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378 Terabytes Of Star Wars on 600 G5s
Mrbill points to this USA Today story on the
digital makeover given to the original Star Wars trilogy, noting that the digitized films have also been converted to HD for later release as high-definition DVDs.
... Lucas to digitally remaster the Star Wars Kid in all his iterations, and sell them on DVD for $50.
But I won't by it until the "Special Edition" comes out in 6 months!
You can now watch your childhood dreams get stomped on ... in HIGH DEFINITION!
Of course. Release the DVDs now. Special edition DVDs next year. Limited Edition DVDs the year after that. Then redo the whole cycle again on high definition DVDs, making it so that people have to buy the trilogy six times, spending a couple hundred bucks.
Well, at least they're not releasing them both individually and as a set with different special features. That would double the number of times it will be released.
...I really hope George Lucas wasn't inspired by my above comment.
Anyone got a torrent?
Kill, Tux, kill!
Its nice to see that we're finally getting the original 3 films on DVD... it does piss me off a bit that Lucas seems to do everything he can to ear a few more bucks... first we'll redo them and release them in to different VHS boxed sets. Wait a few years, now we'll do them on DVD. Wait a few years, now we'll release the HD versions.
Though I guess if consumers keep buying them, then you can't really blame Lucas too much.
Can someone in the know please answer these questions?
1. When the much hated special editions were released, were the originals digitized and altered then reprinted?
2. Is the stock that this company used the original, originals? Meaning that when lucas got the cleaned-up digitized versions he had to go back and redo all the SE stuff?
finally
3. Does this give hope to the idea there might someday be a Highdefinition original cut version of the films?
Thanks in advance!
Scratches and loss of color is not the only degredation to SW that seems to have developed over time. A copy I watched recently seemed to have developed small cute computer animated characters that detracted from the development of suspense in the film..
Why exactly did it need to be restored again anyways? I mean, wasn't it restored for the THX video re-releases a decade ago and further restored for the theatrical re-releases with new scenes?
If they could only digitally remaster Lucas to restore him to his original 1970's form. I'd pay 70 bucks for that.
The office has 80 employees, running 600 networked Power Mac G5. Assuming no bulk discounts, that's about $1.8 million total, or $22,500 per employee. I wish I worked for a company with those resources. Any chance they're running Seti@home when not working on any projects? ;-)
So that's how Lucas intends to discourage piracy.
I have to hand it to him; Between not having enough space and bandwidth, and not wanting to see how he's butchered Star Wars this time, I don't think I would bother trying to share the 378TB of video.
I tip my pirate hat to you. Arr.
Can somebody just post a link to the torrent?
I have been refusing to give any more money to Lucas, be it the new DVDs or Episode III, but the commercials for the trilogy DVDs almost (ALMOST!) changed my mind) they change is very apparent, even if you've watched the LDs or especially on cable. All three films look much crisper and brighter - I almost thought for a second that Lucas had added some new stuff.
I still won't be buying the trilogy, but I'm amazed at how good the restoration looks.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Note: The article summary is misleading. While the 'original' (Han shoots first) prints may have been restored by this company, this is not the print that will be on the DVD. Lucas is not releasing the original trilogy, only the special edition
Like honestly, I understand keeping with the original, but in retrospect if you really wanted the true triology, you would pull out your VHS tapes, and watch it into oblivion. When you put in a dvd that is low-quality, poor sound, yeah the novelty will be pretty cool, and the story carries it, but it would get old fast. In comparison to everything we have now, the late 1970's were not known for their technological feats. And while I would rather him not add the extra scenes to the movie, the fact that he remastered the audio, and is hidef'ing the video is a plus. Basically its either original and crappy, or hidef sweetness and alterations.
je suis parce que j'aime
So now that it's been restored 3 times, had scenes added once and re-edited twice, how many re-releases do you think it will take before it contains no shred of the original film and it becomes a romantic comedy set in a hospital?
"Go for it George Lucas. Ruin all of your movies. "
Empire Strikes back, despite being 'special', is still entertaining.
Though I agree with the sentiment, we've been around this block a million times. Don't buy it. Let the people who do enjoy it. In the mean time, let's talk about something a little more up-beat:
- Lots of people were employed to work on this.
