kk650

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

Yes, as you can see UHE has more details, but also a lot of DNR... obviously, it will be impossible to recover the lost grain, but adding a grain plate taken from actual film improves the perceived details and hyde some (but not all) problems caused by DNR... but, as this was the worst offender frame, I think the rest of the movie should be improved a little more than this, and, even it will be not perfect, it *could* be a little bit better than the old MPEG2...

This is the reason why I'd like to receive two clips from both versions; to test grain plate on UHE, and to see if final result could be better than the MPEG2.

Okay, I've finally managed to get hold of a copy of the UHE. I've taken a clip from the UHE and exactly the same clip from the mpeg-2 release. The UHE release really does look awful, in motion it looks a lot worse that the screencaps suggest.

I'm sending you a PM with links to the two clips so you can do your tests, it'll be interesting to see how the grained UHE compares to the mpeg-2 release.

Man I love looking at frames in a decent resolution, all that lovely grain and detail. I just wish Team Negative1 would do the same as you and post some frames from the reels they're working on in a decent resolution like these frames here to get us all excited.

That ICE does do a great job but with a bit of eyeballing on my part, I can definately see a loss of sharpness, albeit its very subtle but most importantly the grain is still very much there, pretty much exactly as it is in the original frame.

With a slight sharpen filter applied you should be able to get the ICE frame looking like the original frame, in which case I would personally go with scanning it with ICE enabled because it does look much cleaner and so many defects every frame could get distracting when the video is in motion. It's not like ICE gets rid of all the defects either, just the most noticable ones so you'll still have that cinematic feel. :)

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

I'm curious, too... what I will need are two clips from the same shot, one from the MPEG2 BD, the other from UHE BD; 30sec clips will suffice, but they should be untouched, not re-encoded or recompressed.

I should be able to provide the first clip because I own the mpeg-2 blu-ray but the second could be trickier, i'll see if one of my friends or family own that release.

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

Yes, 8mm grain is DEFINITELY too much... I'm looking for 16mm grain, that should be in between them.

This is a test grain that should be in the middle (click for bigger version):

still need to test all these grain plates on video, rather than image.

This one certainly looks the best of the three grain plates in terms of hiding the DNR without going overboard IMHO. The question is how it compares to the mpeg-2 release when its in motion, i've always been quite happy with the mpeg-2 release, certainly its much better than that other DNRed release that shall not be named...

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

Here you are:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/xluboi

time to go to sleep now... 2:15 am here!

Yeah, I agree with Doombot, this clip looks great with grain plate 2. Can we also see this with grain plate 1 though so we can compare how the grain looks in motion to grain plate 2?

nirbateman said:

kk650 said:

Would it not be better to upload it to usenet where everybody has access to it rather than myspleen where only very few will and for a very limited amount of time until people inevitably stop seeding?

I do not understand everybody's obsession here with myspleen and torrents that have to be constantly seeded, especially with bigger bd-25/bd-50 releases. Usenet is the way to go hands down for larger releases IMHO, they stay up for years without people having to waste their upload bandwidth seeding old stuff rather than being able to upload new stuff.

Can somebody explain to me what's so great about myspleen over usenet that offers so many advantages over it, apart from having a pay a little bit for usenet access?

 Well, I for one, don't have usenet or access to usenet.

Not everyone has access to it, but most have access to Myspleen.

Torrents are the most common way to transfer files quickly.

Torrents are great for fairly small files, 1-2gb maximum, 4-8gb file are fine sometimes if that file is pretty recent and/or popular but usually the seeds disappear pretty quickly on those, leaving download times of weeks or even months. From my personal experience, anything above 4gb become very slow to download very quickly after they've been released as the seeds drop off. Good luck downloading anything larger than 8gb if you're not there when the file is first uploaded and everybody rushes on to download it.

With usenet you get fast speeds and the files are there for everyone for 5 years or more, for files above 2gb, usenet is much better than any torrent and its a resource for everyone, not just those on myspleen. Usenet is so easy to use and cheap as well if you sign up for 3 day stints like I do on usenetserver.com whenever I find something I want, so there is no competition between the two IMHO.

nirbateman said:

So far I have only gotten 2 offers to help with the download.

Come on, guys, if I can get 30 more members to help, I can start seeding by Saturday...

Would it not be better to upload it to usenet where everybody has access to it rather than myspleen where only very few will and for a very limited amount of time until people inevitably stop seeding?

