towne32

UnitéD2 said:

Oh, the real life strikes back ! 😉 Congratulations for you job !

Why wouldn’t Despecialized become a team/community work for the next edition(s) ? I know it is yet partly the case (the list of “special thanks”, Towne’s SW etc.), but what if guy who have the skills and the experience here work together for scenes replacement, rotoscoping etc. under your supervision ?

For the Original, since Neverar’s correction is coming soon and good 35 mm available references multiplicating, the OT community should move forward ! “On met la gomme Chico !”

Moving forward, the most useful sources for Despecialized will surely be cleaned up 35mm footage. I don’t think there could be any harm in lots of people contributing properly cleaned shots. But I don’t think there are very many people here who are particularly skilled at this. It would not be ideal to farm out the work to unproven people. While the initial learning curve is not too bad (and this is speaking from my own personal experience) for cleaning up quick shots, credits, etc, it is quite another thing to rely on us random folks for the bulk of the film. It can be a long and taxing process and it is easy to make mistakes that are destructive to the product. I am certainly not qualified for any kind of extensive restoration.

Training people in these skills is a project in and of itself. But if people took the time and effort to learned (and showed some example work based on any of the now available 35mm scans for quite a few films), I don’t think it would be unreasonable to get a few more people involved.

Anything to do with color correction, on the other hand, needs to be done by as few people as possible, in my opinion. As shown in the many color correction threads, we’ve all got different opinions. Most of the things we all come up with are honestly probably good enough. But the grading needs to be consistent.

Also: congrats on the job, Harmy!

TR2N said:

towne32 said:

Nope, unfortunately there is not. Sorry!

Would you mind and share it somewhere?

I’m not actually entirely sure I have the files themselves anymore. I sent them to Harmy and he uploaded them to a site that seems to have gone under now. I’ll take a look for them at some point. If anyone else backed them up, feel free to host them somewhere. I also don’t have a spot in mind for uploading, but obviously not that site we used last time. 😛

Nope, unfortunately there is not. Sorry!

This guy is an idiot and a liar as well. Look at his negative feedback.

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=mimmers_closet&iid=-1&de=off&items=25&searchInterval=30&which=negative&interval=180&_trkparms=negative_180

People are disappointed because obviously they’re getting shitty bootlegs (no menus or labels either, apparently). One person seems to have just gotten loose discs without cases, and he replied by saying the buyer was “sadly mistaken”. I don’t think someone was “mistaken” about that after wasting $60 on it.

Yeah. Assuming he is reading this:

You’re a piece of garbage. 😃

Anyway, obviously he can just make a new account if we keep pressing on (he may even have several already). But oh well, it means starting over with 0 feedback. And we should just keep pressing on, regardless.

They’ve got other stuff up that they probably grabbed from myspleen. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rifftrax-Star-Wars-Holiday-Special-DVD-Mystery-Science-Theater-3000-MST3K/282357001409

Best to just keep an eye on this person and report all their lame auctions. Obviously, this one isn’t as big a deal, as it’s the holiday special and Disney (Fox? Does anyone even pretend to own the rights to this one?) doesn’t sell it. Still, it’s someone trying to make money off a myspleen account, most likely.

doubleofive said:

The title font in the crawl isn’t wrong, it’s just not the font used in RotJ and the Prequels.

(I’m limiting myself to one critique, and not going to point out how impossible character replacement is.)

(oops)

Well I ended up learning something in this thread. I didn’t know those fonts differed. Are they close-but-imperfect matches? Do Jedi and the PT match one another? And they switched back to a more accurate typeface for TFA?

I can’t tell if this is entirely satire, serious, or half and half.

I’m not sure it would be commercial suicide as they already have the prequels finished in 3D, right? It would surely be a waste of money to produce them now. But if they already have them, it’s probably pretty harmless to release them. It was not that many months ago that their 3D TFA blu-ray was released.

https://plus.google.com/photos/109609428403596349302/albums/5932164278535972945

I don’t think so. Though someone did recently point out that Alderaan is more centered in Despecialized and the blu-ray, compared to the original film. Haven’t checked it myself.

solkap said:

So if anyone can think of a way for me to get those earlier versions of the DEEDs outside of torrents, a pm would be much appreciated.

