towne32

android927 said:

Also, I will leave the link up for now, and if a mod asks me to remove it I’ll edit the post and start using PMs instead.

I think we were both pretty darn polite in telling you what the forum rules are before getting a mod involved. I don’t know why people join forums with the intention of starting out on the wrong foot. It is explicitly against the rules.

I would also argue that it falls under preservation,

By definition, this is not what a preservation is. Whether or not it’s a nice idea (I think it is) and in spirit with what was produced in 1977 is another matter. And even if one did argue that anything filmed in 1977 is fair game for making it a preservation (this is false, you can make fan edits without producing new material or effects, they are still fan edits), it’s still an edited version of the shot. In 1977, it would have mentioned Luke’s father. Instead, we get a teleporting R2D2 due to the absence of that segment, along with some 1997 crew member that walks in front of the screen. At least it wasn’t a Ronto.

yep, chainsaw summed it up.

I don’t think it’s a terrible scene. But the r2d2 continuity error sticks out a lot. You could see how well the 576p version of Adywan’s, which is fixed, blends. He’s also working on an HD version.

He may prefer people to ask before using his material, I’m not sure.

For ripping, AnyDVD HD is the way to go.

For editing, if you have the money (or have an edu email address and significantly less money), Adobe Premiere is great and easy to learn. I’m sure there are decent free options as well, though they’re much more limited. Apparently the DaVinci software is quite good, and there is a free version available.

TV’s Frink said:

RayRogers.

Ah, okay. It seemed like the time line also worked out for chyron, (banned the 2nd, joined the 3rd) and that would have been quite unfortunate. Thanks for demystifying.

Just to clarify, was Bereadeus chyron8472?

It does seem to be interesting how many people decide to make a temporary ban a permanent one. Some, of course, probably don’t care because they intend to keep creating sock accounts for the rest of their lives. Others… either do it while they’re pissed off, think they won’t get caught, or maybe just want to make sure it’s permanent?

solkap said:

I’d assume so, but honestly, that sounds like a lot of work just to get the blu-rays a little bit faster and at poorer quality

Just to clarify, and it’s understandable if people are confused, given that the 25Gb versions aren’t actually available anywhere to compare to…

The 25Gb discs that Njvc made do not have worse quality. He made them so the same amount of content is on more discs. 1 BD50 vs 2 BD25.

The kind of 25Gb discs users have proposed making in the last few pages would suffer in quality. They’re suggesting just running an app that re encodes all the video at much lower bit rate and rebuilds the disc.

But that is also different from rebuilding in multi avchd with a new video stream and not re encoding. Also, this can sometimes be tricky enough even replacing a stream of the same length/size. Releasing small ISOs without a main video track, so users can replace it, will probably turn this thread into a technical nightmare. 😃 Plus, they would need all the bonus content.

Some more information about the Shada releases…

The blu-ray seems to be top notch, however, the DVD is a 4:3 image pillarboxed to 16:9, and encoded as progressive. So, 25p and a bit juddery compared to the other video/vidfired releases of the range.

solkap said:

NJVC posted this idea.

Anybody have any extra thoughts or details about that?

It works. that’s how I showed him how to change his 2.5 version to 2.7. so you’re just doing the exact reverse.

2.7 and 2.5 are bluray compliant, and I rendered 2.7 with the exact same x264.exe parameters as 2.5.

edit: do this. Don’t just swap the m2ts files.

SilverWook said:

You can find modified region free players pretty cheap on Ebay these days. I’m going that route if my LG player ever drops dead or I want to watch Doctor Who in another part of the house.
I only have a couple European Blu Rays at this point and haven’t encountered any PAL encoded extras on them, which I’ve heard might give certain displays trouble.

Are region free blu-ray players affected when they need to be updated? Since they, sometimes, pointlessly, update the encryption keys, you need to update to view newer discs.

Does that wipe the region free mod? Does it need to be reapplied or are you even screwed permanently in some cases?

TM2YC said:

Amazon.co.uk and Zavvi.com are listing the Shada BR as Region-Free. blu-ray.com is listing it as Region-B though.

Someone (American) involved in the production said they expect that it will be region free. Also, the Blu-rays for Spearhead from Space, the TV Movie (useless upscale), and Power of the Daleks were region free.

But yes, it’s true that you won’t know for certain until people can actually check for themselves. I don’t have a region free player, but I do have a blu-ray burner. In the rare case that I end up with a region locked disc (a surprise, or the only version available), I just burn it without the region restriction. Obviously not everyone can or wants to do that.

SilverWook said:

Hopefully it won’t take too long for this to come out in the U.S., and not screwed up in the video dept. like Power Of The Daleks was.

