hairy_hen

Having seen Raiders on 35mm back in 2007, I can confirm that the bar scene was very much not red-shifted on original prints.  It looked pretty similar to the way it does in the trailer examples above.  I remember very clearly taking specific note of this at the time, and being somewhat surprised by it since it was so strikingly different.

Even more surprising to me was that the IMAX release from a few years ago also had a non-red version of this scene.  When I first saw the Bluray, I expected it to be the same since I'd been under the impression they were the same version, but the Bluray has the same red look to it that other home video releases do, so apparently it does not come from the same source.  The IMAX version I saw looked really good, so I wonder why they didn't use it for the Bluray.

I seem to remember pointing this out about the bar scene a few years ago, but I don't think anybody really took notice since I didn't have photographic proof to back up my claim.  So I'm glad to see that it has come up again now.

That sounds like Dialog Normalization at work.

Because of it, the whole Dolby track will be turned down in the receiver by a certain amount (most likely 4 dB), and it makes it seem less powerful than it actually is.  The speech itself will be perfectly audible in both cases, so we don't notice during times when not much is going on, but since the peaks in the action scenes are noticeably lower, this will deceive the listener into thinking that it is less good.  Also, due to the Fletcher-Munson effect, our ears suck at hearing bass at low volumes, so we think one version is mixed with less bass, while in reality the actual amount may well be the same.

Unfortunately, DialNorm cannot be defeated by the end user, so these sorts of volume discrepancies during playback are unavoidable.  Combine that with our natural tendency to believe that louder is better, and we can convince ourselves of all kinds of things.  If you have a receiver that specifies how much DialNorm offset is in the track (I have a new Marantz that does this), that can help with making a more accurate comparison.  This can at least help make it possible to distinguish how much of what you're hearing is due to the mix itself and how much is just because of the playback level being turned down.

I really want to see Jar Jar Abrams scratching his balls in 3D for two hours.

(It would be better than frevious' whining, anyway.)

I'm glad the book A Guide to the Star Wars Universe was brought up.  I had the 1994 edition as a kid, and its backstory information was always something I considered to be credible.  Often I've found myself continually baffled by some of the outlandish theories about early SW history, and I forget that it's because not everybody grew up reading that book and absorbing its information.  I think it's about as good a look at what the world of SW is all about as you can get that hasn't been contaminated by PT and SE changes.

Combine that with some specifics that Zahn introduced in his earlier stories, and you get a very different look at SW history than the altered, 'official' version.  It's also a much more interesting universe by far.

They did?  That's good . . . except it makes the lack of HD for DS9 all the more distressing.

Wil Wheaton is a more terrifying interrogator than Garak.

SilverWook said:

I thought donkey scrotum was the standard by which suckitude was measured? ;)

Well, I figured those poor donkeys were having their sacs so overworked they deserved a break, and those lazy rats really needed to start picking up the slack.  ;)

Anyway, I hadn't heard Mike's info before, but it certainly doesn't surprise me if the movie just comes across as being a generic modern blockbuster with the name 'Star Wars' attached to it.  Producing expensive-but-disposable content is the main part of what the movie industry does, especially recently.

Well, the resemblance to the traditional portrayal of Jesus as a white guy, which the real life version of him certainly was not.

The reason it sounds wrong is because the tone of the voice for that line has no similarity at all to the rest of the stormtrooper dialog.  It breaks the sense of continuity and immersion, and jars you right out of the scene.

I remember the snowspeeder crashing into the AT-AT from the novelization of ESB.  The presence of such a scene certainly explains why General Veers disappears from the rest of the movie (since he is apparently dead), as well as why there is a shot of the walker's cockpit blowing up when Luke throws a grenade into it—this shot was meant to have been used for the scene that got cut.

Interesting also is that the rebel pilot named Hobbie is the one who crashed into Veers' walker, killing himself in the process.  Hobbie shows up in various post-RotJ novels, beginning with the Thrawn trilogy, since Zahn and other writers didn't know that he was supposed to have died in a deleted scene.  I seem to recall also hearing that General Rieekan was supposed to die in the battle as well, which would explain why he's nowhere to be seen in that last scene in the command center and Leia is the only one left in charge.  Well, guess who shows up in post-RotJ novels?

The story of ESB certainly is somewhat different when you take all the deleted material into account.  The entire dynamic of the relationship between the three main characters changes drastically if the part in the medical center where Luke and Leia almost make out before Han shows up is considered valid.

At this point I want the blasted movie to just come out already, so I can know the exact quantity of rat scrotum that it inhales, rather than having to wonder about the amount.

My life has been much less stressful and annoying ever since I stopped reading anything online related to TFA.  The fact that I even clicked on this thread in the first place is an aberration.

Ian McDiarmid also indicated that many takes were done, and that he did it differently in each one to offer Lucas the choice of what he wanted in editing (since everyone knew 'fix it in editing' was his way of working).  It is quite likely that the more hammy versions are what ended up getting used, even if they shouldn't have been.

