towne32

BobaJett said:

TV’s Frink said:

Lol, I was wondering what the point of this thread was, but the first reply answered that question for me.

WHy are you such an ass dude?

He prefers

C’mon, ease up a bit.

He is. You’ll learn to appreciate the humor in it, join in, and not take things too seriously here. Probably. Or you’ll learn to ignore him.

Or you’ll leave with your group and only post on your own blog / private forum. Damn, that actually happened twice?

Best of luck. I’m glad you don’t have to deal with any PCB swappage yourself.

Thanks Dreamaster. I’ve actually started another thread about it. I actually like the neutral tones in 1.0, but it’s still a bit dark. More like an Eastman/GOUT look. But if I were to attempt to get 2.5 looking like that, it would turn into a Frankenbeast for sure. And the 1.0 picture quality is too poor (especially after a re-encode) to use for a base. Plus, I like the Technicolor look for the most part. I will be very interested if Harmy does indeed do multiple color timing schemes for 3.0.

Harmy said:

CBR is generally a pretty bad idea, because it puts bitrate where it’s not needed and lacks it where it is.

Yeah. I thought I was perhaps at or around your max bitrate with my CBR bitrate, though, in which case it would have been a good idea if it fits on the BD25. 😃

Also, chances are that whatever you used probably uses x264 internally anyway.

Nope, not in this case.

Thanks very much for that. I know that Adobe is balls for h264 encoding, so I did indeed export losslessly. And then I used a different piece of software to encode h264. Not sure if x264 will be better or not. But I suspect that either way, I need to go much higher with my bitrate max given your settings. I was just wary of such a wide gap between average and max, realizing that it means some parts will then be quite low bitrate depending on how often 25Mbps is approached. So I settled for CBR 18.

Perhaps I will give it a try with target 18Mbps, max 25. Honestly, for my own copy, I’ll just do max CBR and burn it to BD50 for peace of mind. But that’s an unreasonable thing to upload for something like this.

This Powerproducer software imports MKV for a blu-ray project? Haven’t heard of that before. I suspect it is re-encoding the video in some way that isn’t right. Maybe try remuxing with tsmuxer into blu-ray folders, and then use the m2ts in PowerProducer? Failing that, try better software?

joefavs said:

Someone did that thing I’ve been hoping someone would do! Hooray!

Looks like you’re still in the decision-making process as far as encoding goes, but is this more likely to be released as a large MKV or an AVCHD (or both)? If the re-encoding is going to diminish the benefit of the larger file size anyway it’s no big deal, but if there’s an appreciable difference I’d love to see it at the highest quality possible.

I’m open to smaller encodings if there’s any demand. I am not an expert on encoding, or the logic behind some of the decisions one would make, and bandwidth/storage isn’t a practical concern of mine. So the thought was, give it as much space to breath as is reasonable, and hope the quality grain doesn’t suffer much.

Harmy used an average bitrate of 13.5Mbps (if vbr, the min and max are unknown to me). I went up to 18 CBR. After muxing to blu-ray with every audio track in 2.5, this left 7Mb to spare for a BD25. 😃

I’m still open to other ideas. But short of anyone telling me I’m doing it all wrong and giving a better suggestion, the plan is to do a final watchthrough this evening (Harmy said it best - thank goodness for commentary tracks) and perhaps get it online before Frink turns into a pumpkin at midnight.

Edit: The release itself will be mkv, but I did the remux to make sure the m2ts overhead wasn’t too much.

In that case, export raw single frames if you plan on generating a LUT to then go back into AE to apply to the larger video segment. If you don’t have a lower end PC, AE can handle the m2ts straight from the blu-ray if it is h264 (as most newer releases and SW are) rather than MPEG2.

So, then you would export your matching frames from both sources for every scene (or every time you need a new LUT), use them with Dre’s tool, and then use the resulting LUT back in AE. Though I’m no expert and someone may correct me.

TV’s Frink said:

How do I download this? If you don’t want us newbies to have access maybe you should just not post about it at all. I know how you treat us newbies and we don’t appreciate your exclusive cabal mentality.

This is normal, as I have restricted access to you, Frink. You, and only you, may download my other project where I take all the toilet humor out of zoolander and transplant it into Raiders of the Lost Ark Fridinkulous Edition.

TR2N said:

Do you reencode the Despecialized editions for this or do you have Harmy’s master files?

Unfortunately the former.

