I replied to corellian77's question about the 5.1 audio in the 70mm thread: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Star-Wars-1977-70mm-sound-mix-recreation-stereo-and-51-versions-now-available/post/496578/#TopicPost496578
Responding to a concern posted by corellian77 in dark_jedi's v3 thread:
corellian77 said:
Regarding the sound on the V3s, I have a quick question: I only have a modest sound setup at the moment (2.1), but Hairy_Hen's mix seems "overblown" in parts when I play back ANH (the only one I've burned so far). Specifically, some highs/lows seem to really give my speakers a workout.
So, question is... is it just my crap system unable to handle the audio, or have others had a similar experience? I've never had a similar issue with commercial DVDs in the past, so I was just curious.
Without being able to hear exactly what you're hearing, I can't really answer this with absolute authority, but I can name some possible contributing factors. If by a 2.1 system you mean that you have stereo speakers and a subwoofer connected to a receiver with Dolby Digital decoding, then a likely explanation is that you may be unaccustomed to experiencing the full dynamic range of film soundtracks. Dolby guidelines specify that anything less than a full 5.1 system must engage Dynamic Range Compression (DRC) when decoding, which means that while the quiet sections of the mix will remain at the same level, the loud portions are significantly reduced in volume. This is not optional in nearly all consumer equipment--aside from a few high end Denon products, there is absolutely no way to disengage the application of DRC, aside from adding more speakers to obtain the full 5.1 layout. How much the peak volume is reduced depends on the amount of DRC specified in the AC3 stream. So on your system, which lacks a centre channel and rear channel speakers, you will pretty much always hear Dolby Digital tracks with a significantly reduced dynamic range compared to their 'true' sound.
These custom 5.1 mixes, however, were encoded with the DRC profile set to 'None', which means that the peak volume will never be reduced regardless of how many speakers the audio system contains. The 70mm mix had a very wide dynamic range, significantly stronger than any other version of the movie--I have done a fairly extensive comparison of it with the 1997 special edition mix, and found the SE to be often lacking in dynamics and power. (Steve Hoffman, the audio mastering legend, reported a similar impression when viewing a privately owned 70mm print a few years ago.) Despite having a somewhat 'smoother' sound, the '97 mix comes off as being a bit tinny to my ear, although compared to the awful 2004 version it is still extremely good. The 35mm versions are less dynamic still, though more satisfying than the SE since they are authentic originals.
The 70mm dynamics include very strong high frequency peaks in some places, which could be part of what you mentioned; and while there was no way for me to know exactly what the bass content would have sounded like originally, I think what I came up with is a pretty close approximation, based on extensive listening tests and everything I could find from people who have actually heard or were involved with the real thing. I guess one way to get another impression would be to take the dvd into a high end home theatre store (assuming there are still any left in business in your area at this point), and ask to demo the mix on a 5.1 system with a lot of amplifier power. Compare that to what you remember of its sound on your own system, and maybe you'll have a better idea of whether it's a preference thing or if your speakers are actually just distorting under the stress. Keep in mind, too, that room acoustics play a large part in determining how sound reaches our ears--bass frequencies in particular are notorious for getting bloated or cancelling each other out depending the the room layout and the placement of the subwoofer itself.
Anyway, I'm quite interested to hear more about this and whether I've properly explained it, or if it's caused by something else entirely. On my system, the mix sounds rather fantastic overall (though I certainly don't have the best equipment ever), but I recognise that not everyone may feel the same way. If you are getting significant distortion, you might be better off playing one of other mixes until you can upgrade your sound system.
But if you thought Star Wars had a lot of bass in it, just wait until you hear Empire. ;)
Just finished Chuck season 3. Dunno how soon I'll be able to see season 4 since it's still being broadcast.
Damn that Shaw was a complete bastard!
The more time it's been since I joined Facebook, the the less I like it. I only do anything with it to hear from people I went to school with and haven't seen in a while, and even that isn't as interesting as it seems like it ought to be. I don't use Twitter, but my girlfriend does, and it seems to me that people we don't know on the internet (whether famous or not) tend to be much more interesting than anyone we do know, which is both sad and annoying, really.