I do not understand everybody's obsession here with myspleen and torrents that have to be constantly seeded, especially with bigger bd-25/bd-50 releases. Usenet is the way to go hands down for larger releases IMHO, they stay up for years without people having to waste their upload bandwidth seeding old stuff rather than being able to focus on uploading new stuff.

Can somebody explain to me what's so great about myspleen over usenet that offers so many advantages over myspleen IMHO, apart from having a pay a little bit for usenet access?

I've just finished uploading my regraded 16gb versions of The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions with the Cinema DTS audio you guys very kindly provided me with to tehparadox, completing the Matrix Trilogy.

I would just like to thank Jetrell Fo, Doombot and CapableMetal for the fantastic work you've done with these Matrix Cinema DTS audio tracks and allowing me to include them with my releases, absolutely amazing stuff. They are so much better than the TrueHD audio on the blu-rays that its difficult to believe. You guys have really opened my eyes to just how important a good audio track is for the overall enjoyment of a film, with your tracks included I've actually found  myself enjoying The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions a lot more than I ever expected so thank you!

You guys are a real asset to this forum, I'm sure I speak for everyone here when I thank you for the great work you do finding and providing us releasers with your great Cinema DTS audio tracks and I hope to be able to collaborate with you guys again in the near future. :)

The name of this project is most apt. It's like a phoenix constantly being reborn and rising from the ashes.

The premise does sound pretty cool though, a real shame it was never finished. I'd love to see this completed someday.

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

As I watched and rewatched the test clips with added grain, I thought that this kind of grain plate is too subtle... I mean, grain should not be very noticeable, but only a bit; with the grain plate used until now, it was less than a bit...

So, I decided to test two new grain plates; they are similar, not very different when saw in static images, but quite noticeable in comparison to the old one; I must test them in motion!

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/61213 - new grain plate 1

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/61214 - new grain plate 2

for comparison:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/60531 - old grain plate

opinions?

The new grain plate 2 is the one that is appealing to me more based on those comparisons but I would really have to see them both in motion to accurately say which one I prefer overall.

SidVichyssoise said:

There are aspects of the 1997 Special Edition (but not subsequent DVD/Blu-Ray alterations) that don't bother me at all, so a definitive Star Wars for me would have some but not all of these. Two exceptions would be Greedo not shooting at Han and keeping Sebastian Shaw as the ghost of Anakin. Does anybody else out there fall into this camp?

You can say I fall into that camp because that's exactly what i've done with my Semi-Specialised editions, kept all the good changes and removed all the bad ones. They can be found on tehparadox.

Han shooting first with no reply from Greedo? Done.

Jabba gone from Star Wars? Done.

Jedi Rocks replaced by Lapti Nek? Done.

Hayden Christenson and Jar Jar gone from Return of the Jedi, exiled to the darkest reaches of space? Done.

Lightsaber colours fixed and now consistent? Done.

And those are only the highlights. All the other poor changes have been removed as well, leaving you with essentially the Original Trilogy with updated special effects.

Very soon I will also be releasing newly regraded versions of these Semi-Specialised editions to match as closely as possible the look of the films as they were originally shown in the cinema.

Wow, those are some of the worst screencaps in terms of image quality i've ever seen, makes it look below dvd level image quality with all that pixelation. I'm just glad that the program I use to preview the films regraded allows me to output high quality screencaps without all this pixelation.

I'm sure the guys here are doing a great job and I look forward to seeing what they release but the image quality of these screencaps are not doing this project any favours, same goes for the screencaps posted in the star wars thread, makes me wonder what the quality of the final product is going to be like. Either put up images that look good without all that compression or don't put up any at all IMHO.

NeverarGreat said:

JEDIT: Since this is on a new page, I'll put the question again:

Which version of the HD broadcast has the highest quality?

As far as i am aware, the german hdtv transport streams are the highest quality hdtv broadcasts available. They can be found on usenet, search for 'star wars ts' without the speechmarks and all six should appear. They should be around 16-18gb each and the titles are in german.

Okay, this is that shot with the latest settings. Let me know what you think:

-

In terms of fleshtones, which of these three screencaps below do you guys prefer (its easier to see the difference if you open them up in seperate windows and switch between them):

Yeah, you're right now that you mention it, a little too much green. Might as well scrap those shots above. What about this screencap below, how is the balance of colours?

poita said:

That has a nicely saturated and punchy, yet more natural and a bit less flat look than your first one.

Thanks poita, I think it's an improvement as well, albeit a subtle one. I'll be sticking with these settings for the natural version of star wars for now.

