neebis

bkev said:

Dark Jedi, forgive me if this has been mentioned before, but what kind of powerhouse machine do you have to be able to do encodes so quickly?  Or did you only apply it to the clip in question?

Personally, I use a Trim() command at the top of the script to test short clips from different sections of the film. You can also just load it up in Virtualdub and click different points along the timeline to see the output on various frames.

skyjedi2005 said:

It seems to me an artists rights are in conflict with the historical preservation of these classic films.  Why can't Lucas do both?

Oh, the irony...

With Martin Scorsese and other filmmakers, Lucas also continues to lead the fight for film preservation. "It's amazing," he says, "that you have to fight the studios to get them to preserve their films. . . . Parts of 'Dr. Strangelove' are gone; some of the music is lost. Kubrick is having to photograph individual frames to create a new fine-grain negative. That's madness, tragic madness."

from The Home Audience Is Listening - Technology: George Lucas' THX sound system

Darth Mallwalker said:

The scene you've chosen corresponds to a cinematic reel change.

It's possible theater audiences also experienced a pause at that spot, depending on the skill level of the projectionist.

That's a cool coincidence. I guess I picked a decent spot. (Or maybe I remembered it from years ago?) Thanks for pointing that out.

Mielr said:

FWIW, the retail layer-break on SW is right after Tarkin says "Terminate her! Immediately!", on ESB I think it's during a shot of Falcon's cockpit window before the Mynock attaches itself, in ROTJ it's right as we see Wicket's feet appear.

Thanks for the info. I think my video might be too big to match that spot.

dark_jedi said:

@ Mielr,so how do you set a DL layer break to be the same as the retail?

Following up on this, now that I've finished my disc...

You options for layer break will depend on the size of your encoded video. My video was very high bitrate, so I had limited choices on where to split (otherwise one or the other layer would be to big to fit).

I didn't like the ImgBurn suggested layer break, so I followed this guide and used VOB Blanker to split a cell (without creating another program or chapter) and set my layer break at that exact location. It's not frame accurate though, you can only place the layer break at the nearest start of a GOP. You should check ImgBurn's suggested layer break position and try to find something around that area.

I'm not sure where the retail disc layer break is, but I ended up putting mine right after the scene where Luke is doing saber practice with the remote on the Falcon, where it cuts to a scene on the Death Star behind a conference table. On my set-top player, it cuts to the Death Star shot, then pauses, then the door opens and the scene continues. It was the best I could find given the size of my video, because there's no motion and no dialog or obvious audio to be clipped at the pause.

budwhite said:

I think it looks good. But I never understand why people dont like grain...

Well, all my testing and tweaks were intended to retain as much original film grain as possible and lose the analog video noise (in addition to reducing the wobble and aliasing). I know some of the doom9 filters were designed to completely kill original film grain and I cringe when I see shots of completely grain-free processed films with a flat, antiseptic, digital look. I always appreciate good Blu-ray transfers that retain all the grain you would see in a theatrical print.

budwhite said:

Have you relaced the sound also?

Yes, I went with the DC48 Belbucus LD mix, encoded with Aften at 448 as 2-channel Prologic. So as I said, it's the 1993 presentation. I tested hairy_hen/Satanika's mix as well, but the '93 Prologic worked fine and sounded great on my receiver and I didn't really want any extra changes or generational loss, resampling or any other artifacts from the upmix process. Now that I have the video done, I can always mix hairy_hen/Satanika's 5.1 or the mono mix or some other mix if I want to make another disc. The video takes so much space that there's only room for one track per disc.

Well, I burned a disc and tested in on my Blu-ray player and projector. Upconverted, it looks very good, actually better than on my PC, since the color space difference and PC decoder tends to show more artifacts and noise. I'm very happy with it. It's the best DVD presentation I've seen of ANH in it all it's 1993 glory. (No more Death Star shock ring!)

I used VOB Blanker to combine the muxman video/audio with the orignal menus, although only the Main and Chapter menus work. My first disc didn't play the mxuman forced subtitles becuase VOB Blanker used the original IFOs to try and force a non-existant stream. I had to mess around with IFOEdit and PGCEdit to disable the other streams and get the forced subtitles to work in the combined disc (original menus with new movie).

Anyway, this one is going on the shelf until George becomes one with the Force and his estate finally decides to properly restore and release this piece of film history in it's original form.

Well, I finished my full encode to Lagarith and then MPEG2 with HCenc and v6.0 of your script. I used the settings I posted in my previous post. It only took about 36 hours compared to 50+ for the v5.02 script. The Lagarith file size was about 17% smaller, which I think must be mostly due to the reduction in grain and noise.

