msycamore

:)

doubleofive said:

If only there was a way to make it work and appease a majority of the fanbase, without using any CGI trickery...

The original 1977 film basically did exactly that. ;)

I also just realized we have almost become one year older since you started this thread. Damn, how time flies.

The DVD recorder I captured this on seemed to have a pretty lousy combfilter afterall, it did almost get rid of all the dotcrawl but at the same time it caused other artifacts like color smear, desaturated colors and loss of detail. Didn't think that was even possible, but this machine did it (a pretty recent Panasonic model). So I went with a capture letting the LD player do the combfiltering. The median script proved to be better than an average for this one. (dot-crawling was about the same)

Anyway, when I find the time to upload this for you, do you want to have it color corrected or do you just want me to release it as it is, along with a bright canyon where R2 get captured? Even though this transfer overall have pretty nice colors, it also have its own set of minor color issues:

A few frames in this scene have some very bad artifacts:

I do know that some people enjoy to just have the transfers preserved as is, so I was just wondering.

If I should try to describe the overall quality of the transfer- take the Faces release, remove the DVNR and blown out whites, reframe it by cropping the sides of the image, add some saturation and you basically have this LD. A few more samples, so you know what to expect from it. It seems like I managed to get rid of all those "crosstalk-artifacts".

Look sir, droids: http://www.sendspace.com/file/kbfln8

Binary sunset: http://www.sendspace.com/file/orcl3q

Destruction of Alderaan: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0WY6SBNA

as you can see it is very dirty, instead of using DVNR back in '93 they should've made a new IP instead. IMO, this look better and worse than GOUT at the same time, it have the same bad aliasing as seen in the THX/GOUT transfer, it's basically GOUT before it was DVNR'ed but it will never come close to that quality even though it is smearfree, in the end it will be just another LD-transfer, but I think some of you will appreciate to have this smearfree alternative anyway, I know that I will. I could of course apply some anti-aliasing, filter out the dot-crawl and rainbowing, but I think it will hurt more than it will help. Now on to THX before I get SW-insane. ;)

Uncanny Antman said:

doubleofive said:

And unless they changed the view from the inside, this creates a huge continuity error as the door is over twice as big on the outside now and the curvature and height of the door has been changed.

They just don't seem to give a shit about introducing new errors.  Cloud City windows, palace doors, rocks, droid innards...

That is one of their trademarks, going as far back as their first tweak ever made in 1981, when the revised opening caused John Williams score to not match what was on-screen.

So Lucas have got that scene revised three times now? :) I wonder if he will finally get this scene right for the fifth attempt when they get their 3D release. It seems to be a complicated scene to get absolutely right.

Yes, I'm definitely going to try LimitedSharpen on this, have used it before with nice results, great filter. Thanks for the advice anyway. :)

I took a little break from this to keep me from going insane after the manual IVTC process, there was a lot of changes in the pattern. I basically saw this film playing out in my head as soon as I closed my eyes. ;)  But I will jump back in soon and finish this bad boy.

If we're talking just about the original film, I would say both cyan and blue dependant on what scene you're seeing them in, on home video they have had all sorts of colors through the years, often green tinted in early video releases. 2004 was not the first time we had weird saber colors, though in that one it wasn't for the most part the same composites any longer.

R2D2 said:

Every single report sounds like Lucasfilm only fixed the effects that the color timing had on the lightsabers, not the color timing itsself.

Exactly my thoughts, the contrast and color issues on the DVD's were far more extensive than just a few lightsaber shots.

Maybe this is overkill and not necessary to include on your list as it already mention that the opening was redone three times, but I found it interesting that the digitally re-composited elements for the '97 SE differ in the same way that the 2004 lightsaber impacts did or the '97 saber impacts on the Falcon.

Original on top / SE below

(The color on these impacts is only green due to the overall bad color-timing on the 2004 transfer, they were all yellow in the '97 transfer.)

The 1981 re-release opening is identical to the original when it comes to these laser and blast elements.

The Aluminum Falcon said:

Wait what? Smearing on the laserdisc? I thought it was established that the smearing was a result of how the broadcasts were captured...

I don't know where that have been established, both Reivax and Flunk is said to be professional digital beta tape transfers rather than captured broadcasts.

