more so this time than when I first watched it nearly two years back.

I have a 75" 4K screen and so it is pushing the image harder than most but I think the more our eyes become accustomed to watching 4K content the more you notice when the presentation is lower def. Just like the moment came to most of us who’d amassed an old VHS collection, where you’d take it to the charity shop because you realised you’d stopped putting the tapes in the player after becoming used to clarity of DVD.

Adywan, I don’t know if you’ve gone too far down the road with 720p to change direction now, but if there is the potential to use the 4K source for either SW:R or ROTJ:R then I think that would be really wise - as the ‘last gen’ feel of 720p is a gulf that is only going to increase in the coming months and years. I don’t think keeping them consistent with ESB:R is a good reason not to as has been suggested, as intentionally hobbling something to bring it ‘down’ to a lower quality would be self-defeating. Technology is moving on and the longevity of the Revisited project would be better served with 4K. At the time of their release fans may have to choose between watching the best edited version (Revisited) or the best looking version (4K), and it will be a compromise. Star Wars fans have long had to compromise on owning the version they really want, and it would be nice to have one that is finally perfection!

Adywan, I know you prize presentation and always have good reasoning, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts and the challenges around Revisited 4K?

I’ve been trying out upscaling the Revisited films to 4K, maybe you could check what these look like on your tv? https://lensdump.com/a/esbr-4k.AG8Hq

All I’m hoping for is not botched up transfers. We’ve already got fantastic fan restorations at work, so I’m just hoping whatever official version they come up with looks pleasing to the eye.

Here’s an updated look at the HDTV master vs the Blu-ray:

Blu-ray: https://i.lensdump.com/i/WPdnTP.png

HDTV: https://i.lensdump.com/i/WPdvOm.png

As you can see the blu-ray smudges so much detail, and that once you clean out the compression artifacts from the HDTV master you can see all the missing fine detail.

So hopefully they will either make a brand new 4K DI with re-rendered CGI, and definately not an upscale of the blu-ray master.

Ok, so here’s an 8K frame from AOTC without any regrading. This is a test of AI Gigapixel.

https://lensdump.com/i/WPdT77

I’m very happy with these results, I’ve since fully revised my upscaling techniques.

https://lensdump.com/a/esbr-4k.AG8Hq

Yes, there’s some haloing which I am trying to reduce for my next preview.

There’s also some relevant discussion here too for those who haven’t read: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Speculation-about-the-4K-Future-of-AOTC-and-ROTS/id/67513

paja said:

Have you tried out AI Gigapixel? does great upscaling.

Just looked at it as well as the other products they offer, and it looks promising. I haven’t used one of their products in a really long time, but if it’s AI driven, it might be pretty good.

digitalfreaknyc said:

So…

A little birdie told me the 70mm print is from 1984 so it shouldn’t have the fade…but it is definitely the original film.

So I’m guessing that means no original crawl tho? And would the mix be the same as a 1977 70mm print, or a more refined mix closer to the mono?

Wow, I am speechless. This is incredible.

That’s the only thing that sucks about me not working at a movie theatre anymore. One of my managers would always host after hours showings for all of us staff, and we’d pick a movie to watch. I told him about Revisited and Despecialized and he said we would do it eventually, but he ended up leaving around the time I left, so sadly it never happened.

This is a comparison between the Blu-ray and the HDTV preservation of AOTC both blow-up to 8k to see the difference in the fine-detail.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/1746

Apologies, for them not being the exact same frames, but it’s close enough to still work as a comparison.

So in terms of upscaling AOTC, I compared a straight lanczos3 4K upscale up against a waifu2xphoto denoised 4k upscale.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/1743

As you can see some objects scale well that already have sharp lines, but most of it is still a blurry mess and doesn’t look that much better. I used the maximum setting for denoising which cleans up all the image but does scrub away some detail. So essentially there’s no big difference.

The reason being is that the shot is already cropped in from the full 1080p output of the camera with poor upscaling, so the footage is already sub-1080p. George Lucas frequently cropped shots in, sometimes for a zoom effect. AI upscaling usually only looks good if the input is in it’s native resolution. If it’s been previously upscaled it blurs the input and the AI can’t find the edges and fine detail.

What might work better is a multi-frame upscale for each shot that accounts for details that change across the frames.

doubleofive said:

This video could be helpful for understanding some things. It doesn’t go into HDR as much as it should, but it does explain that our uscales usually use just one method, while the professionals use different upscaling methods per shot sometimes. So AotC/RotS would benefit from a professional upscale, not to mention the less-compression UHD provides AND wide color gamut.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/06/19/upscaled-uhd-4k-digital-intermediate-explainer/

This video does a great job at explaining things. I’ve been doing a lot of research into upscaling footage, and there’s a lot of newer algorithms that are pretty exciting, such as AI and neural network driven upscaling.