- The technology and experience will help ILM make better effects for upcoming movies.
- SW in HD will hopefully make broad adoption of higher-resolution DVD players an easier transition.
- Just the number '378 Terabytes' is enough to cause underwear tents to rise all over the Slashdot population.
"Derp de derp."
So does being done on Apple G5's constitute a washing away of all of lucas' sins, or will they have to burn the hardware in order to keep the contamination from spreding???
You need a FREE iPod Nano
So the question I've been dying to find out from all the high def zealots out there is... does making a high definition recording of something originally recorded in some other definition (in this case celluloid) going to look "better"? It's been my experience dealing with image processing of "analog" imagery that the higher up in resolution you go, the more "anomolies" can be detected...i.e. there is only so much you can do with the original baseline, and going up in resolution requires huge amounts of post processing to clean up those anomolies. AAANNND the final product is still limited by the originals. So even if we get more lines of resolution from the celluloid, the celluloid is still the limit on how good you can go. So will high def DVD STAR WARS look better than standard DVD STAR WARS. Probably, but not any better than the original and not THAT much better than standard DVD. I think the movie industry (and music too) have lost the fact that we aren't clamoring for higer resolutions of our recorded media, we just want ones that don't wear out. That's why I think SACD and DVD-A haven't taken off.
Dear George,
Could you please stop using our computers? You are lame. We are leet.
Thanks.
Steve
I bet if the restoration was done on a beowulf cluster of old amigas running Linux, everyone would start saying Greedo shooting first was the best thing that ever happened to the trilogy...
(Holy Karma-Risk Batman!)
There are two kinds of fool. One says, This is old, and therefore good. And one says, This is new, and therefore better.
People keep complaining that Lucas keeps re-releasing the trilogy over and over to milk the populace of their money, and while I do agree that changing the movies is a cardinal sin, I think it's great that he keeps putting out improved versions of the movies.
Would you honestly prefer that he not release these movies on DVD or HDDVD and instead wait 15 more years for Super-Uber-HDDVD? I mean, that way he couldn't be accused of milking us right?
In fact what does piss me off is that he waited all this time to release these on DVD -- he should have done this sooner!
This is a somewhat biased point of view from someone who saw the first film on the Friday of the week it opened, and several times in the same theater after that, where it ran for a full year! And I compare it with seeing "episode 1", which made such an impression that I refuse to ever watch episodes 2 or 3.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
virtually guaranteeing that the Hans/Greedo controversy will continue. At this rate, soon Hans will not have even shot Greedo. It will turn out that due to a high fat diet and sedentary life-style befitting a rich assasin, Greedo's arteries were clogged full of cholesterol. Hans didn't shoot Greedo, he was dead before he hit the table!!
My other computer is a Jacquard loom.
1) Lucas is a money-grubbing third-rate director.
2) Can they wipe out Jar-Jar?
3) Jar-Jar is not in these episodes, you moron.
4) Who you calling a moron? Lucas is a money-grubbing moron.
5) Why are they doing it on Macs when it is cheaper to do it on Linux?
6) No, it's not. Look at Virginia Tech.
7) Teh MACS suck.
8) Nope, you idiot, M$ sucks.
9) You are all idiots, Lucas sucks.
Nothing else to see here. Move along now.
[Jedi mind-trick a-la Obi Wan]
These aren't the films we're looking for
[/jedi mind trick]
I am the maverick of Slashdot
....how would Star Wars fans (I'm not one) feel about an entire new reshoot of the film (assuming original script)?
Maybe Luke would turn out less of an annoying brat this time, or is that one of the central plot themes?
CGI Yoda?
Bullet-time fight sequences?
I'm still far, far happier with my little cardboard box containing a digitally remastered but unaltered Star Wars Trilogy on VHS tapes.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
And the newly enhanced, more humane Stormtroopers will all carry flashlights instead of blasters.
> Go for it George Lucas. Ruin all of your movies.
Howard The Duck, Special Edition!
(although he only produced that, so Maybe...)
