yoda-sama

1982, so technically I existed at least before the last OT film came out.  I couldn't have been more than 4 or 5 by the time I was hooked on SW through a VHS recording made by my grandfather, complete with commercials, which also got burned into my nostalgia (just this last year I finally watched the heavily advertised "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan", I still save my green m&m's for last because they're for "hitting a home run", but you won't find me eating any nutrasweet...).  Of course I upgraded to the offical VHS's, eventually having probably 3 distinct sets, and likely a replacement of a set at some point depending on how much wear I may have put on my earliest sets.  Add to that the fact that Droids and Ewoks cartoons were still airing, I had a recording of Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, outlet pricing and garage sales of Star Wars toys, from which I built an impressive collection despite my comparitively late start, I had all the Star Wars I could want to watch or play with...  It was an amazing time (which I fully appreciate the blessing it was), a good chunk of my happiest childhood memories had to do with SW.

Mostly due to the SE's and the terrible PT which together prove that Lucas' vision wasn't as profound as the OT originally lucked into seeming to indicate, SW doesn't hold the same power over me it once did and could have somewhat continued to.  The frequency and necessity of watching the OT started to sharply diminish when the SE started taking over, without me even realizing at the time it was my body rejecting the cheapening of SW caused by the SE.  I went quickly from watching it multiple times a year to being lucky if I got in a viewing of some of the movies once in a year.  The SE's just weren't enjoyable to me and were quickly becoming the simplest way to see it.  But, when I watch non-SE versions like GOUT and now Harmy's recreation, I do feel a lot of that old magic, and can lose myself in my life-long favorite movies again.  I really can't thank Harmy enough, even though nothing can undo the ruin Lucas has brought to the overall SW universe, being able to ignore all of that for ~2 hours at a time is really special.

And just for the fun of it, the number of official non-SE OT sets I now own is, I think 7:  3 VHS sets (have to double check this), 3 Laserdisc sets (CBS/Fox P&S, Faces and Definitive Collection), and The GOUT DVDs.

Harmy said:

See, I'm 24, which is just about older by enough to have been exposed to the original version first and that seems to have made quite a difference to my perception of things.

That'd put Harmy at about 8 years old when the SE's came out theatrically, which actually does perfectly land him in a time frame where he'd get good exposure to the close-to-theatrical home videos first.  I hadn't really thought about it until now, but I suppose a birth year of around or just after 1989 is about the cutoff for Star Wars fandom vs SE apathy.  Granted there are exceptions (many of which we'll cause on purpose in the future with Harmy's work), but overall that's probably a good standard to gauge by.

Or at least not too prominently...  Like have the movie title and menu options be the big, noticeable things, and have the version number, etc. be smaller and off to a side somewhere.  It'd be there, but not in your face.

That is to say, I feel terrible about looking bad to or upsetting Harmy, not that I need to go have a good cry.  Like everyone, I have strong feelings about how my Star Wars should look and feel, and just want to feel like I'm contributing more than hindering, though when you get enough opinionated people together, heads are bound to butt a bit, even if they're aiming for the same goal.

Harmy, you're amazing with the work that you do, and incredibly open to criticism; we love that about you, and we all feel very connected to the project because of it.

chyron8472 said:

Okay then. On-topic it is.

So long as I don't get yelled at by Harmy again. That's no fun.

Certainly agree on this point, Harmy is basically one of my new idols and any time I say something that he takes badly, I feel really terrible about it.

But charging through with off-topic for a second anyway, valinkrai is certainly a bit deluded in his thinking, but that is not a slam on him personally, instead it is a long-held fear coming true.  Ever since the second VHS release of the SE came out (that being the first time the SE trilogy dropped the SE and was billed as THE Trilogy) and then those lovely prequels started debuting, the likelihood of the Star Wars we knew and loved being passed on and instilling the same values and nostalgia it did for the generations up until that point, seemed tangibly bleak. With the original versions being officially written off and only their replacements readily available for new generations to experience, the importance and significance of the original accomplishments would diminish, new "fans" would crop up that don't value the integrity of the films, since they're used to them changing regularly and containing silly scenes that undermine the seriousness and charm that frustrated purists were won over by so long ago.  I can only imagine, but someone growing up with the SE I believe might not have the same kind of love and devotion to the series, that when they grow up they'd have an easy time making a clear division that Star Wars was something they only liked as a child (what with the added silly scenes, unneeded tweaks, dated non-groundbreaking effects [CGI], messed up pacing, etc.), not something that affects them beyond that (okay, some people who live perpetually in their parents' basement might have benefited from this, but still) since many of the layers that I've appreciated when watching it at different points in my life have largely been stripped away with all the SE retooling.  It has been cheapened, and that was bound to have deep effects on the future of Star Wars fandom. 

Efforts like those of Harmy are our greatest hope now, with theatrical cuts becoming available at quality acceptable to the increasingly discerning tastes of children that are bombarded with high definition everything, we can try to undo some of the damage and certainly introduce our offspring to the saga the way we feel it should be seen and appreciated.

