pittrek

ireactions said:

 

 

If the shot of the speeder in Mos Eisley was a grainy, blurry mess in the original version because they didn't have enough time to do the composite as well as they could have and that's how it'd be no matter where the shot was taken (unless it's a new HD transfer) -- well, I just learned something I didn't know before! Thanks! :-D

According to George this shot was the reason why he decided to do "a few" changes to the 1997 re-release (this shot + he wanted to add the Jabba scene)

djchaseb said:

Also that shot was always very grainy.  Last thing I would want is noise reduction.  I love film grain.

I used to hate grain. Now, after seeing dozens of HD movies with moving wax figures replacing the actors, I prefer grain too :-)

ireactions said:

I do love the Despecializations, but one moment always really jumps out at me:

We get the "You don't need to see his identification scene in HD" -- 

But then we get this extremely grainy, low-res shot:

I know that no HD version of this shot exists and it's been altered so much in the Special Edition with new elements in the foreground that it's impossible to simply replace the background. But does anyone have any ideas for what could possibly be done to make this one shot fit in better? Noise reduction? A new matte background that's been rebuilt to resemble the original but in higher resolution? A new 3D model built to resemble the speeder and its occupants?

Just curious. The restoration/despecialization process is fascinating.

I think Harmy did it intentionally. The shot always looked like bantha poodoo, and Harmy tries to make the movie looks as close as possible to the original 1977 version. It still looks MUCH better than the 2006 DVD

Thanks, I'll try

Yikes, more changes ?

http://www.dvdactive.com/editorial/articles/star-wars-the-changes-part-four.html

The only HDTV broadcast which I know about is the same version as the DVD, the ONLY source "I" have for the original theatrical scenes is the official VHS + some theatrical preservation.

Is a capture of the LD of Episode 1 "available" somewhere ?

wabid said:

Your posts are hard to understand because you have not made a case why mkv is better other than "but I dont want to remux after I download."  I understand, and Harmy is right, ISO may confuse a couple people. That is what the README is for.  aka "This is an iso, it must be burned, mounted or busted.  Burn with IMGBURN, mount or bust with Virtual Clone Drive."  Mounting and remuxing does add an additional step if for some reason you want an mkv over an m2ts file (hint if you are remuxing your other releases you are probably adding an unnecessary step.  There is virtually no benefit to recontainering the m2ts as an mkv unless you have one of the rare devices that supports the latter but not the former.)  

ASS - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubStation_Alpha#Advanced_SubStation_Alpha

Adywan released his final copy of A New Hope Revisited as an ISO.  It played on every dvd player in the world.  Had he released an mpeg2 file and expected people to build their own DVD structure, I don't think it would be something that Peter Mayhew would have viewed.  The beauty of an ISO is the ability to burn a universal disc that works everywhere.  If you gave your Uncle an mkv on a DVD and he stuck it in his DVD player and it didn't play, he would throw it away.  AVCHD is far and away the better format when it comes to sharing physical media with friends, relatives, and people who watch movies on their home theater television.

shutting up for real this time.

Sorry man but you're confusing me with somebody else, I never said that I don't want to remux after download. To be honest I don't care in which format it gets released, or even when it gets released, I am most of the time a very silent and patient man :-) I have intentionally reacted only to a few very specifically chosen parts of your posts, I don't want to argue or go too away from the topic or anything like that.

I am now re-reading my previous post and I'm sorry if they sounded offensive, they were definitely not meant that way.

wabid said:

To play devils advocate, the benefit to MKV is being able to include odd audio types not allowed by avchd such as flac, and strange subtitle formats such as .ass.  Again, if you want a flac mkv, it is extremely easy to mux yourself.  MKV is a kitchen sink, it supports everything.  AVCHD is a common denominator  supported by every device natively, but it is more restrictive as to what audio/video is allowed.  Since Harmy is releasing 1280x720 h.264 video and ac3 audio (which is bd compliant), he is not using any of the additional features mkv offers that avchd does not.  There is almost no benefit to using mkv over m2ts (a slightly smaller container overhead, a benefit which would be negated by forcing harmy to upload two of the same file) because virtually any device that supports mkv also supports m2ts, but not the other way around.  AVCHD is the more standardized format, supported by more devices, natively.  It makes sense to only release in one format instead of uploading two of the same file.  I am just repeating myself now, so I will shut up.  If you have any questions reread the thread, everything has been explained multiple times.

Don't be afraid, I'm shutting up too :-) But thanks, I didn't know that somebody really invented a format called "ass" :-)

Harmy said:

The only benefit of an MKV release that I saw (and still do) is that it is a way to release a high bitrate version before the BD with menus and all is ready. Then, when the BD is ready, anyone who is interested, can convert it to mkv

Come on guys, was my post really so not understandable ?  Yes, that's what I will do - that's what I have silently done with everything I got from here, but that wasn't what I was writing about.

Anyway, the wisest thing for me to write now is a quote from 3PO :

"Alright, shutting up, sir" :-)

Episode 1 should be quite "simple" - all we need is to take the official BluRay, replace the scenes with Yoda with the colour-corrected HDTV capture, cut out all added scenes, and re-create the transitions using an upscale of the TB capture. The original 5.1 DTS track was released on some LD in Japan if I remember correctly. But I'm not sure about the cropping

Episode 2 would be more hard to do - the main problem is that we don't have (or "I" don't have) any good quality version of the changed scenes. When I did my theatrical version of E2 on DVD, I used an upscale of the VHS, and it looked stupid even in DVD resolution. Does anybody know a better source for the scenes than my old VHS ?

