Star Wars (1977) original Blu ray. Crappier than ever.

Excessive grain and noise? I don't think so. Your panel display may have improved by now. Worth another shot?

I'd like @Geoff D to comment on this. Sony may not be fully beyond reproach, but good lord, there are no studios doing catalog 4K releases as consistently well as Sony.

 

I do think so; both CE3K and Superman: The Movie looked, quite frankly, horrible on 4K UHD... neither were shot nor designed nor intended to be shown at such a high resolution when they were made, and that's the crucial factor that needs considering... both would have sufficed with brand new 1080p scans of the original camera negatives... 2160p was excessive for both films and the onscreen plague of locusts that resulted from which proves that point.

Just my own humble opinion, of course... but then I'm of the opinion that 4K is overrated in general... make of that what you will...

 

Hm. So 35mm film is low resolution? How do you think these looked when originally screened in Hollywood back in the day? The best prints? In small executive projection rooms? In the best theaters of the time?

These two have nothing in common since Superman was shot with panty hose over the lens. And the 4K release isn't Sony.

Close Encounters is unbelievably good. Our experiences are so dependent on set up. I feel that too many fail to accept that HDR can be challenging. Finally, there are optical elements to account for. It would stink if folks are avoiding this release!

 

The only place I read about some FX being redone/cleaned up in Close Encounters is here and here (the pics the poster sent links to are down).

 

Have been absent and then recovering from Formula One week-end, missed quite a bit.

The thing about the VFX and 2000+ that hasn't been answered, no-one is stating what percentage are 100% digital shots and which aren't and with regards to The Force Awakens we have in depth interviews with both VFX teams (on set and digital) and so it's surely incorrect to say "80% of the movie is uprezzed to 4K" if the on set VFX are being shot natively on whatever film JJ was using for that particular shot no? In which case, there is no rendering and/or processing required.

As for processing power, we've certainly vastly more than quadrupled the power and speed since 2008 right?

Thanks for venturing over from BD for this thread, haha.

 

Stabilizing shots and eliminating matte lines is standard stuff -- I don't consider that to be "redoing VFX." I did the same thing on Black Hole and didn't make a lot of noise about it, and Disney was appreciative. I had shots in where we had 6 or 7 tracking masks going on to try to get the entire shot to look consistent, but it's not changing the content... it's just improving what's already there.

A lens flare fix might just be a case of adjusting and optimizing levels, so that may not be a recomp or a fix in the way you describe. New video mastering adds (or subdues) contrast, changes color, fixes lighting problems... it's a lot of stuff, but I wouldn't call it "new VFX," not in the way of adding Jabba the Hut to Star Wars and all that crap. I routinely go in and fix lighting problems all the time to old movies, generally knocking down backgrounds to bring the actors up, or throwing more light on actors when they're clearly not matching shot to shot. That's Color 101. To me, all that is legit.

I have mixed feelings on redoing the composites, since you don't want a 1977 film to look as clean as a 2019 "digital" production. But a digital clean-up is not that bad. If anything, the worst problem with Close Encounters 4K HDR is the incredible amount of grain in that film. The Blu-ray is tolerable, but the increased brightness blew the grain all out of proportion to me.

 

Which blu ray? Any are terrible compared to the sublime Sony UHD. Your set up was likely the culprit. Why can't you have a pro calibrated reference panel?

 

I don't understand why some people dislike grain so much. I think that if it's in the source grain should remain on a premium format like UHD BD that tries to be as faithful to the source as possible.
No, wait, what am I saying? This make up on Faye Dunaway face on Network and Three Days Of The Condor looks date as well as her hair style, let's CGI them and make it look more contemporary!
Can't they leave "old" films alone and make them look the best they can without revisionism? Is it so hard? We have the tools and the delivery formats so people can see their all time favourite movies with almost theatre quality at home yet some are obssesed with overdo everything.
As much as I love Terminator 2 I'm not buying the travestry the current UHD BD is which I saw at a friend's. Yes, it's Cameron's movie and he hates grain, we both loose, I'm not buying and he's not getting any money from me.
I finished watching new Arrow's The Andromeda Strain BD this evening and I've never enjoyed it like today, grain paella-like picture and all.