I will say that to be doing a presentation on ILM and not considering that ALL special effects changes (saying nothing of the other SE alterations) distorts the effort that went into the original, ground-breaking, award-winning effects doesn't speak well to his qualification on this topic.  For better looking for worse, the historical significance of these films is not to be understated, and should be the foremost basis of any comparison.  Rather than (just guessing at one way you may be doing it) having a presentation starting with how great ILM is now and peppering in how they started, it should be approached from all the hurdles they overcame in the beginning and how they evolved (and evolved with) the film industry.

Speaking of color, while I don't actually ever watch the Blu-rays of the films, I'm currently perusing the extras Blu-rays, which often feature clips from the movies, and good lord I can't see anything but how terrible the transfer and colors are.  If I haven't said it a million times already, thank you for what you're doing Harmy.

Interesting.  Which original sources did you compare with?

CatBus, don't mistake my comments to Chyron as me continuing to champion soft subs for the project, Harmy's had his say so it is done.  I was just offering another option to his what-if scenario of encoding in subtitles when he converts.  .ASS can offer some impressive stuff, though for anyone picky about the theatrical look of the subtitles, then yes, burning it in from the start is the easiest all around answer.

Oh, and Harmy, seeking in 2.1 works much better than the previous versions, not sure if anyone has mentioned that yet.

In all fairness Chyron, you could probably make a .ASS subtitle file that'd have a pleasing enough font, still not be burned into the video and be usable across a large number of software and hardware players.  But it'll be burned in, so no worries.

Curses!

Haha, well, it was worth a second try.  Keep up the good work Harmy.  BTW, has anyone checked if that dark spot on the opening Star Destroyer is present on the GOUT?  If I remember or have time when I get home, I might try breaking out my '06 bonus disc to check...

Chyron, I agree about the typeface, but if the font and position could be reproduced correctly as a Blu-ray subtitle, would that not be close enough?

Since you mentioned Greedo subs, I still think alien subtitles should be featured in a forced subtitle track rather than burned in to our pristine picture (for the sake of foreign viewers, if nothing else), but Harmy says he wants it this way, so I guess I've lost out on this hope.

LOL, perhaps a new hope (to coin a phrase), would be that these hard subbed scenes could be provided in full quality in an alternate angle or as bonus content.  Since so many people use clips of Star Wars for so many different purposes (we can all agree that's an understatement), it'd be nice to have everything, including such scenes, fully available for use in the quality offered by this project.  Tell me anywhere else I could find the "Han was the only one to shoot" (I find "Han shot first" to be a woefully inaccurate description) scene in this kind of quality, and I'd be all ears.

Indeed, Chyron, The Warren is something else, and I mean the whole theater, not just the IMAX.

LOL.  By the way, might the dark spot be as prevalent on the GOUT?

And agreed about tech vs content, that was the point I'd hoped to be promoting (my words never seem to be read the way I think they are written, haha).

Also, not all theater projection is created equal, I've been in some standard fare digital projection theaters, but also happen to live within 10 miles of what seriously is/could be the best theater in the USA (at the very minimum, it has the largest digital projection IMAX in the world... and it is in Oklahoma, go figure).  Anyway, there is just a massive difference between them, something that looked bad to you may well have just been a cheap theatrical projector, who knows.  And I saw The Hobbit in 48fps there, and it didn't look too shabby, though a bit psychedelic during 'normal human movement'.

I didn't mean to say that I can all that clearly see the pixels at my normal viewing distance while watching a movie, just that I can see some more than I expected/hoped.  It doesn't have an LCD screen door effect or anything and I'm mostly seeing such clear edges by viewing sharp non-moving text/images, like a desktop or menus of a PS3.  I'm sure I'm projecting larger and closer than any THX spec would recommend, but that still doesn't mean that a 1920x1080 resolution that barely cuts it for a desktop monitor is going to look all that great at 150", especially viewed at 10 to 16 feet away, nothing short of a higher resolution projector would do a lot to address that.

And I just checked again, the dark spot starts at about 2:29, it begins being visible on the nose of the star destroyer and it moves along (well, the star destroyer moves) until it gets to about the main hanger on the bottom before they cut away to the star destroyer getting a shot in at the main reactor of the Tantive IV.

Quick response to your topic derail:  With my old 720p projector I expected to see pixels fairly easily at the size I was throwing, so I overlooked them easily enough, but when I got my 1080p projector I'd really hoped at my usual distance that it would be comparatively smooth as silk, but as improved as things are on this projector, pixels are still pretty obvious (though smaller) yet in some ways worse since I both expect not to see them (so they stick out when I do) and they're inherently sharper.  I'm taking the bad with the good on it, but do think that, for projectors at least, higher resolution [hardware] would be very beneficial regardless of content (meaning 720p, 1080p, etc. will look however they'll look, just not hindered further by visible pixels, but badly compressed 4K video is certainly not something that'd be welcome).  Displays should improve (even HDTV's, since if they're used as large monitors, 1920x1080 isn't all that great to be stuck at), but content standards should be more carefully thought out than this gimmick-driving hamfisted approach of late.

