hairy_hen

Ugh, Rick McCallum.  Every time I hear that guy speak I want to get out a tape measure and see exactly how far up Lucas' large intestine he's managed to get his head buried.  I think his sole purpose in life is to say how great everything is that he does.  Lucas surrounding himself with people like that, it's easy to see why things have sucked lately.  Most of the things McCallum says don't even make any sense, the rotscum.

I don't have a link for it, but I've read an interview with Mark Hamill in which he stated he was going to see the movie after it came out, when he got a call from Lucas asking him to come in and dub more lines for the mono mix, which hadn't been completed yet.  This would give further credence to reports of the mono version not coming out until after the others.

I have to wonder if those re-recorded lines have since been lost, since they never appeared on any later mixes other than the mono.  Or perhaps it was simply a 'creative' decision to retain the originals.

I'm pretty sure the 35mm stereo came out first, followed closely by the 70mm.  The 70 is nearly identical to the 35, but it does have a few added sound effects, namely the screeching sound when Vader destroys the first Y-wing in the trench, and a loud explosion when the Falcon saves the day by destroying the first of Vader's wingmen.  Other than that, the main difference between the two is from the vastly superior dynamics and bass content of the 70, which are at least partially represented by the '93 remix, and by having discrete channels.

The mono version is interesting.  In some parts it really does sound more polished and complete than the stereo track--I particularly like the added 'deceleration' sound when the Falcon comes out of lightspeed, and the whining of stressed electronics when the ship is caught in the tractor beam.  (Though obviously it is missing the strong bass of the 70mm version.)  A subtle but cool change is that the beeping intercom in the cell bay shootout starts much earlier, while Luke and Han are still blasting away, showing that the people on the other end were very quick to respond to the disturbance in the detention block.  The music throughout the movie is more audible and really pulls you into the excitement of the film.  But some things they changed are definitely less good.  The sound just before C-3PO says "Did you hear that?  They shut down the main reactor.  We'll be destroyed for sure," is for some reason very tinny and subdued in comparison to the stereo, and I don't like the alterations to stormtrooper dialogue such as "close the blast doors", which are very obviously not the same voice, and distractingly unnecessary.  The '44 Magnum laser' in the chasm shootout is questionable too.

Obviously, everyone's view of what mix is best will vary according to what they heard first and what they come to prefer through repeated listening.  It's hard to pick out any single one as being superior in all aspects to the others.  Each has their strong suits.

I've never understood the confusion about whether Palpatine was the Sith Lord or not.  I guess it's because I read the original novelisations, and the Emperor is referred to as Palpatine on numerous occasions.  I sort of enjoyed seeing the characters fumbling about not knowing their trusted ally was actually setting them all up, and Palpatine's carefully hidden satisfaction at manipulating them so thoroughly.  It's one of the few good things about the prequel movies to me.

I mean, I know that for me AOTC was the turning point. I was way too tolerant of the SE back in the old days and while TPM was a disappointment it had its good points, but AOTC had no merits whatosever and was for me the sign that told me Star Wars was fucked (though I should have figured that out in 97 with Han shooting second and Roger Rabbit Jabba).

This was my view of it exactly, too.  I actually really liked the special editions when they first came out--they were the same movies, just a bit different.  I liked Phantom Menace too; the thrill of "new Star Wars" kept me from seeing how silly it actually was.  But when Episode 2 came around and so obviously chugged it, I realised something was really wrong.  Even then I still had hopes of Episode 3 turning it around, and I sort of enjoyed that at first (mainly because of Ian McDiarmid) before getting tired of it.  Then I saw the 2004 dvd's and the suckiness of those--particularly the dreadful sound mix for ANH--finally convinced me it had all gone to crappe.  At that point I revisited the original versions for the first time in several years, and was struck anew by how infinitely superior they were, and how they never needed to be changed in the first place.  I've only ever watched them since.

I agree that the SE's really did reset it all under everyone's noses.  As such I take a nihilistic view and negate their very existence from my reckoning, and that of everything that follows their view of things.

Boba Fett is NOT a clone.  This is apocryphal, a myth designed to destroy the integrity of the original movies.  He does not have an australian accent, nor do the stormtroopers (who are not clones either).

This is largely due to the fact that it is a lame idea, and that Jason Wingreen's vocal delivery kicks ass, while the replacement sucks ass through a straw.

Do a barrel roll!  ;)

If you're going that route, you should also dub in the "voice" clips from the original SNES Star Fox, as well.

Actually, the prequels are like a bad version of Star Fox.  Aim for the buzz droid's center eye, Fox!

Those pictures a few posts up were hilarious.