 

I agree with you, I only posted this because what Geoff D said about FX being redone reminded me of what I'd read in the topic I've linked to

 

No, the increase in contrast in HDR makes the grain 10 times worse than it is at a normal level. The same transfer was released on Blu-ray, and it looks fine there at 100 nits; not so good at 600 nits. My take is everything needs grain management, so it's a question of occasionally using a little NR to even things out, but not take 100% of it away. There are ways to do it without any artifacts, but it just takes a lot of time and good judgement.

 

I can tell you how they didn't look on their theatrical release; for one, Superman: The Movie didn't look like it had been dropped in a vat of vasoline which is what the recent UHD release looked like at times (the 'Special Edition' DVD looked great!); and CE3K didn't look like a plague of locusts were having a convention onscreen which is what that film's UHD release looked like.

Not all 35mm-shot films are created equal and some simply don't suit a very high-resolution scan for several reasons.

Yep, what he said.

 

Gee, I thought this thread was about Star Wars....

 

I don't doubt of what you say but you must admit that this is also a matter of taste, I for example don't like tampering, the less the better. If that grain is in CEOT3K then let it stay. If you let grain stay on the UHD BD you can reduce it, most not to say all TV's and UHD BD players have some kind of noise reduction, sometimes more than one kind, these can be used to reduce grain. I have two UHD BD players, a Sony X-800 and a Panasonic DP-UB420 with the same video processing (HDR Optimizer included) than its bigger brothers. I haven't tried the noise reduction options on the Panasonic, I've seen it has several options, but the Sony X-800 has a great "random" (aka: grain) noise reduction that looks great, it has several levels of noise reduction (I think from 1 to 5, I'm writting from memory) and works great and it doesn't kill detail.
Also, if grain is enhanced because of the high contrast of HDR it's as easy as reducing contrast level on the TV or the UHD BD player.
I think keeping grain intact is the way to go and Sony made good judgement with CEOT3K at keeping it as is something that can be reduced, the opposite way, using Noise Management/Reduction is an irreversible process, once done, it can't be undone.
But let me tell you about the new Arrow's BD (aka: REC 709, no HDR) of The Andromeda Strain which I received yesterday, it has as much grain if not more than CEOT3K and we are talking SDR 100 nits here. The previous Universal BD pales in comparison. The new Arrow BD for The Andromeda Strain is sourced from the OCN scanned at 4K and then restored with a clean and dust and dirt free picture, it looks very detailed despite the heavy grain, it has a film-like look that I love. I want my movies from the 70's to look like movies from the 70's. With the oficial FOX Star Wars BD I see an overprocessed picture with a questionable color correction that looks nothing like a movie from the 70's. The 4K77 despite the use of a lesser source looks great with a more PLEASING (pleasing, I'm not saying accurate) color correction and when I play it I have the feeling of watching a movie from the 70's and that's exactely what I want.

 

I believe it's possible to deliver a "film-like" image with about 2/3 less visible grain. At some point, it's just an annoyance. It's the difference between minor tape hiss and bacon frying: I don't mind 10dB of tape hiss, but I have a problem with 40dB of tape hiss. These are all a question of judgement calls, and a lot of mastering boils down to just that.

People who are anti-processing (including noise-reduction and enhancement) often don't understand that we have a scale of 0-100: jamming it all the way up to 99 is never the right way to go. Sometimes 20 or 30 is fine and gets the worst of the noise out without killing all of it. We leave enough grain in to remind the viewer, "hey, this is shot on real film emulsion," but not so much that it looks like radiation damage. There's a balance that involves good taste and experience.

 

It's interesting to read all this technical information, clearly supplied by those with technical (and professional) expertise. For those wondering where the thread went, this discussion is absolutely relevant to issues of film preservation and restoration (particularly as regards Star Wars).

 

Especially in a thread with the premise of discussing the currently available official and unofficial restoration presentations.