Even I’ve very much advocated that even SD material, like many shows shot in video prior to digital HD, would benefit from profesional upscaling and other clean-up. Doctor Who has been re-releasing their classic series on blu-ray and even those manage to get more out of sub-HD material and allow for a cleaner, less compressed image.

Hal 9000 said:

Eman, I’d be curious about your candid opinion of the HDTV master we have from schorman13 for AOTC. Head-to-head, how does it do compared to the BluRay?

You know I actually haven’t seen it yet, I was at one point considering switching to it as the main source for AOTC considering it has the theatrical colors.

I’ll take a look at it soon, and get back.

The color balance was shifted warmer and more pink to compensate for the teal shift introduced on the Blu-ray. I could grab probably grab an HDTV rip or my DVD for reference to make it just right. I think I still need to figure out more adjustments to match the visual quality of ROTS, let alone the new films.

While I was working on upscaling the existing blu-ray of AOTC, I was reminded at just how god-awful it looks. There’s digital noise, compression artifacts, misaligned color channels, etc. ROTS is actually a huge improvement due to them using a newer digital camera.

So I’m hoping they really clean up the footage well, because it’s a pain to fix this.

This program I was planning on using if they don’t release 4K versions: https://www.videoartifact.com/va/

It can do some amazing stuff!

But I’d hope Lucasfilm can do better than me with cleaning up the footage.

Here’s a comparison of all the shots:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/1388

Here’s some AOTC shots testing out the new upscaling process along with an itteration of my whole movie grade.

https://ibb.co/2qg4VXQ
https://ibb.co/VLQG24G
https://ibb.co/HhFHpLw
https://ibb.co/0Zxr6qk
https://ibb.co/fxgbkyH
https://ibb.co/xfRQ79N

I don’t like the color of every shot, but that is only something I can fix in my later in my shot by shot grade. I’m trying to come up with a consistent grade to maintain the original color timing with a filmic twist.

And also this is without film grain as to show off better the upscaling improvements.

Reviving an old thread here, but I’m planning to start up work on these edits once again sometime next year.

I’ve watched many prequel edits over the years, and while I enjoy a lot of them, I’ve still never been completely satisfied with any of them.

I’m planning on releasing two versions of the prequel trilogy films possibly. The first versions would seek to maintain much of the current continuity and feel like simply alternate cuts. Second versions will work out more radical ideas and take longer to complete.

I’ll be posting here some more as I come up with and gather ideas as I rewatch the blu-rays and other fanedits over the next year. There have been many recent ones I haven’t seen, so it’ll be interesting to see what other editors have done.

I’ll be simultaneously working on these edits along with my prequel regrades.

hbenthow said:

Emanswfan, did you create any LUTs of your Technicolor emulation? And if so, would you be willing to share them?

Not sure how I would create LUT’s for my color grades now with how I do them. Theoretically I could tho, as my intentions with Version 1 releases is to create a grade to apply consistently across the whole films in order to keep most of the original color timing decisions. I’ll look into it tho, as that may be a good way to get my work into some faneditors hands sooner.

Eventually I’ll have to do a shot for shot color grade, but I don’t think it’d be worth it till the official 4K releases.

But really, with my desktop broken and money being tight right now, it’s gonna be a while till a release comes out. My macbook pro which is my everyday computer is just too busy with other stuff, that I don’t have time to be doing long renders.

I’m expecting to save up for a massive upgrade in power for my next PC, which I’ll be building myself, and which can be used solely for my video editing and gaming purposes.

I’m also gonna transfer my hard drive from my old PC to recover any older work I did on this project.

I’m betting that in the new 4K release next year, they will have way more deleted scenes for the OT given how it’s been revealed that they’ve scanned all the original raw footage and have even shown some.

I’ve always wanted to see an extended cut of all of these films.

Plus, there’s still a lot of PT deleted scenes that have never been seen before either. And I’m crossing my fingers that we’ll get the DVD deleted scenes in HD.

Fang Zei said:

Are you one of the twelve people in the world who actually owns a UHD optical drive?

Yep, I ended up upgrading to one of those considering my other bluray drive is internal and is in my currently dead PC that I need to either fix or replace.

They’re pretty much the same price as I paid for my internal bluray drive 8 years ago.