I keep forgetting this show even exists.  I first heard of it years ago and nothing seemed to come of it for a long time, so I wrote it off as apocryphal.

I suppose it's possible they could produce something worthy of the name, if it's left in the hands of competant people who respect the original movies.  But honestly I doubt it's going to be anything worthwhile.  If it's even ten percent as good as Firefly, I'd be really amazed.  Can't they just leave Star Wars alone?  Hasn't enough damage already been done?  I'm way more interested in Timothy Zahn's new SW book than anything more officially produced.

I'm quite interested in this.  For a while I thought I couldn't get onto newsgroups.  I just found out that I can, but apparently my provider has really bad retention, because this was only just uploaded and it's only showing back to part 84.  *headdesk*  I could sure use a torrent also.

Oh I remember those.  They were insanely hard and I could never get very far at all without entering the secret passwords to get to later levels.  Actually I don't think it was even possible without the passwords.

I wish they would put the original SNES Star Fox on virtual console.  That too is very hard but it had much better music than any of the later Star Fox games.

Funny seeing Twilight Princess mentioned here, as I'm in the middle of playing through it a second time.  Sort of hesitant to finish it because of the sad ending.  I enjoy using the Wii remote, but it's true that having to go through batteries is annoying.

You'll have to separate the left and right channels into separate files to use this method.  I would imagine most audio editors are capable of this.  If it doesn't have a function for that in the menu options, set the zoom parameter so that it shows the entire file in the space of the window, then select/highlight the left channel only, copy it, create a new mono file--don't forget to set it to 48 khz--and paste the left channel into it.  Save.  Do the same for the right channel.  Then load your mono files into Aften in the order left, right, LFE.  Set the channel configuration options to "2/0 + LFE", "LFE channel is present", and "Dolby Surround encoded".  Bitrate to 448 kbps.

Other settings for best quality as follows--Fast bit allocation: more accurate encoding; exponent strategy search size: 32; bandwidth: 60; stereo rematrixing: mid/side; block switching: selectively use 256-point; dialog normalization: 31; dynamic range compression: none; apply bandwidth low-pass filter; apply DC high-pass filter; apply LFE low-pass filter.

Using these settings will increase the encoding time somewhat, depending on your computer, but it should still be pretty fast.  The sound will be quite good even if left at the default values, but if you can get additional quality out of it, why not?

I'm assuming you're going to use the 2.1 channel format.  If you want to make a 5.1 as Satanika did, then of course set your channel configuration as "3/2 + LFE" instead, and be mindful of what order you load the channels.

TheBoost: That is awesome!  I like the existing RotJ, but if it had been done as you suggest, the same basic ideas but a better and more serious execution, it would have achieved greatness.  That was very well thought out and satisfying.

Gratuitous CGI shots of Alderaan exploding in slow motion, complete with Jimmy Smits' face digitally altered to be screaming in terror just before the blast hits the planet.

Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy, and a CGI Elmer Fudd added to the cantina scene.

Shockwaves every time a spaceship explodes.

Dub all the stormtroopers with Jizzango Fizzett's voice.

Artoo using his rocket boosters to levitate away from the X-wing stuck in the Dagobah swamp omg!!!11wootzorz!

The version of Aften I use is a gui called "Wav to AC3 Encoder".  Do a search for that and you should find it no problem.  There is a command line version also but I've never really got the hang of how to do stuff like that.  The gui contains numerous options for improving the sound within a given bitrate--I set them all to their maximum quality level.  It gives explanations for what they all do.  For a straight mono or stereo encode, you can load the source file directly, but for a greater number of channels, I select "multiple mono input" and load them individually, because I find opening enormous multichannel wavs to be problematic for my system memory.  To do that you'll need to create a separate mono file for each channel.  You can select either wav channel mapping or AC3 mapping.  Wav order is Left, Center, Right, LFE, Left Surround, Right Surround; while AC3 order is Left, Right, Center, Left Surround, Right Surround, LFE.  You'll want to use 448 kbps for your bitrate, as it is the highest permitted by DVD spec.  If you have a player that can do 640, by all means do that (I imagine most Bluray players wouldn't have any problem with it, but I don't know for sure). 

I'm fortunate that the Aften gui works on my Mac--if it didn't I'd be out of luck because there don't seem to be any AC3 encoders that aren't outrageously expensive.  I tried to use a DTS encoder, but it always quit after I clicked the encode button--no idea why.  Not compatible with WINE, I guess.

