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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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
"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."
You know what? I'm sick of listening to people bitch about George Lucas bilking the fan-base with multiple releases. Its not like George is up at Skywalker Ranch snorting his wealth up his nose like most of Hollywood. The man spends his money on making the "film" process better. Look at what ILM has done for films since 1977. How about THX sound? Yeah, thank George Lucas for that. He'll also be one of the reasons why movies will eventually been shown at the theatres in digital form. At such time, it won't matter if you go to the theatre on opening night or two weeks later, the "film" will look the same. No "cigarette burns," vertical strip lines, or any other glaring issues with the projection will you ever deal with again.
Now compare that to say, MGM, with multiple releases of the James Bond series. Are they getting any better? Not really. Where's the MGM profits going to? Bankrolling sequels to "Legally Blonde"? Yeah, Lucas really bilks us cinema fans alright.
Go back to bitching about Greedo shooting first. At least that's a valid criticism.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
You want the original films? These are not the films your looking for.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Its nice to see that we're finally getting the original 3 films on DVD
We certainly are not.
You people are getting something very close to it though. With a few inane and useless change here and there. The orihinal, these are not.
You can't take the sky from me...
Star Wars, terrabytes, and lots of G5s, all posted on /.
the porn sites are going to have a bad day today
-- james
If you want to see what real bilking is all about, take a look at the various versions/packaging of the Die Hard series. Or, how about the hosing taken by those who bought the South Park discs with four episodes a piece while the series is now being released season by season with more extras. In the "for kids" category it gets even worse with shows like Justice League and X-Men released in multiple un-numbered editions only to be collected in yet another edition - at particularly high risk for accidental re-buys since often the parents don't even pay much attention to the cartoons.
In short, George Lucas is NOT a multiple-release offender except in the imagination of those projecting his future actions. Of course, I don't think taking advantage of new technology (such as HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, etc.) even counts - it would be like complaining that since Star Wars is out on VHS, there's no reason to buy the DVDs (there are other content reasons not to buy the DVDs but that's a different discussion entirely).
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.
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."
Well, I figure that by the time that anyone's finished downloading it, 500TB hard drives will be the norm.
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 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
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
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/