Well, the US DVD has been delayed from Jan 9 to Dec 18 2018. Possibly because BBC America decided to broadcast it at some point. So, you called it I guess.

Still, best not to get that release even if they came out at the same time.

Tobar said:

Man, I was ready to write off this project but they’re actually completing period authentic model effects work? Sign me up!

On 16mm as well. There are bonus features showing them doing all the model work and studio recording. Some of the new filler footage has been recorded using old studio multi camera setups.

The new audio has been recorded with people in a single recording studio using boom mics, instead of isolated booths and fancier microphones, so that it blends better. They’ve also brought the old K9 prop out of retirement. They tried to get Dudley Simpson to do the audio, but he was too ill. Mark Ayres did a great job of emulating him, though.

So yeah, they put some effort into it!

https://m.facebook.com/notes/the-model-unit/doctor-who-shada-2017/1275396709233788

interesting article about doing the model work for the new Shada, making sure that it’s authentic to the methods of the 1970s.

SilverWook said:

Yes, they look lovely.
Haven’t found an inexpensive POTD Blu yet as the only non-steelbook release was down under.

Yeah. I think it comes out to $25 USD shipped from amazon.co.uk for the steelbook. Wasn’t aware any country had a non steel option.

SilverWook said:

I keep forgetting my LG BD/HD-DVD player has a region hack installed. 😉

Not necessary for Shada or Power on blu, but a good thing to have! Especially for UK DVDs, as they’re higher resolution and proper frame rate.

SilverWook said:

It wasn’t the compression, it was those annoying jagged lines plaguing the video that makes me think somebody was asleep at the wheel when this was mastered for Region 1.

BBCWW North America just doesn’t care, unfortunately. They forgot to vidfire Moonbase (converted to progressive I think). They’ve put a good half of the range out of print while they’re still being made elsewhere in the world.

I would just import the blu-ray. The animation will look better, and the outdoor existing footage will be in HD.

SilverWook said:

Hopefully it won’t take too long for this to come out in the U.S., and not screwed up in the video dept. like Power Of The Daleks was.

Eh, they’ll probably not do a good job with the timing. US DVD is out in January. It’s two discs with just the feature and bonus content, so it shouldn’t be crammed onto too small a disc like Power was. No blu-ray in the US again.

But The UK blu-ray is region free and compatible with US players. Comes out in about a week.

towne32 said:

Anyway…

New Shada trailer is out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBpmCZV6GAc

So, I’ve just watched the new Shada. Really wonderful stuff, and I’ll try not to spoil any of the details that shouldn’t be spoiled, in case anyone that will watch it hasn’t been reading about it.

The animation itself is a huge improvement over Power of the Daleks. The stills and half second clips in the trailer don’t do it justice. It’s much more fluid and human. The walking doesn’t look funky. Facial expressions are good, and arms/mannerisms are natural instead of just looking like a bunch of cutouts. Clever camera angles and good direction. Some people might not like the cartoonish likeness of some of the characters. But the animation itself is miles ahead of something like the Levine animation.

Really nice CG elements, especially in terms of K9 and the enemies.

The new model work that’s done for the ships and space station look really lovely, and like authentic 35mm models would have in 1979 (when done right). Seems the money or time might have run out, as the last 1/4 of it, including Shada itself, has artwork instead of models for these kinds of things.

There are newly filmed shots that I won’t go into detail about much of. But some things, like K9 only partially work. Still, it adds to the production.

HD location filming looks nice for what it is. Studio tape is upscaled and cleaned up well.

Voice work is excellent. Tom sounds nearly exactly like he did in 1979.

Not every scene and line from the script is in it. Noticeably, a scene with K9 in the TARDIS is absent (the actor that plays him in Shada passed away. Instead of recasting, they re-used his lines which was possible in other scenes, but not this one). It’s worth noting that editing and cuts would have happened anyway, so it makes sense that the producer of the animation had final cut here. Ian Levine’s animation (no, not the edited version on the torrents and youtube) ran 25 minutes over because he insisted on putting every line from the script in. So, this is fine. There’s about 22 minutes per episode here, without intro/credits or repeated cliffhangers. So, not really a “cut down”, but this brings me to the final point…

Very controversially, this is presented in omnibus format. Instead of six episodes, it’s one long one. It’s not like the 1980s presentations where they cut down the run time dramatically, but it does obviously change the feel of it. I suspect it might have been done because the run times of the episodes could be quite variable, and it masks that? Not sure. Would have been better episodically, but my only complaint for a fantastic production.