Hmm. Personally I'm not really sold on putting that matte painting of the soldiers back in, because the difference in quality between it and the surrounding footage is just too great not to be noticed. That was one of the small things the SE actually improved on, I think, although I probably wouldn't mind the original shot if there were a high resolution source for it.
Did you recreate the text in high resolution? Because it sure looks like the letters retain better clarity as they recede . . .
The angle looks a bit different when compared side by side.
Regardless, it looks really good.
Looks like the scripted GOUT text over the high-res background from the SE.
The only real drawback is that the stars in the original are significantly brighter, but that could probably be solved easily. Very nice work.
I'm sure you've thought of it already since the colour correcting hasn't been done yet, but don't forget to give those laser blasts back their vibrancy! ;) I can't believe LFL actually thought it would be acceptable to let it look that way--did they even bother to check against another source?
The blockade runner is supposed to be maroon, not bright red, isn't it? Also, I'm pretty sure the flash frames for blaster impacts in the corridor fight ought not to be magenta. lol
Anyway, I really look forward to seeing how this turns out, because the beginning is perfectly assembled as far as I can see, a seamless blend of original crawl with high resolution footage for the flyby. Well done!
I am willing to acknowledge the possibility that it could improve, particularly since it looks like there could be some kind of timeline split or alternate universe type thing going on. And as I said, the plot and general science fiction aspects are so intriguing that I'll gladly put up with a lot to see where it ends up going.
But it doesn't change the fact that River and The Doctor have no 'chemistry' whatsoever. The actors seem to think it's there when they film the scenes, but it sure isn't showing up on my screen. The whole thing feels so forced and artificial. That shootout scene, for instance? Good grief, what a load of cringe-worthy rubbish!
I don't want to keep harping on about it, so I'll bugger off now, but . . . yeah.
Aw snap . . . ;)
On a completely related note, wouldn't this have been cool? http://davinsunrider988.deviantart.com/art/Ganondorf-Plans-to-Kidnap-Kate-206886062?q=gallery%3Adavinsunrider988&qo=0
:p
Actually, the fact that we already know exactly what happens to her highlights one of the very serious writing problems she exhibits. With the ending being a foregone conclusion, there is absolutely no potential for character development whatsoever. Nothing she does can ever have any real impact or meaning or make her believably matter. In a way, it seems to me that he on some level knows that already, and is content to just leave her as a caricature: since whatever she has done to be important is supposed to have 'already happened' in the future, we're just supposed to take her word for it that we should actually care? Puh-lease! It's such a cheat from a writing standpoint, a complete cop-out on making any effort for her to seem like a real person. Moreover, it's a cheap gag that breaks the fundamental rule of 'show don't tell'.
Even if her smugness didn't make her infuriatingly obnoxious, I would still call rubbish. We're really supposed to believe she's The Doctor's ideal woman or whatever the hell just got crammed down the viewers' throats? Excuse me while I go watch a show that actually bothers to give its women some semblance of personality . . .
Every time River Song smirks at The Doctor and calls him 'sweetie', I want to smash my television screen with a baseball bat.
However, if I did that, I'd be unable to see how Moffat's ridiculously brilliant plot is going to play out. This is an infuriating and unresolvable dilemma.
Yeah, First Contact takes place during season 5 of DS9. I remember well seeing the movie in the theatre at the same time the show was being broadcast--it was the first year I was really getting into Star Trek. Episodes from earlier seasons I had to catch in re-runs and there are still a good number I've never seen. As soon as I finish Chuck season 3, Deep Space Nine is going on my list and this time I'm going to start from the beginning and watch the entire series. I love the show more than I can say, though I go long periods of time without thinking about it. It might be my favourite of all the Star Trek series, though Next Generation is awesome too.
Actually, I kind of wish they had done more to connect DS9 with First Contact. There could have been a scene where the decision to send the Defiant with Worf in command was made, and more discussion of what effects the Borg attack had on the Federation's strategic capabilities. There is a passing mention of this at one point (In Purgatory's Shadow, I think), but it could have been more involved. And given that the Defiant was heavily damaged in the film (didn't seem to do so well considering that fighting the Borg is what it was originally designed for!), it being out of commission for repairs could have been a plot point, as in 'Gee, sure wish our kickass ship were around so we could foil this evil plot over there!'
