yoda-sama

scruffy_looking said:

Well said yoda-sama, I agree completely.

And trashing Yub-Nub was one of the worst sins of the special editions...

Well, so many bad things happened all at once there it is hard to say what is worst... Yes they switched to oddly somber music, but they also assaulted us with CG, gave Jar Jar the last spoken line, and then threw Hayden's face at us.  That is really a lot of terrible to take in the closing minutes...

Alderaan94 said:

Hi¡ Is there a version of the movie with the 1983 scenes but the 1997 Ending/Celebration with the changed music? I prefer the originals, but i grew up with the Special Edition Celebration Music and an hybrid versión would be epic, with only Endor footage and Sebastian Shaw but with the 1997 music.

While out of place to ask this in a forum about removing all changes, and as appreciative as I can be about nostalgia, what really makes me sad about Alderaan94's question is the further realization that these horrible Special Editions have been the prominent available versions long enough now for people to have been able to "grow up" with them...  Harmy's work is important, and it will do a LOT of good for the people that can get it and use it, but it is becoming clear that an official release of the OOT needs to happen critically soon or George's hope that only his revised version will be the one that lasts could still come to pass...

I know you already know this, but you guys seriously are awesome.  Thank you for assisting Harmy with his project while yours slowly gestates to perfection.

Hey now.

Well, I wouldn't say that no one cares to have a slightly better Sandcrawler scene, but there's certainly no reason to be as abrasive as Buddadude is about it.

If Harmy sees reason to make another release, at that point it should be discussed further, until then, he's not going to make a new release just for this one issue (or the green background I swear is an issue in the droid cleaning scene).

Is that the SE corridor?

In general, he based his color timing off of a fade free 1977 I.B. Technicolor Print, though he likely used a good amount of his own judgment throughout.  There's a lot of crazy that was done to the colors during the shameful restoration done for the DVDs (with Blu-ray using the same dated master), so, many times even if most of a scene is made to match the reference colors, there could be subtle stuff that's still oddly color shifted he has to catch (I still take issue with what I swear is a green tint in the background of part of the droid cleaning / Leia projection scene).

For the Sandcrawler scene in question, I believe it is a particularly special case, as I think it is one he had to recreate from multiple sources...  Correct me if I'm wrong, probably a custom matte from a film cell scan and an upscaled Sandcrawler imposed from the GOUT (2006 DVD).  He probably tried to stay close to the I.B. reference on this scene, but the limited quality of the sources can drastically affect how it looks against the rest of the film.  It likely took a lot of work to get it as close as he managed.  I can't attest to how it originally was intended to look, but the more I look at the shadows, I do think the green/yellow tint there could stand to be diminished.

BuddhaMaster said:

May I be very rude.

Eventually being rude could be a route to take, but hardly the foot I'd lead with...

I hate to admit, but the muted nature of your quick mockup is decidedly less jarring to look at.  It looks a little more natural, and the color of the sky blends better.  Heck, the shadows even look more realistic, with that hint of green/yellow dialed down...  Perhaps the color grading of this scene does need another look...  (not that it looks like "shit")

TV's Frink said:

I take it you aren't familiar with Yakety Sax.

Anyway, it's been done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1htRJzvfC6w

 I guess we were all thinking the same thing, even those of us who never realized the name of that tune...  I've certainly learned something today.  Now to ask for a myspleen invite...

Nah, it'd have to be Benny Hill music.

Yeah, that is what I meant.

Just had a thought, for the background video during the initial menu, what clips do people have in mind?  Being that this is the DeEd, would shots of before, during and after restoration be something we'd like to see, or do we want to look past that the SE's even exist and have just choice clips from the restored film?  This project seems to always walk a fine line of wanting to focus on only the originals mattering and lauding the truly impressive achievement of undoing such heinous alterations.

Erik Pancakes said:

I think the idea is that it's a pop-up menu that would display over top of the film as it plays when you hit the menu button. So it's a placeholder of sorts, but if you hit the menu button during that scene, that's how it would appear.

 I like and appreciate a Blu-ray popup menu as much as the next guy, and would like to see it included, but I think a menu that comes up before the movie starts would fit what I think Harmy is aiming for better (and I think is what is actually being discussed anyway).  If someone wants to nostalgically view Star Wars in the original Klingon, it would be a bit of a disservice to force them to fumble through options in a popup menu as the opening text is already flying by and the Blockade Runner and Star Destroyer are on their way.

Analog, I could see leaving in the ~50 chapters intact for manually skipping around in the movie, but I don't think they'd ALL have to be represented in a chapters menu.  It would probably be acceptable to have a subset of chapters in the menu, enough to get you close to where you want to be.  Like a highlight reel of what is in the film, enough to get you to the Alderaan scene or the beginning of the trench scene, etc., but not so much that you can jump to a particular event within that, if you will.

Analog: while considering all you said about not worrying about aesthetics, and just seeing if everything would fit on one screen, etc. I'd still like to comment on your example as-is (to an extent "ignoring" that you know there are problems and you don't intend to go with this exact layout), if that is all right by you.

