poita

Just a quick note to say I have had a rather catastrophic power supply/hardware failure here, it has taken out my workstation, the internal RAID, the external RAID, my Titan, Motherboard, Xeon CPU, SSDs and pretty much everything that was plugged in at the time. Chips blown off drives, tracks burned off the motherboard, it is a disaster.
I’ve lost well over 30TB of data, and am still working out what is left.

So a heads up to anyone I have done scans for, the copy you have is most likely the only copy now in existence, I no longer have a backup, so please, please, please back up your copy if you haven’t already done so.

I’m not sure what I am going to do at this point, nearly all 35mm I have scanned is also backed up offsite, so I need to get a computer together and check those archives, but I have lost a ton of work, and pretty much all of the small format (16mm/8mm etc) and laserdisc, VHD and VHS captures.

The only computing I am currently running is on my phone, so please give me some leeway with answering emails etc. and preferably contact me via gmail or via the forum as I can access those from anywhere.

So again, if I have done any scanning for you, please make an offsite backup, as I am no longer holding a copy here.

I already footed the bill for the LPP to be scanned recently, and that scan doesn’t have the smearing issue.

_Shorty said:

team_negative1 said:

The video is pretty much finalized, that result is inherent in our scan. Some color correction may alleviate this.

Unfortunate that this wasn’t caught and fixed in the scanning stage. I’ll second the suggestion that we should ‘pass the hat’ and have it scanned properly.

Yes this would work, if you had enough sources and can align them correctly you will potentially get rid of some of the compression artefacts and potentially recover some lost detail etc.
We do this all the time in astronomy, lately we have been stacking images from different sources, and it works well, but the alignment is really the problem, if you get that right then median stacking should improve things.

Wazzles said:

Williarob said:

captainsolo said:

hairy_hen said:

The 70mm picture quality could potentially be quite nice, though with an aspect ratio of 2.2:1, some image would be missing from the sides.

The soundtrack is quite the most desirable aspect of it, of course. I know there is at least one privately owned 70mm print of the first movie out there, but nobody seems to know who actually owns it. Most likely this person would be unwilling to loan it out for scanning. I’ve never heard anything about whether there are any existing copies of the other two.

poita said:

Re 70mm, I have seen two 70mm Star Wars prints, only one was in projectable shape and both were far too faded to red to be useful for restoration of the image, it is extremely likely that they all are far too faded now.
Plus 70mm is cropped at the sides, so I don’t think it will be a lot of use for the visual restoration.

Any 70 prints would be Eastman likely and virtually all from that vintage are typically in tatters or so faded they are unprojectable. Additionally the mag tracks can go if not properly stored.

Imagewise, the only benefits would be the finer grain and what if any visual changes were induced through the blowup–albeit those you could tell through heavy fading. The big draw will be the Dolby 70 baby boom in the six track mag stripe. If it could be found, transferred and turned it would become a most powerful ally. 😉
But of course all this would be much easier if we could access the source and do a straight transfer, much like some 70mm mixes that got direct transfers to LD and DVD. Like the earlier Criterion 2001, any magnetic we might be able to work with would likely have some distortion or damage after all these years.

The IB will be the best image overall and the most filmic/organic feeling. The Eastman/LPP will be what you’d have seen in 1977 and what the movie should look like from the processes of the day on general release.

Timing is everything. Team Negative One’s 70mm film scanner is now up and running and we’ve already scanned The Empire Strikes Back 70mm, in 4k*:

http://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com/starwars/post/2016/02/04/70mm-Empire-Strikes-Back-in-4k

• Well, as much as we have of it anyway. If anyone here has a 70mm print of Star Wars you’d like scanned, please let us know! 😃

Holy shit. I certainly wasn’t expecting to see the 70mm cut of Empire any time in the near future. Is there no extent to this community?

Yeah, before everyone gets too excited, that is a few seconds of a 70mm ‘pink noise’ sound test strip I sent over a while ago, though it is interesting to see it in motion, there is only those few seconds, not a complete print.

Robino said:

Lasz said:

Well, the color and contrast look amazing already!

However, I did notice some quite noticeable light streaking on the far right side of the frame almost throughout the entire sample:

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1519/23934842693_0112dfce27_o.jpg
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1716/24453343812_0abd9c0e54_o.jpg
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1677/24453343692_1b4559e81e_o.jpg

Is this present on the film or did it get introduced in the scanning process?

These artifacts are not part of the film print and were introduced by the acquisition device, in this case a DSLR camera.

It is called “CMOS SMEARING” and it happens on very bright areas of a CMOS captured image.

Some cameras are better than others but in this case it’s pretty bad unfortunately.

I have scanned that same print in higher quality without the smearing, I have offered it to the team to use if they want to clean up their version.

Do you mean the ‘China Girl’ at the end?
Many labs will have a lady with a colour chart at the heads or tails of their reels for the grade.
Some examples here:
https://vimeo.com/9854514

End Credits
http://tinyurl.com/the-french-end

I did do a restoration from a VHS tape many, many years ago. It would be great if the original film from the ride ever turned up.
It was cheesy, but a fun ride.

It is a shame some frames are missing from the opening crawl. I also have the French laserdiscs if they are any help.

marvins said:

poita said:

and there are no differences that I can see other than the opening and closing credits to the English version of the film.

