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towne32

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3-May-2014
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6-Aug-2025
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Post
#903178
Topic
Harmy's RETURN OF THE JEDI Despecialized Edition HD - V3.1
Time

ksakacep said:

I personally think that there is no need to release v3.0 of all of the films at once - simply because SW v2.5 really needs an update and there is more demand for Despecialiazed SW than for ESB and ROTJ (mainly because this film is the most altered). Also, v3.0 of SW will be the biggest leap because apparently a bunch of new sources became available. But that’s just my humble opinion, of course it depends on Harmy and the rest of the community.

I agree, but of course Harmy will do whatever is right for him. If you ignore the issue of resolution, SW 3.0 will probably bring it closer in overall quality to ESB and RoTJ 2.5 (i.e., very little GOUT, great color, etc). But I’m sure it’s the most challenging of the films as well, so I could understand wanting to switch to working on the other films to avoid burnout.

Post
#903154
Topic
Harmy's RETURN OF THE JEDI Despecialized Edition HD - V3.1
Time

I know it sounds like you’re joking, but you’ve brought this one enough times that I think you really do care about it.

I’m sure in the end, he’ll want to have every detail taken care of. This is someone who added a random hair in a frame back to SW. But for now, there are some recomps still present in Jedi (whether or not this is one), and I find it pretty funny to be most interested in a missing error, as opposed to (for instance) an error introduced by SE compositing (Obiwan).

I also think it’s fine to leave some of the fairly harmless recomps for now. The picture quality can take a bit of a dip when switching to 35mm footage. If better sources, cleanups, or rotoscoping can be done for 3.0, it would be tempting to have the more completionist despecializing, as was attempted for SW 2.5.

Anyway, I’m interested in the answer too, now. 😛 I’m sure you’ve put it on his radar, if nothing else. 😃

Post
#903141
Topic
Issue with downloading the Harmy return of the jedi v1.0 (M2TS not AVHD)
Time

Smithers said:

Darth Lucas said:

Or you can wait until he releases the final v2.0 which should be in the next couple weeks.

Or just get the 2.0 workprint mkv

Well, one would want the version that Dethalo fixed, also using Catbus’s subtitles to replace the missing jabba subs. But yes, it would work. Though Harmy put enough work into it since then, (color correction, cleanup, rotoscoping, and stabilization of the 35mm stuff, etc) that he’s actually calling the next version 2.5. He just posted, saying it may be out this or next week.

Post
#903118
Topic
Harmy's RETURN OF THE JEDI Despecialized Edition HD - V3.1
Time

Harmy said:

Yeah, I decided to skip v2.0 for ROTJ, since the v2.0WP got a pretty wide release and v2.0 was supposed to be just the same as the WP only with a couple of fixes, but you’ll see this new version is much more than just that, so the next version, (which should be out late this week or early next week, I know I keep pushing it but it’ll be worth it, you’ll see, 😉 ) will be v2.5, followed soon by v2.5 of ESB, which will get all three movies on the same version and then I can focus on getting v3.0s done (v3.0 will be 1080p, so I’ll need to start pretty much from scratch on those).

Sounds great! (those of us looking over the workprint got the good news about 2.5 a little while ago - it really does look spectacular). Any idea which of the 3 you’ll focus on first for 3.0?

Post
#902939
Topic
team negative1 - star wars 1977 - 35mm theatrical version (Released)
Time

They’ve posted some samples in the ‘how to’ section. Encoding for dual layer discs (normal BD-DL) did indeed show some tangible improvements.

You’re right that there normally is a point at which increased bitrate isn’t worth the trouble. But this is a film with tons of grain, and the extra space does it some good.

Post
#902354
Topic
team negative1 - star wars 1977 - 35mm theatrical version (Released)
Time

Yarko said:

Ooo. I have a question for the video codec experts. When I use FFMPEG to examine Harmy’s Despec Star Wars v2.5, it tells me that his video stream is at 23.98 fps which makes sense to me. When I use it to examine the Silver Screen Edition, it tells me that it is at 23.81 fps which surprised me. Why the discrepancy?

The SSE container has an error. But the video stream is fine and plays correctly.

Post
#902352
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

chyron8472 said:

Wario64I said:

Hi. I have a request. I would love to burn this to a DVD or Blu-Ray, but I want the title crawl which has “EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE” on it. It’s a banality, so I thought to add it myself, but apparently technology hates me because the only editing software that managed to import the movie without trouble was nerfherding Movie Maker for Windows XP (which is obviously a problem, since I don’t want my Star Wars in 4:3)

So I humbly ask, could anyone please edit and post a version with the “EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE” in the crawl?