Otherwise, if I decide to attempt to acquire a myspeen invite, I’d need to get in line at the link below, correct?:

http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Post-in-this-thread-to-request-an-invite-to-MySpleenorg-you-MUST-read-the-first-post/id/8592

You could get in line. But, honestly, I think the kind people in that thread giving out invites should be informed that you have stated that you do not intend to seed back what you downloaded. Your myspleen account would get banned if you only leech, and the person doing the invitation would be in risk as well. Although myspleen is somewhat more lax, many trackers would instantly ban someone for inviting a hit-and-runner. Either way, most people don’t want to invite hit-and-runners, and myspleen actually was upset that OT was inviting so many. But those were accidental invites and you’ve stated the intent in advance. It honestly doesn’t seem like the right distribution platform for you, unless you change your mindset.

People who are super worried about their IPs being out there pay for VPNs. People who want their IPs private and don’t want to use the harddrive space, bandwidth, or computer uptime pay for seed boxes. It’s less convenient, but that’s sometimes how it goes for extenuating circumstances. If this is just general paranoia of getting in trouble for using torrents: you’ll be fine. The tracker has been around for a decade, and people upload copyrighted things to it every day. No one is going to kick down your door for being one of several people seeding an old version of a Star Wars edit that has no commercial equivalent.

Otherwise, perhaps someone will be kind enough to upload all of the old versions somewhere for you. But it doesn’t seem too likely given the size of these things.

Yes. It’s a private tracker. Since this, and myspleen, are communities full of preservationists, you can expect old versions of things to persist. Still, outdated version of despecialized fall into the realm of extremely niche interests. Keeping them all maintained on file lockers (and preserving specific rar sets) is probably a major waste of energy. And the few people who keep things seeded on public trackers will move on to the latest version.

For the very few with such an interest, a private tracker is probably the best option. And if they ever go unseeded, there are enough people out there who still have it backed up somewhere and can reseed.

If your interest is just making sure they continue to exist somewhere, I think you need not worry about it, especially if you don’t plan on keeping them seeded. There are enough digital hoarders around here to take care of it. 😃

Williarob said:

Obviously not a reliable color reference for many reasons, but interesting because I’ve never seen the Leia and R2 shot look so green anywhere else.

Especially with the characters themselves appearing so neutral (vibrant, even) compared to the very green walls.

Alderaan94 said:

Hello¡ I get ROTJ semidespecialized in a 22GB mkv. Which one is this? Looks very good, but i noticed some mattes distortion in space ships. Is that normal? Also picture has good quality but some grain. Any knows why? Im not used to this versions so maybe all is fine.

I don’t recall if KK added any grain to the OT, but I suspect not. When the color is corrected from the extremely dark blu-rays, you can really see the grain. Unfortunately (at least for ANH, but probably the others) it is apparently not real film grain, but added in the official restoration master. Harmy said they posted a frame from the original master online, and the grain was present in the black bars!

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Harry Potter just dropped in 4K. SRP $44.95 a title and currently pre-ordering on Amazon at that price, no box set, while the 2016 Blu Ray is selling on Amazon for $8.

1. Can’t believe that price.
2. A per-title release instead of box is interesting. Even more interesting is we’re getting the last four in the series first, with the other four titles coming later in 2017.

For the OT, if we get 4K (and even if not), I like the individual title release idea, but $45 per title?? New releases don’t even fetch that on the format. Hopefully we won’t get gouged like this if the OUT comes around this year.

Hmm, I had read that the UHDs were being released in 2x combo packs. Did that not end up happening? Or perhaps that ended up being for digital 4K sales?

stealthboy said:

njvc said:

But if there’s enough call for it, an alternative disc with the 81 crawl version is doable.

I personally do not see the appeal of a 81 crawl. In my humble opinion the entire point of the Despecialized Editions is to see the films as close as possible to how they appeared first in the theaters.

