towne32

ChiefWamsutta said:

towne32 said:

That’s just because it’s a DVD file (and standard definition).

Just right click the folder with all the files in it (probably a VIDEO_TS folder) and play with VLC. It’ll play as one full length movie.

Is there any way I can save it as one whole movie?

It is one whole movie. Don’t click the individual VOB files, but run the DVD as I said.

What, specifically, do you want to do? Make it into an MKV file? Use the program “Make MKV” for that.

That’s just because it’s a DVD file (and standard definition).

Just right click the folder with all the files in it (probably a VIDEO_TS folder) and play with VLC. It’ll play as one full length movie.

Jackpumpkinhead said:

Is there any way to estimate the final AVCHD folder file size after encoding to MKV?

You can use the ratio of the sizes from your last attempt to roughly calculate the difference. But from what I recall, the ratio isn’t perfectly consistent. Shoot just a bit under for a target size, to be safe.

oojason said:

Swift S. Lawliet said:

Someone asked me something interesting regarding what official releases need to be owned before getting the Despecialized Editions.

Apparently, some countries like Hong Kong and the Philippines had DVD-only versions of the 2011 Special Editions which were the basis for the Despecialized Editions.

She asked me if one is legally allowed to download the Despecialized Editions if she owns the 2011 Special Editions on DVD but not Blu-ray.
And if so, is she allowed to download any version or just the DVD5 version?

And, if she bought the digital releases but only in SD, is she allowed to download any version of the Despecialized Edition or only the DVD5 version?

Please give me answers for my friend who wants to dip into the Despecialized Editions.

Your friend is seemingly mistaken - the blu rays of the Original Trilogy are available in Hong Kong, and other places across Asia. There is also a regional version with Traditional Chinese, Korean, Thai subtitles:-

https://www.play-asia.com/star-wars-the-complete-saga/13/709p2p

https://www.yesasia.com/global/star-wars-the-complete-saga-blu-ray-hong-kong-version/1046170147-0-0-0-en/info.html

and are also available on many ebay / online market type places too - considerably cheaper…

 

A quick look at ‘The Ultimate Introductory Guide’ (Section 1: Introduction) - states…

‘Remember, as with any fan edit, YOU MAY ONLY DOWNLOAD THIS PROJECT IF YOU ARE A LEGAL OWNER OF THE OFFICIAL SOURCE. For Harmy’s DE project, this means YOU MUST OWN AN OFFICIAL HD RELEASE for each respective film (i.e. Star Wars Episodes IV, V, & VI), such as the official Blu-ray Disks or digital purchase.’

I would also chime in with regards to the following:

She asked me if one is legally allowed to download the Despecialized Editions if she owns the 2011 Special Editions on DVD but not Blu-ray.

I don’t know anything about actual copyright law in Hong Kong (aside from the fact that in the West, we tend to perceive it as lax, with pirated material easily accessible, etc). But in any case, our rules here are not meant to be interpreted as something that represents the law in any jurisdiction whatsoever. It’s a self-imposed moral code, that is firmly requested/demanded of people who acquire Despecialized. And a requirement of the forum.

If she is indeed interested in what the law says about it, you should consult a better resource than us.

rockin said:

For the HD version of this, is there going to be a new colour correction process? With today’s tools, it seems possible to make this look even better.

He’s doing the new color correction now. There are a couple sample images on his facebook.

SilverWook said:

But it helps. 😉 I’ve seen at least one Blu Ray review where the author was totally unaware they were not watching the unaltered 1971 film. And don’t get me started on people who think Jabba was present in the 1977 release of Star Wars…

The most common misconception I see about the Star Wars revisions is that numbering the originals 4 5 and 6 all happened in 1997 (or even post 1999). It’s a rare case of accusing Lucas of even more revisionism than he is guilty of. Of course, the kind of people with that misconception are generally not the type of people who would hold it against him anyway.

But I agree about THX. 1971 vs. 1978 is subtle. It’s not strange for someone to consider the laserdiscs original.

pittrek said:

Hey Harmy, any chance you would (could) restore the very first / opening day or whatever we call it version of Star Wars in 720p? The one which has the differently composited 3 optical shots and closing credits? If it’s actually possible, since the only source is probably the laserdiscs

Could you go into more detail about this? I’m mildly startled that I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. 😃

I’m tempted to get a few BD50s to save away for when Despecialized 3.0 comes out in the semi distant future.

With my luck, I’d get them out of storage and immediately manage to burn a coaster.

Anyway, nice offer!

Harmy said:

There’s plenty of time before final release formats are an issue anyway. 😃

You’re making it sound like I won’t be watching RoTJ 3.0 on a UHD-R in time for the Last Jedi home video release on my dad’s birthday.

Harmy said:

Certainly something to consider - it sucks that we can’t get seamless branching to work properly - I’d love to have one disc where you’d go to the menu and select between the US 1977 Version, US 1981 version or one of the foreign language versions, each with their own crawl, burned in subs and (for some) credits. I’m not sure if we have scans of both but it would be awesome to have both versions of the English credits as well, where one would run with the '77 version and the other with the '81 version.