Here are the shots from the final HCenc MPEG2 output (as opposed to my last shots which were stills from the intermediate lossless Lagarith file).

I think this is a keeper, although I haven't authored it yet. My earlier impressions from my test clips hold up.

Judge for yourself against the apt irrelevance screenshots. There is definitely a slight loss of detail and sharpness, but you gain a stable picture, less aliasing and a bit of contrast, not to mention a proper 16:9 anamorphic encode.

Scanning through, I found a couple shots which seem to have slightly more wobble/jitter than the v5.02 file, but that old one still has some jitter, so I'm not going to worry about it. The other improvements are worth the tradeoff.

For your reference, those couple shots are:

50:41 - Vader and Tarkin, slight wobble in the background

1:25:48 - Luke and Leia at the retracted bridge (before the swing), the matte painting seems to wobble slightly more in v6.0 than v5.02

I'm going to play with audio and maybe menus, then author this one. I'll let you know if I note anything else when I finally burn the disc and play it in a regular player. Then I may take a breather before moving on to Empire.

Thanks again for all your work on this script.

ChainsawAsh said:

Not quite - Obi-Wan's death has slo-mo, but it's "fake" slo-mo, as in it was shot at 24fps and the framerate was changed in post.  IIRC, the "Magic Tree" slo-mo was actually shot at a different framerate than 24fps, making it "true" slo-mo.

I had a quick look at the shot after Vader's helmet explodes earlier and at least that part of it looked like step-printed 24fps for "fake" slo-mo to me.

I have the second set (full screen), which I inherited from a friend when he picked up a Laserdisc set. It looks like the same design, so it should be legit. (Of course, you never know on ebay.)

Thank you for the constructive criticism. You have inspired me to try out some things I've been kicking around. I have updated my script to 6.00. Turns out that I've nearly eliminated the problems you're showing with the Stormtroopers in smoke and the Rebel pic immediately following it, and it seems to have not hurt the stabilization too much! Please try it out and let me know what you think.

Well, I just spent some time testing the latest script with various clips. It's definitely an improvement in the smoky areas, bringing back detail. Compared to my previous encode with 5.02, the grain removal seems to be more subtle, but still a nice cleanup of the source.

After trying different settings back and forth and encoding clips both with Lagarith and then with HCenc, I ended up with a "less is more" approach to the settings. I went with the following alterations:

Levels(6,1.08,255,0,255)
Tweak(sat=1.06,hue=-2)

MT_MakeDiff(last,last.RemoveGrain(12,-1).RemoveGrain(12,-1))

With these settings in the v6.0 script, the overall look of the processed frame is quite close to the original with a tiny bit more contrast, minus the gate weave/wobble with reduced aliasing, grain and noise.

In my tests, a higher contrast (level setting) improved the depth, definition and perceived sharpness, but it was at the expense of highlighting the grain and noise. Various attempts to improve detail by changing the sharpness setting also had the same effect of making things worse. So, I went with a flatter, less contrasty image with less noise as compared to my previous full encode (and screenshots). In still frames, the result looks quite close to the original with a subtle bump in contrast and reduced grain. In motion, you see the other effects.

I'm running another full encode now and I think this will probably be what I stick with unless there are major issues when I play it back from disc.

Darth Mallwalker said:

Click the File menu at the top of Muxman's window to import PgcDemux's Celltimes.txt

Great, thanks. I didn't see that before.

dark_jedi said:

@ Mielr,so how do you set a DL layer break to be the same as the retail?

I know you can set an exact layerbreak with PGCEdit, but it's more involved than letting Imgburn do it automatically:

PGCEdit Layer Break

g-force said:

Thank you for the constructive criticism. You have inspired me to try out some things I've been kicking around. I have updated my script to 6.00. Turns out that I've nearly eliminated the problems you're showing with the Stormtroopers in smoke and the Rebel pic immediately following it, and it seems to have not hurt the stabilization too much! Please try it out and let me know what you think. (screen caps are nice BTW)

g-force said:

neebis, here's the contents of my HCenc .ini file that shows the custom matrix. Notice I also have the LUMGAIN set to 2.

Thanks very much for the updated script and your HCenc matrix. I'll start testing some clips for my next encode.

In the meantime, I already did a couple encodes, trying to get decent output out of HCenc as well as testing the audio, subtitles and chapters in a fill mux. I started out with Rejig, which crashed on me, then I tried Muxman which worked fine in terms of audio and video, but I think I have to do chapters manually (rather than importing the PGCDemux celltimes) as well as manually switch the subtitle colors. I might look around for other all-in-one muxing options. What do you use to mux?

