msycamore

I almost forgot to post these, spotted these two extremely subtle changes when going through the trench run a couple of days ago.

original on top.

^^isn't this one included in Rinzler's Making of book. ;) I may be wrong.

This one below is right after Biggs line "Hurry, Luke. They're coming in much faster this time..."

The second shot of Luke's motion blurred glove when turning off his targeting computer is not on your list.

All of them '97 tweaks.

Moth3r said:

Well, logically I'd suggest NNEDI3()...

Loads more options here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1419815

 That's great, I will check it out. Thanks!

Darth Mallwalker said:

JSC ANH is that way, with the pattern often changing mid-reel.

However in my experience both sequels aren't like that at all. They're quite straightforward.
Pulldown pattern changes only at reel changeovers.
Few months ago I developed .AVS scripts for IVTC'ing both sequels, starting from the hard-encoded Dark-Sega .VOB sources.
I know I know, it sounds like a big waste of time like polishing a turd, but there was a reasoning behind it. Those scripts were meant to be ported for Arnie.d's X9 captures . . .

A true hero working in the shadows, that's awesome! and will be very useful. :) Good to hear the sequels aren't that problematic.

Darth Bizarro said:

It is far from perfect I know, but the lack of smearing really stands out and I like that it reminds me of watching my VHS without looking like total crap.  And the specs of dirt and scratches really make it look like film to me even if its an older transfer as oposed to the over processed mess on the GOUT.  

I fully agree with you. I just tend to overly focusing on what is wrong with it instead of enjoying it for what it is.

TServo2049, downloaded d_j's old standard play preservation and did take a look, like I thought the '85 LD used the same IP as the '82 LD, but it's not recycled, it's a different telecine and I'm pretty sure it is the one done for the '82 Betamax and VHS release. And it did have the 80's Fox logo spliced in as you described earlier.

I will try to post some test samples of the degraded opening titles soon to hear your thoughts on it, hopefully the results going from DVD to LD will be ok...

I used nnedi2, the same command used in g-force's stabilizing script:

NNEDI2(dh=true, field=0)
NNEDI2(dh=false,field=1)

maybe something else is preferred?

^Interesting, I actually was looking for those bright spots when matching the frames I grabbed for your comparison page, it was an easy way to be sure I sent you the correct frame. ;)

The French THX LD may be from something else then...

The Aluminum Falcon said:

I think that some issues with the JSC were what was seen as incorrect color timing and a need to manually IVTC it.

Manual IVTC is always preferred if you want quality but yes, I have heard that those should be a real bitch to work on due to the often change in pulldown pattern, both d_j and arnie.d did a great job on those.

Darth Bizarro said:

Screen shots don't do this restoration justice.  Watching this side by side with a GOUT transfer, this is way more watchable. 

Of course, I've not been able to find a JSC transfer to compare it to :(

UPDATE:  Burned and tested on my HDTV.  This is now officially my go-to theatrical Star Wars.

I wouldn't call it a restoration but that's not a bad bit of praise you gave it. Is it really watchable on a HDTV? I cannot fully enjoy this one myself due to some wonky colors and contrast issues that bothers me but the positive feedback makes me even more willing to do an improved one later. :)

I definitely recommend you to check out arnie.d's "V8", it's still up on the newsgroup, I think there's also a single layer of it on demonoid but I do recommend the original authored one.

I'm not entirely sure what this '85 IP info comes from but I think from Zombie's research, the last IP for home video was made in '85.

Yeah, I'm also curious and I find it interesting, so far I have only discovered that the JSC was indeed from the same IP that was used for the '82 LD, don't own the '85 LD and '82 tapes, would be interesting to know if they are from the same source.

Edit: just an observation, the 1996 TV SciFi Broadcast seems identical to SWE (technidisc) going by those pics on your page, none. The '93 SciFi Broadcast, '94 VHS Effy11 and  probably Moth3r's french LD preservation are from the same "early generation IP".

That IP isn't from '85, the JSC LD is sourced from the same elements the '82 LD and CED comes from, the same weird damage is seen there, same dirt spots, glue marks etc. Even though these elements wasn't as dirty as the ones the THX transfers was made from it was pretty damn rough even as early as '82.