Episode 3 is the easiest to do, if the "experts" are correct it would be enough to mux the video from the BD with the audio from the DVD

wabid said:

I am not bickering, I am offering Harmy a recommendation and a persuasive argument as to which container allows the widest audience to view his work, without two nearly identical/fragmented copies of his work floating around.  If he cares about reaching the widest audience even if it takes him a tiny bit more time (which it looks like he does by liking my suggestion to include mkvmerge) he will release an avchd.

Sorry, but I must object. What you write here makes no sense. If he wants "the widest audience to view his work" he should release it as many formats as possible.

I simply like the freedom to chose and I don't like when anybody is trying to decide for somebody else.

I don't honestly understand your problem with the free mkv format, anything you can imagine supports it these days, even my cellphone.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against AVCHD, I am simply "pro choice" :-) The fact that I prefer mkv is now irrelevant, just like the fact that you prefer AVCHD. People who watch movies from smart TVs, cellphones, stream them over local network, watch them from their HTPCs or whatever will always prefer mkv, people who are used to watch movies from optical media will probably prefer Bluray or even AVCHD. The point is - everybody is used to do it in a different way, so why are you trying to make the decision for them ?

Harmy said:

Wow, that was a long post to support one simple point ;-)

And the plan is as follows:

Finish v2.1

release AVCHD first, as that will have the shortest rendering, authoring, uploading and downloading times.

render the larger BD video stream - author a simple BD with simple menu, lossless audio and only the some simple extras.

start working on ESB.

Keep working on extras throughout.

Release a bonus BD for the whole trilogy when it's all done.

So, no mkv ? :-) And I agree with the rest

I'm sorry, but I absolutely CAN'T agree with the previous comment. EDIT - Harmy is faster than me, so "previous" means "Wabid's" :-)

"I don't see a situation where a person would be able to play the mkv but not be able to work with the avchd.  I do see situations where a person could play the avchd but not the mkv."

Nonsense. I know NOBODY who is not a member of this forum and knows what an AVCHD is, and all of them know how to play mkv files.

Sorry, but mkv is the standard for "releasing" HD "unofficial" movies, it has many advantages and no disadvantages.

Also I can't agree with a TRILOGY BLU-RAY, I think it's a very stupid idea. The ONLY reason why "I" (and I think most of the fans of Harmy's work) want a BD release it to have all the audio and subtitle tracks, nice menus, and nice bonus features. There is no chance you would make ONE disc and have it all contained there

djchaseb said:

For those with the official Blu Ray set, there is a pristine version on the bonus features disc.

Er... that's the source of this remastered video, isnt' it ?

Harmy said:

So, guys, I was thinking, what would you think if I released v2.1 as AVCHD and MKV  now (or in the near future anyway) and then kept the full BD release until the rest of the trilogy is done and then made a cohesive trilogy BD release? I really want the BD to be worthwhile content wise, and I just don't have the time to do that to my complete satisfaction just now; plus the lossless audio isn't available yet.

When the BDs are done, I could probably even just release the BD files separately without the video stream, so that those who already have the v2.1 MKV don't have to download the whole thing.

Well I personally watch all of my HD movies from mkv containers, so what you suggest is fully OK to me, but I am probably a minority here

crissrudd4554 said:

crissrudd4554 said:

Hi again guys. I tried multiAVCHD but it failed during the conversion process. Didn't matter because I realized afterwards that this wasn't what I was looking for anyways. From what I could see it would convert the movie to a DVD file which I would open in another program then burn it to DVD. That's not exactly what I was going for. I'm trying to BURN it to a DVD with the audio tracks and still retain a good percentage of the high quality. I burnt the original file the other month ago with Burn but 1. The DVD skipped in a few areas 2. It only incorporated 1 audio track 3. Quality was fair but a bit boxy in some areas. I opened the original file with Nero but Nero will only incorporate one audio track. I think the same goes for Toast. The only program I've used to burn a DVD of the DeSpecialized edition that also incorporated the audio tracks was ConvertX. However, the quality was essentially the same as Burn, a bit boxy in some areas. So I ask again does anyone know any programs that will BURN the movie to a DVD with the audio tracks and decent quality.

Anybody got anything?

From your description I have no idea what are you trying to do.

Yep, me too, I replied immediately and never got any response

I found my mail in the "spam" folder, so all of you who claim to never receive it, check you spam/junk folders first :-)

msycamore said:

AntcuFaalb said:

If you're not a purist (and there's no reason to be when you consider the constant pre-97 tinkering), then check out Harmy's work.

What was done pre-97 is very far from constant tinkering though, a revised opening crawl/shot for the '81 re-release, that's it. The few print variations seen and mostly heard in cinemas back in '77 is hardly anything unique to Star Wars, different and alternative audio mixes prepared for different formats and theaters was very common back then. An additional audio re-mix was of course done for the '93 home video release but that has pretty much become the standard nowadays whenever a new video release is made.

What about the "R2D2 in the canyon" scene ? Or the "binary sunset" scene ?  Or the "fighters leaving Yavin 4" scene ? Or of course the closing credits ? And you of course forgot the 1985 audio remix, all the colour variations (every release had different colour scheme),all the different cropping ...

WHAT THE FUCK ???

I'm REALLY looking forward to see the final product. REALLY.

Which picture ? "anakinshandold.jpg" ? It is there, it's just forbidden to show if your referer is not dvdactive.com :-)

If you want to see it, open it in a new tab and reload it from the server using CTRL+F5 (Firefox - don't forget to press CTRL, otherwise the SAME request will be sent and you will get the same error picture)

Well I was just a "silent reader" on the old blog, but  still I'd love to have access to the new one :-)

This is probably my favourite of these old documentaries. A HD transfer (maybe even colour-corrected by Adywan?) would be amazing