Sure but… why would you really want to restore the missing frame?
For a fan edit, maybe. For a restoration, never.
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The Doctor Who restoration team had a fantastic frame interpretation process. But if it is one frame, that would be easy enough to do in Photoshop. I looked and I didn’t see it. What is the GOUT frame number?
Still, much easier to do pull that off when emulating a 405-line video tape with an even lower quality 16mm telerecording as your source. Getting an HD film transfer to look as good with automated interpolation is surely trickier?
Actually, a lot of the ones they were working on, particularly the latest two story finds, were full PAL 625 line video telecined at 25 fps to 16 mm film and scanned in full 1080 HD.
Getting off topic, but yes. A minority of 60s episodes from Enemy onwwards (and the find confirmed that it was actually a few episodes earlier than documented!) it was 625 line on 16mm. HD scans are good for cleanup, but it’s still presented as 576i MPEG2. 😃 The point still stands though that in that case they’re trying to make it look like an SD interlaced video and it’s surely more forgiving.
To some extent, but now that I see the spot and can look at the level of detail, that is just the type of missing frame the the process is designed for. Most of the frame is static, Han’s hand and the soldiers below, plus some small details in the background, barely move at all. The DW Restoration team used it for big action in the center of the screen. Considering the different level of detail, the scale of detail is at least comparable.
The Doctor Who restoration team had a fantastic frame interpretation process. But if it is one frame, that would be easy enough to do in Photoshop. I looked and I didn’t see it. What is the GOUT frame number?
Still, much easier to do pull that off when emulating a 405-line video tape with an even lower quality 16mm telerecording as your source. Getting an HD film transfer to look as good with automated interpolation is surely trickier?
Actually, a lot of the ones they were working on, particularly the latest two story finds, were full PAL 625 line video telecined at 25 fps to 16 mm film and scanned in full 1080 HD.
The Doctor Who restoration team had a fantastic frame interpretation process. But if it is one frame, that would be easy enough to do in Photoshop. I looked and I didn’t see it. What is the GOUT frame number?
I hadn’t heard about the missing frame. Where is it? Is it really any worse than R2’s moving restraining bolt or the duplicate R5 or the Jawa with human arms?
Okay… that was interesting. The 2011 “Yes, I’ll bet you have” was one of those sucky lines. No better in the 2004 mix. The 2011 mix has nice channel separation so for the center channel, I used the line from the 93 mix. But the 97 SE does not have nice channel separation (and this is the sound straight from the DTS disc). So I layered in the line at 13 DB lower for both the right and left channels to match the rest of the conversation. I only used the 97 surround track and both LFE tracks are blank for this scene. Now to the question of delivery.
If you can’t find one, I can make one pretty quick. I just need to know what frame the title first appears. And I can make the one different scene fit. I could do it Tuesday at the earliest. I have the DTS files and the DD/AC-3 tracks with proper LFE already synced. Doing the necessary edits and rendering the 6 mono tracks won’t take much time. Let me know if you are interested.
Yeah, that would be awesome! I’ll let you know tomorrow where the title appears, but the film is frame synced to the Blu-ray so you could just use that to determine the correct frame.
My go to BR track is one I extracted directly from the disc using TSmuxer’s demux. I’ll sync it to that.
If you can’t find one, I can make one pretty quick. I just need to know what frame the title first appears. And I can make the one different scene fit. I could do it Tuesday at the earliest. I have the DTS files and the DD/AC-3 tracks with proper LFE already synced. Doing the necessary edits and rendering the 6 mono tracks won’t take much time. Let me know if you are interested.
re sound, what soundtracks are you including? Bluray and 97SE cinema DTS?
The 97 SE won’t sync to the Bluray without editing - the Han/Greedo shootout changes the length of the film and for the bluray they clipped out 4 frames at the reel1/2 change and added in 4 frames at the shootout from the DVD so nothing between there is in sync.
