Star Wars
02-20-16, 08:57 AM
#4051
re: Star Wars
I'm amazed that Disney and Fox haven't brought down a world of legal heat on all of this stuff. If it weren't for fear of legal repercussions (and my own incompetence at burning them), I'd be all over many fan-edits of interest. For films I own, I hasten to add.
What would they be mastering from? The last time there were actual 35mm prints was the 1997 rollout, unless they're going back to IPs, separation masters, etc, and that sounds way too good to be true.
I guess a possible option would be to go back to the 1997 prints, try to fix the color-timing, then go back to other sources (release prints, separation masters, IPs) for the OOT footage and cobble it together. But I seriously doubt Disney or Reliant would spend the time or effort on that. Did the Blu-rays look that bad?
*edit to add: If you read that article, you'd know that Mike Verta has already completed a full restoration of the original film that blows the blu-ray away and he's offering to give it to Lucasfilm if they want it. There would be some legal issues to work out, but the work is already done. If you're wondering why any studio would want some fan's homemade restoration, then I urge you at the very least to check out Mike's vimeo page (linked in the article). Amazing is the only way to describe his work and the stories behind it.
Last edited by rocket1312; 02-20-16 at 09:05 AM.
02-20-16, 08:25 PM
#4052
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
re: Star Wars
!
The Reliance work in the video appears to be the '97 version. My guess is that it was done from dupe negative or ip created from the Special Edition.
Plain and simple, the Blu-rays suck. They're black crushed to death and the color timing is totally wrong. Lowry's DNR machine stripped away so much detail that you can downscale the BD image down to 720p and then upscale back to 1080p and the image is almost identical to the original. They've had a layer of fake grain overlaid on top to hide the DNR that occasionally conflicts with what was left of the actual grain. There's an ENTIRE REEL(!) in Jedi that was scanned out of focus that somehow made it through QC.
Finally, as far as I'm aware, the BD masters are 1080p.
If 4k (or any sort of proper digital asset production) is desired, the films will have to be re-done. The best available elements are all configured to the '97 version and unless that's the version they want to release, some amount of extra work will be involved either way.
At that point why not go back and restore the originals? Assuming they half-assed it and left all of the digital re-comps and wipes from the SE intact, what are we talking about, 15 minutes of footage? Is it even that much? They'd be foolish not to. Far lesser films have received much greater attention.
*edit to add: If you read that article, you'd know that Mike Verta has already completed a full restoration of the original film that blows the blu-ray away and he's offering to give it to Lucasfilm if they want it. There would be some legal issues to work out, but the work is already done. If you're wondering why any studio would want some fan's homemade restoration, then I urge you at the very least to check out Mike's vimeo page (linked in the article). Amazing is the only way to describe his work and the stories behind it.
Hope springs eternal, I suppose.
02-20-16, 11:06 PM
#4053
DVD Talk Hero
re: Star Wars
Oh, for gods sake, man, just go to a place with public wifi with decent speed and grab it there.
02-21-16, 12:05 AM
#4054
Moderator
re: Star Wars
There have been people with connections that have commented online from time to time and the gist is basically "Lucasfilm knows about all of this stuff, but they don't care because it's such a tiny drop in the bucket all things considered." These comments are pre-Disney, but it's been almost 4 years now and the most that's happened to anyone is that they've had their youtube videos pulled. It's possible that Disney has been plotting a giant sting operation and are just waiting for the moment hanshotfirst decides to click the "download" button. If that's the case, please stay away. The rest of the world will thank you.
The Reliance work in the video appears to be the '97 version. My guess is that it was done from dupe negative or ip created from the Special Edition.
Plain and simple, the blu-rays suck. They're black crushed to death and the color timing is totally wrong. Lowry's DNR machine stripped away so much detail that you can downscale the BD image down to 720p and then upscale back to 1080p and the image is almost identical to the original. They've had a layer of fake grain overlaid on top to hide the DNR that occasionally conflicts with what was left of the actual grain. There's an ENTIRE REEL(!) in Jedi that was scanned out of focus that somehow made it through QC. Finally, as far as I'm aware, the BD masters are 1080p. If 4k (or any sort of proper digital asset production) is desired, the films will have to be re-done. The best available elements are all configured to the '97 version and unless that's the version they want to release, some amount of extra work will be involved either way. At that point why not go back and restore the originals? Assuming they half-assed it and left all of the digital re-comps and wipes from the SE intact, what are we talking about, 15 minutes of footage? Is it even that much? They'd be foolish not to. Far lesser films have received much greater attention.
