yotsuya

DrDre said:

towne32 said:

Interesting. But that looks incredibly mild compared to some of the other scans and corrections.

It’s low contrast like most laserdisc transfers, but it’s a pretty close match I think:

If you examine the tones of those walls in both those above images you will see the upper one from the 82 LaserDisc is a lot less green. It’s green but a lot less green. It exactly matches the color Corrections I’ve tried to do to the 35 mm sample I got from Williarob and the frames I’ve been able find of the Technicolor. Like I said it is green but it’s not as green as the samples we’ve been seeing. I would bet the 82 LaserDisc was taken from a print. It might be a crappy transfer but it might be the most accurate color representation of the original 1977 35 mm prints.

I guess I’ll continue to stick my nose in this conversation by repeating my thoughts from the other thread.

I think one of the key things to consider is the generation of the print. From what I’ve seen in several key shots, both the GOUT and the 97 special edition transfer were done from an interpositive. That could change how the colors look since its kind of an orange color. But that also means they’re one generation removed from the original negative. Also, since they were done later, there could be a slight difference in how the interpositive was generated.

So basically rather than tge coloring found in those versions being wrong I think it’s just different. It also could be closer to the original negative which is what some of us want to see. For those wanting a strictly 1977 transfer feel some of the uncomfortable color choices from those versions maybe closer to the truth. I just think the colors need to be properly balanced so that and it feels right as much as possible but the original color timing as it appeared in the original prints stays. If that means certain scenes look kind of green than they do. But they need to be corrected to the things around them so the blacks in the neighboring scenes are actually black and not dark green like I’ve seen in some of the images that have been shared. Because when you correct for just the darker green in those shots it reduces the green tint in the corridor shots of Leia and R2 without turning the white corridor walls magenta pink.

Man, that sucks. Hope the HDs are okay and you have no problem reassembling the raid. That isn’t an incident you can really plan for.

I think one thing is being missed in the discussion of different transfers - the nature and generation of the versions.

GOUT - from a 1985 interpositive
97 SE - from a 1997 interpositive
35 mm - from a print (interpositve to internegative to print)
Tech IB - from a color separation and then a print
DVD and Blu-ray - directly from the faded negative in 2003

Interprositives are orangey. They require a color adjustment to render them into watchable colors. The type and level of orange can vary depending on film stock, though Star Wars should have been a very standard one. I was able to find a frame from each of these and you can see the generational difference in the deatils when the Stormtroopers burn through the Blockade Runner hatch. The 97 SE, DVD, and Blu-ray all have about the same level of detail. The GOUT has the most and the 35 mm the least. With each optical copy, the chance of color errors increases. If we are correcting the 35 mm to match the Tech IB, we are ignoring a generational difference. That could be why when matching some shots, others have come out too green.

But it also means that we have to take each version and its colors differently. We can’t assume that any of them were processed correctly. I don’t know of any transfers from the negative after 1985 that don’t have severe fading issues. The Tech IB is reported to have a green cast to it (likely due to the low budget science fiction nature of the film as well as the end of the Technicolor IB print era). The 35 mm prints are all faded or are copies. The home video transfers all share similar colors so it probably wasn’t an odd color correction for the GOUT - it probably was standard settings for the film stock.

If you are after the 1977 theatrical colors, I think the Tech IB prints are your best bet. The color should not have faded much at all. It probably doesn’t represent the 35 mm or 70 mm prints, but it is the best we have. I am not after the look of the original prints. I’m after the look of a presentation print struck directly off the negative. I want to see the colors as they were timed, not as they turned out on distribution prints. But I’ll take that 77 theatrical look because it is better than the Blu-ray.

DrDre said:

Oke, here we go. Here are four frames of different scenes in close proximity of the raw scan of the LPP used to create the SSE. For those that don’t know this, this is not a technicolor print:

Now, even for the raw scan, that is clearly blue shifted, it is pretty obvious, that the Leia/R2 corridor scene is green. However to make things more clear, I balance the Darth Vader shot (no match to the technicolor print), such that the stormtroopers, and the walls are white, and Darth Vader black (remember Mike Verta maintains the walls are slightly mint colored, so I’m actually overcompensating for any green shifts):

I rest my case. Delibirate or not, the Leia/R2 corridor scene was definitely green for 1977 prints, technicolor or otherwise.