Those frames are some of the easiest to repair. It is a small scratch that wanders. It is merely a matter of filling it with the right color to hide it and you have adjoining frames to work with. It is all the dirt and other junk that I have problems with. The scratches and other damage are what I’ve been working on for years. I have a great photo of my great-great grandmother and her 4 children and it has a scratch right though one of her eyes. I was able to eliminate it and no one who sees my correction can see the fix. In this case, it is just a few frames and I could do that in an afternoon. I’ve been dying to start working on this, but I’ve been distracted by color correcting the various versions of the finished films.
I believe Catbus has created an exact match from screen captures for both the ANH and ROTJ. They are virtually identical. From what he found, it is not surprising to hear that the OT were custom made. From his observations, the original is Franklin Gothic slightly rounded.
And with fonts, what is in a name is the general shape and characteristics of the letters. There can be slight variations from vendor to vendor on how the font is rendered that can change things slightly. With the fonts on my computer, the fonts that Catbus created seem over bold. Almost as if it were Frankling Gothic Demi Condensed but over exposed, giving it an extra bold and rounded look. And from my attempts to recreate pre-computer age typefaces, a great many were modified during the transition. I have one where the lower case y was changed, but every other letter is identical. They probably used a standard typeface that has been altered when they created the font.
(Note: From a technical aspect, the typeface is the design of the letters - it can be patented, but not copyrighted. A font is a vector graphic representation of a typeface that can be scaled, compressed, expanded, warped, etc. and is copyrighted… until you render it as a bitmap and lose the unique vector points.)
Also, I just checked the TPM alien subtitles and they are nearly identical to the ROTJ one. They are slightly narrower, but the same typeface. The lower case g is slightly different, so it isn’t an exact match, but very close.
I was checking out the 97 SE DTS and DD/AC-3 tracks (for ANH) and I’m wondering just how much effort they put into the surround mixes. It has a very similar pattern to the older mixes when they are dematrixed using ProLogicII. I also noticed that the surround channels are identical for the two different 97 mixes. The only differences in the mix is that the DTS is 5.0 and the DD/AC-3 is 5.1 (there is no cutoff below 120 or 80 in the surround tracks but the DD has a discreet LFE track that is completely unique and hopefully derived from the original 70mm LFE tracks).
This might be a case where curves are your friend. That will let you heighten the contrast without crushing the blacks or blowing out the whites. When working with photos, I’ve sometimes separated out the green channel and used that to make a B&W image with a lot more success.
Well, it is Dubai so I’m not sure how much they will care. But also, I know a couple of lawyers in Dubai. They might be able to do something. If they feel like it.
5.1 AC-3 on LD came out before 94/95 (I found a review of a Pioneer LD player with AC-3 RF output from late in 1995 and the Star Wars SE LD set had AC-3 5.1 audio in 97). It would make sense if the 93 mix involved remixing the surround to be two channel. The resulting Dolby Stereo mix would be downward compatible for 4 channel systems and be compatible with the current 5.1 systems then in theaters. I just finished adjusting the audio levels of the trilogy from the theatrical release to the 93 release and the 93 mix surround didn’t have the same signature that the theatrical and 85 did. There were a lot of subtle differences in the mixes so I may just have been imagining it, but it very well could be the first 5.1 mix of the trilogy. The audio levels seemed a lot closer to the 97 SE - what I was using to set the channel audio levels.
Clear and Present Danger was the first 5.1 DD title
Well, the first US LD release. Pioneer had players out at least a year before that and I’m sure there was plenty of content to take advantage of it (since Pioneer made the discs as well as the players), though it might have all been Japanese releases or programs.
Everything I have seen says that for Star Wars the 70mm and 35mm stereo tracks had the same 4 track master. No differences have ever been reported except for the two LFE channels that rounded out the 70mm’s 6 tracks. So it wasn’t specific to the 70mm. The 85 mix is identical to the 77 mix except for Threepio’s extra line. The 93 version has the same base, but more additions.
For TESB, the 70mm version was done before the movie was really finished. That makes 2 movies in a row like that, though for Star Wars they didn’t change the 4/4.2 track masters… they created a mono mix instead. So the finished audio is the 4 track master used for the 35 mm release. This was the first time a lot of these edits had been heard outside the mono mix. There was nothing new and plenty of omissions. I have no knowledge of the ROTJ 70mm presentation.
