kk650

riddler95 said:

Nick66 said:

Just give me the pre 97 films (I'm OK with the 81 crawl) with a full restoration (hello Robert Harris) without excessive DVNR and colours that match the previous home video releases (at a minimum)*, and original audio in HD and I'll be happy....once they do that as far as I'm concerned they can add as many audio tracks as they'd like and release the old SE's and create new ones to their hearts content....I even promise to buy them.

*EDIT: I'd prefer a colour timing that matches the original theatrical releases, of course but I don't even know if anyone at Lucasfilm or Disney even knows what the films looked like back then anymore.

 Robert Harris would do anything he could to perfectly color correct the Original Theatrical Versions to match exactly how they looked when they were originally released in 1977, 1980, and 1983.

If the wildly inconsistant colour grading/image dynamics of the Star Wars Despecialised Edition is truely representative of how it looked when it came out in the theatres in 1977, I don't imagine that Disney will wish to recreate those colours/image dynamics for an official blu-ray release, it simply wouldn't look like a modern professional release with consistant colour grading. I certainly wouldn't want them to and would have serious reservations about buying the Star Wars release if it did.

Outside of some people on this site and others looking for a nostalgia trip, I don't think the mainstream viewers would tolerate such inconsistent colour grading in a modern blu-ray release and Disney will be wanting to make as much money as possible off these UOT blu-ray releases.

Hopefully if they do release these, which I certainly hope they do, if only just to get at the lapti nek and yub nub footage in hd, they'll come up with a nice consistant natural looking balanced colour scheme that has a colour continuety that links all three films, that will blow our socks off and make these films look much better than they've ever looked before. As much fine grain and detail as possible would be a big plus for me as well and toning down the contrast to make them look as filmic as possible, not digital like the blu-ray releases we currently have. They'll certainly get my money if they do that.

I have to strongly disagree with you there TheHutt, the blanket green tint is very much there on both An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug, on my main PC it is very visible and obvious.

The top screencap of the title An Unexpected Journey posted by Spaced Ranger, where the whites of the clouds and title are green in the blu-ray screencap, clearly demonstrates its presence and it sadly stays there throughout the whole film, as it does in The Desolation of Smaug. You may not see it but trust me when I say its there throughout, I've gone through both films scene by scene many many times when I was regrading them.

IMHO An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug look MUCH better without the blanket green tint. Anybody interested in checking the difference out for themselves, search for 'kk650 the hobbit' on tehparadox and you'll find both the regraded theatrical and extended releases there.

Anybody else want to voice a preference for either the classic or the retro settings? Its currently 1 vote for classic and 1 vote for retro.

Here are some screencap comparisons between the previous retro settings and the latest slightly warmer settings:

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http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88810

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88811

EDIT: HERE ARE SOME MORE RETRO COMPARISONS

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88818

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88820

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88821

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88823

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88825

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88826

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88827

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88828

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88829

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Here are some screencap comparisons between the previous classic settings and the latest slightly warmer settings:

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http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88812

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88814

EDIT: HERE ARE SOME MORE CLASSIC COMPARISONS

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88831

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88832

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88834

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88833

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88835

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88836

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88837

http://www.screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88838

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/88840

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So pittrek, what do you think? Do you prefer the screencaps using the slightly warmer settings to the ones using the previous settings?

Thanks kane1138 and towne32!

That currently makes 1 vote for classic and 1 vote for retro.

@pittrek: Hmm, I've been experimenting and I think you're probably right, the screencaps could use slightly more warmth. Boosting the reds even slightly makes them start to undermine the blues in the film though, so its a bit more complicated than simply boosting the reds slightly, other settings need to be changed very slightly to compensate and keep the reds in check and stop them overwhelming the blues.

After a bit of fiddling around, I've managed to get something that I think does the trick. I'll post some screencaps up soon so you can let me know what you think.

Okay, here are the screencaps of the Classic and Retro Star Wars Semi-Specialised Editions V2.1 .

Damn imageshack has compressed them to high heaven when I uploaded them so they don't reflect the grain structure or image quality of these releases but they are accurate in terms of colour. You can see the images in full size by right clicking on them and then clicking view image.

Those interested in these Star Wars Original Trilogy Semi-Specialised Editions, please have a look at the colours of these screencaps and let me know which you would like me to release first, the Retro release or the Classic release.

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Star Wars Retro Semi-Specialised Edition V2.1:

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Star Wars Classic Semi-Specialised Edition V2.1:

towne32 said:

Based on previous settings I think I'll vote for classic.

Which RoTJ ending are you using? If you do both, will that be 6 versions of RoTJ (at both 9 and 16gb)?!

Thanks for sharing your preference towne32! So that's one for classic. :)

I'll be doing both endings for ROTJ haha Honestly though after the crazy amount of hours I've spent on these Semi-Specialised Editions, leaving my PC on a few days more to encode the two different endings in different sizes doesn't bother me in the slightest.