On topic, I may need to double check this when I next get a chance, but in the opening battle when the Star Destroyer is approaching the camera (chasing and firing on the Tantive IV), I believe I saw a slightly darker circular patch in it as it moved, possibly a compositing anomaly, maybe a color issue...  If that isn't enough to go on, I can watch it again when I get home and be more specific.

Thanks AntcuFaalb, that link was a good read.  I hadn't considered much that Lucas' old transfer would be lacking enough that 720p doesn't make all that huge of a difference.  Makes me somehow feel incredibly better about this whole project knowing there's not much in the way of quality loss (every single edit Harmy's made is nothing other than a benefit, but quality difference had been a concern in the back of my mind).

Not to say that there isn't a difference between good 1080 and 720.  *sigh* Damn you Lucas...

If blown out at ~150" like I'm doing with my 1080p projector, there's usually a fine but noticeable difference between 720 and 1080, things are a little more defined all over the place, like irises in eyeballs come out much less blurred, etc.  But overall, in a movie as active as Star Wars, the difference is really not all that apparent.

And to the mac burning question, there was an answer mentioned just a few pages back; that being: http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=9046125&postcount=18

and a follow up note of

"note:  i'm not sure if it's necessary for success, but i first created CERTIFICATE and CERTIFICATE/BACKUP directories (empty) in the "Star Wars DE_2.1 AVCHD" directory.  and then i did touch * in that directory to make sure BDMV and CERTIFICATE had the same date.  then i follow the procedure at the above link.

 i have a DL disc that plays on PS3 now!"

Just thought I'd check, it is a minor thing and I wouldn't even know it was there if I hadn't seen it mentioned (and it really doesn't alter enjoyment, much like the new wipes).  Overall, I'm on board with skipping it, just making sure it was intentional rather than an oversight.

Oh, one quick note, when the Jawas put the restraining bold on R2, wasn't there discussion earlier about some color that was supposed to be there, like R2's blue sections are black now?  If it has been colored, I'm not particularly noticing it.  Though the scene looks fine as is to me in general, I am wondering (so many of these scenes stick out to me now after all this discussion on this thread).

My God Harmy (not stating that you are my God, just exclaiming), I've got the 2.1 on right now on my projector, and decided for the heck of it to specifically look for "lobster man", which is around the 4:59 mark if anyone wants to look, and it is such an amazing difference from the official Blu-ray, it looks so natural, and just so... perfect.  Thank you for making it so we don't have to live with such abominations as the BD set or limp along the rest of our lives with meagre offerings like the GOUT.

AntcuFaalb said:

yoda-sama said:

aascii said:

OSX users:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=9046125&postcount=18

 

note:  i'm not sure if it's necessary for success, but i first created CERTIFICATE and CERTIFICATE/BACKUP directories (empty) in the "Star Wars DE_2.1 AVCHD" directory.  and then i did touch * in that directory to make sure BDMV and CERTIFICATE had the same date.  then i follow the procedure at the above link.

 

i have a DL disc that plays on PS3 now!

As a solution for OSX users, I really didn't expect to open that link and find a command line solution.  LOL.  It is like the whole Mac vs Linux argument flipped on its head...

Not really. Mac OS X is more of a real UNIX than Linux is.

Hell, it even obtained UNIX 03 Certification (full compliance) from the Austin Group with Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard".

I meant in the sense that in comparisons everyone always blasts Linux on the assumption you have to know how to use command line to use it, and that Mac is just easy and pretty, etc.  Yet you can accomplish this task graphically, easily in Linux and the provided solution for Mac is purely command line.  I find it quite comical and ironic.

But yes I do respect the Unix underpinnings of OS X, and also think it is fair to point out that Linux isn't trying to BE Unix, they're just very similar.

aascii said:

OSX users:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=9046125&postcount=18

 

note:  i'm not sure if it's necessary for success, but i first created CERTIFICATE and CERTIFICATE/BACKUP directories (empty) in the "Star Wars DE_2.1 AVCHD" directory.  and then i did touch * in that directory to make sure BDMV and CERTIFICATE had the same date.  then i follow the procedure at the above link.

 

i have a DL disc that plays on PS3 now!

As a solution for OSX users, I really didn't expect to open that link and find a command line solution.  LOL.  It is like the whole Mac vs Linux argument flipped on its head...

Wait, you actually found official VHS tapes for AOTC and ROTS?

ilovewaterslides said:

Teeceezy said:

All jokes aside, I do have a VCR and it would be fun to transfer to VHS and see what it looks like on the old format. Although I'm not sure whether letterbox or fullscan would be better.

Believe it or not, i am actually making this right now!

I converted the movie to PAL 25fps with a 4% speed up. French audio/French crawl. But it's still quite interesting. I've created a DVD and i'm capturing it on a VHS. I will upload a sample here as soon as possible ;)

Edit: I'm using the V2.0 and i'm doing it in letterbox.

It would be funny if you could convince someone that your tape was dubbed straight from a pre-SE official widescreen VHS release.  (And to further the joke, starting at the beginning of the credits see if you can explain and get them to believe the true source of the video before the custom credits at the very end come up.)

And be kind, rewind.