Or you could download the Respecialized version.

JEDIT:That’s not a jab. I’m just suggesting.

…personally, I like just calling it “Star Wars” again. It makes me smile just thinking about it. 😃

I understand what he’s saying, though. For those who are used to the film in its 1981-1996 state, being (essentially) unaltered but with the IV crawl is what we’re used to. Respecialized is 1997, and therefore very different throughout. Despite not having personal nostaligia for the 77 crawl, it’s just not a big enough deal for me to change it, and it’s nice to have it original as possible. Still, I do really like the idea of seamless branching options for BD.

Post
#902314
Topic
team negative1 - star wars 1977 - 35mm theatrical version (Released)
Time

Yarko said:

As for the footage differences with Harmy’s, I guess that’s from Harmy doing his best, brilliant trickery to recreate the original from remastered sources that used slightly different footage. Again, I can only guess.

Nope. Harmy doesn’t sacrifice the original sync to make things work, as tempting as that could be for recreating wipes and such. The soundtracks are set in stone, synced to a GOUT standard. Harmy’s are at times imperfect by a frame or so, but not intentionally.

Post
#902300
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

Wario64I said:

Hi. I have a request. I would love to burn this to a DVD or Blu-Ray, but I want the title crawl which has “EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE” on it. It’s a banality, so I thought to add it myself, but apparently technology hates me because the only editing software that managed to import the movie without trouble was nerfherding Movie Maker for Windows XP (which is obviously a problem, since I don’t want my Star Wars in 4:3)

So I humbly ask, could anyone please edit and post a version with the “EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE” in the crawl?

I really don’t think I’m going to render and post a version for this change. But if you want better luck importing, demux the files into the 264 stream with tsmuxergui. It can be edited in many programs, like Premiere, in that form, but not as an mkv.

Post
#902113
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

hairy_hen said:

I always worry when I hear about stuff like this. Since my tracks were made with the official DTS encoder, there shouldn’t be anything wrong or incompatible about them, unless they’ve been extracted improperly. It must be an problem with the authoring software.

The only possible reason for it on my end could have been not selecting ‘embed timecode into file’ as an encoding option. I can’t remember whether I did that or not, and I don’t know if it actually makes any difference. That might explain the program’s inability to determine the true length of the file. Other programs aren’t having this issue, so it could well be something else entirely.

Thanks for responding. Wasn’t blaming you, certainly, but I also didn’t know whether or not it was an official encoder used. Perhaps it could be the timecode embed option.

Clearly, tsmuxer and multiavchd play nicely with it. VLC shows the same wonky run time that Adobe does. So, even if those programs are wrong, there’s a specific mechanism for the error rather than random chance or adobe’s sloppiness.

Post
#902088
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

yoda-sama said:

I don’t have a problem with you working on your project, I was just trying to make sure AVCHD video isn’t being passed off as a Blu-ray, which would confuse someone trying to get the best quality available of Harmy’s work. And I was negative on the lossy audio on a Blu-ray since I think a Blu-ray player is probably more likely to be hooked up to sound systems that can take advantage of higher quality audio tracks, than most computer setups, and people probably expect that from a Blu-ray disc. Insurmountable problems with the audio tracks makes using the AC3 tracks an acceptable, or at least understandable, alternative; where I got concerned is when you stated you “ended up using the AVCHD”, AVCHD as a term represents a video encoding technology, not audio (though it can contain audio in its BD compliant structure), so it wasn’t clear, to me, what you meant you’d used as sources.

If I have this straight, you started out wanting to do everything with AVCHD video and the AC3 audio that was included with it, you figured out the MKV’s video was far better, you tried a number of methods that tried to reencode the video [it didn’t read too clearly after that if you found a way to keep it from reencoding, if you ended up using reencoded video, or if you went back to AVCHD video], and your last problem was the DTS-HD MA tracks were messing everything up and the AC3 tracks ended up working for you.

If I may speak for him again, since I posted some of the problems, the different problems were sort of inter-tangled. Encore should work without re-encoding, if your files are proper. But the DTS wouldn’t work with it. A way that some of us get around this is to use filler audio tracks in Encore, and then replace them using multi-avchd with the DTS. For him, for some reason, multiavchd rebuilds the disc in a way he doesn’t want (I forget if it re-encodes the video, it certainly makes new default type menus and removes the ones he made). The solution he went for is to use Encore with less than ideal audio files.

