theMaestro

Williarob said:

I have tried averaging the layers on a single frame (using this technique: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/image-averaging-noise.htm), and the results were pretty good. However, I don’t have as many prints as Mike does (nor as much time and patience). As I understand it, Mike has some proprietary software that carefully examines the pixels in each layer and makes choices based on how many match/don’t match? Something like that. I don’t think he’s just averaging the layers and since I don’t know exactly what he is doing, it’s hard to try it out.

I can tell you that for the layering to work, every layer of every frame has to be perfectly aligned, and color matched and that any dirt or damage on any of the layers will come through at least faintly if averaged, so all layers would have to be cleaned of dirt first. There may be a way to Median or Subtract or Add or some kind of blend mode that gets around this problem, I just don’t know.

On top of this, our scan of the LPP is not nearly so sharp as the Tech and Eastman scans, so if I throw that in there it may soften details and result in losing some detail rather than gaining it though for most shots I suppose the Blu-ray could be thrown in there too to offset that, if you were so inclined.

So the answer to your question is, I’d love to try it out and I’m open to suggestions. But just aligning and color matching two prints at a time is a lot of work and gigabytes of data!

And that right there ^ is why Mike Verta looks down on projects like this one. He’s a perfectionist. He took the time to get better scans and to make sure he had all the disk space he needed, and he did spend the time aligning each frame of every layer. His attention to detail, and the amount of time and effort he was willing to pour into his project is just way above anything that we are willing to do, and that is what will always make Legacy Edition superior to any other project, and I’m fine with that. That’s why I didn’t get upset by what he said about the Silver Screen Edition. He was just stating the facts as he saw them. Compared to Legacy Edition, I expect the SSE does look pretty crappy, and no doubt this project does too. I do think he rather missed the point of our project though, which wasn’t to compete with Legacy or to make the best version of Star Wars ever. The point was to try and reproduce the theatrical experience of watching the LPP print projected and I think we achieved that quite well. The point of this project of course is to make the best version of Star Wars ever, (so far, not including Legacy Edition), and I still think we are on par to hit that goal.

I don’t have the time or the experience or the knowledge or the resources that Mike has. That’s why I’m still really hoping he succeeds with Disney. I’d rather watch Legacy Edition than this project, and I’m sure most of you would too.

But I do enjoy working on the film. It gives me something to do during my down time, and figuring out ways to improve the quality, to speed up the process, to automate the repetitive processes with scripting, it’s that sort of thing that makes it fun to me. Part of the reason I am sharing the experience with all of you is because I need your encouragement to keep going. Now that I have figured out most of the “how”, it is just a matter of doing. Knowing that all of you are eagerly waiting for more gives me a reason to do some more.

So, thanks for sticking with me.

Yeah Mike did mention a new software he created for the layer-based grain removal but it’s hard to tell how specifically it works. And I guess it might be more feasible if you were to get a 4k scan of the LPP so that everything is at a similar level of sharpness so that the “averaging” doesn’t soften the image.

And you may be right about no project ever getting as good as Legacy. But from what I’ve seen of 4k77, I’m super impressed. So with this project as well as the future Despecialized Editions (which I guess will make use of these 4k scans), it’s a great time to be a fan of the unaltered Star Wars movies. And as much as learning & figuring out new things is fun for you, it’s also fun for us to read about the updates. The comparison pictures & technical ‘how-to’ videos are all fascinating and I look forward to more as you get further and further along.

Williarob, have you experimented with Mike Verta’s technique of layering different prints in order to remove grain & get closer to the o-neg’s grain structure? I guess it’s not the goal to implement such a thing for this project, but if you manage to figure that out then future projects could perhaps look even better than Legacy. Because it does seem like you now have the absolute best prints to work with and so the only step remaining to surpass Legacy would be Verta’s grain removal technique.

Either Lucas botched it or it’s “a deliberate artistic choice”. Or Lowry botched it and Lucas just didn’t care.

So I only managed to download a standard definition version of that video from the site. But here are a couple comparisons with the Blu-ray to get a sense of the colors:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/189503/

The website version does look more green. Maybe that means that they scanned the 1997 negative? Because the 97 version is more green as a result of trying to match a Tech print, right?

