g-force

RU.08 said:

g-force said:

I stand behind what was stated. Only a very small percentage of what you are considering improvements here are due to SR. What you have is a denoiser that leaves a sheet of slowly moving grain, oversharpening effects (sorry, de-blurring artifacts), and shimmering residual aliasing. What's happening here does nothing to restore the rivets on R2, actually blurs Obi-Wan's hair into a solid mass where individual strands were once visable, turns most objects into oil paintings, and only fakes out one into thinking there is more detail through edge enhancement.

 What utter bullshit. "Only fakes out one into thinking there is more detail ..." Of course there isn't more detail, but rather the detail that is present across several frames is recovered. The net effect is that each frame contains more detail than it did previously.

SR has quite limited use, obviously, but this is one source that clearly benefits from it.

 Okay, let me ask you this. How much of the improvement is from the temporal combination? How much is from all the other things that the script is doing? Scientists usually publish their methods, I have yet to see what the script is actually doing. I guess I just fundamentally have a problem with applying a bunch of denoising and spatial filters and claiming that it's all SR.

-G

They really are great, NeverarGreat! I look forward to more!

-G

thorr said:

Funny!  It got me reading the beginning pages of this and came across this one on page 3.

"Super Resolution only exists in papers of shortsighted academics who have a poor grasp on sampling theory."

At least he somewhat redeemed himself at the bottom of the same page.

 I stand behind what was stated. Only a very small percentage of what you are considering improvements here are due to SR. What you have is a denoiser that leaves a sheet of slowly moving grain, oversharpening effects (sorry, de-blurring artifacts), and shimmering residual aliasing. What's happening here does nothing to restore the rivets on R2, actually blurs Obi-Wan's hair into a solid mass where individual strands were once visable, turns most objects into oil paintings, and only fakes out one into thinking there is more detail through edge enhancement. 

But, please, by all means, consider me an asshole. I really don't care.

-G

I miss the old Ric Olie Frink. This new one is a jerkhole.

-G

No. SR is the alignment and sum/median part. Deblurring is just deblurring, which is also called sharpening. There are a million things you can call sharpening, but it's all spatial filtering, either implemented in the linear domain via a convolution, or in frequency space by a multiplication. Some do a better job of approximating the inverse transfer function of a blurring operation, but it's all the same thing. And whatever you are applying is not even close to the inverse of any blur that was ever applied, as evidenced by the increased ringing.

You really gotta lay off the thesis papers. They're just thesis papers.

-G

Wrong, and wrong.

-G

DrDre said:

@ zee944

You're welcome! The Obi-Wan shot always was one of my favourites. My guess would be that for about 50% of the frames super resolution and sharpening will be very similar. These are usually the fast moving scenes or any out of focus scenes. For about 30% you will get noticable detail enhancement, and for 20% you will get significant detail enhancement. 

As the movie is still processing, and I'm kind of adjusting filter settings on a scene by scene basis, I will send a new batch of comparisons when I''m further into the movie. 

I just don't understand how SR could be the same as sharpening for 50% of the movie. Shouldn't it be the same as doing nothing? Isn't this an admission that you are also sharpening?

-G

I see this thread has devolved into showing frame after frame of over-sharpening artifacts. 

-G

What's a duck?

-G

Codeman said:

The main source for this will be Harmy's Despecialized Editions, and color corrections of the blu-ray releases. The goal of this project will be to remove any imperfections so that Star Wars The Original Trilogy may be viewed without noticing any imperfections or shortcomings. Although I am making several changes with this project please note that I view the theatrical releases as the best official release of Star Wars and despise most of George Lucas's changes. However I feel implementing some cut content and some good changes that George has made will made to the overall experience of the films. Here are some videos that point out many of the changes made to Star Wars: 

Episode 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xezn-0xottw, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzGzI5g0SNc, 

Episode 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGYuz4qBTUM

Episode 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkDO2UxX4Lo&feature=iv&src_vid=GGYuz4qBTUM&annotation_id=annotation_375866

Smaller Changes Throughout: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jA38cHUWLo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2j4pVJHX_I

Example of the type of cleanup I would like to do for deleted scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyreW6l9PLY&list=LL01X1Kkv0PZ3Q86v4VtoJpw&index=58

Feel free to disagree with these additions/changes/removals and contribute if you find anything that you feel the movie would be better with or without. I tried to list these in chronological order so please point out any that are out of order. Current list of mistakes/imperfections that I would like changed:

Plot holes (R2 and 3po walking across a hall during a fight unscathed, Gunners not shooting at an escape pod with no life forms, Alerting the entire station to their presence our main heroes sit for several minutes in a trash compactor that anyone fighting them could have looked down on, trash compactor monster on a space station?, Luke suddenly having a green lightsaber)

Movie mistakes (Death Star clock not matching up with countdown voice, storm trooper hitting his head, tunnel on detention level firefight looks like a wall)

Fixing scenes that are missing special effects (notably Obi-won when fighting Darth Vader in Episode 4)

Cutting down scenes that do not make sense but are still essential to the plot: Death star run (Tie fighters could have shot straight forward as shown in the previous dogfights)

Adding in and cleaning up deleted scenes. The main three that I would like added: Luke on his uncle's moisture farm seeing the battle and running to tell his friends, Luke reunion with Biggs (scene was added back in later special editions), and Luke building his lightsaber with his father talking to him

