patkhoo

dlbsyst said:

I for one want the grain left exactly as it is in the sample. To my eyes it looks very sharp and looks more like a film print. Please do not DNR this release.

I second.

The grain adds texture to an image making it more real and authentic, whereas everything being smoothed out just makes it artificial.

It's like a pretty girl having a very thick layer of foundation thereby making her face ultra (fake) smooth compared to one that wears no make up ... I mean needs no make up at all... <quick save>

You_Too said:

patkhoo said:

Ah, Gotcha! Were you using auto on levels or curves? Or both? I understand putting many frames into one big image, but would that be equivalent to finding the average of 10 when 3 are more like "X", 2 are closer to "Y" and the last 5 closer to "J"? I'm sure you considered this already, so what was the conclusion you came to? Related is, how was the previous (DVDv3) methods used (in comparison to this new method), which incidentally is clearly nowhere as good as this new method..

I'm not criticising the new approach, just trying to understand the rationale behind the methods used.

I used auto on curves, with zero on clipping of course. Of course it wouldn't be equivalent of the perfect average, but on the other hand, it will almost always find the most obvious tint and fix it.

As for DVD V3 I don't know since I wasn't involved back then.

And your idea with Lightroom is a very good one, but we won't go for such an advanced approach. We'll keep our color settings as they are and work from there. Feel free to start your own project! :)

Ah, understood.. Auto-curves would work pretty well.. Yes, you're right, the obvious tint faults for the entire movie would have been resolved in this manner - in a single step, no less. Excellent creative thinking - my salute to you, You_Too! (hey a palindrome.. I digress..)

As for the Lightroom idea, well, I don't have access to any files, videos, images, etc, so there's no chance for me to do such a thing - like I said, a bit of a thought experiment is all.. although if someone is keen to give it a try, I can contribute help on the Lightroom and imaging front.. A PM is best.

Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled program - Blu V2, when I can have it..??? OK, OK, all together now, "It'll be ready, when it's ready.." :D

negative1 said:

7200 sec x 30 frames/sec = 216000 frames

What The ... :D

More proof why my maths teachers hated me in school.. sigh! :D I now have no idea how I got 12 million.. I stand corrected.. but it in fact makes Lightroom idea more possible. Only 216,000 "photographs" to correct.. :D

You_Too said:

@patkhoo: What I did to find the balance in the movies was to take lots of frames from each movie, put them in photoshop beside each other in one big file, and let photoshop auto find the mid-balance of the greyscale.

Also, keep in mind that the movies were projected with warmer bulbs back in the day, as Mike Verta discussed in Harmy's thread. This would make them look more warm than the 70mm scans, which I bet were scanned using today's standards.

And this shot was just one of very many in that movie. Some shots still have a very cold feeling to them. The GOUT does not do a good job in representing the original color but I think we did the best we could to bring some of it back.

Ah, Gotcha! Were you using auto on levels or curves? Or both? I understand putting many frames into one big image, but would that be equivalent to finding the average of 10 when 3 are more like "X", 2 are closer to "Y" and the last 5 closer to "J"? I'm sure you considered this already, so what was the conclusion you came to? Related is, how was the previous (DVDv3) methods used (in comparison to this new method), which incidentally is clearly nowhere as good as this new method..

I'm not criticising the new approach, just trying to understand the rationale behind the methods used.

And now, for some fantasy.. I wonder.. (just wondering only)

The "auto-" capabilities in Lightroom are simpler to use than those in Photoshop. It is conceivable (damn near impossible with Photoshop, but maybe possible in Lightroom) to extract every single frame of the movie and adjust white balance, tint, saturation, vibrancy etc, for a "typical frame" in a schene, then apply the same settings in batch for all frames of the same scene. "Copy Metadata" and "Import profiles" are the key techs. Then Lightroom will batch render all frames to be recombined into a lossless AVI later. The fantastic thing is of course the fact that Lighhtroom does not make any changes to the actual image itself, only saving it in the DB, it is therefore possible to make changes to an individual scene (as opposed to a frame) as and when required.

In addition, the dirt removal tool is point and click for problem frames etc and advanced tools like unsharp mask, upscaling to 1080 etc are all a preset away to be applied on Lightroom's "Export" function. Heck, even the "dirt removal" tool can be batch applied to multiple shots in Lightroom..

Of course, let's see, a 120 min movie @ 30 frames/s = 12,960,000 frames. If there are 1000 scenes in a movie, then just manually adjust 1000 sample frames, and then batch apply to the remainder.. OK, it is fairly difficult, but not impossible. This may be the nearest practical method to the ultimate unthinkable of manually adjusting each and every frame in Photoshop...