To achieve a proper mix, the new edits would have at least had to be added to the 4 track masters and then rematrixed. From a topic that came up a number of months back relating to the 1985 CBS/Fox release, it is not a difficult thing to rematrix the audio from the 4 track masters.
5.1 AC-3 on LD came out before 94/95 (I found a review of a Pioneer LD player with AC-3 RF output from late in 1995 and the Star Wars SE LD set had AC-3 5.1 audio in 97). It would make sense if the 93 mix involved remixing the surround to be two channel. The resulting Dolby Stereo mix would be downward compatible for 4 channel systems and be compatible with the current 5.1 systems then in theaters. I just finished adjusting the audio levels of the trilogy from the theatrical release to the 93 release and the 93 mix surround didn’t have the same signature that the theatrical and 85 did. There were a lot of subtle differences in the mixes so I may just have been imagining it, but it very well could be the first 5.1 mix of the trilogy. The audio levels seemed a lot closer to the 97 SE - what I was using to set the channel audio levels.
I have color correction for the GOUT finished, but I am going to patch some of the worst DNR shots. Vegas isn’t cooperating with me so I’m redoing my patches. Time consuming but worth it. I’m also working on the audio. I finally had the chance to listen to the 85 ANH surround mix and found it lacking. The decoder I used was not very nice. The surround channels were inverted so the important things of note in the surround channel were muted. That necessitated rebalanceing the surround and LFE. In the process I found that the 85 mix of ANH needs the surround and LFE (derived from the surround) lowered more than the others (6 db instead of 3). I’m making the theatrical and the 85 ANH 4.1 mixes (5.1 with both surrounds identical) to match what I’ve found out about the 6 track 70 mm versions. I’m leaving the 93 mixes as full 5.1. I’m still trying to figure out the original mix, but home 5.1 mixes appeared on LD not long after the DE came out.
For an idea where I come from when I talk about the prequels and how they rank in the wide world of film, can anyone truly say that the writing and acting is worse than Battle Beyond the Stars? Now, I love that movie, but it is quite stupid on many levels. The acting leaves a lot to be desired and the writing is … well, I think Lucas could have done better. The special effect are far below Star Wars (they did a good job with compositing, but they cameras are very static and there is no life to it). The sets are lazy. But, and this might be because of the Seven Samurai origins of the story, it is fun to watch.
I have seen many films where you just don’t care about the characters. But frankly, a lot of the enjoyability of the PT comes from its relationship to the OT. It is a window into the past with the story of how the galaxy got to the point where they need a rebellion. So, yes, I can see past its failings and enjoy the PT for what it is, an inferior past story arc in the Star Wars universe.
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It really depends on whether they intended it for a potential theatrical release or not. 90’s theatrical releases had two surround channels. Running even the 77 4 channel mix through a pro-logic decoder produces unique left and right surround even though we know that was not what they encoded. So what I’m seeing comparing the different mixes could be a decoding error, but other than adding in a few of the mono mix edits to ANH, making the mix with stereo surround seems like the most logical reason to make a new audio mix for all three films.
I’m also interested. Since there are only 2 sections that are missing from the HD DVD broadcast version, it might be easy to clean up just those.
I did some more research and reading and it seems clear that they adapted the TODD-AO 6 track format (L,CL,C,CR,R,S) to a 4.2 format (L,L-LFE,C,R-LFE,R,S) which they used for all thee OT films and the majority of 70mm films in the 80’s. Apocalypse Now was in a new format (L,LS/LFE,C,RS/LFE,R,S) where you could either have stereo surround or mono surround depending on your speaker configuration. What I found indicates they did not use that format for TESB or ROTJ, they stuck with the 4.2 mix. The ANH 1985 mix would also have been 4.0 matrix like the theatrical mixes. So the 1993 mix found in DE, Faces, and GOUT would have been the first 5.0 mix released followed in 1997 by the 5.0 Cinema DTS and 5.1 Dolby Digital for the SE.
Well, that makes it pretty clear that TESB had a 4.2 mix in 6 track. I with OT had a search feature instead of relying on Google.