I wonder if they’re planning on putting out a 4k special edition at some point. After all, there were reports that the OT Alamo screenings were from a new master. Do any of the StarWars.com video samples contain clips that can be compared to the Reliance Media sample? And while another SE release would be unfortunate, it would at least provide better quality footage for a future Despecialized Edition.

So I know this is a bit premature, but I gotta ask: any plans to do Empire and Jedi at 4k once this is complete?

What about some kind of documentary that talks about your (Harmy’s) thoughts on the state of the original trilogy, public perceptions, historical importance, and also the technical process of creating the Despecialized Editions? So kind of like a longer version of the existing 20 minute one (which I’ve watched numerous times). Like it could be something that newer fans might watch and realize that there’s more to Star Wars than just the Lucas-approved Blu-rays.

I don’t know if George Lucas is really behind the holdup. After all, he did release the OOT in 2006 (albeit in bad video quality). And he’s even mentioned that restorations are expensive, and so he gave the SE’s priority when deciding what to restore. This tells me that it was more an issue of him not wanting to spend his own time & money on what he considers to be “rough drafts”.

So I think the real question is: does Disney think it’s worth the time & money to restore the OOT when the SE’s seem to be selling just fine? I hope the answer to that question is “yes”, but it doesn’t seem to be, given how Mike Verta described the executives to be either “skittish” or “uninterested”. What I’m really hoping is that, one of these days, Disney sees how popular some of the fan restorations/recreations are and decides to capitalize on that with their own official release.

ElectricTriangle said:
However, while there’s no question that working on this in 4k is great, I don’t think there’s much benefit to releasing it in 4K with that amount of DNR. It’s not particular bad DNR for 1080p. However, there’s not a ton of inherent detail in release prints; adding an extra step of information loss starts to kill any benefit that a 4K release might provide.

Well Williarob did say in the 1st post that there’s going to be a version with DNR as well as a version without DNR so that both camps can be satisfied.

Williarob said:
I do think this is a big step up from the SSE. This is much shaper (the Eastman prints are perhaps even sharper than the Technicolor), more detailed, will have more consistant colors, and won’t have any of that light streaking that our scan of the LPP had. If I had to put a number on it, I’d say 75% better than the SSE at 1080p. If it was only 10% better it wouldn’t be worth the effort.

For some reason, I had always thought that the Technicolor prints were the sharpest. So this means that you’re working with (perhaps) the sharpest prints? That’s awesome! I’m very interested in eventually seeing some comparisons with clips from Legacy, especially that infamous shot of the speeder going through Mos Eisley and the Sandcrawler shot.

Interesting. It does appear that this is very very close to the Blu-ray, if not better in some areas. However, one area that the Blu-ray seems to have the edge is with the wall structures in the back, specifically those circle-like things. Maybe that’s just a byproduct of artificial sharpening, but there is some more subtle detail we can see on the Blu-ray.

How do you guys think the level of detail in this compares to that of the Blu-ray?

quin82 said:
I tested it again, but this time with MPC, and voila, no problems at all. Shame on you VLC 😉 Again, it looks very promising and beautiful.

Yup, working for me with MPC as well. Looks absolutely stunning!

Did anybody else have trouble viewing the preview clip? I tried opening it but VLC freezes on one of the first few frames and then doesn’t play the rest. But anyway, that one frame I could see looks great!

That looks amazing, can’t wait for this release.

I get the sense, from what Mike Verta had to say on the matter, that the Disney execs don’t seem all that interested in a theatrical version release (hopefully that changes once they hear his pitch). So I’m not sure if they have anything in the works. But on the other hand, we do know that Lucasfilm requested a scan of a print from the Library of Congress. So…maybe they do have something in the works? I dunno. I feel like there’s a lot of mixed signals on the official end of things.

But my optimism is more with this site and the projects people are doing. Even if nothing is released officially, projects here and only getting better and better. If we think Despecialized looks good now, it’ll look even better after utilizing DrDre’s tools and cleaned up Silver Screen Edition scans (& perhaps Technicolor scans in the future?).

Density said:

Worst thing they could possibly do is try to get away with doing a lousy upscale of the 2004 scan with the 2011 effects. The fans aren’t going to tolerate that though so I doubt they’ll do that, and given all this talk about Reliance Media it seems like 4K scans might already exist anyway so that’s probably not happening regardless of whether it’s SE or OOT.