Let me just say, it is merely a thought excercise, but I have Lightroom (and Photoshop), and I wonder ...

You_Too said:

About the color thing and old movies:

Check this comparison I made from ESB.

First pic is a scan of an original print. Second is raw GOUT. Third is our version.

Notice how pink/magenta tinted the original scan is, with unnatural skin tones, but also how colorful it is. Anyway, all three movies have a kind of similar tint in the GOUT, so we ended up balancing the colors in the same way in all three movies. See how much more natural that shot looks now. And the colors look just as strong as in that print.

As a photographer, the top image of the sample looks like it was shot under fluorescent lighting, the middle one is a little washed out on colours and the bottom one has returned the colours, but looks a little more towards tungsten lighting. (I'm not saying that they are that, simply that they seem to lean in those directions..)

I'm curious, there's been a lot of talk about saturation and contrast, but has there been any changes related to white balance, and if so, care to explain a little?

EDIT: Sorry, for those who might not know, changing tint and colour balance IS related to white balance, but white balance refers specifically to using white (or a suitable grey card ;) as a control point...

dark_jedi said:

 

Absolutely not, so we can stop mentioning that script, we accomplished what I wanted to do in the first place but I could never do it fully myself, You_Too has done it, we eliminated that script altogether, there is none of it used this time, so it is all us only.

Wow! Ever since like forever, I've always though of that script as like the be-all and the end-all to improving the GOUT. But looks like DJ and Y2 have made a breakthrough of very serious proportions!

So do you two guys think that if DJ had not tried to do an upscale, the improvements would have been discovered? I mean to ask, how critical a role was the fact that an upscale was being attempted to the discovery of the methods/techniques used in this new script? If DJ had tried to do another DVD instead, would it still be as likely that Y2's new script would have come to light?

That is some serious achievements there, DJ + Y2. Kudos to you both, it is not easy to take what is a "de-facto standard" and rebuilding it from scratch and obtaining a significant improvement. Congratulations, you guys should be very proud! :D

dark_jedi said:

patkhoo said:

dark_jedi said:

The only problem I see for now is the frame fixing that was doing on my almost V2 lol, depending on how I feel about it, and if You_Too wants to help on that, it was all for nothing, because the color is so dramatically different this time around, and we cropped it much better, so none of what I had before can be used, so it has to all be done over, or I will just leave the video "as is".

Hi DJ, do you have a screenshot comparison of the "almost V2" and the new "DJ+Y2" version?

No I can't, I have gotten all those files off my PC as to not get anything all mixed up, and ESB was never fully finished because I broke off to finish Conan.

Understood.. I only ask because I'm curious as to your comment about the previous frame fixing which would essentially be "wasted" and how the cropping (?) is much better this time..

I guess I do not know so I'm ignorant as to why the previous work was wasted - I always assumed that Y2's work was built on top of the G-force script - hence it is a significant but "related" improvement and work. And the comment about cropping threw me too.. Cropping? Why would it need to be cropped? Can we spare those pixels? ;P Sorry, I think I've missed something important here..

dark_jedi said:

The only problem I see for now is the frame fixing that was doing on my almost V2 lol, depending on how I feel about it, and if You_Too wants to help on that, it was all for nothing, because the color is so dramatically different this time around, and we cropped it much better, so none of what I had before can be used, so it has to all be done over, or I will just leave the video "as is".

Hi DJ, do you have a screenshot comparison of the "almost V2" and the new "DJ+Y2" version?

dark_jedi said:

vbangle said:

How did you get around the usb problem DJ?

There are a shitload of connections on the back, I just plugged into the USB 3.0 instead of the normal ones above it lol, but now I have the drivers in Windows 7 Pro 64 for the USB 3.0 so I probably could switch back now if I wanted, they just were not installed at the start.

That's good, I would save the USB 3 ports for something that needs the bandwidth, like external drives etc.. don't waste them on things like keyboard and mouse.. :)

BTW, especially HDDs on USB3, the most common problem getting them to work is chipset incompatibility - the USB3 chipset on the mobo is not working quite right with the USB3 chipset in the drive case/dock. Secondly, USB3 requires more electrical power than USB2 for the same drive, so if drives don't seem to power up or are not detecting properly on USB3, try a shorter USB3 cable or a additional power source.. Just FYI in future..

You_Too said:

Actually guys I might have found what's wrong. Just waiting for DJ to see the pm and reply!

After googling around I found this guy who had plugged his keyboard and mouse into the USB 3.0 inputs on the back of his motherboard and tried to install windows 7. He described it just like DJ, that it "froze" once the first install screen comes up and he couldn't use the keyboard or mouse, since windows 7 doesn't have native USB 3.0 support.