That was what I was waiting for to begin my work on the french ESB despecialzed. Thanks a lot !

I had a nightmare of a time getting these scans done, it was one of those jobs where everything just kept going wrong, but the scans are on their way back to the print owner, and I thought I’d post a sample here for anyone who might be interested in what the original French opening crawl looks like for Empire:
https://tinyurl.com/frenchletters

Unfortunately the print is a dupe, and in pretty bad shape, some frames are missing from the opening crawl, and the print is full of splices and damage, and there are no differences that I can see other than the opening and closing credits to the English version of the film.

I won’t be doing any extra work on this, what happens with the scans are up to the print owner 😃

I’ll post a sample of the end-credits tomorrow if anyone is interested in how they look.

Yes, at some point hopefully that will get done, but that is another thread for another day 😃

Re 70mm, I have seen two 70mm Star Wars prints, only one was in projectable shape and both were far too faded to red to be useful for restoration of the image, it is extremely likely that they all are far too faded now.
Plus 70mm is cropped at the sides, so I don’t think it will be a lot of use for the visual restoration.

I’d be happy to organise a scan of the Fuji print if it is worthwhile getting done.

The technicolor prints are all actually off in terms of color. The British based Technicolor lab was already closing down, and the quality from the lab was very hit and miss. All of the IB Tech prints I have seen have rather greenish skintones, even when projected. They haven’t really faded since they were struck, but the colour was off when they were first printed. Thankfully it is easily adjusted.

Wazzles said:

Molly said:

Part of me wonders if there’s 35s out there of the Greedo scene without hardsubs. </random>

I seriously doubt it. I can’t think of any reason why they would ever leave it out.

It is possible actually. The international master would have had no subs, so that it could be changed for the localised 35mm releases.
The Derran Super8 comes from a master that had no Greedo subs in place, so there was one at some point, but it would have resided with a mastering house, and it is possible that it ended up in private hands.

I never spliced in porno frames, but did have to recreate cue-dots a few times over the years.

towne32 said:

It’s definitely a reel change. I’m not sure why they sometimes appear to be handmade scribbles, such as that, rather than a clean oval.

As a projectionist, if you end up having to splice the film near the reel end and the result means the frame with the cue-dot on it is now missing, you have to put ‘something’ there as a marker for the next projection of the film so that you know when to switch projectors to the next reel.
Some guys used a hole punch, some would do a scribble or some kind of mark to replace the missing one.

I haven’t seen the scribble mentioned here specifically, but it is possibly the reason it is there.

Makes perfect sense to me, but then, I only got an hour of sleep last night, so possibly the wrong guy to comment.

Also, your monitor is likely setup with a different colour-space/calibration to a television.
It will look very different on a TV compared to an uncalibrated computer monitor.

It does look like a light leak. Good to know it isn’t in the print. Thanks for posting the raw image, it really shows how much work you guys did, I don’t think everyone realises just how ‘raw’ the raw scans come in from 30+ year old film, and how much work is required to get them looking good again.

In a hundred years at the current rate, but any news will be in my own thread so as not to clog it up here with everyone else’s projects.
The image I posted isn’t from my project, it was just a quick grab of the scan to check. I probably won’t be using the LPP for much, I’m on a different path, people asked about the smearing though, and as I was lucky enough to be given access to the print, so I was able to check.

Re the smearing that has been mentioned, I grabbed a frame from the same Spanish LPP, assuming that -1 used the LPP for this shot (they may have used another source), here is a comparison:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/158526

So it looks like the smearing is not in the Spanish LPP, whether it is a scanning artefact, or a processing/compression issue, I can’t say, and of course, they may have sourced those scenes from a different print that has the issue.

Thanks, I’m a long way from well, but am back home.
Anyway, I’ll stop clogging up the -1 thread with other stuff😃

I’m watching the last reel of the neg1 release now, hopefully will throw it up onto the projector tonight and get a good look at it, but couldn’t wait, so have been watching it on the laptop which is less than ideal, but still fun to see it, and will get a chance to look for those frames later in the week. Quite probably some of them are missing from all prints and only exist now on the LDs, especially the last frames at reel changes.

marvins said:

poita said:

If someone wants to post images of the missing frames using the GOUT as a source, I’ll see if I have those frames on film anywhere. Probably don’t, but I will check.

Maybe you could too respond to my mail…

I am back again, and am going through my email backlog. Check for a reply 😃

Daxtreme said:

poita said:

DavidMerrick said:

That’s exactly it. Also happens with a lot of lights on the Death Star.

I can’t say if it is in their print or not, but I just had a look at one of mine, and I adjusted it (very sloppily, not worrying about colour and blowing out the whites to try and force any bleed to show) to be at a similar contrast level, and the print I have here doesn’t appear to have the smearing.

Just curious but how did you adjust it? 😃

Sorry, I may have been unclear, the top image in each case is the -1 release, the bottom image is a scan from a different 35mm print I have scanned, adjusted to roughly be about the same brightness as the -1 scan for comparison, to check if the smearing was in the original theatrical prints (e.g. caused by the lenses used in the original shoot) or not. I have not adjusted the images from the neg1 release.