snicker

There are still many instances of clipped shadow detail in the Blu-rays along with clipped whites and colours. The clipped colours can be fixed, the shadows unfortunately can not. In very dark scenes (the Sandcrawler interior is a good example) there is a huge amount of detail lost in the deep shadows. The '97 SE broadcasts have retained almost all the deep shadow detail. It's a shame they're cropped otherwise they could be used to replace the clipped portion of the Blu-rays.

Haha. Yes, it is disturbing. It's a candy jar.

Neg1, if you didn't receive my reply to the first round of invites is it likely I'll have the same problem when you send out the next round?

Harmy, there is another issue with the HD/BD sources (nothing to do with your edits) which hasn't been mentioned: edge sharpening. Some of the effect is a result of clipping removing the original (smooth) highlight and shadow transitions but, apart from that, there has been some sort of selective filter applied to sharpen edges. I've seen it mentioned somewhere on this forum but haven't seen any discussion of it recently in relation to your restoration. Any thoughts?

I was a member of the old blog and received in invite for the new one. I've checked my inbox and spam folders and definitely no follow up to my reply. No drama (I'm happy to wait for the next round of sign ups) just letting you know that other people may have had the same problem.

If that's the worst of the issues it doesn't look too difficult to fix. I'd be happy to have a crack if you want to send me a page or two.

Harmy, is the shadow clipping in Empire worse even than Star Wars? That frame looks fucking awful.

pvanb said:

It might be a perfectly fine font, but it's hard to tell with all the stretching and squeezing and compressing. It looks like a typographer's worst nightmare*.

*I'm not a typographer.

I am a Graphic Designer and seeing fonts abused like this usually makes me cringe but, for some reason, I kinda like this. Its fun and suits pretty well. Maybe needs some edge blurring and grain (looks like a video overlay at the moment).

If you mean an RGB or Hue map/cycle, which displays a "map" of R/G/B/y/c/m clusters representing the location of R/G/B/y/c/m within an image then, yes, it exists. The Colorama tool in After Effects allows for mapping hue or RGB. Wouldn't have a clue how to do it with any other software.

I like the look of that last frame.

In the canyon pandown it would be more accurate to state, "... created using the HD terrain...".

It's one of the most memorable sequences in the film for me. Watching it as a kid it was quite creepy. The camera movement is very effective at creating tension and a sense of foreboding.

I would rather watch these shaky, compressed, blown-out video previews than any other home release. That might sound ridiculous but the rush I felt watching these clips far outweighs any other viewing experience I've had (outside of seeing it in it's original theatrical run). The colour in the canyon shots impressed me the most. These previews recall an actual experience rather than an imagined one which would account for the feeling of utter joy when viewing them. Everthing just feels right... because it is, I guess. This is Star Wars exactly as it was.

Exciting doesn't even get close to describing this. Negative1, you are one lucky bastard :)

Further to Corellian77's comment, I have spent thousands of hours in After Effects scrutinising almost every pixel of this film and, after watching the finished version, not a single edit seemed obvious or took me out of the film. Its an utterly outstanding effort in every way. I'd resigned myself to never in my lifetime being able to see Star Wars in HD without ridiculous CGI additions and with it's original colours. Its a gift, and a very generous one at that. If you're late to the game at least pay Harmy the courtesy of reading back through the thread and respecting his wishes.

* deleted *

I'm not sure the red print would be useful as a grain layer as its missing colour information. It's only value might be the luma if it has more dynamic range.

Some people just can't get their heads around re-encoding, demuxing and remuxing files. Not because they're lazy and can't be bothered to make the effort to find out how its done, just that they're not computer savvy enough to make sense of it. No reason to punish them for that. I have a Blu-ray player so it doesn't concern me but not having one shouldn't rob you of the opportunity to see it. How does it impact you (Ben) if another person is happy to watch a lower quality version? I'm a video snob myself but I don't expect everyone else to be.

HH, this is a phenomenal piece of work. Unbelievable. I think I enjoyed listening to your mix (through headphones) more than watching the film. So present that it was almost too much at times. Thanks for all your hard work.

I'd still go for an AVCHD. Its good if you just want the full movie-going experience (straight into the fanfare) and aren't worried about the Blu extras. Also, the lower bitrate will be barely noticeable, outside of slightly better grain performance.

Moved to: Making our own 35mm preservation--my crazy proposal

Negative1, I've been thinking about your comments a while back regarding the limited dynamic range in your main print due to fading. If the red print has better dynamic range you could set up luma difference mattes for keying (one each for shadows and highlights) and have the red print luma replace the other print in instances where it has better information. That is, darker shadows and lighter highlights. This would eliminate the need for expanding the luma range in your main print which will introduce banding (gaps in your histogram). This approach is non-destructive but would require the black and white points and gamma to first be adjusted correctly in the red print.

Negative1, I've been thinking about your comments a while back regarding the limited dynamic range in your main print due to fading. If the red print has better dynamic range you could set up luma difference mattes for keying (one each for shadows and highlights) for each print and have the red print luma replace the other print in instances where it has better (more) information. That is, darker shadows and lighter highlights. This would eliminate the need for expanding the luma range in your main print which will introduce banding (gaps in your histogram). This approach is non-destructive but would require the black and white points and gamma to first be adjusted correctly in the red print.

Edit: Would you prefer this comment reposted in your other thread?

Digitising doesn't take away the look of film. Star Wars looks so bad because it's had every single property of film - what makes film look like film - stripped away from it. The retimed colour is the least of it's issues. The biggest issue is the massive dynamic range compression coupled with excessive contrast boosting. The result is a high-contrast yet, paradoxically, flat image. There is no depth. Additionally, its been edge sharpened, the clipping is some of the worst I've seen and the grain structure is poorly resolved. I have loads of Blu-rays which represent the look of film accurately. If you check out any release by Criterion you will see how film-to-video transfer should be done. Warner and Fox (excluding Patton) catalogue titles are also outstanding.

This preservation is far and away the most important because it's the only one (that we have access to) that will represent this film the way it was originally screened. It's being done professionly and with great attention to detail. And it looks like film. In fact, these guys are doing a better job than a lot of big studios and its no understatement to say, looking at the level of damage to some of these clips, that their accomplishments are outstanding.

Dunedain: Any automated process can perform outside of expectation. It happened with the first release of Gladiator on Blu-ray. Whatever software Paramount used interpreted fast-moving objects (arrows and fireballs) in the opening battle sequence as scratches and debris and attempted to remove them from the image with pretty ugly results.

You can see an example here:

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=2243467&postcount=275

The only way to avoid this would be to clean up short segments and review the results for accuracy. These guys seem to know what they're doing though and everything looks fantastic so far but, shit, anything's possible.