by canofhumdingers » Fri Jun 10, 2011 8:16 pm
I just saw the most amazing thing. I know I've mentioned originaltrilogy.com and the efforts of its members to preserve and restore the original versions of the Star Wars Trilogy, since George Lucas is too stubborn...
Well, a new restoration was just released called the STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD. That's right, HD as in Hi Definition.... And you can actually make what's called an AVCHD disc on a dual layer DVD-R with a standard dvd burner which can then be played in standalone bluray players (such as the PS3, which is what I use) like it was an actual bluray. All I can say is this is absolutely astounding. It's been cobbled together from numerous sources, the primary of which is a capture of the HD tv broadcasts on cable of the current version of the trilogy. It's been heavily color corrected and had all the SE changes removed and changed back to the original version using the best source possible. Now, alot of the original footage that was put back in had to be pulled from SD sources, but the guy did such a fantastic job that it actually blends really well. I mean, you can spot it if you're looking for it, but it doesn't jump out at you in distracting fashion. At its worst, it's really no more obtrusive than a reel change on an older film print. At it's best you'll never even realize it's from an SD source (seriously, some of it's THAT good). There are still some minor nits to pick (Ben & Vader's lightsabers are still the SE versions, which are significantly different than the original versions, in their duel on the Death Star) but over all it's really just incredible work.
If you want to see screencaps with before & after as well as explanations of how this was achieved, .
I think that's probably all I can say about it without violating board rules, so if you want to know more, you'll have to use your deductive reasoning skills to figure out where to go....