I agree that there should be a green tint. I see that and I see no way to get rid of it while maintaining a correction that is faithful to the original color timing. However, I think it is too green. I’ve tried to color correct that section, paying attention to the black levels of everything around it and when I do, it comes out much less green. Still green, just not as green. It looks more green gray. And from these raw images, I see the same thing. I see the green, but it is only a slight green tint. The previous posts had something much greener.

Williarob said:

It was green in '77, but revised when the telecines were created for home video. Then we watched it this way for the next 35 years so that’s how we expect it to look - interestingly, the 35mm 1997 SE print has the same revised color timing on this shot as the home video releases:

But it wasn’t like that in Theaters:

(1978 Swedish bootleg)
When you correct this image for the black levels, the green goes away and the set looks gray with yellow discoloration. Definitely more yellow to this image than green. And the Technicolor samples I have match this trend when you correct for the black levels and account for the known green hue. I think the 35mm scans should be greenish, I just think they are far too green.

Well, here is one thing I noticed. That green tint is not only the lighted areas, but the shadows. And there is a huge difference between the still from the film and that on set photo. In the still from the film, the set behind Leia and R2 is more neutral. In the on set photo, the set is the same color as the foreground. It is also not lit the same and the smoke machine is not on. That means it was from a very different take or a rehearsal.

What I think has happened is not that the original shot was intended to be so green, but that there was a slight green cast to it and the process of O-neg to interprositive to internegative to print and the process of O-neg to color separation to Tech print both amplified the green cast to those scenes. That would explain why the interpositive struck in 1985 and used for the LD DE and GOUT lacks that green (not that they corrected for it, but that it wasn’t there).

So, for those after what the prints originally looked like, the green must stay. For those after what the interprositive and first generation prints would look like, the green is an error. The green also only seems to affect the darker and grayer colors. An adjustment to the green curve reduces the green (including in Darth Vader and the Stormtroopers guns in nearby scenes) and looks much better. So it isn’t an overall green tint, it is in a very specific range and it is in more than just these back corridor scenes as it impacts other dark features as well. So if you correct for the green in the dark areas only, it does not turn the corridors of the Tantive IV magenta.

Also, as to the color of red… today we have an abundance of LED lighting. Red LED’s are not necissarily the red we are used to. Incandescent red was never pure red. It has sort of an orangey cast to it. It is basically a slightly yellow light behind a red filter. All the red lights, such as instrument panels and wall details, should have that orangey tone rather than leaning toward the magenta like the Blu-ray does. From the reflections, this shot of Leia and R2 should definitely be more orangey red.

a_o said:

is it likely that LFL destroyed the 1985 interpositive spoken of here: http://savestarwars.com/gout.html
what would the quality of this artifact be like today, if it were available to be scanned and restored?

The one thing I will give George is that he is a packrat/horder. He doesn’t get rid of anything. I doubt that those interprositives have gone anywhere. They would be a decent source for a OUT restoration with very little cost. And from what I’ve seen in comparing the BR to the GOUT, yes the original negative was cut, but everything cut out could be scanned and reassembled. The original negative should be easy to recreate. For ANH this is especially true because they went to the expense and effort to make a 3 color separation master. They did not strike anything from it and by the time they needed it, in the early 90’s when they realized the original negative had faded badly, the three strips of film had shrunk at different rates and there was not way at the time to restore it. Today that is a simple digital procedure and it would take very little effort to scan those, align them, and clean them up for a full restoration of the original theatrical version. Assuming George has kept everything like he usually does.

So, the first lesson is that the 81 crawl is not missing a frame at the end. It is one frame off in every version I have. But, the 35 mm released with the SSE, had a duplicate frame in the middle. Really messes things up when you are trying to align things. Fortunately I caught it before I had really gotten started. I now have the first real alignment done - making sure the frames line up before I export the frames as png. All the laser bolts and white flash frames are now aligned so I can just mix the frames with matching numbers. I’m using the Blu-ray as the base layer and then I’ll line up the blockade runner and star destroyer on that, cross referencing with the 1977 35 mm flyover.

Today the remastering resumes in earnest. I have storage space again and I am collecting all my sources together. I have the 1977 35mm scan for reference and stabilization (and perhaps more), I have the SSE 1981 crawl/flyover scan, I have the 1982 PAL pan and scan (it has lots of stars so it will be a primary alignment tool), the LD DE (again for alignment, and some for coloring), and the Blu-ray (for stabilization, good source for planet and moon, and to aid in enhancing details), and a copy of the original matte painting of the planet and moons (for the correct matting).