Ewoks! Special Edition: Caravan of High-Definition Courage
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
Ian Caven is a regular member of the Vancouver Python User's Group and he spoke about this amazing system at our conference a month ago.
One intersting bit is that the vast majority of this system is written in Python using numpy. Ian says "he doesn't know how they would have done it" otherwise. C is used for the inner loops but Python does the majority of the algorithmic stuff that makes one image processing job (e.g. removing dust) different from another (e.g. correcting for film degradation). Python also manages all of the distributed processing.
Another interesting bit is that they are using Python, Zope and HTTP to make a virtual file system for managing the frames and movies. This will help with the storage management problems that arise from working with such massive files.
There are other amazing facts but it is hard to know which are competitive secrets that are better not divulged. One hint I'll give is that the productivity of the programmers at this company would shock you. They've obviously benefitted from building on a very high-level language and they also have some very sharp tools they've built themselves to make these amazing jobs possible.
I saw a fireman once.... That's the closest to my childhood dream.
"This is you left and that's your left. This is your right and that's your right. You're gonna die!
Then I wonder why they credit a special effects person?
Not to take away from the intent of your post. But I think there are levels of effects technology, and levels of the audience's saturation thereof. Groundbreaking effects years ago, the ones that really made us think "how'd they do that an make it look so real", really come apart at the seams 20 years later. Look at Star Wars, or Terminator 2, or the Matrix. In their day, they were at the tops of their games. But the cost of those effects has come down, and they've become commonplace.
While I agree effects should be secondary to the story, I think the real talent is in creating effects that are as realistic as possible, so that the audience doesn't question what they're seeing, and can get swept up in the story. That's probably why there was an effects guy on Shawshank, and why you didn't notice him... he did his job well.
This sig intentionally left justified.
Just shut the fuck up. Please? They're movies, for fuck's sake. Some of us enjoy them and would like to continue doing so without you and your gloomy band of whiners coming along to piss in the pool. I love the original movies too. I've watched them more times than I can count and can recite my favorite lines, but it's not my religion. I cannot relate to you whiners who consider these films to be some cornerstone of your existence. I wish you would all just fuck off and stop spazzing out every time the words Star Wars flash in front of your face.
There... much better. Now on with the comment.
They were part of my childhood too, but I had lots and lots of other great things in my childhood that had nothing to do with Lucasfilm Ltd. so even if Lucas decided to replace the characters in films with Looney Tunes animations, it wouldn't really make that big a dent in my life. If Lucas wants to futz around with the originals to make them his ultimate vision, then more power to him. Yeah, it sucks a little because it drills a little hole in that precious bag of nostalgia that we carry around, but in the end, is it really that big a deal?
Seriously? Did you really feel the need to scream rape of your childhood like that?
Get over it. Quick. And please stop drawing attention to yourself every time you feel your precious youth has been violated by a fucking movie. It gets tiresome REAL quick.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
I love how we all just overreact and start making Lucas out to be the evil villain here by assuming everything he says or does must be wrong.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
I first saw the unedited, original cut of Star Wars in late 1976, when it consisted of the original reels fresh out of the cameras from the various sets. That was the best version - the definitive version.. I mean, Han shot Gredo fifteen times in subsequent takes.
Damn you to hell, George, for cutting that original 52 hour uncut version! What were you thinking, you butcher!?? Do you think you had the right to cut and change things AFTER THEY WERE FILMED? It's almost as if you had something else in your head about what the films should be, and when the filmed material didn't suit, you cut it and changed it, you bastard, until they fit what you wanted.. how could you? Who do you think you are?
So, I'll be hanging on to my 27 reels of original film, and ignore some new version that's been changed by some idiot who really had nothing to do with the films at all..
Why for the love of whatever god you pray to, if any, do you feel the constant desire to further destroy this set of films?
Did your read the article? "Even though the original film elements of the three movies have spent most of their time resting in vaults, they had gathered wear and tear that would have been noticeable had they been transferred, as is, straight to DVD." ""They have been printed more often and been duplicated more often, and each of those passes adds scuffs, dirt, scratches and the like."