Yeah, it's extremely sloppy. There is one thing if these new versions had a new specific modern look, they aren't the original films and as far as I know, no effort was made to match those films anyway, so a new colortiming can be nice if Lucas now wants them to look different, but do a standard professional job when you're at it so that those who like these updated versions at least have something to enjoy.

TServo2049 said:

I think the O-neg has a larger image field than what we usually see - framing around the edges is not always the same on every print or every video transfer (like the scene with the Tusken scouts, where in one transfer - JSC? - we can see a sliver of sky at the top that we usually don't). Maybe they just framed it a little farther to the left when they did the restoration.

Yeah, the framing/cropping is never the same on every transfer, it's just that in this case it was such a large difference in composition but then again, this was done on several other places in the SE so what you're suggesting is probably what's going on.

TServo2049 said:

If the IPs used for the THX transfers were dupes, then yes, the PAL could have used a different dupe.

It really baffles me how they wanted a source with a closer generation, but the prints they used may well have been more generations removed than the ones used for 80s video releases. Yet everyone back in the 90s, myself included, saw them as looking superior to the old releases - was it just due to the improved video mastering? (DVNR aside, of course...)

Probably, they also had much more stable colors than earlier widescreen releases, and corrected scenes that were shot-day-for-night, you come a long way with that. :) But I must say that I noticed and hated that DVNR from day one, even though I saw them on a small 29" 4:3 TV back in those days. I actually first thought my set was screwed up somehow before I found out what was going on. The audio was really the true star of the THX release IMO.

No, I'm not questioning your thoughts on this, your thoughts on this are great, it's all a little confusing that's all.

They reframed the sequence in the corridor for the '97 SE, suggesting that some other material was maybe used to repair that damaged part.

It's true that the PAL THX transfers also have the marks, but there's still a possibility that those marks could be present on several IP's.

Going by the level of grain on the "original" IP suggests it's dupe material, the sequels are equally grainy, at least Empire.

yotsuya said:

I think a few of the things we are seeing and complaining about are are just differences in how we've been seeing them for years on pre-dvd media and how they are supposed to be seen. We all know about all those garbage matt boxes, right? Well, when you darken the transfer those garbage matts should be less noticable. I think some of what we are seeing is that for years we have been watching this films from fairly poor transfers. TV, VHS, and LD don't have that high of an image and the TV's they were made for matched how they were scanned.

 

I think a lot of the issue is that these films were dark originally and we just aren't used to it. I'm not saying that a lot of these issues shouldn't have been dealt with, but that they are inherent to the films themselves. but the crushed blacks and some of the other issues I think are part of the way we are used to seeing the films transferred compared to a more accurate transfer.

Really? I think Gil Taylor and Peter Suschitzky would like to have a word with you, or the director for that matter, oh I forgot he turned insane.

yotsuya said:

ANH was color corrected to closely match the technicolor print. As none of us have seen that print and how the colors stand out, I don't think we can really judge.

Yes, the 1997 Special Edition was, but not these 2004/11 video masters. Many people have seen IB Technicolor prints projected many times through the years, as late as last summer in fact and there's really no mystical science involved on how these films should look, this is one of the most widely seen films in cinema history with lots of reference material, weird that no one has pointed out the inconsistencies in color timing and crushed blacks and blown out whites in the cinema reviews throughout the years. The look on this film wasn't particularly stylized, it had a very natural look like other 70's films at the time like Jaws or Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.

If you look at the examples I posted above, those are all before and after shots just separated by editing and should have the same basic color levels, we're talking seconds between the changes in levels, as a colortimer you should get fired from your job if you presented such inconsistency. Vader's blue lights in the belt seems like a minor thing to be upset about, but how do you get those green lights to display as blue if you haven't screwed up something else (if you don't isolate the lights themselves). This terrible inconsistency in color and contrast levels is what is causing these films to look like shit in their present incarnation, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure this out.

msycamore said:

Gavin- said:

OH, IT'S *THIS* SABER AGAIN

Turned green in 2004. Corrected in 2011, that's good. But this is a lightsaber shot that needs completely remaking anyway due to the way it wobbles. There was no pole in the hilt for this shot -- because Luke switches it off without a jump cut -- so it was hand-drawn without a reference. The beam is also too thin comared to other shots in the scene.
IN NEED OF FIXING SINCE: 1977?
IGNORED CHANCES TO FIX: Oh boy

How ugly this shot may look to some, I just want to point it out that it was remade for the 1997 SE. The saber along with the remote and chess elements was digitally re-composited. The saber itself look quite different than the original, the blade was extended for example.