Step one is to do a rough alignment of the Star Destroyer flyover in Sony Vegas. Then export the images and align them by hand in external graphics software. A lot of work, by my previous effort showed that due to the condition of the 81 flyover, this is the best way. If I can use a good stabilized scan of the 1977 flyover I may use that instead. My comparisons show that they are identical - they only changed the matte used to composite the effects, not the actual effects shot. That would simplify things greatly, but I’m not sure it is any higher quality. The blu-ray has too many differences other than to use for a reference.

Once I have a stable flyover, I’ll create the layers and mattes and then start putting it back together.

I believe everything in ANH and ROTJ would be on reels 3 and 7 respectively. There is no need to worry about the audio as the DTS theatrical audio has been archived for all four of these.

In TPM there is a shot of the crowd and a shot of Sebulba at the start of the race that were cut for the DVD. Also, the transitions during the brief extended speeder trip after they reach Coruscant are different. Both these areas don’t exist in HD. The earliest HD broadcast is of the DVD version where these changed were first made.

In A New Hope, the speeder entering Mos Eisley, the Greedo shooting scene, and Jabba the Hutt were all changed for the DVD.

You may be right about Empire.

In Jedi, the only section I can think of is the end Celebration where they added Naboo and changed Coruscant.

All the other changes between the 97 SE versions and the DVD/Blu-ray can be pulled from the 35 mm scans.

I would say that the ideal might be halfway between. Your adjusted version seems too green while the original seem too purple.

The flyover I’d like to get finished right away. Hopefully by the end of the month, but I am horrible about meeting deadlines outside of work.

I’ve been contemplating if my work on the blu-ray is ready to be seen or not. I think I need to go over it again with fresh eyes. One reason I want to tackle this project right now.

I was on a roll with my BR color correction so I let this project sit idle. But it is a new year and I want to get this done first. I need to reorganize my file storage, but I got started on one piece of this already.

This time around I am going to tackle the most difficult part first. I’m going to use the 1977 crawl from the 35 mm scan and the SE crawl from the Blu-ray to align the elements of the flyover. Then I’m going to separate it as three layers: the two ships, the laser bolts, and the engine glow. I have three versions of the 81 crawl from SD sources that I’m going to match to to get the intensity of the stars and the relative position of the final elements. I’m going to have to scrub the elements of grain and then add it back in when I composite the layers together. I also need to recreate the final frame by pulling the star destroyer from the 35 mm scan and edit it to match the SD sources. Then I need to work on the starfield again and the moons and planets. My last version is okay, but I now have better sources to make it even more accurate. Plus I need to further tweak the layer composite during the pan down.

Basically, here is the problem. There are scenes in each of those versions that are not available in HD. All three exist as SE broadcast captures and on LD. Most of each made it thorugh the the DVD and Blu-ray releases unchanged, but several scenes needed to complete the HD versions are missing. Some scenes that were later updated in the DVD or Blu-ray releases could be pulled form the 35mm scans of the theatrical versions, but some scenes were updated in 97 and then changed again for the DVD/Blu-ray version and to make an accurate version you would have to upscale the SD source. That does not yield acceptable results. Especially if you are after a full 1080p version. And not only are those scenes lower quality, but they are also cropped differently (with loss of image on all sides) meaning you either have to crop the entire movie to match or do something to compensate. I also would like to see these, but until someone has their hands on 35 mm prints of these versions and is willing to scan the scenes that are unique to those versions, this cannot be done in 1080p.

Williarob said:

Despite several more attempts at it I wasn’t able to improve upon it, so that is the best version I have at the moment. I believe Darth Lucas and Yotsuya were also working on projects featuring the '81 Crawl, most notably this one:

http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Remastering-the-1981-Episode-IV-TitleCrawlFlyover/id/49668/page/1

Perhaps they had better luck?

That little project has been on hiatus. I kind of have to start over. Thanks to Poita, I have a better version of the starfield (the part that is virtually missing for the 81 crawl found with the SSE). To get everything back the way the many home video versions (as per the LD archived versions of the pan & scan UK LD, the Japanese Special Collection, and the Definitive Edition), it really has to be remastered. The planets are easy to get (I now have a copy of the original matte painting) and the text is a mix of the title from Empire and the crawl from the blu-ray, but the flyover portion is proving difficult, though I have an idea how to do it. Getting the blue engine glow right and recreating the missing final frame don’t help. But a little time and some creative use of software should do the trick. Hopefully I can have something closer to the original soon.