Ah well. I seriously love the Defiant, it's so cool to see them have a ship that just blows away everything else and has a cloaking device. About damn time the Federation got to play on those terms . . .
I think the slightly slower rate is because of issues that arose when adding colour to the previous black and white format. It used to be exactly 60 fields per second to synch with the AC electrical frequency, but with colour there was visible interference so they had to make a slight alteration to 59.94 hz in order to keep NTSC colour backwards compatible with black and white sets.
Theoretically, such concerns of analogue television should be largely obsolete, but the resulting 23.976 frame rate for film material is still here to stay because it is so entrenched.
I don't know if you've already thought of this or if anyone has suggested it, but would better results for some of the composites be obtained by using footage from the Empire of Dreams documentary?
They're not the best quality ever, but anamorphic resolution is available for what shots there are. It might improve somewhat over using GOUT-based video. I think the shot of Han with the stormtroopers at the dead end is there, and some of the Battle of Yavin, but it's been a long time since I've looked at that so I don't remember everything it has.
Just something to consider. ;)
For what it's worth, when when I was doing my earliest attempts at custom dvd's with replaced soundtracks a couple years ago, I used Mac The Ripper to simultaneously rip and demux the video, then ran DGIndex in Forced Film mode through Crossover (a Mac WINE setup) on the resulting m2v files. I can't remember the exact numbers it came up with, but the audio synch was always perfect. This seems in line with the finding that using the m2v files yields the most accurate results.
I thought it was mostly a pretty good episode (certainly quite a different vibe than they've done before), but I can't really remember why. Also, I think I'm pregnant with an archaeologist . . .
I think the reason there are still jaggies and shimmering remaining in the image is that the instability combined with the low resolution results in some details ending up on completely separate lines, which could well be beyond fixing. The script cleans up most of the lesser instances, which gives a huge improvement in the overall watchability, but the worst aliasing (the interrogation droid and the grid in the Yavin control room come to mind) will probably still be there no matter what. Tis unfortunate, but that's what you get with a source that is mostly crap.
Still, I'd be quite interested in seeing what improvements could come from new anti-aliasing filters.
About a year ago, I was watching a lot of old Doctor Who stories, and many of them featured Sarah Jane. While Romana is probably my favourite, she's very close--there's something so eminently likeable about her, both as a character and the actress herself.
The interaction between Sarah Jane and the Doctor certainly differed considerably when he was portrayed by Jon Pertwee or Tom Baker, but was no less interesting in either case. I was very surprised and amused to discover that in her very first appearance, she was not only convinced the Doctor was up to no good, she actually conspired with medieval soldiers to capture him! 'School Reunion' in the new series was the first Doctor Who I ever saw, and what got me interested in it in the first place--it was a choice of viewing on the plane between London and Philadelphia--and she played a large part in that interest. Going back to the old episodes, I'm not at all convinced that she was actually in love with him as the new series seems to imply, but it doesn't bother me too much.
I haven't seen as much of the Sarah Jane Adventures as I'd like, but I'm going to have to rectify that. Forget rock stars or other 'important' people snuffing it, Elisabeth Sladen's death is some of the saddest news I've heard in a long time, and it just won't be the same knowing she's not around anymore.
I found a Verbatim DVD+R DL RW laying around that I'd forgotten I had, so I fired up Toast 9 and decided to give double layer burning a shot to see how well it would work. Naturally, I chose SW v3 to test. Toast seems to have no provision for setting a layer change point, so I have no idea exactly where it ended up, but my new dvd player is far better at seamlessly changing layers than my old one, so there was no interruption at all. Since the burn went so well, I figured I might as well watch the whole thing.
Being the first time I've actually watched the movie in well over a year, I was really excited, both to see how well G-force's script improved the image and just to see the movie for its own sake. I was not disappointed on either account. Star Wars is that rare movie that's nearly perfect in every way, and this is the best I've seen it look so far without using the 2004 version as a source. The elimination of most of the instability in the image is the biggest improvement, but there are many others as well.