The Aluminum Falcon said:

Would it be less evident on the laserdisc since I didn't see any on mine?

Maybe, ok I don't know if they have the exact same amount of smearing, but the LD I saw of ANH was pretty badly DVNR'd.

doubleofive said:

I don't have Empire yet. I was actually waiting on the paperback, especially since Rinzler said on his blog that it wouldn't have SE pictures at all after someone (hint, hint) pointed it out to him. I'll probably grab the error version from the library again sometime to give it the same treatment, and actually scan the pictures from Star Wars instead of using my iPhone camera.

 

Ok, that is very nice. :) 

Do you happen to know if they have revised the making of SW? IIRC, I read somewhere around the time of its release that he wanted to include more material that had surfaced as well as fixing a few errors.

captainsolo said:

The 97 LDs indeed do not have the motion smearing. However, on ANH the Mos Eisley section went pink in the transfer. Otherwise they're probably one of the best looking LDs I own.

I skimmed through ANH on the US LD set yesterday and I saw the exact same DVNR-smear that is seen on the digital broadcasts. Maybe there are differences in various pressings, but what I saw wasn't nice.

Great work on the photo-gallery that covers the revisionism in the making of book, you should make one on the making of Empire as well.

You probably know this already Mallwalker, but going through this LD I can confirm that it doesn't lack any frames seen in the GOUT. The only difference to the NTSC GOUT is that this frame seen in the PAL GOUT:

is also on this transfer, the only other difference is that GOUT have 16 more frames of solid black occurring in the fade to C-3PO's oil bath. So getting various GOUT-synced audio tracks to fit with this one will be very easy.

doubleofive said:
Now that someone pointed it out, I can see the slight digital movement added to Luke's skiff while they are waiting for the sentencing. No big deal, just something we missed.

 http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Complete-Comparison-of-Special-Edition-Visual-Changes/post/511242/#TopicPost511242

;)

zombie84 said:

Unfortunately it probably comes down to the fact that Lucas himself supervised the 2004 scan (sad isn't it?), and he can't be bothered to do this for every scene of every film all over again and would rather just have them bring up the brightness levels if it looks sort-of right, at least to a not-very-discerning level. I mean, he thought the 2004 version was great after all, I gather that it is his cronies that are attempting to respond to criticisms. I read some response a few pages back by one of his employees that attempted to lay the cause on the way HD video responds to film; it was so ludicrous it made me laugh sadly and shake my head, fully out loud. Are they fucking kidding me? But probably most people reading that statement don't know any better, and buy it. But the moron saying that knows full well that he's lying to everyone's face and hoping that his audience is too stupid to realise they are being had. That's the sad reality of Lucasfilm these days.

I've heard before that colorspace conversions - 4:4:4 to 4:2:0 can mess up video, the problem with the 2004 masters really reminds me of when Dario Argento's Suspiria was restored a couple of years ago, it was a complete mess just like Star Wars, it was a HD Master processed by Technicolor and supervised by DP Luciano Tovoli, but on reliable and important forums of Italian Cinema it is said that Tovoli himself is not quite satisfied and doesn't appreciate the color of this HD Master. One theory was:

Weird that he supervised it but "didn't like the color". I don't know what Italian Cinema forums this poster was referring to (and since I don't speak Italian I wouldn't be able to read them anyway), but my guess- and this goes back to something I've theorized since you first posted images from the DVD versions of this master- is that something went wrong during a conversion. If SUSPIRIA was an actual 2K scan with full film 4:4:4 color space (essentially, a Digital Intermediate), something could have gone wrong in the conversion to "standard" High-Definition 1080P 4:2:0 color space. We've seen similar issues on some Blu-rays of DI-sourced films already in terms of color values going out of whack. I can't imagine Tovoli sitting in that transfer suite, supervising something he didn't like all along. What I can imagine is Tovoli supervising something that looked right uncompressed with the full 4:4:4 color space, and then something went terribly wrong when it was downconverted to 4:2:0.

 And a reply from a guy working in the industry:

 

It's almost implausible for 4:4:4 to 4:2:0 to go wrong in this way. That stuff is clipped to hell, 4:4:4 to 4:2:0 is a change in chroma resolution, not range.