Glad to hear about your daughter. Hoping she has a good new year and 2017.

As for the German print, it would be cool if it could fill in the holes in the other one. I don’t know where you get them scanned, but they can sure recover a hell of a lot.

Reels 2 and 4 have red splotches. Improved particularly when the falcon is being chased through the asteroids by the Tie fighters and between when Vader accepts Captain Neda’s,apology and when it cuts to Luke and Yoda. The fist Cloud City shots have dark blotches all across the screen. The red slotches return when Luke is leaving Dagobah. Reel 5 starts off with red splotches. The red splotches return when Chewy is in the cell and starts putting C-3PO tigether and continue. They don’t show up in the lighter scenes, but they do in the darker scenes. But overall, the colors in reel 5 are the best in the transfer. Perhaps a bit under saturated. Reel also has good colors, but all the reels except 5 are dark. Reel 6 also has some red splotches, but not as many.

I also observed that while reel 3 is still reddish, the overall colors and levels look better.

Throughout, the black levels change. Some scenes are darker and some are lighter. Most are consistent.

Mavimao said:

For the second time, there is a mono mix of Empire Strikes Back that is not a fold down.

http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Empire-Strikes-Back-mono-mix-GOUT-sync-and-Comparison-MP3-READ-1st-POST-FOR-INFO/id/15865

Several lines are shifted (“The 1st transport is away!”) some are added (C3pO’s lines when entering the hibernation chamber) and some are changed (the stormtrooper when 3PO enters the wrong room at Cloud City).

This can be found on Despecialized as the 16mm Mono.

And I assume Puggo Strikes Back? I evidently missed that discussion and have not seen anything more recent on it. From the sounds of it, it was a mono remix, but has fewer differences than the ANH mono mix. Just some things to make it sound better.

After some fun in trying to download the file, I have finally had a chance to do a frame by frame comparison to the UK GOUT. Overall there are 322 missing frames and 420 extra frames. They are as follows (absolute fame number in video file of start of incident):
22 missing frames from the beginning
1 missing at frame 29669
10 missing with 9 filler at 30712 (reel change)
6 missing at 40079
13 missing and 1 filler at 59519 (reel change)
33 missing at 81164
10 missing at 81662
10 missing and 85 filler at 90873 (reel change)
177 missing at 112204
13 missing at 120268
13 missing and 83 filler at 121585 (reel change)
6 missing at 122873
8 missing and 169 filler at 150226 (reel change)
0 missing and 73 filler at 179731 (end of film)

Other things of note: End credits are different from GOUT. The stars don’t align with the text the same way and the roll of the credits doesn’t match (though they do end at the same time). Reel 3 doesn’t match. It is too orange compared to the others. Some of the missing frames are in the middle of the scene with the action almost matching so it is hard to see without comparing it to a complete version.

That completes my initial assessment. More to follow as I watch it a few more times.

captainsolo said:

ESB has mono and production documents indicate one done for ROTJ-additionally Raiders had a mono.
It is correct that the 70 and 35 Dolby tracks are likely very much the same but until we get actual concrete evidence it’s impossible to say. The baby booms were filtering out the low end as opposed to an actual dedicated LFE channel. I will suggest that there are likely a few differences in range etc since the 35 was intended for optical and the 70 had mag tracks.
The definitive collection 93 mix was reputed to be derived from the 70mm mix before those changes were made and is what HairyHen has been working with.

There is an in theater recording of the 70mm audio. It shows none of the additions that were made to the 93 mix and appears to be identical to the 77 stereo matrix mix. For the 84 mix, only the one line of C-3PO’s was added. For the 93 mix, virtually all the effects found in the mono mix that were not in the 77 stereo mix were added - though no lines of dialog were changed.

Also, the mono versions of Empire and Jedi were likely downmixes of the stereo tracks (possibly the L, R, & C channels or the full matrixed stereo). By 1980 there wasn’t much point to having a special mono mix for the theatrical prints. 16 mm would be a different case, but one where a downmix of the stereo would be the simplest way to achieve. There is a lot of evidence of a separate mono mix for ANH, but I have never seen any for TESB or ROTJ. There is another mix for TESB. The 70mm seems to have been missing some music and effects toward the end and appears to have been missing some of the composited effects. Again, there is an in theater audio recording so we have some idea how it is different, though I don’t know of any quality archive of it.

captainsolo said:

The master is a four track tape and was then tinkered from for making the 70mm Dolby, 35mm Dolby and mono. It was reutilized in 1997 when the SE track was being made and then likely digitized as all the other mixes are supposedly on file.