I'm even planning to create AVCHD releases of these so they can be played straight off blu-ray players or a ps3, so those will need encoding as well haha

Just got back from a trip. The regraded releases of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Once Upon a Time in the West and Return of the King took longer than I expected but they're now finished and can be found on Tehparadox. I was planning to start releasing these earlier in the month but the other releases set me back and as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men...

So its pretty much full steam ahead, my focus is squarely on these Semi-Specialised Editions now. I'm very glad that I've had a good long break from these because its given me the opportunity to see my grading settings again with fresh eyes. For the most part I'm satisfied but after some consideration I've done a few final adjustments to get the Classic and Technicolor looking more filmic and less digital like the blu-rays, now I think they're ready to go. :)

I need to decide which trilogy to do first though, the Retro one or the Classic one (the Technicolor one is the least accessible so i'll leave that for last). Any thoughts? I'll put up some screencaps from both soon so you guys can let me know which you prefer that I do first.

Congrats jerryshadoe! I know how tough it is to put releases together, especially when its your first, so relax and give yourself a pat on the back, you deserve it!

I look forward to seeing what future releases you have in store for us. :)

DoomBot's right, I think that clip looks great. Go for it!

Yes I agree with DoomBot and thegroovologist, it looks much better in terms of contrast, much more natural and filmic. I'd say go with those settings.

The added grain is very nice I agree, definately seems to pull out more detail from the hd-dvd.

I feel the sun plays an important part in this film and your colour grading doesn't reflect that, those regraded screencaps feel quite cold. Yes, the hd-dvd is too orange but I feel that in those screencaps you've probably gone too far in the other direction in the process of trying to remove that blanket orange tint, with overall colours and fleshtones especially that are too blue IMHO.

I personally think you should try to find a middle ground between the hd-dvd colour grading and your current settings, removing the excesses of the orangy hd-dvd colours while maintaining the overall warmth that you would expect with the sun blazing down on the characters for most of the film.

I also feel that the fleshtones are too saturated and need to be toned down a fair bit but I believe i've already mentioned that to you before.

I agree with DoomBot and thegroovologist, your latest comparisons look better, warmer and more natural colourwise. Nice job Andrea!

I'd say that your contrast looks a little too much to me though, making it look less filmic, I would personally try toning the contrast down a bit, see if I can bring back more detail in the highlights and shadows, it looks like you could have black crush and blown out highlights with your current settings.

Danfun128 said:

I don't have your ESB and ROTJ yet. Should I wait until you release V2 of them both? Are the colors of adywans ESB 97se and Harmys Despecialized ROTJ better than V1?

I would personally wait for the V2 releases.

I aim to have the V2 releases of Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi out in the next month. I've finished regrading Raiders of the Lost Ark and should be finished with Once Upon A Time in the West in the next few days, then I'm focusing all my attention on these Star Wars V2 Semi-Specialised releases.

Lil Brutto said:

kk650 said:

The less colourful version with the grotto scene is now up on tehparadox.

Great job with the updated mono track btw!

 kk650,

Given that your regrade is the best available release of the 4K transfer and we won't be seeing a new release from the Italians for quite some time, would you be willing to regrade this latest version of yours (i.e without the grotto scene) to the Mondo colors?

Recreating the mondo would require a shot by shot regrade that I personally don't have the free time to do. Even if I did though, I do not believe that it is possible.

Certain scenes like during the battle of the bridge, it has been regraded on the 4k remaster so strongly with one tint that I don't believe its possible to get back to the more natural looking colours of the mondo release in that scene or indeed in many other scenes with strong tints throuout the film, like the final duel.

I'm hoping that Andrea can prove me wrong though and with that colourmatch program of his draw those colours that seem to be lost out of the 4k remaster, allowing him to recreate the mondo colour palette with the detail and grain of the 4k remaster.

That said, I like how this 4k remaster looks now that its had the blanket yellow tint removed, colourwise its not better or worse than the mondo release IMHO, just different, in a good way. Both colour palettes have their strengths and weaknesses.

I'd recommend that people check out the less colourful regraded release themselves and make up their own minds about whether the italian mondo release is so much better than the 4k remaster after having the blanket yellow tint removed.

TheHutt said:

I'll also be releasing a less colourful version with the grotto scene included

Please do that. That's the one I am waiting for.

The less colourful version with the grotto scene is now up on tehparadox.

Great job with the updated mono track btw!

@BuddhaMaster: Hmm, where to begin. Firstly, I'm not reverting the blu-ray back to the Special Edition, by which I assume you mean the '97 SE release, my Semi-Specialised releases have never officially existed because I have removed/changed awful scenes that were in the original '97 SE like Jabba the clown in Star Wars, Greedo shooting first and Jedi Rocks. With these Semi-Specialised Editions I have kept all the changes I considered improvements, like the improved x-wing special effects during the Battle of Yavin and the Luke and Biggs scene just before the battle, closing his character arc started when luke first mentions him at the start of the film and also to add greater pathos and sense of sacrifice and loss to the Battle of Yavin.