And then the MKV release would be the US '77 version.

I mean, we can get seamless branching working. Williarob taught me how to do it, and I did have a 2.6 release that worked just fine. His SSE release also works well for most people. We can figure it out.

It’s just that there are going to be a few people with certain hardware or software that end up struggling with it. The main problem with the SSE turned out to be that people could not get it ripped properly to MKV. There were probably a dozen attempts uploaded onto myspleen by various people, for the first couple of months. So there needs to be an official MKV release that settles on a specific branch layout. Afaik, branching MKVs seem to always stutter at branch points, so are not ideal (and again, surely compatibility issues galore).

yoda-sama said:

Harmy said:

I’m considering it. Although after the backlash, I’ll have to think about it some more 😃

What backlash? I was all for it.

Everyone else. 😛

(I was indifferent/open minded to it, though)

CatBus said:

The ESB 2.0 credits also need serious reworking, those were a reconstruction and have typos. Do we have a clean 35mm source for this?

There are 35mm sources. Whether or not they’be been cleaned sufficiently, yet, I don’t know. Harmy cleaned RoTJ, and I helped clean up the few blemishes that remained.

Bobson Dugnutt said:

The best version of the theatrical AOTC was Centropy’s version from back in the day. I think it’s only on the Spleen nowadays.
I’d like to see it, but with the invites being shut, I don’t think I will anytime soon.

It’s fine for a reference, but it’s a hideous looking cam recording, of course. There was an svcd as well that seems to be lost to time, but it would just make it a bit less blocky.

Swift S. Lawliet said:

Harmy said:

May the 4th might be realistic.

Yeah.
But I personally wish we can have TESB v2.5 before the home video release of The Last Jedi.

Wow. You were lucky enough to get an actual estimated time frame. With a date that’s fairly soon. Still an ungrateful sounding response, even if you didn’t mean for it to be.

This place blows my mind sometimes.

RogueDarth said:

I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, but on the ANH iso chapters and fast forwarding does not work. I have all 82 parts of version 2.7 for BD50 and the md5 file and I tried decompressing them with unarchiver on Mac and had issues with chapters and fast forwarding where the sound would play but the image would not. I tried decompressing the files on Windows with 7zip to see if I would get the same results and I did. Can someone help me figure out what is going on?

What are you using to play it back?

Harmy said:

ESB v2.5 will be about 90% identical to v2.0 - I just want to fix a few shots and while I’m doing that, I will already do those in v3.0 quality.

So there will probably still be a lot of GOUT - resembling SW 2.5-2.7 more than RoTJ 2.5?

yhwx said:

Let’s try to evaluate a situation that one would be in given how people actually think:

• Option A: Go the route we think of as morally correct. First, one would have to find a way to download these files. Most will opt for the single-file download, as the multi-part wars are way too persnickety for most people to care for. If you are not so lucky as to be blessed with good Internet connection, then this might take a while. Sure, you could go to the public library, but there’s more hurdles than you think there. Firstly, the Internet there might not be any better; secondly, you have to make time for going there. Not all people can do that, there’s things like work and school and family and various other scheduling conflicts. Now, let’s say that you clear this hurdle. Now you need a Blu-ray burner. If you don’t have one already built-in to your computer (most people don’t), then you must buy one. We’re already at a major stumbling block here. People don’t like money being attached to anything. An app that costs five cents is likely to do much worse than an app that’s free, no matter how little the price difference is or how great the difference in quality. But let’s say that you do buy a Blu-ray burner. Now you have to hope that all the software works for it, and learn the software. Pass all these hurdles, and boom, you have your Star Wars disc.

• Option B: Go the route we think of as morally irresponsible. Let’s lay out the steps for this one: first, have the means to buy a pre-made disk, buy it, and then enjoy. It’s really as simple as buying toilet paper from Amazon, most of the time.

• Option C: Do nothing. This option is implicit in almost all choices.

Pressed to make a choice, most people would choose option C — that’s what most people do in situations with stakes like these. If one is inclined to do something, option B requires way less effort, for the same reward, so most people would choose that. Remember, most people don’t have the same moral compass we do about these sorts of things.

Any argument that makes the point of “it’s not REALLY that hard” or “this is how you SHOULD think” is missing the point. People don’t think nobly most of the time. It’s true of all of us. It’s just human nature. While yes, to us here, option A didn’t seem like a lot when we did it, that’s only because we’re here — and people here are different from the general population. What I wrote is how people think of things. If you accept these principles, it’s perfectly logical to see why people take the ‘B’ train.

Yes, but all this only adds up to the sum of people who absolutely need to own it on a disc. I think an enormous amount of people (especially within certain age ranges) are perfectly comfortable with downloading an MKV or even some smaller transcoded version on a public tracker. Hell, even VPNs are now a part of common conversation and not just a topic for nerds/pirates.