*edit to add: If you read that article, you'd know that Mike Verta has already completed a full restoration of the original film that blows the blu-ray away and he's offering to give it to Lucasfilm if they want it. There would be some legal issues to work out, but the work is already done. If you're wondering why any studio would want some fan's homemade restoration, then I urge you at the very least to check out Mike's vimeo page (linked in the article). Amazing is the only way to describe his work and the stories behind it.
The Reliance work in the video appears to be the '97 version. My guess is that it was done from dupe negative or ip created from the Special Edition.
Plain and simple, the blu-rays suck. They're black crushed to death and the color timing is totally wrong. Lowry's DNR machine stripped away so much detail that you can downscale the BD image down to 720p and then upscale back to 1080p and the image is almost identical to the original. They've had a layer of fake grain overlaid on top to hide the DNR that occasionally conflicts with what was left of the actual grain. There's an ENTIRE REEL(!) in Jedi that was scanned out of focus that somehow made it through QC. Finally, as far as I'm aware, the BD masters are 1080p. If 4k (or any sort of proper digital asset production) is desired, the films will have to be re-done. The best available elements are all configured to the '97 version and unless that's the version they want to release, some amount of extra work will be involved either way. At that point why not go back and restore the originals? Assuming they half-assed it and left all of the digital re-comps and wipes from the SE intact, what are we talking about, 15 minutes of footage? Is it even that much? They'd be foolish not to. Far lesser films have received much greater attention.
*edit to add: If you read that article, you'd know that Mike Verta has already completed a full restoration of the original film that blows the blu-ray away and he's offering to give it to Lucasfilm if they want it. There would be some legal issues to work out, but the work is already done. If you're wondering why any studio would want some fan's homemade restoration, then I urge you at the very least to check out Mike's vimeo page (linked in the article). Amazing is the only way to describe his work and the stories behind it.
02-21-16, 02:50 PM
#4055
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
02-21-16, 08:09 PM
#4058
DVD Talk Legend
re: Star Wars
When the DVDs first came out in 2004, I seem to recall the initial reviews were fairly positive but still noting that there were issues.
When the Bluray set came out, I recall all the reviews were very positive and it's only in the past couple of years that people have been noticing the flaws. Are there different print runs out there with different transfers?
When the Bluray set came out, I recall all the reviews were very positive and it's only in the past couple of years that people have been noticing the flaws. Are there different print runs out there with different transfers?
02-21-16, 09:27 PM
#4059
Banned by request
re: Star Wars
EDIT: Nevermind, found this.
http://www.engadget.com/2016/02/18/s...despecialized/
02-21-16, 10:21 PM
#4060
DVD Talk Legend
re: Star Wars
When the DVDs first came out in 2004, I seem to recall the initial reviews were fairly positive but still noting that there were issues.
When the Bluray set came out, I recall all the reviews were very positive and it's only in the past couple of years that people have been noticing the flaws. Are there different print runs out there with different transfers?
When the Bluray set came out, I recall all the reviews were very positive and it's only in the past couple of years that people have been noticing the flaws. Are there different print runs out there with different transfers?
Uh oh. Based on recurrent video glitches, there's heavy theorizing over at Blu-Ray.com that these Blus are not actually newly remastered, but sourced from the 2004 masters.
http://forum.blu-ray.com/blu-ray-mov...011-a-849.html
http://forum.blu-ray.com/blu-ray-mov...011-a-849.html
For reviews once it was near release, a lot were positive, but those that dug into the video quality and compared it to the 2004 DVD noticed flaws almost right away:
Another review, far less positive. http://homecinema.thedigitalfix.com/...l-trilogy.html
http://homecinema.thedigitalfix.com/...l-trilogy.html
Star Wars, unfortunately, isn't the home run that it should be. The colour is still far too oversaturated, although the overall blue push of the DVD has been reigned in slightly and the blue haze around the Death Star explosion has been eradicated....
My biggest complaint is the frozen grain (typical of Lowry remasters) that pervades the early Tatooine scenes; it just hangs there in the sky, reacting only when something passes through it. It's not quite as laggy as some of the Lowry efforts I've seen, but the staccato movement of Threepio shuffling through the desert shows it up quite badly, akin to a force field following him around.