Possessed said:

Depending on your definition of simple you could use tsmuxer and eliminate all but the dub you want. It doesn’t re encode anything so it only takes a few minutes to save the new file and it’s pretty user friendly.

I don’t think it will save as an mkv though, I think it only does .m2ts so you might have to then open it in something like avidemux and resave it as an mkv if your tv won’t take that format.

Just use MKVmerge instead of tsmuxer, and do basically the exact same thing.

Anyway…

New Shada trailer is out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBpmCZV6GAc

I know this will probably be met with another round of “Shada… AGAIN???”, but I think it looks great. Will be nice to have the film (outdoor) sequences in HD, new model work by the prop group, Tom recording his lines, etc. The guy who animated the Daleks in the “Power” animation is doing some 3D work for this one, and Mark Ayres has made a soundtrack that should sound like Dudley Simpson’s 70s Who, unlike the 80s synth music we had in the previous version of Shada.

greenlanternslight said:

Adywan are you updating things like the opening scene to make the ships move a bit faster and have the models look more modern things like that? Thanks man keep up the really good work.

The models look perfect as they are. They look as good today as they did back then. Something that can;t be said for the CG models in the prequels. The only thing that will be altered is ehat was done in the original ANH:R, like the tantive being hit, then fixing the misaligned stardestroyer flashes.

Just so you know, that’s jedimasterobiwan. 😃

Captain_Danielsan said:

TV’s Frink said:

Here’s the problem though - random member tinkers, does a poor job, and uploads it. It starts going around the internets and suddenly there’s a subpar product out there that people are downloading with Harmy’s (and maybe njvc’s) name(s) on it.

As the “creator” of content, I wouldn’t want someone doing that.

Also, Blu-ray players are insanely cheap now. Anyone who doesn’t have interest in getting one doesn’t get much sympathy from me anymore.

I get where you are coming from. But rest assured I have no intention of just doing this and then uploading without Harmy and NJVC having the final say. I will first pm them both and see if they are ok with it. If that step is successful then I’ll send the both of them a draft to view themselves and if they arent happy with the final product then thats where it will end. No sub par product floating around the inter webs.

It’s just too much content for a single layer disc, I think. This is the kind of thing that would get endless criticism from us and others if a company were to do it and release it.

It’s true that there would be more wiggle room for 720p material. However, part of what makes despecialized so large is the enormous number of audio tracks (some of them full DTS-HD MA audio) rather than having oversized 720p x264. One option would be to cut some of the dubs. There are a lot that don’t even show up in the menu due to technical limitations there. That will only save you so much, though, as they’re ac3.

As I said before, though, it doesn’t necessarily make sense to just compress everything down when you’ve got a feature film and very different content in all of the extras. BDRB does have options to selectively compress the main feature and bonus material in different ways. So that might be worth looking into. But really, I think the issue is best solved by either:

1. Spreading the material out across two BD25s as has already been done.

2. Not using the Blu-ray medium for something like this if its limitations and your desire to use smaller than ideal discs are in conflict. The whole point of it was sort of to have a near professional quality thing (which created its own slew of problems, obviously).

Good of you to ask njvc and Harmy. I’m chiming in as someone who rendered one of the main features you’re talking about compressing, but all credit and the final word is of course up to those guys.

As far as DVD goes, that’s a different ballpark but it seems fair enough. Do whatever is appropriate for the normal run length of a DVD, so that it’s still presented well for those that like SD content. I’m not familiar with mastering in this format, but I would assume that would be 2+ discs. And this brings up Frink’s point that quality control matters. Traditionally, we’ve had Chewtobacca making the ‘official’ DVD encodings because he knows what he is doing. Other people have thrown the mkv into a some kind of ‘insta-DVD’ program and uploaded it to the spleen, resulting in much complaining because of people not knowing what they’re doing. tldr: just do it right, I guess.

TV’s Frink said:

If I were those guys I wouldn’t want someone random person re-encoding in order to shrink it down.

I used Harmy’s x264 settings to get 2.7 just right. And njvc went through some some hassle to include it without re encoding. so just telling BDRB to build it smaller will lead to quality loss, whether it was visible at a glance or not.

The point of the 25gb versions was more discs but same quality. compressing everything, including a film where quality matters, and some YouTube rips where, not so much, may not be the best approach.

Agreed. I thought it would be for JMOing people’s project threads, but this seems innocuous.

ray_afraid said:

To me, he was saying “I don’t need this anymore.” He’s grown past it.
“You’re weapons, you will not need them.”

I get it. “You are weapons”. You don’t need extra weapons when you are the weapons. So throw them on the floor.