Pretty much everything about that scene, from the way it was written, shot, and edited, is just plain bad.  Even good actors can't salvage something so disastrously misconceived, so if it doesn't work it's hardly their fault.

They could make it not suck.  That would be a general direction to aspire towards.

Except wait, no, they can't do that.  Never mind.

I actually do like the green shift on the prints.  Though I acknowledge that it may not have been entirely intentional.  Regardless, this is looking good . . .

DuracellEnergizer said:

Possessed said:

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Fixed(?) 

 Ruined.

It's not the 'adult' or 'edgy' (or whatever other inane adjective) nature of it that bothers me.  What ruins it is the fact that it doesn't ring true to what the Muppets are actually about.  They may make jokes about many things, they may be many things, but mean-spirited is not one of them.  What I saw on this new show was very much based in mean-spirited humor, encouraging the viewer to laugh at the characters rather than with them.  (The use of the term 'humor' itself is overly generous in this case, since not only was it not funny, it was painfully embarrassing to sit through.)

Maybe this is too subtle a tonal discord for the writers of the new show to be able to pick up on, but they really should have known better—especially if the head guy has actually worked on the Muppets before.  That only serves to further lower my estimation of his abilities and understanding.

Besides, let's face it: that whole 'The Office' schtick has quite worn out its welcome by now.  It's a tiresome, irritating device which serves no purpose other than to disguise a lack of originality, and lampshading it only serves to further highlight the stupidity of using it in the first place.

Strong Bad says: "Not good enough; F minus minus."

The new 'Muppets' show is horrible.

Rather than having any of the sense of joy or fun of the earlier productions, it is instead a cynical, disastrous trainwreck that undermines everything that made the Muppets what they were.  It is painfully unfunny, and a slap in the face to Jim Henson and everyone who made the original show what it was.  Damn to the depths of hell the idiots who are responsible for this ludicrous display of poor taste.  Avoid at all costs!

Ass Windex?

Well, they say the eyes are the window to the soul.   So it seems there is no other logical explanation than that Mace's ass is an eye, which is a window to . . . well, something.  (The soul of the Force?)  Presumably not a very clean window if it needs Windex to be able to see into it.

I challenge anyone to try to disprove this, because you know you can't.  Yeah, I said it.

That's just as well, since the dynamic range of the 5.1 track is so high that laptop speakers will never be able to do it justice.  Track 2 is a stereo mix with reduced dynamics, which is much better suited to smaller speakers, so I'd recommend it for anyone who doesn't have a dedicated audio system.

We can has staffheads, precious?

I believe the number you're looking for is 7/20.

U-He Satin is probably the only digital version that exists.  I discovered this capability yesterday while researching the issue—I'd been aware of its existence as a tape emulation plugin before, but hadn't had a reason to look more closely since I already have the Ampex ATR-102 and Studer A800 from Universal Audio, which are extremely accurate reproductions of popular studio tape machines from the 70's.  (The Ampex was a 2-track mastering deck, while the Studer was a multichannel machine, very similar to the one used to record the score for Star Wars.)

It looks like the U-He plugin is a more general 'tape effect' rather than an exact recreation of all the electronic nuances of one particular machine, like the UAD plugins.  But it does appear to be the only software solution for decoding a track that has been recorded with Dolby noise reduction.  Dolby themselves have never made a digital version, so either their hardware or this plugin would have to be used to get the right sound from the film prints.

Assuming the Wikipedia article on Dolby A is correct, it shouldn't be terribly difficult to recreate the exact multiband processing necessary for decoding; it's simply a matter of setting the thresholds and attack/release times for the compression and expansion to the right values.  The U-He plugin is well viewed for its quality, so in all likelihood its reproduction of the Dolby process is an accurate one; and given its high rate of internal oversampling, any aliasing distortion should be virtually nonexistent.  It would, however, be necessary to ensure that the analog signal from the film print has been digitized at the same reference level that the plugin operates at (ie, 0 VU = -18 dBFS, or however the plugin is set; looks like it has a variable calibration capability).  Otherwise the thresholds of the processor will be incorrect, and frequencies will be boosted or lowered at the wrong levels, yielding an inaccurate sound.  The input to the plugin can be trimmed to the appropriate level easily enough; but the importance of using proper calibration cannot be overemphasized.

Satin doesn't have Dolby SR capability, so it wouldn't be any use for film prints encoded with that, but I'm not sure how useful that would be anyway.  SR is much more complicated than Dolby A, and hardly ever used for music recording since digital was taking over around the same time, so I expect it wasn't worthwhile for U-He to try to implement it.

kpmgeek said:

Dolby B is not compatible with Dolby A.  And if I remember right, Satin has some issues with how it decodes.

What issues?  I haven't seen anything about this . . .

If the soundtracks are recorded from a film print without going through a Dolby A decoder, then both the level of hiss and the overall EQ will be inaccurate to the intended sound by a significant amount.

Surely, sliced bread is the pinnacle of our achievement as humans.

. . . or is it?

I believe that takes "Don't Explain the Joke" to another level entirely . . .

The information about the bitrates of the audio tracks is outdated, because it applies only to an old version.  This should be removed.