 

I understand and 100 % respect what you say, it's just not the way I see and I'd do things.
As I said on my previous post not tampering with grain or tape hiss on the case of an audio recording is the way to go as it's a non destructive process. The use of digital grain management or tape hiss reduction like No-Noise are destructive and can not be undone.
You have CEOT3K on UHD BD and don't like grain? Use one of the multiple noise reduction options either on the player or the TV. As I said before the Random Noise Reduction feature on the Sony X-800 greatly reduces film grain and keeps picture resolution rather well, I think it's well implemented. I've tried it with CEOT3K UHD BD and it reduces film grain really well and respects picture definition quite well. The conclusion I get from this is to respect the grain on the source as it's a non destructive process and can be reduced for those who want it reduced. The other way around is destructive,once a UHD BD release has been de-grained it can not be recovered for those who look for a more film-like and full grain viewing experience.
I recently experienced something with a recording I really like that makes me upset, it's the E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial soundtrack released by La La Land as a 2-CD set. They transfered the original analogue multitrack tapes to 192/24 and Bruce Botnick himself remixed it to 192/24, restored it where necessary and remastered it himself.
It's a soundtrack I know very well and I have all the available releases and the new La La Land 2-CD set is by far the worst sounding of them all. Why? I think that Bruce Botnick used some kind of digital noise reduction to reduced tape hiss but he also killed low level detail. The 1996 remixed and remastered release despite using inferior digital equipment from the mid 1990's trounces the La La Land release which sounds flat, dull, lifeless and with a narrow soundstage. The 1996 remixed, remastered and expanded version and the 2002 20th Anniversary edition are the way to go, they have a fair amount of tape hiss (despite using Dolby A Noise Reduction) but they sound full, natural and with a wide soundstage. With these two releases for the ones who doesn't like tape hiss they just have to lower treble a little bit and that's it,most of tape hiss is gone but as they went with a non destructive mixing and mastering the full quality of the recording are there for those who want to appreciate it, tape hiss and all. Unlike the La La Land 2018 2 CD set that for me is a nice booklet with two coasters, trying to get a clean sound with no tape hiss they killed the sonic properties of the recording making it at least for me that I love (since I was 8 and I'm 45) and know this recording well unlistenable. They used a destructive process with no chance to recover the beutiful sound of this recording, they used digital noise reduction. Wouldn't it have been better to keep tape hiss intact and preserve the full quality of this recording thanks to the use of the latest digital technology unavailable both in 1996 and 2002 than the sonic mess they did with the used of digital noise reduction?
Fortunately I think no digital noise reduction was used on the latest remixed and remastered Star Wars soundtrack releases. I have both the CD's and 192/24 downloads and despite not being perfect I think because of the condition of some tapes, specially on The Empire Strikes Back, the rest of the set sounds nice. I specially like how the Star Wars (1977) remixed soundtrack sounds, I think it's the one they took more care with, it's more dinamic than the original release but it also has a sound clarity that the original release lacks, and guess what? Tape hiss is there.

 

It's a real-time process in a $5 chip. I'm talking about multiple processes in software that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars that takes a dozen or more hours to process in non-real time. Plus we have the ability to apply NR to just the highlights, just the mids, just the blacks, just to specific colors, to different parts of the screen, and we can choose more NR for shot #3 than shot #4, less NR for shots #5-#10, and no NR at all for shots #11-13. You see what I mean? It's an interactive process that requires judgement and experience. There is no one-size-fits-all setting that works throughout the entire project.

 

I know all that, I'm just stating that using digital grain reduction is like dinamic range compression, it's a destructive process, once done it can't be undone. I prefer the less tampering the better, for me Close Encounter Of The Third Kind, Superman The Movie or Starship Troopers UHD BD's or the new Arrow The Andromeda Strain BD are the way I like to see movies. As I said earlier on the thread if one wants to reduce grain one can decrease contrast, use the player's or TV's DNR that I know are cheap a solution and not as sofisticated as custom tools you use on mastering suites, but I also doubt that people that want their movies de-grained are discerning viewers that can appreciate a custom studio de-grain job from using the DNR tools on players and TV's.

 

"Finally, I’m mentioning this today in a sort of “just leaving this here” kind of way... but Lucasfilm just allowed The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to show (on 6/29) a 70 mm print of the original version of Star Wars in a double feature with Rogue One. As in the ORIGINAL original version, with Episode IV in front of the crawl but otherwise unmolested by special edition changes. Yes, you read that right. I’ve heard through the grapevine that George Lucas personally gave the okay for it. What else this might import, I would not yet dare to say. But I hear from friends that the screening was every bit as awesome as you’d expect."

Star Wars and Rogue One

 

I hope they showed Rogue One first!

 

I hope Han shot first!

 

Original 70mm print showing is one thing (or was it a new print?)... brand new remaster and Blu-ray reissue is another thing entirely...

 

weelllllllll technically Greedo didn't shoot at all, so the "first" part can go