EDIT: Removed overly green screencaps

I've got different settings for when i'm watching films off my blu-ray player/laptop to when i'm watching whatever's on TV. I'm configured my blu-ray/laptop viewing settings on my TV so that films look exactly the same as they do on my monitor.

As for the program I use, it called TMPGEnc Video Mastering Works 5. I'm able to do my colour grading, editing and encoding all in the same program so i've found it very useful.

I boosted the highlights a little bit in my latest settings, nothing like as much as your example but enough to make a noticable difference without blowing out highlights in the rest of the film or brightening the blacks. Here are screencaps with my latest and I think final settings for now:

I'll be putting up some screencaps for Empire Strikes Back with my current settings tomorrow.

frank678 said:

kk650 said:

I've found it can be a slippery slope though in film grading because in the past i've got carried away and boosted contrast too much to get that extra punchiness. I've then played back the video on my tv and almost burned my eyes out the contrast was so strong

 Yep that's the look I actually go for! It's just that no one else does :(  

haha maybe you've just got the contrast on your tv a lot lower than everyone else so you can take more of a contrast boost before your eyes start burning? I certainly like having my contrast fairly high so the image looks nice when I watch normal tv.

johnlocke2342 said:

Well a higher bitrate doesn't necessarily mean a better quality. For example it looks like there is less grain in my version, but while comparing both clips, I just realized they cropped the picture. I am uploading a clip of the same segment to my mega account so you can look by yourself, but I think there is no point in keeping this as you and Harmy said. I just wanted to be helpful mostly for Empire and ROTJ as I knew of this German broadcast for ANH but not for the sequels. I also recorded a documentary on the whole saga dubbed both in French and German that I might put on the spleen and these once they all aired. I didn't record Episodes I and II though since I hate them and was at my cousin's for the holiday season.

EDIT: Here's the link: https://mega.co.nz/#!15BQBLyK!KsoANqI1vRdTq_3ZvIadoc1aXN8Ygi6otXjrLmhM-ck

Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, the sides are massively cropped on your clip, so its not going to be much use to either me or Harmy. You know that there are high quality pre-blu-ray SE german hdtv transport streams for empire strikes back and return of the jedi as well right? In fact all six films have them, with the Attack of the Clones german hdtv transport stream in particular really wiping the floor with its respective blu-ray due to having the original colour palette without the blanket green tint across the whole blu-ray and no DNR like the blu-ray has as well.

johnlocke2342 said:

Well it's 1080p @7339 kbps according to Media Info... But some people complained it was a DVD upscale after ROTS aired last week.

The bitrate of the german hdtv transport stream is 16000 kbps so its very unlikely that what you've recorded looks better. Somebody looking for a french hdtv release of star wars with french scroll and subtitles might be interested in your versions though.

johnlocke2342 said:

Hi Harmy.
French TV channel M6 is currently doing a Star Wars marathon in HD. Of course they're airing the SEs, BUT NOT the 2011 Blu-ray version. IE, R2D2 is NOT hiding behind his rock and Ben's scream is not changed if I'm not mistaken. I recorded it on my computer just in case, and will record Empire next tuesday and ROTJ the week after that, as I know you're using such SE HD footage to undo some of the Blu-ray changes. Let me know if you're interested in these. Only thing is it's horribly sped up. Good luck with school and other things in life.

Hmm, I would be interested in this if these versions were superior in image quality to the 15gb german hdtv transport streams (the highest quality pre blu-ray SE editions that i'm aware of). Can you compare the clip below taken from the german hdtv stream to what you've recorded and see whether what you've recorded is superior in terms of image quality?

https://mega.co.nz/#!Ht5yhYqL!3rbm-yx3jwQaoutvE2Ex3CICBOlHc9UJMzUYSdc_n5I

poita said:

I might need a better image to start with, the blacks look really crushed on that preview.

I'll check out the linked image and see how it looks, they might not be as crushed as they look on the forum.

It might be a week or so before I can get to it, I am pretty snowed.

Check out Davinci Resolve 10 lite, it is completely free for anything up to UHD resolution, is available for OSX, Linux and Windows, and allows you much more control than most programs. The lite version is basically the complete version apart from resolutions above 3184x2160 and the ability to use more than one GPU.

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/au/products/davinciresolve

The blacks don't look crushed to me, all the shadow detail is clearly visible, at least on my screen. The blacks have been brightnened a fair bit compared to the blu-ray already, I don't want to be increasing the brightness of the blacks any more than I already have. There does seem to be a little wiggle space in the highlights though before they start getting blown out. I'll see if I can get a little more punchiness out of the frames by boosting highlights without blowing them out while maintaining the black levels where they are.