Are you such a damn purist that you love every scratch on the film? And if so, do you love them all or only the ones that were put on before the original theatrical release or perhaps the ones that occurred only during the 70s and 80s but not 90s?
I don't think he's running out... but I think he does like the cash. Also there has to be some kind of perverted satisfaction with altering his successful work from 1977 and replacing it with a sweaty, crude, and mismatched looking set of special effects and previously deleted scenes that should have stayed on the cutting room floor.
I'm more concerned about his plans for a TV series and for more movies. Although, looking at it another way, TV is way too small for Lucas to directly intefere with as he does with the movies. For that reason, it's quite likely the TV series could be pure gold - with quality actors being allowed to act properly, something noticeably missing from the prequels.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
If whoever had RTFA correctly they would have noticed that it did *not say the new star wars was 378TBs but instead said that in total that is what all the Mac workstations can hold. Conclusion - New Star Wars 378TB
Indeed, but special effects done with vision and detail last for a long time. I'm taking 2001: A Space Odyssey as possibly the only valid example of this. I can watch the film now, almost 40 years later and still believe that it's real. The stewardess rescuing Floyd's wayward pen in zero-g and returning it to his pocket still astounds me, the way that shot is done so very deliberately and in slow, careful detail so as to compel the audience to watch rather than get it out of the way quickly with a sleight of hand distraction trick.
--is not to be confused with user #672982 - Bame Flait
Secondly I'm pretty sure DVD media degrades from bacteria slower than film degrades from sitting around in cans.
Well I guess you are talking about real DVD not DVD-R which seems to degrage themselves faster than bacterias can do. However in the digital archival process saving the media is only one part of the problem and you also have to deal with: being able to do something with the media. If you find a 100 years old film sitting in an attic you'll be able to watch it pretty easily while I doubt you'll be able to do anything beside a decorative object of a 8" floppy disk, a 2" video tape or a vintage computer tape reel. So how will it be for a DVD 50 years from now?
Another interesting point of the interview is the constreversy about the fidelity of the digitized version. Even Lowry admit that he could do a better restoration of Citizen Kane now that he has done a few years ago. Now if the digitized master has to become the "original" how could new improvments in film restoration technology applied again?
Oh my god, that must be real high definition!!
But why the heck do you need 600 G5s to view it?
This "locking viewers in with Apple hardware" bullshit must go!
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I just saw the restored (and enhanced) version of THX1138 at the theater and I was pretty impressed. It looked like the film was done yesterday.
The enhancements are questionable, but the restoration process worked wonderfuly. The newer process Lowry uses is able to keep some "grain" in the film depending on how much the director wants.
It did not have the "hard" look of a digital film.
I mean, doesn't anyone else here see what Lucas is doing? He's not stomping on your childhood dreams...it's pure marketing genius. Remeber back when Coke said it was changing the recipe for Coca-Cola? Their sales went through the roof for the ORIGINAL coke!
He's releasing the "Special Editions" now. He'll make the money off of them...let them stay out there for like a year or two. THEN it will be get the entire box set of Episodes 1-6 that will set you back like $150...let that stay out there a few years until they don't sell anymore.
Then around 6 years from now or so, the Original 3 movies with no changes at all...the ones that were released starting back in 1977 will be a box set. There's certainly a market for this now and everyone that's bitching and moaning will snatch it up!
Lucas won't be laughing all the way to the bank btw...he'll just install a bank at Skywalker Ranch and be done with it.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
stating that every time someone comes out with a re-release of a classic work, they have to include in it the South Park episode where the boys try to stop George Lucas and Steven Speilberg from ruining classic films by trying to "enhance" them. Maybe they could learn a lesson from that :P
Monstar L
There is one silver lining to the new super- duper- special- editions coming out on DVD:
It is only a matter of time before an enterprising team of audiovisual specialists takes the DVD content and edits it to re-insert the original footage (as was done with Episode I to get rid of Jar Jar). There are thousands of people with the skills and technology to do this, and given the historical importance of the originals (they won Oscars!) deserve nothing less.
Alternatively, I wonder how much of a donations fund could be set up somewhere, with the full proceeds going to the first Lucasfilm employee (who would then be an ex-Lucasfilm employee) who uploads the cleaned up, ORIGINAL DVD masters to the internet for people to convert to DVD. It might be interesting to see how much money could be raised to do such a thing.