Not everyone, obviously, will want to pass up physical media. And I’m aware that this is the thread specifically dedicated to the discs. But when faced with the options of ‘pay for overpriced burned discs’, ‘do nothing’, or ‘download free MKV’, the third option is going to rank significantly in some people’s decisions, even if they might have gone for the discs if they were more convenient.

Dang. Two worlds of hurts back to back!

I agree, though. Getting seamless branching working (thanks again, Williarob) was a challenge enough. Getting a BD-J disc authored and working would be a nightmare, as cool as those picture-in-picture features are.

Or you could resell the burner (to someone here even) or hold onto it until the next Despecialized (1080p) or 4k77 or whatever you like comes out, so that you don’t pay yet another scumbag for those. 😃

MusicallyInspired said:

I cannot STAND soft subtitles. But it’s your decision obviously on which you want to use. But consider this, TFA has burned-in subtitles not soft subtitles. So it IS something an official Bluray would do, is it not?

I think an official blu-ray may or may not have burnt in subtitles. But they wouldn’t have the gate weave, slight blurring, etc.

I like and prefer our burnt in subs, but I can see the reasoning either way. Still, for languages that don’t translate Greedo’s speech, a second set of subtitles at the top of the screen shouldn’t ‘ruin’ the film any more than the dub not matching characters lips does.

Sounds reasonable enough to me. I like our burnt in sub work with gate weave and all. but it’s not really how a BD release would ever look.

Soft subs would end up looking like the TFA subs, more or less (though surely better), which look professional, fine, and close enough in spirit.

Seamless branching would open up a whole ton of playback and compatibility issues for some people. I still see the occasional post here from someone struggling to convert the SSE to mkv with just one of the branch options, or getting playback hiccups at the branch point, etc.

Swift S. Lawliet said:

I think a Despecialized Edition without subtitles for the alien speech would go against the purpose of the Despecialized Edition’s mission.

Indeed. I completely understand the desire to have it look right in one’s native language. But a good amount of work went into the making and rendering of the text by (at least) Harmy, Catbus, and me. And it can’t be pulled off as effectively with a subtitle stream alone.

Maybe Catbus can answer: Are there packs of subtitles available for just the Greedo text (presumably rendered in the top portion of the screen) that people could mux in with their dub of choice?

yoda-sama said:

Harmy said:

Thank all of you guys so much!!! We’re nearly there! I wanna get cracking on preparing the assets next week, so I’ll be buying the license on Sunday at the latest and by then I should at least have enough that I’d be able to cover anything that’s left myself. 😃
If the donations should reach more than I need for the Adobe CC, I’ll use the rest to buy hard-drives, because I’m planning to work with image sequences this time, which take up a lot of space (can be something like 4TB per movie) but can save a lot of trouble in the editing.

Check the fine print on what software you buy, I’ve heard that they’ve switched to only offering subscriptions, rather than perpetual licenses. Maybe you can get a slightly older copy of software you can keep… maybe it doesn’t even apply to what you’re using. I don’t know. This is what brought that to mind: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/01/23/0520227/ask-slashdot-what-is-your-view-on-forced-subscription-only-software

He stated that the sum he posted was for a yearly subscription, so I think he knows. While it would be nice if they still had options to purchase outright, especially for hobbyists, there are certainly benefits to subscription models for professionals and institutions.

theMaestro said:

So in your theatrical AOTC audio, does Padme have that awkward line dub where she robotically says “Yes” after the clone trooper asks if she’s okay (later changed to “Mmm hmm” on home releases)? There was a DVD website that mentioned this and gave an audio clip but I wasn’t sure if it was on every single theatrical version.

Yeah, it’s still unclear how many of the DVD changes were in the digital theatrical as well. We know that the CGI robotic hand is one change that was in the digital, but that’s it (I think). Presumably that shot is the same length, or a neighboring shot is adjusted to keep with the score.

I suspect that the “Yes” is present in all the theatrical releases, as it was mocked quite a bit, and I’ve never seen anyone defend it with the fact that the version they saw didn’t have it.

The scene with “To be angry is to be human” is one of the bigger changes on DVD, affecting the run time, with a number of adjusted shots. Again, no idea if it was changed on the digital, but you would have thought people would have mentioned the corny lines at the time.

The speeder is just a CG tweak. I wouldn’t be surprised if, like the hand, it was changed for the digital release prior to DVD.

Hal 9000 said:

Nice! Just wondering if you plan on revisiting AOTC, or if that one’s finished. What you’ve already done passes all scrutiny I’ve put it through at any rate. 😉

AoTC isn’t going to happen until someone scans the theatrical release (or at least a gets a few seconds of it transferred). The cost to interest ratio on that one will probably prevent it from happening for a very long time, if ever. The HDTV/DVD could be ‘in the ballpark’ of the digital theatrical release. No visual record is known to exist for that, though, so we can’t say with certainty. It came out only 6 months later, so it’s at least AoTC as it existed in the year of its release. 😛