Removing horrendous dialogue/replacing with new dialogue ("Whats that flashing?" Fight in detention cell Luke:"Well why are you...." "Would you forget it I already tried it its magnetically sealed"-Says Luke only seconds after he fell in, "Help me"-Leah only seconds after saying brace it with something, "May the force be with you"-Mission briefer, "I can't see it!"-Biggs saying seconds later that he can't shake it "They came from behind!" "You were lucky you don't taste very good" "*Insert annoying Ewok sounds here*"May the force be with you"-Admiral Ackbar "Accelerate to attack speed"

Replacing entire shots with special edition scenes that could have been done at the time when the film was produced: Widened sandcrawler shot, Obi-won's home in the blu-ray, ships leaving Mos Eisly, some select frames when Luke and Obi-won enter Mos Eisly, Some select Cantina aliens replaced with special edition aliens, ships leaving to attack death star, special edition award ceremony, extended wampa shot, windows in cloud city, han solo's "jacket" (shadow) removed with alternate shots, slightly extended scene of Jabba's dancer falling in the pit but without cgi singers, Jabba's sail barge leaving for the pit, Darth Vader without eyebrows

Replacing old sounds with entirely new ones (particularly Obi-won's scream to scare off the sand people)

Scenes to change if possible but would not line up correctly: New emperor in Episode 5 (keeping the old dialogue but using the new look)

Changes I will not make: Cgi Millenium Falcon leaving (cool shot but does not fit with the feel of the rest of the movies), Continuity changes to line up with the prequels i.e. adding Temuera Morrison's voice over Jason Wingreen, Hayden replacing Sebastian's Ghost

Wow Codeman, all of the things you dislike about Star Wars are the very things I like the most. 

-G

mverta said:

Tie on Luke

Careful Mike. On this one on the upper left strut of the canopy, the original has a couple white dots that appear for one frame each, and on your restoration they now fade in and then fade out. That's always a risk with temporal averaging, and you might want to look into a temporal median instead.

-G

DrDre said:

For those interested in finding out why multi-frame super resolution is possible, the first chapter of this phd thesis provides some explanations:

http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~vgg/publications/papers/pickup08.pdf

 As AntcuFaalb correctly pointed out, and as you can see from every example in that paper, you need to have plenty of aliasing for this to work. Fortunately, the GOUT has plenty of that, at least in one dimension! For most sources that are scanned well however, the best you can hope for with such methods is just noise reduction.

-G

mverta said:

Nah, a little Beatles derailment never hurt anybody. 

However, there is a new BTS on clean-up in the Legacy forums if you want to get back on topic. :)

 I do. Headed over there now!

-G

Super Resolution only exists in papers of shortsighted academics who have a poor grasp on sampling theory. 

-G

AntcuFaalb said:

Molly said:

Would that not indicate that the 2009 version is, in that one respect at least, an improvement?

Oh geez. Don't tell me we need a Beatles albums preservation thread.

Most of the work is already done. Japanese Red Wax Mono FTW. PBTHAL FTW.

 Those are nice! Pbthal does do some clean-up on his stuff, and I've called him out on some that I felt were too revisionist, but he's a great ripper on the whole. I actually slightly prefer his rips of the most recent mono set. Check 'em out!

Sorry Mike!

-G

SVHS said:

It's very surreal to think about. It reminds me of a few years back when fans were transferring unplayed vinyl boxsets of Beatles albums and very, very carefully restoring them so that they reproduced the warmth, EQ and general ambience of the vinyl editions in a digital format.

The Beatles remasters were released in 2009 but boy, there was heated arguments about how invasive the noise reduction was, how harsh the compression was and whether or not background errors like chairs and sniffs should've been edited out or left in. In a way, we got revisions, rather than a restoration much like the trilogy. I mean, for pities sake, they took away the crackle on John's wail during 'She's So Heavy', a crackle that was proven to be part of the original vocal take and not an error during the final mix as it can be heard in the isolated vocals of the multi-tracks.

So, yeah, it seems the fans have created the best quality versions of Star Wars available and may well be able to hold that title forever.

Mike, it's up to you to make them see sense...

Now you're talking about something I know something about. Dr Ebbetts, Mirror Spock and the Millennium Remasters series ALL added EQ to their releases, each trying to out-treble the other, and not of it is any good.

As for the crackle in John's voice, it was not present in the original vinyl copies of the album. It wasn't until the Harry T. Moss remasters (which the original CDs are based from) that that error crept in. The crackle was re-simulated in the Rockband multis.

-G

Good luck with that!

-G

All I can do is echo everyone else's sentiments here, and say, that was spectacular Mike. 

-G

team_negative1 said:

Release the raw. We can do our own correction.

 

Thanks.

 

Team Negative1

Same goes for you Team Negative1.

:)

These are all with the same correction? They look great! Keep going, age!

-G

^^ She's got it where it counts, Kid. 

-G

Everything looks great Harmy! It's so nice that you are working from some high-quality materials, and that they are in such capable hands. I agree with CatBus, the color and stabilization are superb!

-G

Looks great! Nice work Mike!

-G

Nice Mike! somehow missed that explosion one as well! 

-G

althor1138 said:

g-force said:

althor,

So LD decode is the software decode? I don't see any artifacts, but I do see much more detail, and reduced ringing as you said! There are looking great! Can't wait to see how far you take this.

-G

I guess the screenshots don't show it but when watching the video there's a lot of dot crawl and rainbowing happening but that's to be expected when you basically disable the comb filter :). 

 I though about that right after I posted, that you probably wouldn't see a lot of the artifacts that a comb filter prevents by just looking at static shots. They do look beautiful though, and I hope to see the end result one day! In the mean time, it's fun to follow your progress.

-G