As for as the colours are concerned, poita very kindly helped me get a feel for how Star Wars looked on the theatrical prints, I then had a look at Althor's COLD edition of Star Wars to get an idea of some of the different colour palettes that the film has had. All of them have problems, the fleshtones of the GOUT are far too red, the '97 SE laserdisc is underexposed and has a strong blanket blue tint throughout the film that is very unappealing IMHO and the 2004 DVD has all the colour problems we're already very familiar with. The japanese special edition laserdisc has the best colour palette of the bunch with the most appealing fleshtones IMHO but is over-saturated and has a strong blanket orange tint throughout the whole film so not all that reliable colourwise.

Basically all four home releases have numerous problems with their colours/image dynamics so I couldn't use any of them as a colour reference, so I regraded these films using just the fleshtones and lightsources as a guide of what the colours should be, removing the blanket blue tint on the blu-ray in the process. I was not trying to recreate the colour palette of any of the home releases, especially the '97 SE with its underexposure and strong blue tint, I wanted just to get the colours and fleshtones as natural and balanced as possible. That's probably what you find appealing about the colours of my Semi-Specialised Star Wars V2 release.

@Flexicon9, BDgeek and milw50717: My pleasure! I'm glad you like what you're seeing.

Okay, the 16gb regraded release of Mad Max 2 is now up on myspleen.

Jetrell Fo said:

kk650 said:

Can anybody point me to any screencaps taken from the dtheater release?

I'm very interested in seeing how the colours look on this dtheater release and how they compare to the blu-ray.

Far as I know, the color timing for the dtheater version is unique to it's release.  Neither the DVD or Bluray share it's timing.

 It certainly looks that way. It's got a colder feel to it than the blu-ray.

@jerryshadoe: Damn. I was hoping that maybe a new german or japanese high quality transport stream had shown up. This 5gb 1080i stream really suffers from a lack of grain. I look forward to seeing how this looks when you add the grain plate over it.

Can anybody point me to any screencaps taken from the dtheater release?

I'm very interested in seeing how the colours look on this dtheater release and how they compare to the blu-ray.

jerryshadoe, can I ask whether you are planning to use the 5GB 1080i version that's been around for a while or is there a new higher quality hdtv transport stream of Last of the Mohicans available that I'm not aware of?

Hal 9000 said:

Not that any of them are necessarily meant to, but which version do you think is most similar to Harmy's De/Re-specialized versions?

From what I have seen of harmy's star wars despecialised version comparing it to my latest semi-specialised releases is like comparing apples and oranges, they are very different from each other and trying to achieve totally different things.

In terms of colours and image dynamics, his star wars despecialised release is very inconsistent compared to my releases, often varying a great deal from scene to scene, like when Ben and Luke first meet, which is overly bright and overexposed to my eyes. I imagine this reflects the inconsistencies of the theatrical print hes recreating the colours from, using the frames from the prints that he has been provided with.

From what I have seen of his latest Empire Strikes Back workprint it has a lot of colour/saturation/hue inconsistencies as well but image dynamics seem more consistant than with his Star Wars despecialised release. It has fleshtones that are too reddish for my liking and orangey fleshtones during cold external shots on Hoth that seem a bit strange and not right to me. I don't know what colour reference he's using for Empire Strikes Back or if he has frames from an unfaded print that I haven't seen, but I personally don't like watching colours changing saturation/hue from shot to shot in the same scene (the lights in the cryogenic chamber during the duel between vader and luke comes to mind), and characters faces being very reddish, looking almost sunburnt a lot of the time, it takes me out of the film, regardless of whether the theatrical print looked like that or not.

My semi-specialised releases however are all about maintaining colour/fleshtone/image dynamic consistency throughout the whole film, not about recreating exactly the look of the theatrical prints and their inherent inconsistencies. They have a single overall master setting to remove the blanket blue tint and correct the fleshtones so they are less red. The few 'rogue' shots with noticable colour inconsistancies, like in Star Wars where there are quite a few, I adjust the master settings to make that shot closely match with the rest of the scene around it so it fits in seamlessly and doesn't draw attention to itself. The same thing with all the shots taken from the german hdtv stream to remove the poor changes from the blu-ray like the creepy blinking ewoks, I use different settings to bring the colours in line with the rest of the film.

I used no single reference as such for the colours, though I have seen the varying colour schemes of the different home dvd/laserdisc editions thanks to althor's fantastic COLD releases, I just used the lightsources and fleshtones as a guide for what the colours should look like, as I do with all my releases, trying to make the film look as natural and appealing to me as possible.

So the short answer is basically that none of my semi-specialised releases look like his despecialised releases. If you want to see what I mean, you just have to check them out. Once i've got TGTBTU, OUATITW and Raiders of the Lost Ark out of the way, i'll start releasing these. All the grading work has been done for all three films, I just need to encode them now.