But, as I said, this is to be a watchable alternative to 2.5 for now, not something that will be your permanent copy on your shelf forever. Harmy plans to use similar color timing for his 3.0.

I’m now doing some encoding tests, giving it enough bitrate to have some breathing room and hopefully look okay for a re-encode. Any encoding tips (involving making the most of a re-encode) would be appreciated. 😃

It’s a tremendous amount of work to clean footage like that up.

But, if I recall correctly, Team Negative was actually working on fixing up that scene. I think they posted a sample video.

edit: yep http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k4gCyqlBWCs1n1bhrmZ

thread http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Star-Wars-Deleted-Scenes-Reincorporated/id/13512/page/9

Harmy said:

Here’s a more complete gallery of images from this: http://picsurge.com/0tEQP5

Wow, that looks great. Color is much better than I expected, even as an LPP.

Edit: Bahah, you added scratches to your own credit additon?

Darth Lucas said:

Yeah, the occasional damage on the stars bugs me just a little, but not enough for me to spend a ton of time fixing it. I really want to finish the CC and then get to authoring.

In between my finishing this project and waiting for Harmy’s 3.0, I’ll work on recreating it again completely from scratch in 1080p to pair with Harmy’s v3.0 in what I guess you could call v2 of this set.

Sounds good. Yep, might as well get things moving so that this is done and out long before 3.0 comes along. All the other discs should be quick for you, though, in comparison. Maybe you can work on Jedi while waiting for ESB 2.5?

This isn’t something I’d have noticed unless I was staring directly at these few pixels, but it looks like the Tantive’s engines are in front of the Star Destroyer for the first few frames of their overlap.

Thanks Dre! Anything positive about color from you (and Harmy) means a lot.

If anyone wants to chime in with last minute feedback, I can PM them about the near final test render.

Darth Lucas said:

I did not create the crawl. That was created by Harmy apparently some time ago. I suspect the crawl itself was sourced from film just due to the occasional damage that shows through, but like you said, nothing bad, but then I think the starfield was something else, probably sourced from Empire.

I took the crawl he sent me, recreated the rest of the starfield for the pandown, and did all the rotoscoping and everything for the flyover. You can’t see it but there’s a blend after the crawl disappears from Harmy’s video to my starfield for the pandown. Everything before the pandown is Harmy, everything after the crawl is me.

Gotcha. The fade and rotoscoping all looked pretty good at first glance in this preview. And if everything before that is 35mm sourced then that’s great! Sometimes the damage is over the stars, though, which makes me wonder how it was assembled. Maybe the starfield was enhanced by layering the registered ESB one onto it, keyed in a way that it doesn’t overlay the text. However it was done, the result is cool.

Thanks, Harmy! And thanks Poita!

Looks pretty good. I was thinking the crawl would be a rebuilt one like Harmy’s 1977 one. But this was 35mm sourced? There’s a little bit of dirt here and there over the crawl and starfield, but nothing bad.

But what’s a little more distracting is the motion of the crawl. Is that jitteriness of the text, but not the starfield present in the 1981 version? It might be hard to tell in TN1’s example since the stars aren’t easily visible. It just seems a little more vigorous than normal gate weave, but I could be wrong. Just wondering if it needs more stabilization. Anyway, it looks very nice for something sourced from film!

That’s a lot more text than I was expecting:

Tldr: Slightly more natural color timing in some shots that had extreme timing in Harmy’s 2.5. In the most respectful way possible.

And thanks to chyron8472 for all the helpful feedback.

Edit 2: Despecialized 2.7 builds off of 2.6 with additional color changes, mostly removing some green from the desert and Death Star. 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.

Comparison gallery: http://picsurge.com/g/cCwnAo

File Name: Star.Wars.Despecialized.Edition.v2.7.mkv
CRC-32: 86C303FB
MD5: 5D26CD805E0E6AAAA3E031A9712E5E2B
SHA-1: F7DAF6EB6292F867D18DBFB1C55C19A13450C696

EDIT: This is now available as Star Wars Despecialized 2.6 as AVCHD, MKV, and BD iso with alternate crawl options. MKV format releases have a fixed Castilian audio track as well as Russian, Ukranian, Thai, and Navajo dubs (in addition to the tracks in 2.5). Replaced some shots using TN1’s Silver Screen Edition, mostly for purely GOUT based shots like Luke heading to his X-wing. I did some extra manual and automatic cleanup and stabilization, and did my best to match the color, contrast, grain, and sharpness to surrounding shots. An older version without cleaned up 35mm footage replacing GOUT shots is available as Despecialized 2.5 (Recolorized) in MKV format.