What is possible is that there's been some sort of bungled colour gamut conversion. Perhaps the master was designed for the DCI (Digital Cinema Initiative) colour space for exhibition in that standard, and out-of-gamut values were simply clipped when going to Rec.709 (HDTV standard colour). Whatever's happened, it's a total balls up and it's hard to guess what's happened without knowing the full story.

Source: http://www.landofwhimsy.com/archives/2010/01/suspiria-the-good-the-bad-and-the-downright-ugly/

One of the big differences is that in the SW case I've heard that the 2004 master looked identical when projected in cinemas as on the DVD's and broadcasts. I don't know the exact details behind the SW-remaster but is it not a possibility that something like this happened to the Star Wars trilogy in 2004?

I have a hard time believing the horrible transfer wasn't made by some accidental technical issue after studied it, there's no way a human being can make such deliberate choices when colortiming a film as what was seen in these DVD's, even a child or an amateur would have a really hard time to succeed with some of the things I am seeing.

I'm definitely not trying to defend Lucasfilm's actions here, (I wouldn't touch this ridiculous release even if all the technical issues were addressed) it's just that the problems with the SW-DVD's are much more extensive and complex than different colored lightsabers and crushed blacks/clipped whites for being just a sloppy colortiming, I am still amazed how unstable and inconsistent all the levels are from shot to shot throughout these transfers.

Whatever happened, it's just sad that it took seven years with several DVD re-releases and a promotional article for an upcoming blu-ray to utter such a vague explanation for the problems on those discs.

Thanks for the link, amazing photos!

Anchorhead said:

That original logo was very cool looking.  Many years ago when I was in IT and had an office not open to the general populace of the company, I made a full-size one-sheet using a high-res version of an early McQuarrie idea. It had that logo.

Nice. :) The various logos for Star Wars have always fascinated me. This is a great page that cover every early incarnation of the logo: http://theswca.com/relics/prerelease/

I always had a soft spot for the early "pointy W" logo:

and for this rarely used/seen hybrid:

I noticed that the text that is coming from the official comparisons describing the Fox logo on Empire in the same way as on the first film:

"The original 1977 version of Star Wars began with the painted 20th Century Fox logo, which was updated in 1997 to the new digital logo that identified Fox as a News Corporation company."

You could change it so it reads:

"The original 1980 version of The Empire Strikes Back began with the painted 20th Century Fox logo, which was updated in 1997 to the new digital logo that identified Fox as a News Corporation company."
 

none said:

RUMORS : List of possible Blu-Ray visual changes: 

Asteroid field garbage matte removal or deflector shields: http://d2np6futyd7kp6.cloudfront.net/images/600px/ep5/EP5_ILM_62.jpg

 

There's no garbage matte removal seen in that picture at all, the garbage mattes are in fact just more visible:

I just see a horribly destroyed image where the black levels have earlier been crushed and where someone has tried to bring back the lost detail in vain by boosting the gamma. The result is a completely lifeless, desaturated and unnatural ugly mess. This is most likely how many scenes will look on the blu-rays, but as long as it is presented in 1080p, people will buy it and be happy.

This is more how it should look:

Even the washed out and low-res THX-transfer/GOUT is quite beautiful when compared to that screen-cap. Don't let these people restore the original films the day it hopefully happens.

Function Median2(clip "input_1", clip "input_2", clip "input_3", clip "input_4", clip "input_5", string "chroma")
{# median of 5 clips from Helpers.avs by G-force

chroma = default(chroma,"process") #default is "process". Alternates: "copy first" or "copy second"

#MEDIAN(i1,i3,i5)
Interleave(input_1,input_3,input_5)
chroma == "process" ? Clense(reduceflicker=false) : Clense(reduceflicker=false,grey=true)
m1 = selectevery(3,1)

#MAX(MIN(i1,i3,i5),i2)
m2 = input_1.MT_Logic(input_3,"min",chroma=chroma).MT_Logic(input_5,"min",chroma=chroma).MT_Logic(input_2,"max",chroma=chroma)

#MIN(MAX(i1,i3,i5),i4)
m3 = input_1.MT_Logic(input_3,"max",chroma=chroma).MT_Logic(input_5,"max",chroma=chroma).MT_Logic(input_4,"min",chroma=chroma)

Interleave(m1,m2,m3)
chroma == "process" ? Clense(reduceflicker=false) : Clense(reduceflicker=false,grey=true)
selectevery(3,1)

chroma == "copy first" ? last.MergeChroma(input_1) : chroma == "copy second" ? last.MergeChroma(input_2) : last

Return(last)
}

hairy_hen said:

To tell the truth, I wasn't entirely satisfied with the edit at that point anyway, as I never found it to be completely seamless, but I guess I only heard the beginning part of the addition and missed the rest.  Blast . . . 