So, if any Lucasfilm employee wants to become an instant millionaire, here's your chance to nominate a price at which you will upload the cleaned up, original trilogy (which are dead according to Lucas) for the world to turn into proper, ORIGINAL TRILOGY DVDs.
Visceral Psyche Films
Just get the Asian version of the DVDs of the original series (not SE) and be done with it. Sure, the picture quality isn't as good, but Greedo doesn't shoot first (or "almost simaltaneously" or whatever he does in this new DVD version).
I saw your sig and had to post. The power of my UID compels me.
Just wait for the sexology (that's like trilogy but with 6, right?) to come out on a single disc on blu-ray, and save your groats till then.
Nothing costs nothing
You know, as a Star Wars fan I tend to dislike some of the changes made in the SE of the original series. So people even go as far as to say that Lucas butchered the series. I don't really see how this could be considered butchering the series. If you enjoyed the movies in their original form, you should still be able to enjoy them now. The core of the movies remains untouched, and only a few scenes had small alterations. Star Wars is still great in my mind, it still has a great story, battles that were way before its time, and an engulfing universe that continues to be expanded today. If a few changes ruined the movies for you, then you must not have enjoyed them that much in the first place.
SIGFAULT
I don't think I'll notice the cleans ups or anything - I'm 25 years older also and can't remember what had I had for lunch yesterday.
Really.
Both editions should be available, though, for those whose fanaticism is more religious than mine. That is, if LucasFilm even bothered saving a digital version of the original print during the Special Edition restoration.
Well one could ease his or her conscience by recognizing that one can not actually buy these movies anymore, in any format. Even in music school we were allowed to photocopy music that was out of print. ;-)
For example if I take pictures with a 2 Megapixel camera, then san the images at some insane resolution, they're still crappy photos.
I boycott signatures
Is there no shame left?
No, but only in the sense that every single slashdotter who reads your post has bought essentially the same movie 5 times over. I'd say that after paying for the same flick 4 or 5 times a little fair use is in order?
Just to piss you off more, here's some more delicious fair use "piracy"
Uh, no.
The original print is analog film, which can be a resolved to about 5000dpi -- many more pixels per frame than required for High Def.
The problem is that the scan is filled with huge artifacts (scratches dirt and dust), and this guy has cleaned up the digital scan to deal with that.
Nice article. But nothing new.
If you are interested in reading more on how the experts restore old stock then you can't do better than visit the 'Doctor Who Restoration' web site.
These bunch of guys have to restore awful video and film masters from the sixties.
http://www.restoration-team.co.uk/
Look up in the DVD releases section:
'Lost in Time' or the detailed 'The Seeds of Death' article.
They have before and after examples that will blow your mind!
Stuart http://stuarthalliday.com/
George Lucas said this was the movie he wanted to make.
No, he made the movie he wanted to make, he's changing it to be the movie he would want to make now.
Look at the side by side comparison of the additional changes from 1997. Do you really believe they didn't have the technology to realise his vision to shave off people's eyebrows 20 years ago? Or is it that his vision has changed since then?
Why are you guys bitching that he's stomping on your childhood when you're stomping on his vision?
There wouldn't be a problem if he released both versions and let money do the talking. People aren't stomping on his vision, we bitch because he's not giving us what we want: his original vision. Not his revised vision after 20 years and tons of money and power. A youg man's vision is different from the vision of an old guy with his own firetruck.
So what if Greedo shoots first?
He's four feet away! How incompetant can you be? He misses a sitting target 4ft away from him. This is what Jaba hires as muscle? Ooooo, I'm so scared.
That Jabba must be one hell of a looser then. Hey, what's this, a scene with Jabba. He lets people litterally walk all over him! Oh, big scary mobster! I'm shaking in my boots.
In the original, Jabba is an unseen mobster who's henchmen are beast dealt with by shooting them in cold blood and getting the hell away from the planet. In the revised edition, he's some 2 bit slug with the worst henchmen half a sandwich can buy.
You can't take the sky from me...