My biggest complaint is the frozen grain (typical of Lowry remasters) that pervades the early Tatooine scenes; it just hangs there in the sky, reacting only when something passes through it. It's not quite as laggy as some of the Lowry efforts I've seen, but the staccato movement of Threepio shuffling through the desert shows it up quite badly, akin to a force field following him around.
02-22-16, 06:47 AM
#4062
DVD Talk Legend
re: Star Wars
http://web.archive.org/web/200410160...owry/starwars/
To clean the films Lowry pushed high-definition scans of the original negatives provided by LucasFilm through his proprietary software running on 600 dual-processor Power Mac G5 computers, each with Mac OS X, 4 gigs of RAM and connected via gigabit Ethernet to a 378-terabyte storage array.
“We find that Macs hold up incredibly well, much better than PCs,” he says. “We put them in their own room with their own air-conditioning, as they generate a fair bit of heat.”
Lowry soon discovered that the project required fine-tuned programming as well as brute-strength processing. “We had to do some special work on these, actually build some different algorithms to try to deal with the incredible dirt levels and scratches. It was somewhat overwhelming.”
A tight release schedule compounded the problem. “They took about a month each,” he says.
But three months, says Lowry, “given the 600 Macs,” was all he needed: “We cleaned it up, matched scene to scene, sharpened it end-to-end, reduced the granularity and got rid of the flicker and all the wear-and-tear things. We ended up with something very nice. They look like new movies again.”
“We find that Macs hold up incredibly well, much better than PCs,” he says. “We put them in their own room with their own air-conditioning, as they generate a fair bit of heat.”
Lowry soon discovered that the project required fine-tuned programming as well as brute-strength processing. “We had to do some special work on these, actually build some different algorithms to try to deal with the incredible dirt levels and scratches. It was somewhat overwhelming.”
A tight release schedule compounded the problem. “They took about a month each,” he says.
But three months, says Lowry, “given the 600 Macs,” was all he needed: “We cleaned it up, matched scene to scene, sharpened it end-to-end, reduced the granularity and got rid of the flicker and all the wear-and-tear things. We ended up with something very nice. They look like new movies again.”
This post has a suggestion for why the schedule was so short:
http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread....8#post11124818
During post on Sith Lucas decided that the time was right to release the movies on DVD but he wanted them out before the new movie, which put a lot more pressure on the project and resulted in the unashamedly half-assed versions we got on DVD and latterly on Blu-ray.
This editorial suggests though that Lowry isn't responsible for all the issue with the transfers, specifically the color timing:
http://fd.noneinc.com/savestarwarsco...itionfail.html
. Lowry had little to do with the colouring of the films. At most, they may have eaten up some of starfields, but in my opinion that issue is simply due to the crushed black levels. You can also tell from before and after images that the colouring was unaffected--and also that the colouring issues were there when Lowry received the footage....
That this dimness is a problem throughout also shows that it wasn't Lowry overall who did this, but that it is stylistically part of the entire digital intermediate....
George Lucas personally supervised the colour timing himself from Skywalker Ranch, where it was performed in-house by ILM. A New Hope was also outsourced, and the footage was sent to Lucas for review, where he would give additional notes. Finally, the finished color-timing was screened for him for his ultimate approval. From here, the colour-corrected version was given to Lowry Digital Imaging for their dirt-removal, where Lucas again supervised, gave input and then approved of the total, finished product.
That this dimness is a problem throughout also shows that it wasn't Lowry overall who did this, but that it is stylistically part of the entire digital intermediate....
George Lucas personally supervised the colour timing himself from Skywalker Ranch, where it was performed in-house by ILM. A New Hope was also outsourced, and the footage was sent to Lucas for review, where he would give additional notes. Finally, the finished color-timing was screened for him for his ultimate approval. From here, the colour-corrected version was given to Lowry Digital Imaging for their dirt-removal, where Lucas again supervised, gave input and then approved of the total, finished product.
02-22-16, 09:15 AM
#4063
DVD Talk Legend
re: Star Wars
I just hope that if a new quality set is released, they include all the extras that are on the current saga BD box. Then we can dump it rather than having to the game of what discs to keep and not keep. Bad enough that I that it takes keeping some of the ancient DVD sets around because they lost some of those extras when making the saga BD set.
02-22-16, 09:38 AM
#4065
re: Star Wars
When the DVDs first came out in 2004, I seem to recall the initial reviews were fairly positive but still noting that there were issues.