Original post:

First of all, thanks to Harmy for all the endless hours he has put into making the best versions of the Star Wars trilogy currently in existence. As the title suggests, this is a color adjusted version of Harmy’s Star Wars Despecialized 2.5. I was hesitant to make a thread about it, since some may see it as an attack on Harmy (it is not at all). But Harmy himself gave the blessing to make the thread.

The latest ESB and RoTJ are damn close to perfection and look approximately like what an official Blu-ray release should look like. SW 2.5 is great as well, with more despecialized shots than the other two films. But in this case, Harmy took a unique take on the color timing. Because he had access to frames of a scanned IB Technicolor print, he based the 2.5 coloring on that. Harmy did an amazing job matching those scans. Some of the big differences in color could have only made his job more difficult, and his product looks like Technicolor scans.

IB Tech prints of SW were struck in the final days of operation for the UK Technicolor lab, and it is thought that their dye processing quality control was less than ideal, resulting in green color shifts. And, of course, no two IB Tech prints were the same. Most importantly, Harmy was not aware at the time that his scans had not yet been corrected to match the way the print looks when projected. He plans to adjust his color timing for his version 3.0.

The goal is just to make a more consistent version color wise that, for me, is ideal for watching in a trilogy with Harmy’s other two releases. Instead of shooting for the look of an uncorrected scan, it is simply a little bit less jarring to me. Others will definitely prefer the look of Harmy’s untouched v2.5, and I think that is fantastic. Now that he knows that the IB Tech scans were not corrected to the print, his v3.0 will be much better than this. However, feedback for this color adjustment (including from Harmy himself) has generally been positive, so I’m happy to share it with anyone else who is interested.

Largely, I actually used the 1997 Respecialized version that Harmy made himself. In his 1997 edition, he shot for the same color scheme as his v2.5 Despecialized. However, a refined technique resulted in more natural skin tones and, occasionally, other major improvements. I used Harmy’s versions as much as possible to remain true to his intent.

Some shots in Harmy’s version have very strong tints. They are matched well to the uncorrected Technicolor scans, however, they do not match the surrounding shots/scenes. I adjusted the RGB curves and occasionally tweaked the saturation. While I did have TN1’s release, the GOUT, and other scans and sources handy as a reference, it should be clear that I did not aim to color match anything precisely. The general color scheme, however, still adheres to the Technicolor look in general. Every shot should still look like it belongs in Harmy’s release rather than a print with Eastman or GOUT timing. I did not flatten and desaturate the film as a whole. Skin tones are still rosy at times and walls may still be brilliant blue.

TV’s Frink said:

bouvines said:

TV’s Frink said:

towne32 said:

Since bad new members accuse us of being awful to new members, I’m making a point of recognizing good new members. You’re a good new member. Welcome!

+1

wow

So you’re one of the bad ones?

He thought you were asking to be my +1 on valentines day, obviously.

Thanks for that. Harmy probably uses vbr though, so I wonder what the max is set at?

Since bad new members accuse us of being awful to new members, I’m making a point of recognizing good new members. You’re a good new member. Welcome!

As far as pointing out issues with Harmy’s release, there’s a separate quality control thread for that. It helps keep them easily found, as well as preventing the illusion from being spoiled for people who don’t want to know every seam in the film. But as far as the 35mm shots go, he know’s there’s still some damage and it’ll be improved for later ones.

Harmy made a good point that 35mm transfers shown on TV sometimes have a bit of scratches and dirt remaining. Even something as new as Scream 2, which was on TV the other day, had noticeable scratches and dirt here and there.

Nice. Any chance for a preview of the crawl+pan in motion?

Is the color of the crawl text matched to the 2.5 color?

yoda-sama said:

towne32 said:

I also edited many of the strongly yellow/green shots by hand: http://imgur.com/a/adIa1 Note in this case that the shots preparing for the battle of Yavin are off (Luke is blue in the first, and the next two are kind of red) as these are old sample images. I have fixed it to be more neutral.

Your take on the colors is pretty intriguing. I’d give it a watch if you made an actual project out of it. Though I’m also intrigued by what all Harmy is saying about his collaboration on future colors. It is all very exciting.

Thanks. It’s a project. I’ve made a lot of special modifications myself since the last render, but if you’d like to look at the next one, feedback would be appreciated. Thanks to chyron8472 for all the feedback he has given already.