You're looking at an anamorphic frame, which appears 50% squeezed/thinner in the horizontal (or 200% stretched in the vertical, technically).
Yes this blue drop shadow is in the first credits over the starfield as well.
Regarding the above still from Reliance, although the saber colors are not original (Vader's did not have a white core in this shot, and Ben's saber is more cyan throughout the film), the rest of the shot is obviously a vast improvement from what we've seen, with many sublime elements to it. Let's hope this is the original, and 4K. It's what we've always wanted.
_Mike
YAY, who doesn't love videos?
The answer is I don't know that mine will be better than Reliance's and I hope that there is an official restoration being done which blows mine out of the water. Nothing would make me happier. Knowing what I have to put into every frame in order to get the most out of it, if there was such an official release it would be legendary for multiple reasons. I care only that the film is preserved to the best degree it can be, and if and when somebody else releases a 4K, perfect restoration, I will happily lay down my mouse. :)
_Mike
The original '77 End Credits starfield. The first end-to-end pass of Legacy is now complete. The next 6 months or so will be spent finessing!
Click On Image for Larger Size
_Mike
Nothing would make me happier than seeing this site, and all our restorations shut down and invalidated overnight because somebody finally did it right, from the very best of materials.
Until then, however...
I was not referencing PAL material, but you do allude to the reason I always prefer film-scan-based sources, because between "ripping" oddities, 23.976>24fps conforming, etc., frames can easily be lost, doubled, etc. when working from DVD/BR sources.
Which version?
I'm glad you chose 2690 as a reference...
Have you seen/thought about this:
You mean 3032, but yes.. okay.
The first frame of STAR WARS (the title card)...
Maybe it's better to do it this way - does everyone agree that if the first frame of STAR WARS is frame #0001, then the first frame of R2 & 3PO is frame #3032?
_Mike
Well the crawls can't start on the same frame - they're different crawls. But as for the rest of it, there is still a mystery here regarding the actual film elements.
Hey, eagle-eyed fanatics... I need your help!
Thanks, guys!
_Mike
Here, let me save everybody the trouble.
First of all: Film is amazing. I am constantly shocked by what's "in there," even when it pulls the curtain back a little too far, and spoils the illusion.
Case in point:
The original Falcon/Hangar shot was done by compositing a photo of the top of the model with the live set, blended by a bit of paint work. Here you can clearly see the delineation between the three layers - a delineation which was actually quite obvious in the final composite. This would obviously never pass muster today, yet it didn't seem to stop Star Wars from making a couple-two-three dollars...
_Mike
I've done a lot of asset prep/encoding for commercial releases, so I've definitely lived the encoding nightmare.... that said, commercial encoders are often leaps and bounds above consumer options, especially if you're willing to tweak settings, which is common. When I get some time, I'll give it a shot, but I'm confident that these details would survive a ~20 Mbit encode.
Not that we have to give a shit about that :)
_Mike
I did this in about 30 seconds. Just took a raw frame, applied a standard but robust de-graining algorithm, and added grain back. Looks a lot like Lowry to me. I'm sticking with this theory because if nothing else, it is 100% certain that noise reduction was used on every shot. But whatever... however it happened, it happened, and is just 1 of a billion travesties in the results.
@FrankT - a long time. Long time. :) Also, you'd get practically nothing from an 8k scan over a 4k. The grain dots are already the size of nail heads - there's just nothing else in there. There are also great whitepapers from various sources (check DFT-Film, especially) on why 4k is kind of "it" from most sources.
@Neverar - because a LOT of noise reduction/degraining was used in the Lowry restoration. I'll do a video showing the tell-tale signs, maybe recreating it so you can see what happens. Anyway, one of the byproducts of that is it averages out all the grain in the image, so they put some back, but for more than just aesthetic reasons:
When you degrain an image and do noise reduction, it tends to look very soft - smooth, but soft. When you add grain back - it's the wildest thing - it suddenly looks sharp again. It's like your brain has something sharp to focus on, so it just rethinks the image. I'll show this in action too, before/after. It'll blow your mind how adding grain suddenly makes a soft image seem sharper.
_Mike
D'oh!
Okay, try now.
The Legacy forum software is being ported to Xenforo, so I'm posting today's update here. This link will be removed when the new forum is active. (Don't worry, all posts and structure will be retained and identical.)
Blu-Ray/Legacy - Tantive Corridor
_Mike
Two updates in a single year?!
http://www.starwarslegacy.com/forums/showthread.php?p=797#post797
This'll be my last post-about-a-post... from here on out, ya gotta just be watching. :)
Try now
Lemme check.