The musical score is also on four track IIRC.

If I’m mistaken on anything feel free to correct me.

The 70mm 4 track and the 35mm matrixed stereo are essentially the same mix. The only difference is the 70mm also had an LFE track (or two LFE tracks - the info is unclear, but it is clear that other than LFE, there was L, R, C, and surround and those were identical to the matrixed tracks found in the 35mm). The Mono mix was done completely separate and featured more detail in most places, but lacked some of the effects applied for the stereo mix, such as the echo when Luke and Leia are trapped in the casm and the radio distortions during the Death Star battle. Now, one source I found indicated that the LFE is actually included in the matrixed stereo mix. Basically the surround and LFE are on the same channel, with everything below the range of 80-120 Htz being the LFE and everything above being the surround. But I have not been able to confirm this.

The great advantage of Dolby Stereo was that it worked for theaters with mono, stereo, and surround system, all from one master print. Where I live, only 2 of the 16 screens had stereo growing up. Since then they have built new facilities that all have surround and have kept up with the latest digital formats are are all DLP today. But that change was in the early 90’s, so most of the films I saw were in mono even though the film itself was stereo. But all those movies I saw in mono, if you run them through a Dolby Pro Logic system will have surround, either 4.0 or 5.0 depending on when they were released. That is why there really isn’t a separate mono mix for Empire or Jedi. No need. When Star Wars came out in 1977, some theaters didn’t have equipment that was compatible so Ben Burt made a special mono mix.

LFL archived all three original audio tracks for ANH during the work on remixing the soundtrack from original elements for the blue-ray release. They archived all three versions - mono, stereo matrix, and 4 channel. And magnetic tape does not deteriorate that quickly. It has been the main method of recording for more than 50 years and even the oldest ones can still be used to issue better sounding remasters than the original release. In some cases, the oldest magnetic tapes, such as the recordings going back to the 40’s or late 30’s, could only be played once to archive the data digitally, but the materials used from later periods are superior and not prone to degradation. Especially magnetic tape masters from the 60’s and 70’s.

Each major home video release of the original Star Wars movies has had a different audio mix. The earliest releases have the original theatrical audio. In 1984, Ben Burt created the first digital master audio which appeared on subsequent new releases starting the following year. For the 1993 Definitive Edition, there was a new audio master. Both of these differ slightly from the original in terms of channels matrixed into the final stereo and the stereo width of the mix as well as the volume and clarity. They again got a different mix in 97 and 2004 (with that one having considerable issues with the music in the surround channels. For the blue-ray, Ben Burt went back to the original and remixed ANH to be closer to the mono mix. He did not use many of the alternate takes of lines found in the mono-mix, but virtually all the effects sounds are there. He is the one who stated that they archived all the original mixes from 1977 while working on the blue-ray. The newest mix exists as 6.1/7.1 on the blue-ray and as 5.1 on the latest DVD release.

My take on the colors is that the GOUT and 97 SE broadcasts all seem to be taken from interprositive prints. They all share an redish-orange tinting that doesn’t seem to be completely compensated for. In my experience compensating for the natural tint of the interpositive is something that falls inside an acceptable spectrum or outside. Compared to other movies that have fallen outside, these are definitely inside, though the SE segments for ANH seem to be scanned with different settings and fall outside or the color balance wasn’t done well when making the interprositive. We’d need to archive a 35mm print of that one to tell for sure.

Many of the same problems plague TPM. The scans of the original theatrical cut are all redish-orange and over cropped.

ATOC was shot digitally and the effects were done digitally. And it looks like the color choices have remained consistent.

There was a leak of ROTS just before the movie hit theaters. It is low resolution, but the colors match the DVD and BR, so this film, done entirely digital, is true to the original, though it shows a yellow tint throughout that I think was present in the original film, but it means the blockade runner scenes don’t match ANH.

TFA was shot on film, edited digitally. The blue-ray is over saturated and the reds are too intense compared to the digital download of the trailers from YouTube. It kind of matches the blue-ray of ANH, the most messed up of the trilogy on blue-ray.