That’s definitely the whole point. But a lot of people in the community like to see (both Star Wars and other) films the way they remember them. For people who prefer the SE because they grew up with it, this probably isn’t the right community, but 1981 to 1996 is a huge period of time that a lot of people became fans during. So, some nostalgia is perhaps to be expected. Others perhaps like the consistency with the other 6 films. But the revisionism is undeniable, and definitely opposed to the main goal of DeSP.

njvc: I hope that when ESB 2.5 comes about, you’ll have an updated release. 😃 Although I’ve had success with the multiavchd video stream replacement method in the past (I might have even told you about it?), I can’t seem to get it to work with your discs. 😃

jedimasterobiwan said:

darthrush said:

jedimasterobiwan said:

TV’s Frink said:

jedimasterobiwan said:

when you get to jedi could you try to do a new hope revisited hd at the same time.

So you want both done in 40 years?

no you sarcastic horse’s ass

What the hell?

I was being serious and all people do on here is treat me like a joke.

I thought you were going to take a break from this thread. We even had an extensive PM conversation about it. How long did you make it, after your absolutely awful outburst? A week? And not even coming back as a changed person with good behavior. Back to your same old bullshit.

I know you’re autistic and you don’t necessarily see these interactions as clearly as you should. But you can still choose not to participate in the types of conversations you always start. You can still choose not to beg and demand and immediately get angry with people. You can choose not to post.

njvc said:

Encore doesn’t do seamless branching, so someone with a better program may have to step in and help there.

As far as I know, the Encore menus are not compatible with the other ways of producing seamless branching. So the menus and discs would essentially need to be recreated (to match) in other software. Not impossible, but not at all trivial.

I wasn’t really aware of the music change, since I haven’t watched the blu-ray straight through and didn’t have to deal with audio. But I’ll take a look at some point.

Ronster said:

I’d be just as happy with a fixed hybrid version. or a halfway house mix although I am aware it’s a preservation I’m not bothered by the changes in most respects it’s a much better special edition than star wars trilogy.

There’s a hybrid edition on myspleen and FE.

"Intention:
Using the Laserdisc 1978 Cut as a blueprint, I’ve conformed the Blu-Ray to it, shot-by-shot, down to the exact frame. Where material was missing, I’ve restored it from the Laserdisc, or the original trailer. When the CGI additions were bad, I’ve replaced them, where they were reasoanably subtle I’ve left them in (Hence the “Hybrid” title). Throughout, I’ve sought to remove or change shots that significantly differ from the Laserdisc, while trying to keep as much HD as I possibly could.

The film has also been re-graded shot-by-shot to rebalance the greys and whites, re-saturate flesh tones and general colours and remove unnatural tinting. Although in a few cases the Laserdisc shots have been tinted to match the Blu-Ray (Such as with the gold robot-factory shots). The soundtrack is the original mono mix and is unchanged."

Not sure if that’s what you were referring to when you said “fixed” or if there’s something wrong with it and/or not to your liking.

Class316 said:

towne32 said:

Class316 said:

THX-1138 1971 Theatrical (Unspecialized Reconstruction based on 16mm)

Is there a better one?

The latter for some reason has the vomit blu ray ending.

Probably because I was going off of the ‘movie censorship’ website changelist, which really only mentions the text color. I think I adjusted the rest of the color as well, but I don’t recall perfectly well, honestly. There was definitely not a high quality looking source for the end sequence, at the time.

The edit is a relatively rough (but still decent, and still time consuming to make) attempt. So there are tons of imperfections. Thanks for taking a look, though. I think you’re the first person on OT besides myself to mention it. The main reason for it is indeed simply to have a film that lacks the barfy CGI moments, while having the bulk of it intact as decent quality video.

I agree it’s pretty good overall.

Here is how I think it can be improved though. First off as I mentioned the ending. Honestly if you don’t know a bird is supposed to fly through the screen I don’t think it’s even noticeable on the blu ray ending. And that’s just one issue with that ending. So if you take the ending on this version: THX 1138 - Japanese LD preservation and replace it you already improved the 1971 theatrical release.

Then perhaps take that new version (with ending replaced) and make the minor edits required to restore the 1978 “George Lucas” release.