After a couple tries, I ended up with a pretty good result from the HCenc FOX1 matrix with the following settings:

profile: best

dc prec: 10

avg bitrate: 8600

max bitrate: 9200

AQ: 2

VBR bias: 70

Lumagain: 3

mask: 60/60

I still haven't burned a disc, but after scanning through the HCenc output on my PC, I will change the adjustments I made to your script. HCenc seems to exaggerate the saturation, so I'll dial that back down from my previous setting. Also, the grain is obviously tough to compress and the final output was a bit noisier than I'd like, so I'll see if I can start with less grain, but slightly more sharpness, to see if I can squeeze a bit more detail out before re-encoding (maybe your new script is already moving in that direction).

Maybe it was already mentioned, but when comparing processed shots to the source, I have noticed a number of shots on the source with trails/ghosting in the original video, not to mention annyoing EE outlines or halos around sharp edges in a lot of shots. Of course, your script squeezes the best presentation out of this subpar source and makes it much more watchable than what George originally stuck us with.

Well, my first encode to Lagarith (YV12 lossless) finally finished after about 50 hours. Here are my settings changes and the resulting screenshots. Remember, these are Lagarith intermediate screenshots, so there will be another generation of MPEG2 encoding after this. These shots are meant to show the effect of the script processing, not the final re-encoded DVD results.

The only values I changed are below.

Levels(7,1.14,255,0,255)
Tweak(sat=1.14,hue=-2)

sigma   = 4

Scanning through the film on my PC, I'm quite happy with the results. There is the expected slight loss of detail and cropping at the edges of the frame, but that's the tradeoff for the correction of gate-weave/frame wobble and anti-aliasing. I don't know if it's possible to coax a bit more detail and sharpness out of the script without causing other problems.

Many shots clearly benefit from the level changes (Leia with blaster below) with improved contrast in the washed out blacks and other shadow areas. I changed the level less than the default script because of the problematic shot of Luke below. If not for that shot, I probably would have used a Level setting of 8 or 9. Actually, scanning through more of the film now, I found quite a few more shots that are also at the threshold of acceptable darkness at 7. Ideally, a shot by shot correction would be allow me to use larger level adjustment on most shots, but I don't think I want to invest the time in that, considering the source.

previously posted shots (without trails or ghosting):




problematic shot (degrain and smoothing loses detail)




source sized only:


problematic shot (black level loses detail on dark half of face, higher than 7 goes too dark)


source sized only:


processed (improved anti-aliasing along with loss of detail):


apt irrelevance comparison frames:









source sized only:


improved contrast (slight loss of detail)








improved contrast

In his Chancellor "disguise" he's practically channeling Dr. Evil ("sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!"). I can't imagine anyone who couldn't see it a mile away even if they didn't already know and it seems to be very intentionally shot that way. There's no mystery at all, which also makes Anakin look like even more of a complete moron and ruins his character arc.

As a viewer it doesn't work at all, but I try to tell myself that Palpatine is just so powerful that he can blind every Jedi, every Senator and eveyone else in the galaxy. Unfortunately, it was so poorly executed in the script and on screen that it becomes impossible to suspend disbelief, so the intended drama and character development just falls flat.

g-force, thanks very much for the detailed explaination. My first encode still has 18 hours left... so I'll start testing your suggestions after that's finished.

Please do send me send me your HCEnc matrix when you get the chance. Thanks again.

g-force said:

If you're using HCenc, I have a custom Matrix that works really well. Interested?

I'd be curious to see what you tweek the values to. Always looking for creative input. Also, any chance you could re-post those split-screens now that you have the script working?

Thanks. Sure, please paste or send me a link for your custom matrix. I've only done a few full encodes with HCenc (nothing archival quality) and I usually end up using one of the Fox matrices or one of the defaults.

My full encode is still running, but I'll try to post some screens when it's done. I tried to use MT and Avisynth multithreaded, but I don't really know much about it and I was afraid since MT splits the frame that a lot of the filters and functions wouldn't work right or cause odd artifacts down the middle, so I went back to the standard single-core build.

I only tested and tweaked on my LCD PC monitor so far, but if the full encode works out, I'll test it on my projector.

I went through and used Trim to look at different short sections of the film with different settings. On my LCD screen, the default script looked a little yellow and although many scenes looked fine, the level adjustments were too dark causing a loss of detail in a few shots. Also, on my small screen at least, I felt the grain/noise reduction was a little high for my taste. I'll have to wait and see what I think of it on the big screen with my Blu-ray player upconverting the DVD.