I agree--killing Mara Jade was a mistake, and whoever thought that up is a douschbag who should be thrown face first into a mud pit and sat on by an elephant.  (lol)  I've completely given up on Star Wars books at this point.  I've sort of come to the viewpoint of, "if it's not in the original movies, or if Timothy Zahn didn't write it, it never happened".  Those are the only SW stories I really consistently enjoy anymore.

I agree with ABC: this topic is nuts.

Star Wars the original is practically perfect as is, even with minor fx mistakes, and messing with it further only hurts the movie.  The most anyone should ever have done with it visually is remove matte lines and garbage boxes and so forth.  Nothing else, please!

Here you go neebis: http://www.sendspace.com/file/c0cb2i  LFE-only FLACs for all three movies re-uploaded.

When I was first starting this project, back when it seemed like a crazy idea and I didn't know if it could actually work, I did record the LFE from my receiver's subwoofer output, since I didn't have any other way to do it that I knew of (being on a Mac it can sometimes be hard to find equivalent programs to do such things, or get Windows versions to work right).  Later I discovered the program A52decX, which is what have I since used to demux the AC3 into individual mono files.  Obviously this is preferable since it avoids going through unnecessary digital to analog conversion and back again, and there won't be any noise from the receiver added in.  Using the LFE will certainly work added to the '93 mix without changes--the first two times I made AC3 encodes I did it that way, and only made edits later when I had more sources to work from.

I'm glad to hear you like what the LFE does for the movie.  If you want to compare more of it to the straight '93 mix I'd say the Battle of Yavin is a good place to listen, and also the part where the Falcon comes out of lightspeed and follows the TIE fighter to the Death Star--the bass should be quite noticeable in those parts.  For Empire, the whole Battle of Hoth is kickass, from the Imperial walkers first shaking Echo Base to the power generator exploding and everything in between.  In Jedi, Jabba's sail barge exploding and the Emperor's death are especially thunderous.

I completely understand about wanting to keep things as original as possible.  These versions have become my favourites, but I'd be equally happy watching the original stereo or any other good and authentic sound mix.  I plan on using as many soundtracks as I can when I'm able to get some double layer encodes going.  The few changes I made were basically with the aim of getting all my favourite aspects of various mixes together into one track, or as close as I could reasonably get to that.

I like the original 77 Star Wars the best of the movies, followed by Empire.

For books I like the Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn.

I also like the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight game series.

Putting PCM tracks on dvd's isn't really practical unless your video has a fairly short run time and you don't need your peak video bitrate to go all that high.  With the audio at 1536 kbps your video would have to be encoded so that it doesn't go over 8.3 mbps or something like that.  For some things that won't be a problem, but for the Star Wars films it may not work all that well because they are over 2 hours and have lots of fast-moving action scenes.  It could be done, but using an AC3 track at 448 kbps will give you more breathing room and there won't be too much of a drop in sound quality compared to the source.

A bitrate of 448 for stereo is quite a lot compared to using 448 for 5.1, since the same bandwidth has to be spread out over more channels.  I've noticed at hifi stores, where the sound quality is greater than what I have at home, that playing 5.1 AC3, while quite good, isn't really that much of an improvement over my own system in terms of fidelity (although dynamics are another matter due to more robust amplification).  But playing music with uncompressed PCM is another matter, whether it's Vivaldi or the Alien soundtrack cd or whatever.  The benefits of higher bitrates become more apparent as the quality of your equipment improves.

So I suppose I would say that using the highest practical bitrate is always advisable, but not necessarily the highest possible in all cases.  If your player can swing AC3 at 640 kbps (out of dvd spec but I think some can do it), then that, of course, would be the best compromise between quality and bitrate; but that won't always be possible.

On another note: since this is the LFE thread--I was wondering if anyone who downloaded them, either in stereo or 5.1, would care to comment on their experiences with those soundtracks.  How well did the bass integrate into the movie--did it enhance the movie, or detract from it, or not call particular attention to itself?  How was the surround sound if you have it?  I'm interested to hear folks' impressions, whether general or specific.

The links for the files I uploaded earlier are still valid, so if anyone wants to download them who hasn't yet, do so.  :)  If they do expire, feel free to PM me to see about getting them uploaded again.

Click here for the links to the 2.1 channel AC3 files: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/adding-LFE-to-GOUT/post/365334/#post365334

Click here for the links to the PCM tracks and LFE-only files in FLAC format: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/adding-LFE-to-GOUT/post/366008/#post366008

Before anyone gets too excited about the superiority of the laserdisc 5.1 track, I suggest they read this article about the supposed differences between it and the dvd version.  http://www.videophile.info/Graphs/TPM/TPM_01.htm

According to this, the only significant difference in mixing between the two (aside from the parts where scenes were added or taken out) is that the dvd version is an average of 8 db quieter than the laserdisc, for some reason.  If you adjust the volume up to compensate, any differences will be much less pronounced.