I have done all my semi-specialised versions with all edits, colour grading and encoding using the program I'm using now. I'm sure Davinci Resolve 10 lite is a good program but I'm very happy with what i'm using right now and have all the project files using this program so I see no reason to change.

poita said:

I thought that even with that soft filter applied, it looked sharper in most places than your original image. I was doing a quick compensation for the quick and dirty processing I did which created some sharpening, so I had to tone it back down again when done. Film does this automatically, it is much softer than the neg.

If doing the grade properly (i.e. if  I spent more than a few seconds on it) then the filter wouldn't be needed at all.

The trick is never to blow out the highlights at all, this might not be possible with what you are using, but any decent grading software will allow you to tweak the highlights without blowing them.

Basically you want to increase the dynamic range in the skintones, bring up the highlights that should be there, typically along the bridge of the nose, the sparkly highlights in the eyes, the whites of the eyes and the gloss of the lips and hair etc.

This gives a much more natural and alive look with depth, rather than the flat leathery faces of the BD. The film prints have much brighter highlights than the BDs do.

It would be really helpful to me if you could regrade this shot below to look exactly how you think it should look:

Then using your regraded shot as a reference, I can work out how to achieve what you've done by isolating highlights. I'm pretty sure its possible with the program I use to isolate highlights if I experiment a bit with the different settings but I need an end point, ie. your regraded shot, in order to be able to experiment and work out how to get there from my current settings.

poita said:

Nope I don't touch the blacks at all, Davinci has tools to just work with individual components of the signal, so I probably have a very different workflow to you.

Your images posted here look very different when I bring them into photoshop, but it is most likely just a colourspace thing. I was just wondering if you load these images from OT.COM back into photoshop if they look different to you.

e.g. if you save http://imageshack.com/a/img837/5302/7tsj.jpg and load that into photoshop, does it look the same as it does in the browser here. Wanted to make sure we were both looking at the same thing :)

Anyway, it's not all that important, was just trying to quickly whip up a rough image to illustrate what I meant by making the skintones less flat.

Some people prefer the flat look anyway, I personally feel it looks a bit lifeless, but I've had some clients disagree.

No I wasn't suggesting that you had followed those steps, only that using my program that is what I would probably have to do to recreate what you did there. What I worry about is blowing out highlights if you brighten and boost contrast too much, any change like what you've done there would have to be pretty subtle, certainly more subtle than what you've demonstrated but I get the gist of what you're saying, adding a little more 'punch' to the image to make it more lifelike.

I've found it can be a slippery slope though in film grading because in the past i've got carried away (I remember especially having this with star wars the very first time I started grading it, pretty much the first regrade I ever did) and boosted contrast too much to get that extra punchiness. I've then played back the video on my tv and almost burned my eyes out the contrast was so strong hehe film grading is very different from photography grading in that sense, you have to be a lot more restrained and have far less leeway as far as boosting contrast and adding punchiness is concerned, it least from my experience, that is if you don't want to burn viewers eyes out hehe.

That soft filter is definately a step too far for me though, looks too much like DNR for my liking and i've had enough of that in blu-ray transfers of my favourite films to last me a lifetime. Anybody wanting to soften up star wars can apply DNR filters on their TV and achieve the same effect. I'm not planning to take away people's choice to watch the film with as detailed an image as possible, like the studios did with the DNRed Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones blu-rays.

I just tried saving that image and opening it in photoshop, it says an rgb profile is missing, I select 'leave as is, don't color manage' and the image loads up looking very desaturated and different to how in looks when I open it in acdsee or when I look at it on this page. Is that the same thing you're getting? Must be some sort of color profile issue.

poita said:

Quick question, do your images look the same in your editing program as they do pasted into this forum? I've found some images here look identical on the page as they do in the editor and some are quite different.

Anyway, here is an exaggerated version to breathe a bit more life into the face, leaving the blacks and midtones alone, and concentrating on getting the skintones to look less flat and a bit more alive.

I have overdone it a bit just so it is more visible.

To answer your question, the jpg screencaps I posted were taken straight from my editor, I save them as bitmaps and then convert them to maximum quality jpgs using photoshop, then upload them and post them here. They look pretty much identical on this page as they do on my editor. How do some of the images look different to you?

The program I use is not able to selectively target highlights only but from what I can see from your shot, it looks like you've essentially brightened the image and then boosted the contrast to bring the blacks back to the level they were before, is that about right?