The original effect was quite impressive back in the day due to using so many elements in the same shot.

timdiggerm said:

I never really thought about that, msycamore. You've got the blade, the remote and all the little chess men. That's a lot!

Don't forget the remote-laser in this later shot:

^does that laser hit what I think it does. ;)

Even if the volume of elements aren't that impressive, (some shots in the asteroid secuence in ESB used over 40 different elements I think) it was quite impressive in how well integrated it was with the live action in those Falcon scenes.

Harmy said:

I never corrected any garbage matte lines, but if you mean matte boxes, then I "corrected" those through colour-timing only and did so because under ideal conditions they wouldn't have been visible in cinemas in 1977 - so again, just trying to preserve/restore the original movie-going experience.

You need to get used to that some people will never grasp why those garbage-mattes are so often visible on video. ;)

Keep up the good work you're doing Harmy. :)

TServo2049 said:

Looking at the clips of the time-compressed CED on YouTube, I can see that it has the correct Fox logo - I'm assuming that the first compressed LD was exactly the same. Thus, it would have been only the original VHS and Betamax (which weren't compressed, right?) that had the replaced Fox logo and fanfare (later P&S releases, at least on VHS, would have the logo replaced, but with the original fanfare intact). Can someone check the Starkiller Rental Library preservation?

Yes, I checked and the original Fox logo is on the '82 LD. The tapes should definitely not be time-compressed, I regret that I got rid of my old betamax copy, is Starkiller's preservation still available somewhere?

TServo2049 said:

I understand that this is getting off the subject of the Orange Errors, let me bring it back by saying that all the video releases prior to the Technidisc SWE obviously came from newer IPs which were made from a source that did not have the errors. This means that the errors were not on the original negative - as I said before, they must have been introduced on the original IP (since the Technidisc SWE and PAL THX LDs have them, and they came from a generation before the addition of the alien subtitles - see below).

From what I've gathered, the '85 IP was used on the '85 P&S releases and the JSC/"shrinking ratio" SWE. In '93, they went back to an IP from '77, according to that Widescreen Review article - this was what would have been used on the Technidisc SWE and the '93 transfer. Though here's what confuses me - they said they didn't have IPs without the subtitles, but the IPs used for home video obviously lacked them. I'd assume that those IPs were either too faded or too worn to be used again (and by 1993, the negative had reached the poor condition that they'd find it in when they exhumed it to prepare the SE).

Your theory sounds good, I'm not sure if the PAL THX transfers are from the same source as the NTSC THX transfers but you're probably right. So if we try to break it down with a little guessing:

New IP made for home video:

• '82 CED/LD
• '82 Betamax/VHS
• '85 LD
• '86 JSC, '89/'92 SWE
• '92 LD

"Original" IP:

• '93 Technidisc SWE
• '93 Definitive Collection, '95 Faces
• '95 PAL THX transfers
• '06 GOUT

This dirty, grainy and battered IP wasn't made to produce release prints as it was blank without subs, according to the Widescreen Review article they wanted to avoid those IP's due to having subtitles in place and being an additional generation away from the source. What I don't get is, if those marks/tears aren't on the negative and were introduced on the original IP, why did they have to alter that corridor sequence when they went back to the negative for producing the '97SE if it wasn't for those tears?

And why the hell was this so called "original" IP so damn grainy, it's one thing if it was only dirty due to wear an tear and bad storage. We also have to remember that this IP cannot originate from '77, it had the '81 opening in place, the original '77 opening was just spliced in when it was time for the DVD in '06.

Thanks for explaining the code on the tapes.

TServo2049 said:

I think the 1982 video releases must have come from the IP of the 1981 reissue that introduced the Episode IV crawl. Like most (all?) of the pre-THX pan and scan releases, it had the 1981 Fox logo instead of the classic one, but the '82 VHS I checked out from the public library about 5 years ago also replaced the 50s fanfare with that John Williams re-recording done for ESB. Was that on theatrical prints of the '81 reissue too? (All of the non-THX P&S versions I'd seen had the logo replaced, but not the fanfare.)