Having said that, however, as disappointing a movie as Phantom Menace is, the theatrical version is definitely better than what appeared on the dvd, and having the untouched original mix is always a good thing.

If it's a choice between seeing a rough unfinished version and not seeing it at all, I would definitely like to see the current state of it.  It just seems like too much has gone into it to go to waste completely.  And I'll say, for the record, that I've always been a fan of Trooperman's dubbing and think it sounds good.

I remember seeing that the JarJar voice needed to be re-recorded.  I am available to take another crack at it if desired.

I considered doing it that way when I first started, but I realised it wasn't going to work.  The LFE really needs its own separate channel, because it has to be played a lot louder than the rest of the mix to get the full effect.  The bass information is encoded 10 decibels lower than it is intended to be played back so that it can have more headroom--the receiver/processor increases the gain to where it should be when the signal is decoded.  Mixing the bass into the mains at +10db would cause severe clipping in many instances, and if you didn't give it the boost it would hardly sound any 'bassier' than just playing the mains by themselves.  If not using multichannel analog or a digital connection, the LFE is probably going to be dropped, also.

It looks like playing my files in straight 2.1 mode or else obtaining the 5.1 versions are the only ways it's going to work, here.

I don't think you're going to get the LFE track if you use a stereo analog connection--it's only going to give you the main channels, at least on any setup I've ever seen.  If it did put the LFE in, it would probably cause clipping and distortion . . . hmm.  Or are you just using Neo 6 mode for it straight 2 channel sources?  I'm a bit confused.

Discrete 5.1 can sound really good compared to upmixing, but it depends on the mix--sometimes it's done wrong and sounds gimmicky and fake.  Having an uncompressed soundtrack is going to sound better than lossy in most cases, this is true.  Depends on the quality of the source.

The 77 stereo doesn't really have a whole lot of punch compared to the 93--being designed for 35mm optical tracks, it's limited in frequency response and dynamic range.  The 93 versions came mostly from the 70mm mix, which was not limited in either respect.  That is not to say that it sounds bad, however, because it doesn't.  I grew up on the 85 mix, which is very similar to the 77 stereo, and even though I now mostly prefer the 93 version because I love its punch and sound quality, hearing the original stereo is kind of like coming home after a long trip and finding things just the way you left them--familiar and right.  (I especially felt that way after hearing the violation that was the 04 mix.)  I put the cell bay shootout from the 77 track into the 93, because the original version sounds better without those shattering sounds--it's worth the loss of dynamic range in that instance.

The mono version is foreign to me, because I never heard it until recently, and it has a lot of things that I had previously thought were special edition changes (like 'Close the blast doors!') that I didn't care for.  It'll never be my favourite, but I have come to appreciate it a lot more.

Edit to add: totally agree on getting rid of the Lego demo.  It's a complete waste of space for a fan project that could better be used for video and audio bitrates.

Those screenshots look quite good.  The GOUT video is kind of a mess, even on a 4:3 screen if you look closely, and upconverted looks even worse usually.  Frankly I'm amazed to see it at that resolution without jaggies everywhere--gives me hope, it does.

Since I haven't got an HD screen yet, I've only done 4:3 versions so far.  I used a simplified version of the g-force script, taking out everything except the subtitles, the anti-aliasing, and the gamma/saturation stages, and encoding to single layer, since the rest of it isn't as noticeable on a 24-inch crt.  When I finally do get a big screen, I'll re-do them as double layer using the full script.  Probably stick with 16:9 dvd format, since I'm on a Mac and I don't know if there are any AviSynth-compatible h264 encoders that would work in WINE--I'm just lucky that HCEncoder works as well as it does.  Hopefully I'll be able to snag the Oppo BD-983 Bluray player; that beast's upconversion is second to none.

As far as audio sources go, I would recommend getting rid of all the tracks that came on the GOUT.  Empire's GOUT audio has significant dynamic range compression compared to the laserdisc version, for some reason (though the other two apparently don't).  They are all dialnorm'd about four decibels, as well, plus the low bitrate--better to scrap them and use the laserdisc sound instead.  Not sure how many you can fit or what kind of bitrates you need for 1080p, but I would use the 5.1 track, along with the original mono and stereo for the first film, and the 93 stereo if you have enough space.  The GOUT menus are pretty cool but changing them is probably more trouble than it's worth.  It's nice to be able to put the disc in and have it start playing right away, and just switch the audio with the remote if you want, and not bother with a menu at all.