Yeah, I guess it's tough to find a good spot for seamless editing with all the noise and music going on in that particular sequence.

hairy_hen said:

I've given some vague contemplation to making another version that would correct this and a few other minor errors, but I'm not sure if it would actually be worth it.  If I do end up going to the trouble of doing so, I'd probably want to use the '85 mix in place of the '77 stereo as it may possibly have slightly better imaging and fidelity, so first I'd have to obtain a PCM copy of that and synch the relevant portions to the '93 mix. 

The errors are few and very minor, so I can understand if you're not going through the trouble updating it, it's near perfect as it is but if you somehow decided to do it, just let me know and I can upload the '85 mix in lossless PCM to you.

hairy_hen said:

Would have replied earlier, but I've been away and not looked at the site for a while.

No problem, cannot be in SW-land all the time. Thanks for answering.

R2D2 said:

Another example of visible Matte lines and lots of video noise:
http://d2np6futyd7kp6.cloudfront.net/images/1000px/ep4/EP4_ILM_117.jpg

Another example of visible Matte lines:
http://d2np6futyd7kp6.cloudfront.net/images/1000px/ep4/EP4_ILM_2.jpg

It's "garbage mattes", matte lines are something else. Still, I'm surprised to see that the SE-Stardestroyer actually have a garbage matte, the opening was after all re-composited for the 1997 Special Edition release. You would think digital compositing would take care of such problems? Even though this sample pic is unnaturally bright and you were never supposed to see it, I never thought it actually existed for this shot, weird.

doubleofive said:

Check out the ESB comps, I found the frames for the re-wipes. I had to mess with the ratio also, as they're messed up. If you could grab me those frames, that'd be all I need I think. There wasn't much re-done as you know.

Ok, I checked them and my source seems to be cropped identical to yours, you can see how my source look here: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Complete-Comparison-of-Special-Edition-Visual-Changes/post/502331/#TopicPost502331 but I think it was easy to spot that the cockpit shots were indeed 2004 alterations as the majority of the '97 transfer is nicely cropped. 

For Star Wars you still missing this one:

This one is a 2004 change:

There's no fade going on in this sequence at all.

Another 2004 recomposite:

The Aluminum Falcon said:

Is it worth capturing my laserdiscs with PCM audio or is it a waste of space?

It is definitely worth it IMO, but be aware that recording in PCM may affect the overall picture quality on your recording on some DVD recorders, in that case you'll have to record it twice to get the most out of it. Something I learned when capturing ANH on a friends recorder recently.

see you auntie said:

Q:  Was there any thought given to archiving previous tracks like the 6-track master from the 70mm prints or the 78 mono remix?  Any thought given to putting them on the Blu-ray?

A:  Yes, we have those and they’ve all been digitized.  I don’t know if they considered putting those on the Blu-ray.  That might be more of a question for Marketing, it may be an issue of space.  It’s funny because I play those other audio tracks, like the scene when R2 and C3PO have been left on Tatooine and they walk through the canyon.  I just love that on the current mix, you can actually hear the quiet, when R2 is lonely, going through the canyon.  I played the original mix and it’s FULL of hiss and totally brittle, so it’s fun now to hear it like George wanted it to really be, what was intended.

A question for marketing, really? You can't put the original fucking mixes on these discs because either the sound will drop out for scenes at a time or go severely out of sync because the original cuts of the film are not there to go with them.

Exactly, why even ask such a stupid question in the first place when they know the films aren't even included in the set.

Nice to hear that all the original tracks are digitized though, now you just have to do the same with the picture for all the films Lucas, it's not impossible, it's done all the time on other films except yours.