If going with selectable text on screen, two pages might work better than one.  To decrease the overwhelming wordiness on display here, I'd suggest not writing out "Track" every time, and just have the number; likewise, "Dolby Digital" could be shortened to just "DD" across the board, to tidy things up considerably.  And, if there were to be a static image as the background, something that doesn't have text ending up underneath the selectable text would help legibility immensely.

Again, I know it was just a concept, but I think those are useful notes if we end up having to go that direction.  So, now treating this example seriously, are you saying you actually got this 21 audio options on a screen method to work in a proper Blu-ray menu structure?

Congratulations, Harmy.  I really wish you well and hope that a job like this will give you the financial freedom and the personal flexibility to better support your despecialization efforts, and down the road build credible references (only film recreations in a legal gray area, a good resume does not necessarily make) for you to have a bright and prosperous future; and maybe, just maybe the opportunity to make a lasting, deep impact on the world of film (beyond your already indelible work with the DeEd).  I know things have been hard for you to juggle until now; I hope your ship has really come in.

Don't forget us little guys if you make it big!

ImgBurn is pretty friendly to running in WINE, I see no reason why you couldn't find a way to get that to run under OSX.

If the burned disc just contains a copy of the .iso file, then something went wrong with how you wrote it.  Also, you can't think of it as "converting" anything, a .iso is simply an image of a disc, it contains all the stuff that should end up on a working disc.  Furthermore, if you were accurate in your statement that you want to play it in a DVD player (as opposed to a Blu-ray player), then it won't work even if you burn it correctly, as AVCHD (which is the structure contained in the .iso) is basically a Blu-ray sort of format and will require a Blu-ray player.  The AVCHD is a lower bitrate, but still HD, version of this project intended to allow for cheaper DVD+/-R DL discs to be used rather than BD-R discs.  If you want a version to play in a DVD player, you'll need the DVD-5 standard definition version.

Snarf, could you maybe like just shut up for 5 minutes?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K-1RgaT77w

darklordoftech said:

All of Disney's alterations are either results of branching or in response to a claim that something is offensive/sexual/copyright-infringing, etc. Never has a non-branching "original version" had updated special effects.

The Lion King Blu-ray still has the IMAX release reanimated bits at the beginning (new crocodiles, etc).  That had nothing to do with politically correct stuff like editing out the dust that said either "SEX" or "SFX" (depending on who you believe), it was change just for the sake of change... and it wouldn't even be THAT bad if either it looked better than the original animation or if they didn't claim it was how it was originally shown theatrically.

With the EE Blu-ray set of LotR they, quite famously, messed with the color palette, stating they felt they could modify the EE since they already offered the theatrical on Blu-ray unmodified.  So yes, I think they, in particular, are approaching it as they can modify stuff as long as it isn't done to the theatrical version.

Looks pretty promising.

Also, in the back left of the image there, it's Lando!  Hi Lando! *waves*

The whole problem with this opinion Alderaan is arguing for is that there's no way, if his desired version existed, we'd get a proper untouched OOT.  Not only would Disney not go through the restoration effort/cost twice and include two almost identical versions, that they'd have a hard time getting the point across for in just a menu selection screen or a booklet, when we can't even pin them down on promising to do it once.  Whether there's an audience demanding cleaned up, non original, non award winning SFX or not, the actual concern that's already worrying purists is what method Disney would choose to restore the original, if they have plans to do so or are already working on it; if they feel the "best" method to make a good restoration for Blu-ray would be to scan all the elements individually and digitally recomposite them, we'd get something that arguably plays out like the original cut, but we wouldn't have the authentic preservation the films deserve.

In short, while cleaned up and digitally recomposited SFX certainly wouldn't "look bad", having that version officially made would entirely preclude a proper theatrical restoration for the foreseeable future.  It wouldn't be as bad as the SE abominations we are stuck with now, but it would further push the idea behind the SE's that it is okay to change these films with the times, to alter our perception of history, if you will.  There will be no official untouched OOT and a non-Lucas lead clean up version at the same time, right out of the gate, it can really only be one or the other.  If support is being vocally thrown behind one or the other, it should be for the untouched OOT, since as long as we have at least that common baseline to start with, there's nothing to keep us from also being able to move forward and make whatever sort of special Star Wars version we want from there, but if the true original is lost, there's just no going back to it.  I don't see how there could be any question what is the right next step forward; do what you want with the steps after that.

I just stopped reading the above, I suggest everyone do the same.

Danfun128 said:

chyron8472 said:

Most things expect USB devices to be formatted as FAT32, and it has a 4GB file size limit.

 Funny, from what I heard, FAT32's limit is 2 TB.

 You're confusing file size and partition size.

chyron8472 said:

Can anyone tell me what quality difference they notice between the MKV and the AVCHD?

That is, I haven't converted the MKV to a Bluray and am wondering if the difference (on a 42" LED TV) is distinguishable enough to warrant the expense of buying blank bluray discs.

 The quality difference is actually quite noticeable, the MKV is much more "filmic", there's just a lot more of what the higher compression wipes away, more grain, more detail, it just "feels" more theatrical.  I'd suggest tossing it on a Blu-ray or buying a cheap computer (like the ECS LIVA, which is on sale today at Newegg for $109.99) and hooking that up to your TV to play the file without burning it or shoehorning it into something that'll play on a game console.  The DeEd is really something else when watched without extra compression, I highly recommend going through the extra effort.