Sure, I was occasionally distracted by what aliasing and smear are still present; sure the available resolution isn't very high; and sure I noticed a few places in the recreated 70mm track where I could have done a bit better with the audio editing . . . but on the whole, this was the best damn two hours I've spent in ages. SW is still my favourite movie ever, and this presentation certainly does not disappoint. Within the limits of the source material, it's very nearly as good as it could ever be, and almost everything about it just seems so right. Really looking forward to seeing ESB and RotJ, too.
Now that I know I can burn and play double layer discs reliably (setting it as a dvd-rom probably helped), I'm going to order some to make permanent copies, for myself and possibly for friends/family if they're interested. Although it seems likely that other people's dvd players might not be as good at layer changes, so maybe I'll have to see about setting that with a different program first, to ensure them an uninterrupted movie experience. (On the other hand, I might just wait for Harmy's de-SE'd single layer versions and send them those instead; haven't decided. 'Normal' people won't be interested in having multiple copies of the movies, like we are.)
This was the first time I've actually heard the 5.1 while watching the movie, and from a slightly narcissistic perspective I was really thrilled with it. lol But beyond that, I was blown away by what a great job they did mixing the 70mm version back in '77, and how its superb dynamic range and overall vibe leaves the SE mixes in the dust (particularly that wretched 2004 mess). I'm just glad I could help to get that back.
So let's give big props to everyone who worked on this set, and keep the love for the real Star Wars going. :)
This deal's getting better all the time . . . ;)
I wonder if the optical transition at the Jabba cut could be eliminated more thoroughly by using the outer edges of previous frames, since it starts from the outside and closes in. Just before it starts, the camera is holding still, isn't it? Shouldn't be impossible to composite in considering the quality of work you've done already (unless there are other things I haven't foreseen).
Really sad to hear that Elisabeth Sladen just died. She was a brilliant actress and an inspiration as Sarah Jane Smith, both on Doctor Who and on her own show, and she'll be dearly missed.
It's true that the script doesn't completely manage to eliminate the image shake from the GOUT video. It does, however, reduce it considerably, so that it's only visible in certain areas when looking rather closely. The film experience as a whole is vastly improved by this, and while I'm sure it still presents a problem in merging with higher quality footage, it has to be better than using the plain GOUT by itself.
Dunno if I'm sold on the transition or not, because it looks weird seeing the beginning of an optical wipe and a dissolve happening at the same time--still, it's better than it was before.
I almost wish the remaining shadow of the probe thing hadn't been pointed out, because now I can't unsee it. So it looks like you're going to have to get rid of that too . . . ;)
I did see that the dvd for Empire is out, but haven't had a chance to do much with SW stuff lately. Feel free to PM me with the links and I'll check it out as soon as I can. ;)
Since you seem to be very good at lining up frames from different sources, I had an idea about the problematic transition in the Mos Eisley test where the Jabba scene would be. Would it be possible to dissolve between the '04 footage and GOUT before and after this takes place? (Maybe using the '04 dvd instead of the HD for some of it so it's not as big a jump in resolution?) So dissolve to scripted GOUT as the big-nose guy starts towards the camera, allowing the original optical transition to take place, and then dissolve back to '04 before the Millennium Falcon is seen. Would this work? The colour would have to be matched exactly, and the '04 would have to be cropped to match G-force's framing, but it seems like something worth trying. Or, alternatively, a more lengthy portion of GOUT for the whole thing if that wouldn't work. The only other thing I can think of is slowing down the footage to match the original number of frames, but I don't think that would look right at all.
What sort of colour correction will you be doing? Since from the Technicolor photos we know about the Death Star interiors actually being blue in some shots, it would be good to see that preserved, but I do think the '04 is the often the wrong shade of blue and makes it too strong sometimes. And then of course there's the other rubbish like heavily oversaturated reds, dark/weird skin tones, laser blasts being too pink or missing colour altogether, and all that. (And the crushed blacks, but those aren't fixable.)
Mike Verta's site has a lot of good notes on colour correcting the opening scenes of the movie. (This is where I first learned exactly why the image looked so messed up--before I couldn't really describe what I was seeing.) http://www.starwarslegacy.com/
I'm also wondering whether you'll be using the G-force'd GOUT for the beginning crawl and Star Destroyer or not, along with msycamore's subtitles (since they are very accurate to the originals).
The Mos Eisley test looks quite good. I'm really looking forward to this. :)