I would be curious if LPCM works. Should have no losses, and there is hopefully plenty of disc space.

Post
#902063
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

yoda-sama said:

vfxhooker said:

I finished the BD .iso of SW Despecialized 2.5 with menus. I was not able to make the DTS-MA files work. I ended up using the AVCHD. It still looks and sounds great. This, I think, will be a good stop-gap for anyone that wants to watch a blu-ray with menus prior to the release of the 1080p 3.0 releases that are supposed to have all the bells and whistles. I have uploaded a multipart .rar to mega. I need to know what the proper place to post the links is.

If I get a positive response to this setup, I’ll go ahead and modify the project for TESB and ROTJ.

First, I don’t think burning a Blu-ray without available lossless audio tracks is the most attractive proposition. What really confuses me, though, is when you say you used the AVCHD, do you mean that you used the AC3 audio from the AVCHD and used the Blu-ray worthy/ready v2.5 MKV’s video, or did you make a “Blu-ray” from purely AVCHD sources? If the latter, I don’t see how that is any sort of acceptable “stop-gap” alternative to a full-quality DeEd without menus. If you want to tout it as an AVCHD release with menus, that’s one thing, but calling it a Blu-ray with menus will only cause confusion. Besides, I’ve already seen a menu’d v2.5 BD with a subset of audio/subtitle tracks on the spleen already, not to mention there’s plenty of talk on this thread about a forthcoming BD menu for v2.5 which does not omit any tracks.

If I read what you said wrong, enlighten me, and also please detail what your version does include.

He’s talking about the audio from the AVCHD.

I’ve actually been trying to get the DTS audio working for him (helping him via PM), since I had the exact same problem at one point. H_h’s DTS files do not load properly into Encore (or other programs), and show the run length about 3x longer than it should be. It needs to be patched up with multiavchd. Doing so works fine for me, and for whoever told me how to do it. But this user has an issue with multiavchd re-encoding everything and building him default blank menus he doesn’t want, discarding his own menu in the process. I can’t replicate the problem, so I can’t help him.

Post
#902040
Topic
Team Negative1 - Star Wars 1977 - 35mm Eastman Vs Technicolot Theatrical Version (* unfinished project *)
Time

Williarob said:

towne32 said:

Lasz said:

maybe one could make a blu ray with both options…

Unless TN1 has some great insider secrets, not a single person on this forum (or indeed, apparently, the internet) has gotten homebrew blu-ray seamless branching to work, despite many efforts. If you want to read about it I can try to find the threads and PM you, since it will take us far off topic here for the sake of discussing (so far) completely fruitless efforts.

But yes, it would be fantastic if it would work.

Our Blu-rays will have the 77/81 crawl as a seamless branching option. Here is a preliminary test:

part 1: http://we.tl/4xP7y4t4dq
part 2: http://we.tl/e2yo3mPb4Z

A few notes:

  • Yes, I know the audio needs some tweaking to make it more seamless - the volume of the 81 is higher than the 77 and remainder of the film, and there is a brief moment of silence between the 77 opening and the main film. Both of these are issues with the audio tracks and will be fixed. The important thing is that the video transition IS seamless and those of you who care to reverse engineer it will see that the seamless branching flags are set.
  • Also this is NOT an indicator of the final Blu-ray quality / menus / layout / or contents!!! The menu and buttons were created purely for this test because we had to have some way to choose which version to play.
  • The video and audio tracks were both re-encoded from the content already distributed - not from the masters - so please don’t whine on about how the quality hasn’t improved at all or the encoding settings need more tweaking. (The audio for the 81 crawl was taken from the X0 project files distributed by Zion)

I just wanted to see if I could do it, and I can, so that’s nice.

Carry on.

Haven’t watched the previews, but will later today. If there’s no hiccup in the video at the branch point, then I am indeed very impressed! I very much hope that the blu-ray release will include branching crawl options. It would be the first of its kind in that regard.

Post
#902008
Topic
Info: Encoding tips and ideas
Time

BobaJett said:

First off, Im new to this forum and I would like to give a big thanks to TN1 for their labor of passion and most definitely of patience. I cant imagine maintaining the same level of patience and discipline in restoring over 170,000 frames throughout! Thats amazing. Secondly, yalls knowledge of video authoring and what not is light years ahead of my own. Can anyone provide a link or give me a push in the right direction as to how to get the MKV file to a file type that I can import into an editor and burn to BD? Ive tried one convert and it looks horrible. I really want to have a BD with the artwork that I can watch on my projection screen. Thanks!

tsmuxerGUI.