With all my heart, I hope this is what's wrong since it's so easily fixed.

That's quite right! I had that before also..

Besides, it's a huge waste to use USB 3 ports to run keyboard and mouse.. :D

Get the Ubuntu Install disk and run the memory test.. the memtest takes a long while, but you will know for sure if there is a HW issue with the RAM.

Another possibility is whether the disk is a win7 pro 64 bit but SP1? I'd trust SP1 right now over non-SP1 for better support for Sandy Bridge. Regardless, even with SP1, especially the newer Intel chipsets, you may need a boot-driver for AHCI. I did have to manually load drives on at least one occasion with Win7 SP1..

Other than that, yes, 64bit Windows support a crap load of RAM

dark_jedi said:

vbangle said:

You might want to space out those hard drives a bit for better cooling but yeah, we are all drooling, thanks DJ...:)

I'm going to go for a walk, maybe then I won't be so jealous of DJ's rig...

Thanks again vbangle for the hard drive tip, they are now spaced apart, and it also looks better lol.

DJ, I'm sure you won't but just a quick reminder, don't run the machine for extended periods with the cover off. It's important the casing cover be put back on because it forces airflow from the front of the case (away from the drives) out the back fan. If (later) you find heating a problem - esp on the drives, the large back fan just needs higher RPM. I've been working in the storage and RAID industry for 15 years - overheating is the second most common cause of disk drive problems after repeated start-stop mechanical reasons.

EDIT: After looking at your PC, I have to go take a cold shower... ;P

Actually, I'd like to see the sample clips of what DJ thought was the most challenging scenes in each movie that he had to restore. Basically, which scene in each movie did DJ have to to the most work on (or the most controversial changes)..

For example, there was a bit of discussion on the colour of Luke's skin in the hanger in SW. Some felt that a little bit redder was OK because being from a desert planet, he probably had a tan, others felt that the original cinematic colours were not so strong on that hue and we should stick more to it.

I mean, I don't think any of us needs "trailers" of these movies any more right? So, I think that other people doing restoration projects will greatly appreciate these samples. They kind of "set the bar" for every project after for those "challenging" scenes as well as provide a guide and/or a specifci reference point for all future discussions..

Rehnquist said:

dark_jedi,

Have you seen Harmy's 720p versions? How would you say your BluRays stack up with his version, video-wise?

I'm sure Harmy and DJ are best equipped to answer this, but isn't this comparison like between apples and oranges? I mean the source of the two are completely/totally different. One tries to modernise an old source, while the other works from the other direction.. no?

ANH REMAKE SCRIPT DRAFT CONFIDENTIAL

Hugh Jackman as Han Solo

Scene: Solo prepares to leave the rebel base after getting his reward.

Chewbacca: <woar> <roar> <rowar>

Jackman slaps on more hairgel onto his hair.

Solo: I know what I'm doing...

Cameo appearance by Samuel L. Jackson wearing an eyepatch walks out from under the dry-ice vapor surrounding nearby X-wings.

Nick Fury: Mr Solo, S.H.I.E.L.D. has a mission for you of the utmost importance...

The Aluminum Falcon said:

As a teen of today, I am part of this younger generation and do definitely not consider any of the Transformers or Pirates as the best. Star Wars is worthy of preservation to me and I definitely do think this is worthy to preserve. The Special Editions do indeed make these great movies worse...

Bravo! We need more like you! SW needs more like you! :D

But you know, I fear that we are preaching to the choir, after all, this question, this sentiment is being discussed on a forum thread dedicated to the preservation of the original unaltered trilogy..

Box office numbers for Captain Jack do not lie unfortunately..

If Nolan remade ANH, I wonder, would Luke have a "darker" side? snigger.. :D

I know, I know, if Nolan remade ESB, Vader would say, "Luke I am your ... " then long pregnant pause, focus on glowing lightsaber, and movie ends... ha ha ha ha! :D

ANH REMAKE SCRIPT DRAFT CONFIDENTIAL

Megan Fox points towards the Falcon.

LEIA: You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought...

I'm sorry Miss Fox, It just doesn't work ;P

Harmy said:

But seriously, I'm also part of the "young" generation (I'm 23) and I do give a crap. I saw the SEs of ESB and ROTJ before I ever saw the originals but I gradually realized how much more interesting the OOT versions were and later even how crap some of the SE changes were.