Hmmm given the recent reports of the Alamo screenings of the OT, it seems like it was partially the Reliance Media version & partially the Bluray version. So as crazy (and sad) as it sounds, maybe they just ended up splicing upscaled 2011 SE shots into the 4K Reliance Media version in order to create a 4K version of the 2011 edition. And…well…that just sucks.

I would love for there to be an official release, not only so I could enjoy it myself, but also because it would introduce so many newcomers to the original theatrical versions.

With that being said, I’m not as bummed out over the lack of such a release as I would be had I not discovered this site. I mean, there are some amazing projects being done here like Despecialized, which is continuing to improve with each version and actually takes feedback into consideration. On the other hand, the various official releases of the special editions retained many technical issues even when they had 7 years between them (like the lightsabers losing their white cores). So I guess my point is that even though the situation isn’t ideal, it’s still not so bad. It might even be…pretty good.

Valve time? I dunno about that. I think we’ll start getting Despecialized 3.0 versions before Valve can count to 3.

I also like version 1. Just wondering, is there some reference that’s used to determine what the “correct” colors are? Or is this kind of a whatever-seems-to-look-right approach? Not that there’s anything wrong with the latter, but I’m just wondering if my preference for how it looks lines up with how it actually used to look.

Wow that looks excellent! Will this cleaned-up version be getting a release or is it just a proof-of-concept kind of thing?

Also, do you really think Mike used denoising for the speeder shot? Wasn’t he against that because it’s destructive to the image?

So Mike posted an update on his forum:

Mike Verta said:

Hello, everyone!

It is September 13, 2016. As of today, I still do not have a “go” for an official presentation with the only people at Disney who matter.

I’m ready for it, but executives are funny.

There is another important push happening at the end of October to get this to happen, which is later than I want, but my hands are tied. So far I would categorize the response to our push as either 1) Completely uninterested, as though we were talking about some obscure B-movie from 1930 or 2) Nervous and skittish.

There’s a weird energy around the original Star Wars - it’s the one where fans’ enthusiasm is at 100, and everyone official’s enthusiasm is at, like, 5. It’s always been this way. It’s why when the original Death Star model was found and offered to LFL, they were like, “meh.” It’s why they bulldozed the original starfield even though there was plenty of room for it. It’s why, bizarrely, efforts to donate restoration services to the original decaying props (usually by the very people who originally created them) never seems to get any traction.

There was an amazing exception to this sort of thing in the Star Trek world, with the year-long, meticulous restoration of the original Enterprise model for the Smithsonian, carried out by exactly the sort of people who should be doing it. The results are breathtaking. We’re sitting on the same potential for the original Star Wars, it’s just very hard to get people to get behind it.

The battle is FAR from over. I remain absolutely committed to getting this done or die trying. Thanks for hanging in there, and remember to keep the faith, hard as it is.

In other news, my boy turned 6 on September 7th, and this year’s movie was Empire. Interestingly, he felt exactly about it the way I did. He’s not sure what to make of Darth Vader being Luke’s dad. I think he doesn’t quite buy it. He liked the walkers and the snowspeeders (who doesn’t?), but afterwards, wanted to rewatch the first one. Next year is Jedi.

_Mike

I guess we now have the end of October to look forward to.

schorman13 said:
No, those are BD additions. Audio shouldn’t be a problem as I have the Theatrical DTS mix prepped already for this. The '05 DVD didn’t have any noticeable changes either, iirc.

Does the theatrical mix have a longer “Nooooo” by Vader than the DVD/Bluray?

Hmmmm. Usually a video match alone is enough for an automatic takedown. And it takes some ridiculously distorting video filters to get around that (which that particular video doesn’t have). So I wonder how they were able to fight (and win) a takedown.

ZkinandBonez said:
Strange, considering how Rinzler points out at the beginning of the chapter that none of the things he’s quoting is part of an “official continuity” and merely represents Lucas’ thoughts on the matte in 1977. So why let him alter it?

In my opinion, it’s an attempt to push the narrative that Lucas had things more planned out than he actually did. And, you know, he’ll probably get away with it because most people won’t see that note by Rinzler and will just marvel at how much of a genius Lucas is…just like he wants them to. It’s so weird though because it’s not like there should be any shame in admitting that your ideas evolved over time. Not having a master plan from the get-go shouldn’t exclude you from a membership to the genius club (although mediocre writing & directing might do that).