When the Bluray set came out, I recall all the reviews were very positive and it's only in the past couple of years that people have been noticing the flaws. Are there different print runs out there with different transfers?
When the Bluray set came out, I recall all the reviews were very positive and it's only in the past couple of years that people have been noticing the flaws. Are there different print runs out there with different transfers?
02-22-16, 10:21 AM
#4066
DVD Talk Legend
re: Star Wars
It's because it was Star Wars on DVD and BD. People were going to be excited no matter what. Furthermore, the majority of reviewers out there on the internet (especially in 2004) don't really know what they're talking about. I don't say that to demean anyone specifically. It's just the reality. Even someone like Robert Harris (whose comments I value highly) has biases and gaps in his expertise that are fairly obvious to see if you follow his reviews. Unless there's a hint of teal or a few cropped pixels, most fans will praise something because the image "pops" and it looks better than whatever crummy vhs tape we'd all been watching for 25 years. The Lowry process and its automated grain removal was also pretty impressive in its day (if still somewhat lacking if you knew what to look for), especially for dvd, which couldn't really handle a grainy image that well. It seemed to magically make old movies look like they were filmed today. However, the improved codecs and increased resolution of BD (not to mention 4K) has changed our collective standards. What worked in 2004 doesn't work today. Especially when that 2004 work was a half-assed rush job.
02-22-16, 02:01 PM
#4068
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
02-22-16, 02:18 PM
#4069
re: Star Wars
TN1 already released a raw scan of Empire (which is in really rough shape) and Harmy recently put out a complete 35mm version of Jedi, which looks pretty nice, to go along with his newest despecialized version. So all 3 are out there. For my money though, unless you are really interested in that rough 35mm aesthetic, Harmy's blu-ray edits are still the way to go. Star Wars and Empire are both due updates, but are more than satisfactory until something better comes along. TN1 was going to put out an improved version of Star Wars in the near future, but have officially disbanded as of a couple of days ago due to some behind the scenes drama.
02-24-16, 11:13 PM
#4070
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
re: Star Wars
Lowry has stated that they had a tight release schedule, although they ultimately state that they had enough time:
http://web.archive.org/web/200410160...owry/starwars/
This post has a suggestion for why the schedule was so short:
http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread....8#post11124818
This editorial suggests though that Lowry isn't responsible for all the issue with the transfers, specifically the color timing:
http://fd.noneinc.com/savestarwarsco...itionfail.html
http://web.archive.org/web/200410160...owry/starwars/
This post has a suggestion for why the schedule was so short:
http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread....8#post11124818
This editorial suggests though that Lowry isn't responsible for all the issue with the transfers, specifically the color timing:
http://fd.noneinc.com/savestarwarsco...itionfail.html
TN1 already released a raw scan of Empire (which is in really rough shape) and Harmy recently put out a complete 35mm version of Jedi, which looks pretty nice, to go along with his newest despecialized version. So all 3 are out there. For my money though, unless you are really interested in that rough 35mm aesthetic, Harmy's blu-ray edits are still the way to go. Star Wars and Empire are both due updates, but are more than satisfactory until something better comes along. TN1 was going to put out an improved version of Star Wars in the near future, but have officially disbanded as of a couple of days ago due to some behind the scenes drama.
...
02-25-16, 10:57 AM
#4071
re: Star Wars
Eh. There are (multiple) far better restoration endeavors going on elsewhere. TN1 was kind of a weird and unstable situation from the beginning. They were just the most public project and the first to actually put something like this out into the wild. I have 100% faith that we will see something exponentially better (official or unofficial) in the next year or so.
02-29-16, 01:23 AM
#4072
DVD Talk Gold Edition
re: Star Wars
The 2.5 Jedi is good, I just don't know what he was thinking when he altered this shot
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1Q...FISk5Ma2xfQ293
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1Q...FISk5Ma2xfQ293
02-29-16, 06:35 AM
#4073
re: Star Wars
Harmy acknowledged that shot as being problematic and commented that trying to match it to the surrounding footage was the reason the Emperor's face is so dark.
02-29-16, 11:49 AM
#4075
DVD Talk Legend
re: Star Wars
The "official" versions of each are available as an MKV, AVCHD, or DVD5. The DVD5 isn't going to be over 4.7GB, the MKVs are around 20GB, and the AVCHD are around 8GB.
See info on these Google Docs
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...b5ryD4/preview
https://docs.google.com/document/u/1...h.lscnsvqtewg7