Makes sense. If I had known a bit more about the ending I probably would have done that.

That said, it definitely won’t be updated by me. It’s just sort of a (somewhat) quick hack job. The scene with SEN + the kids is of course intercut with the black and white 16mm footage. There are some other issues, as I recall. The edit where LUH delivers his “sedation” chopped out some original footage, I think. So I ended up slowing down the truncated shot and interpolating some frames to match the run time. I don’t actually have the raw project files for this project anymore anyway, so I wouldn’t really be able to update anything.

Anyway, I’m certainly looking forward to whatever projects utilize newer scans. As nice as a fully restored scan would be, I’d really love to see the truly “despecialized” version built from a color corrected BD and 35mm scan.

Dreamaster said:

DrDre said:

Mavimao said:

To be honest Dr Dre it looks like you’re trying to give it a modern grade here. It’s crushed, dark and contrasty and the red in his face looks too red.

The 70mm scan just above, although not perfect, looks much more like a film of the era.

I guess that’s why we really need some accurate references of a projected print, because without those, it’s all just guess work, trying to work back from a bootleg recording.

Matching the colors of the 70mm frame is easy, but the problem is, that neither the hues or the contrast are probably accurate to a projected print.

Dr Dre, I feel like you’re making this scene a lot harder than you have too. That 70mm cell seems to have the same “green cast” that the tech scans have. The beauty of this scene is, poor old Tarkin has naturally gray hair. All you have to do is balance the shot out by assigning his hair as grey:

Contrast levels might be another issue, but consider that the white lights are already true white in this shot… the only question is how dark are the darks, but this shot already looks perfectly natural to me. Would you mind matching to my shot and seeing how the rest of the scene looks?

That’s a very nice looking image.

Dre: how do the battle of Yavin trench shots look in the bootleg? Similar to the Death Star interiors, I’m curious how much blue/green/grey is in the walls, there, and how consistent it is.

Class316 said:

THX-1138 1971 Theatrical (Unspecialized Reconstruction based on 16mm)

Is there a better one?

The latter for some reason has the vomit blu ray ending.

Probably because I was going off of the ‘movie censorship’ website changelist, which really only mentions the text color. I think I adjusted the rest of the color as well, but I don’t recall perfectly well, honestly. There was definitely not a high quality looking source for the end sequence, at the time.

The edit is a relatively rough (but still decent, and still time consuming to make) attempt. So there are tons of imperfections. Thanks for taking a look, though. I think you’re the first person on OT besides myself to mention it. The main reason for it is indeed simply to have a film that lacks the barfy CGI moments, while having the bulk of it intact as decent quality video.

LexX said:

baron_lando said:

The text of the books has never been changed, it’s just one of those things that some fans believe ought to happen, so it comes up every so often, or they ask Hidalgo about it. “New novelizations to better fit the blah blah continuity blah blah consistent with blah”

It would be funny if they added text like “Luke stopped his land speeder and then a huge dinosaur-like creature appeared and moved slowly past him”.

“LOL”, Luke exclaimed, as the silly robot donked the other silly robot on the head before going back to picking up a random steel beam.

“Aaaaaahhhhh!!!”, Luke screamed, as he fell from the platform. The Emperor heard this through his connection with the force, probably, and considered, “What a marvelous scream. If I were to fall down such a shaft, heaven forbid, I too would like to scream like that.”

Yeah, Jedi 2.5 would have been before I approached him about 2.7.

Handman said:

I believe some shots were updated for 2.7.

towne32 said:
Additionally, the “A Long Time Ago” card is a cleaned up version from the Silver Screen Edition (SSE). It also features Catbus’s excellent Greedo subtitles that were derived from the SSE, and Darth Lucas rotoscoped the lightsaber blade in Ben’s hut from the SSE. This version has better video quality as I used Harmy’s lossless encodings. It features a Hindi track and Project Threepio v9.2 subtitles.

Yes, those are the changes from the short-lived 2.6, which had additional GOUT replacements. There’s still some short purely GOUT shots during the battle of Yavin that didn’t really benefit from the SSE 1.0 encoding.