Well when I started mentioning the younger generation, I wasn't exactly thinking mid-20s .. Not that you guys are "old" or anything :D

I was more thinking the mid to late teens of today. The ones who are growing up with Optimus in 3D and Captain Jack and Potter mania. This is what constitutes as the best of the best of today. This is the yardstick by which other movies are measured - in their eyes because its all they know - or rather, it's all they have.

Star Trek does not mean "The good of the many outweigh the good of the few, or the one" to this generation. We're talking more than 20 odd years of generation gap here. It's like what I mentioned, what if a good movie that will be remembered and revered by people with significant disposable income in their late 20s 10+ years from 2011 must have loud explosions for example? Seriously, just look at Star Trek...

I can imagine if GL decided to remake ANH, and not just tweak it, we'd have a make out scene between Luke and Leia or Han and Leia (and not just a "hint" of under-current), racing towards the exhaust port would have been much more action packed, Vader and Obi-Wan's fight would have been flying all over the place (think Yoda vs <anyone> in the prequels)... I can't imagine Megan saying "You came in here without a plan for getting out? some rescue.." to the same effect.. Hot and action-movie-worthy Megan may be, but she can't pull off such a dialogue I believe.. Still, if SW was remade, and they cast Megan + Hugh Jackman as Han and Zac Efron as Luke, it would be like printing money..

<Involuntary Shudder>

Pennsylvania Jones said:

Sorry, I was just joking back. ;)  My comment was mostly directed to the kindergarteners who work at LFL.

If George changed his mind and released the Originals with a proper HD master (hypothetically speaking, of course), I'll bet you $3,000 the newer fans won't go "AARGH!!!  I HATE LUCAS FOR MAKING THE UNALTERED MOVIES AVAILABLE!!!"  At worst, they'll just say "Okay, there's your HD Unaltered Trilogy.  Now will you please SHUT UP?"

I hear you - kindergartenders indeed :D

But my fear/worry/?? is that if GL had released the _REAL_ _PURE_ OT on BluRay, the younger generations would have said "What is the big deal?" and "OK, gotcha, this is my father's ice-cream truck" or "You mean Zac Efron isn't in it?" or ...

I don't know whether to weep in despair or disgust.. We need to find ways to show that this (the fantastic work that people like DJ have put in to preserving the OT) _IS_ better than the brain-washing-mind-altering-history-morphing crap that is the current incarnation of the Trilogy.. How?

Pennsylvania Jones said:

patkhoo said:

In Blu Ray ANH, I must say that they turned up the saturation on colours fairly significantly. As Leia's ship is being pursued, the brown of the planet below has many red and white streaks. A little too strong I feel.

And then, as the ship is being captured (around 3:15), the sound effects of the ship being pulled into the landing bay of the star destroyer is now much louder. Where bfore it is more muffled, now it is much clearer. Incorrect I feel since if you are inside a starship, wouldn't such sounds be in fact muffled and not crystal clear? This is a starship, not a submarine..

As the storm troopers enter, the laser beams are again fairly strongly saturated. Too much red and green stuff flying in all directions - distracting.

But, I must admit, the detail on the rebel guard's face at 3:30 is a joy to behold. You can see clearly all the hair on his head and eyebrows :) Plus, the underside of the star destroyer is clearer than ever.

 

I will say this - this release seems to be keeping up with the times - keeping up with the Transformers and the Pirates and the Potters. Or at least, in terms of movie production emphasis. The explosions are louder, the laser beams more pronounced, the dialog less subtle and more direct, etc. It is like if the Trilogy was filmed/created in 2011 instead of 1970 - this is what the movies would be like. It's like Star Wars for the new generation who are growing up with Optimus Prime and Captain Jack. Wait a minute, didn't I watch Transformers 30 odd years ago too? I swear there wasn't anyone in the cartoons that remotely looked as good as Megan Fox..

Sigh.. Maybe I'm getting old and can't get past what *I* remember of Star Wars and GL is a genius at constantly updating a masterpiece and keeping it current from decade to decade.

I may disagree with/dislike what GL is doing to the OT, but I am not obtuse enough to assert that my generation's view of a good movie/story is better than the current generation's typical "top notch fare"..

So, creating continuity errors in its brand-new special effects is "Top Notch Fare?"

Mace Windu said:

I don't think so.

I don't think so either. But who am I to say that Lady GaGa is worse than Abba? There was a time when Rock and Roll was considered halfway to blasphemy, but I'd take anything from Elvis over Eminem any day.

Katy Perry just scored 5 number one singles from a single album - a feat previously only ever achieved by one other person - Michael Jackson. But Katy Perry's number 1s have spent a combined total of 18 weeks at no 1 compared to just 7 weeks for Michael. Does this mean Katy Perry is better than Michael Jackson? I guess it depends who you ask.