Interesting, never heard of this replacement of Newman's fanfare with Williams '80 re-recording, I'm pretty sure the '82 LD have the original in place though. And I had no idea that the '81 re-issue used a different logo, are you sure about this? as far as I know the 1953 logo with the tilted 0 was still in use in '81, are you talking about the one which was on Return of the Jedi? 

I doubt Williams re-recording was in place for the theatrical '81 re-issue but everything is possible I guess, isn't Alfred Newman's fanfare still left after all these years, I know it was for the SE, how is the blu-ray?

^Interesting finds.

Asaki said:

Maybe I just play too many PC games, but the aliasing has never bothered me. Especially this transfer, seems much better than others.

I'm wondering if there might be some way to blend the VHS into the picture a little bit and see if that takes care of some of the rainbowing, but it's probably too far "out there". I'm looking at the caps I took, and it seems like there might be less of it (or at least it's in different spots maybe), but it's hard to tell as it was never that bad in any of those shots.

I thought the JSC had less aliasing going by the few preservations I have seen but it has been some time since I watched them so I may be wrong. I have no idea how you would do such a thing as blend in VHS footage, but I really hate those chroma artifacts, Threepio looks like a damn christmas tree in some shots.

Asaki said:

I do notice some sharpening artifacts (they're much more noticable in Aluminum Falcon's captures), but it's not as bad looking as it is in the JSC.

The edge enhancement/haloing you're seeing is present in the source unfortunately, no sharpening was applied. What captures done by AF do you refer to?

Anyway, I'm glad that you like this one Asaki, hopefully you can now stop wear out your tape of this transfer. ;)

What!? I was pretty sure the reverb on the music was in this mix as well. Must take a listen again.

Damn, this work in aftereffects is tiring, I'm actually considering just splicing in the UK transfer and be done with it. I'll take a short break and work on the DVD opening titles and see how I feel about it when I come back to it...

bilditup1 said:

Except he didn't executive-produce Empire or Jedi. 

 

That was exactly what he did.

hairy_hen, this is awesome news! Thanks for doing it, very happy to hear that the '85 stereo mix proved to be a slightly better option than the '77 stereo. Looking forward to it, at this stage it's basically polishing of gold. :)

hairy_hen said:

I do have to wonder exactly where the '85 mix came from.  Given its high level of similarity to the original stereo, it is most probably a derivation from that mix, but the wider imaging mystifies me.  I'm pretty certain that the theatrical version was narrowed in order to reduce crosstalk in the surrounds, but I guess they dispensed with that practise as Dolby improved their upmixing technology.  Was there an earlier generation copy that had the dynamic reduction but hadn't been panned in?  Or did they make a new downmix of the 4-track master, taking great care to match the EQ and dynamics of the theatrical stereo?  Or did they simply use some kind of processing to widen the existing stereo master?  I can't say, but its separation does seem to match up with the '93 mix pretty well.  Hmm . . .

Could they maybe have narrowed the imaging further on the '77 Stereo when they used it on the early home video release? or could the specific qualities of the '85 track have something to do with the 4-track magnetic stereo prepared for international markets? Are there any articles out there regarding this '85 home video mix.

zombie84 said:

At what point do you stop counting something as a colour difference and start counting it as a change? I don't even know if you could colour time that shot so that it looks like that...

That's a good question, it's near impossible to tell sometimes with that '04 disaster, there is so many weird color issues in it so you're not actually sure what is a screw up or bad decision/alteration, but I think that close up of the table can be counted as a deliberate change, it appears like that in other shots so it is at least consistent in its stupidity. (appears gray in '97SE)

none said:

^ the thing with this color timing is later shots of the table from a different angle are not as blue...   ...and who knows if the GOUT was tweaked...

Someone in another forums has been ranting about this continuity, so figured i'd bring it up. 

I would say GOUT is more how it should look, as that is the way it looks in the wide shots and it appears as gray in earlier transfers as well. Look at the white level on that 2004 close-up shot, incredible. :) It's just that you have these weird inconsistencies which appears in other transfers as well, makes you wonder if there was slight print variations on how certain shots looked back in the day.