My tweaks are probably more a question of personal taste combined with the (mis?)calibration of my screen rather than much of an improvement over your settings. The settings I've played with so far were Levels, Tweak, sigma and flit sharpen (in the stabilization/degrain stage).

I wasn't really sure about all the values to control the level or noise reduction and sharpness. I tried lowering the sigma to 3 then 4, which is what I'm using. Is that the right variable to lessen the degrain effect?

What about the values below:

source.MVDegrain2 thSAD=400

last.MVDegrain2 thSAD=300,thSCD1=150,thSCD2=75

Will these or other values in that section of the script allow me to fine tune the degrain effect? I plugged in different values (mainly higher), but I didn't get much of an effect that I wanted, so in the end I left them as is.

I also see that Contra is used in the sharpening stage. I really couldn't figure out how to tweak that one, so I didn't touch it. Can you give me a hint about which values to change to increase or lessen the sharpening filter?

Thanks again g-force and dark_jedi. It wasn't the Avisynth version (although I am now using the one you posted), but it was a few filters that needed older versions to work. I had two or three filters which were newer versions, so I reverted to all the same versions as included in dark_jedi's post.

I did some testing of short clips throughout the film to adjust the settings a bit and now I'm running my first full encode to Lagarith.

If it works out, I'll encode with HCenc, then I'll just have to decide which audio to use. I think I'll start out with the Belbucus DC48 audio, then maybe I will try hairy_hen and Satanika's 5.1 upmix. I was thinking about trying my own upmix with the unedited DC48 and hairy_hen's LFE, but I'll have to do some more reading and testing to see if I can replicate Satanika's process.

g-force said:neebis, I'll double check from home later, but those look frames look really messed up. I seem to remember that other people that have had weird artifacts re-installed AVIsynth and the problems went away. Worth a shot. Which version of AVIsynth did you use?

Thanks for the reply. I didn't think this could possibly be the output everyone else was getting. I was using the version of AVISynth I had already installed for earlier cleanup tests on other videos. Version() shows: 2.5.8 tsp MT version 5 April 6, 2009.

What is the recommended version that everyone has been using for the latest tests? Does v4 of the script need a different version than v5.02?

Actually, I see Avisynth 2.5.8 included in the most recent filter pack posted by dark_jedi. I'll try again with a fresh install of that and see what happens.

Thank you to g-force and everyone for all your efforts developing and refining these scripts.

I've been meaning to try an anamorphic conversion on my NTSC discs for a while, and I have finally started some short tests on ANH. I followed Oldschooljedi's guide to get to the point of running the script and I'm loading the .avs into VirtualDub, then encoding to Lagarith YV12.

I just tried a very short clip with v5.02 and then v4 and I am seeing the results below. I wonder if this is the typical output that everyone else is getting. I did see some of the discussion on the multi-image trails, but this seems worse than some of the previously posted screenshots.

Is this the output I should expect or do I have a problem with my settings? Does v4 of the script work better with older versions of the avisynth plugins (older than dark_jedi's most recent set)?

Are dark_jedi's most recent additions included in v5.02 or will there be another update including those changes?

v4 (split-screen, resized only on left, v4 script on right):






v502 (entire frame):

Search for Star Wars blueprints. Here's a link that has some characters and ship designs (you may need to register):

http://www.the-blueprints.com/blueprints/sciencefiction/star-wars-characters/

http://www.the-blueprints.com/blueprints/sciencefiction/star-wars-other/

http://www.the-blueprints.com/blueprints/sciencefiction/star-wars-imperial/

http://www.the-blueprints.com/blueprints/sciencefiction/star-wars-rebel/

http://www.the-blueprints.com/blueprints/sciencefiction/star-wars-official/


As long as you're asking for others to create models for you, you might as well search for pre-existing models. You should be able to find some models around for most 3d software.

This site is for Poser/Daz3d Star Wars characters and you may find some model resources:

http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=84552

Here's a gallery of the old Star Wars Modelling Alliance. The gallery also seems to have a few blueprints mixed in with the rendered scenes.

http://www.imperialorder.org/archives/image/swma


Here's a trailer for an all 3d fan project. Unfortunately, I think it was shut down in advance of the official 3d Clone Wars series.


Tales of the New Republic

ABC, thank you so much for generously sharing your work as well as 7FN's set. I've just started to listening to your ESB and it sounds fantastic. It's such a rich sound that it really draws me in and brings back the feeling of seeing the films and hearing the soundtracks for the first time, except now there is a clarity and depth I've never heard before.