I think the changes made by GL are total crap. But that's me. I can imagine there are plenty of other people, probably much younger than me, who may actually agree with GL. For that achievement, OK, I have to (grudgingly) tip my hat in respect and recognition to him.

I may understand the reasons for the changes - and maybe even articulate them, but I still don't agree with them. If I did, I wouldn't be hanging out here at OT.com with all you fine fellows, waiting patiently for DJ's Project Blu now would I? :D

In Blu Ray ANH, I must say that they turned up the saturation on colours fairly significantly. As Leia's ship is being pursued, the brown of the planet below has many red and white streaks. A little too strong I feel.

And then, as the ship is being captured (around 3:15), the sound effects of the ship being pulled into the landing bay of the star destroyer is now much louder. Where bfore it is more muffled, now it is much clearer. Incorrect I feel since if you are inside a starship, wouldn't such sounds be in fact muffled and not crystal clear? This is a starship, not a submarine..

As the storm troopers enter, the laser beams are again fairly strongly saturated. Too much red and green stuff flying in all directions - distracting.

But, I must admit, the detail on the rebel guard's face at 3:30 is a joy to behold. You can see clearly all the hair on his head and eyebrows :) Plus, the underside of the star destroyer is clearer than ever.

I will say this - this release seems to be keeping up with the times - keeping up with the Transformers and the Pirates and the Potters. Or at least, in terms of movie production emphasis. The explosions are louder, the laser beams more pronounced, the dialog less subtle and more direct, etc. It is like if the Trilogy was filmed/created in 2011 instead of 1970 - this is what the movies would be like. It's like Star Wars for the new generation who are growing up with Optimus Prime and Captain Jack. Wait a minute, didn't I watch Transformers 30 odd years ago too? I swear there wasn't anyone in the cartoons that remotely looked as good as Megan Fox..

Sigh.. Maybe I'm getting old and can't get past what *I* remember of Star Wars and GL is a genius at constantly updating a masterpiece and keeping it current from decade to decade.

I may disagree with/dislike what GL is doing to the OT, but I am not obtuse enough to assert that my generation's view of a good movie/story is better than the current generation's typical "top notch fare"..

I just watched a bit of the new Blu Ray ROTJ, starting from just before the "Nooo" all the way to the end..

Aside from the "Nooo", the celebration on Endor also irritated me. There's scenes of celebration and tearing down of statues from Coruscant, Naboo, etc. Most irritating is the change of music during the celebration on Endor. I think the mood was changed... I think this is from the most recent re-release right?

I must say that the colours and detail is quite fantastic. I mean, you can see just how old Palpatine is in ROTJ when they close up on his face as he is electrocuting Luke. But, the story _HAS_ been affected by these changes. What a waste..

Noooo!!!!!! Clearly, Vader was conflicted, but made a choice. His actions showed how he felt in a more powerful way than all the words in the English language put together.

Obi-Wan has just demonstrated a new Jedi power - ventriloquism. Or basically GL trying to get some of the Pixar/Disney stuff in and maybe qualify for the Best Animated Feature category of the Oscars?

And finally, I just blinked... I mean, they can't blink damn it, they're alien creatures and don't need to blink, what is this, the National Geographic?

WTF.

That just about sums it up for me.

Dark_Jedi, you're my only hope...

Hi DJ,

Please do not take it personally. There are simply some people here who are impatient is all. As you know, I myself waited almost a whole year before getting to see the V3 DVDs. And I live in the far east, so I am quite sure that it is not practical to donate blanks to you for you to burn and send halfway around the world. Cest La Vie..

I guess I see it from a half full vs half empty point of view. There is a _CHANCE_ that I can get these fantastic things, whereas before I came to this forum, there was 0 chance of me getting it. Trust me, all I had was a VCR recording from a terrestrial broadcast from 20 years ago + some VCR home videos I bought a decade ago. Today, I at least have V3 and it is already a huge step up from what I had previously. How fortunate I am. And all thanks to you.

So while the only hope I have of getting Project Blu is if it is uploaded one day, I can tell you, please take your time. If it will only happen in 2012, so be it. Again, at least I have a chance of getting it one day, versus not at all.

PS. I feel newsgroups are better for the uploader for sizes of this magnitude. You need to upload several times the total size if you do it via torrents before a couple of other stable seeders can help take up the slack. Whereas, with sufficient PAR2s, you could probably do it in "one go" via newsgroups. Just IMHO..

Harmy said:

Here's a little sample from one of the clips DJ sent me. Top is project blu, bottom is GOUT just resided to the same size:

Harmy, do you have the same compared with DJ's V3?