Star Wars III on HD HBO

[Zookster]

I emailed HBO yesterday to congratualate them on broadcasting it OAR... I haven't unwrapped the plastic on my DVD version I bought a few months ago. Is the second disk worth it, or should I sell? I am a little curious, however, to see how the DD EX sound would be compared to HBO's 5.1 DD.

 

[M Sparks]

You can't really see how much it sucks in Pan & Scan SD. Lucas packs a lot of suck in every corner of every frame. And in HD, you can see some of the poor performances in the background, instead of just the uncomfortable lead actors.

Plus, that "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" scene sounds so much stupider in 5.1.

 

[lakebum431]

Wow, that is pretty harsh. I actually really enjoyed Episode III. It was by far the best of the last (first) 3 movies.

 

[Brewer4]

I watched last night too. Saw the scenes jumps (D* version). Looked great but the dialogue is soooo bad. I too enjoyed the movie but that was some of the corniest, clunkiest actor interactions I have seen. Take away the special effects, costumes and some of the story (Star Wars is a good story), and thats a really bad movie. A few actors and bad dialogue tries to ruin it. I just think it could have been better with someone like Peter Jackson helping the script.

 

[M Sparks]

Wow, that is pretty harsh. I actually really enjoyed Episode III. It was by far the best of the last (first) 3 movies.

Well, yeah, it's far better than Episode I, but that means nothing. I didn't see Episode II, but my wife liked it OK. She made me go see Episode III and we both thought it was pretty dull. It wouldn't have been so bad if the kid who plays Anakin wasn't so awful.

I was just making a little social commentary...20 posts about how great the technical quality was and no one really said anything about enjoying it until you.

I was excited to see that the original trilogy is finally being released on DVD (NOT the 'special' editions). BUT (if the rumors hold true), they are using the laserdisc masters...which means it won't be anamorphic. So now, my choices are my original VHS copies, "zoomed in" DVD, or Greedo shooting first. Yeah, the 'special' editions would be better quality, but it's not worth the mental aggravation to me to buy them.

Give me a buzz if HBO schedules the original Empire Strikes Back in OAR HD, and THEN I'll get excited.

 

[Kaydigi]

I watched last night too. Saw the scenes jumps (D* version). Looked great but the dialogue is soooo bad. I too enjoyed the movie but that was some of the corniest, clunkiest actor interactions I have seen. Take away the special effects, costumes and some of the story (Star Wars is a good story), and thats a really bad movie. A few actors and bad dialogue tries to ruin it. I just think it could have been better with someone like Peter Jackson helping the script.

You don't have to take anything away, it's a terrible movie. "Anakin, you're breaking my heart" (sobs). I nearly burst out in laughter while seeing this in the movie theater.

The Clone Wars cartoon is vastly superior to prequal trilogy.

 

[M Sparks]

I just think it could have been better with someone like Peter Jackson helping the script.

It's no coincidence that the less Lucas has to do with a Star Wars movie, the better it is.

"Empire" is nearly universally considered the best of the 6...Directed by Irvin Kershner and co- written by Lawrence Kasden and Leigh Brackett. (Leigh wrote a lot of John Wayne movies, and Kesden wrote Raiders, Body Heat, and The Big Chill.)

I personally would put "Jedi" second...Directed by Richard Marquand & co-written by Lawrence Kasden and George Lucas.

Then you have the original "Star Wars"...written and directed by a young, relatively uncorrupted Lucas that probably still lived in the real world.

I didn't see it, but my wife would put "Episode II" next...Directed by Lucas, but co-written with Jonathan Hales. (A 65 year old man with exactly 1 other motion picture screenwriting credit 22 years earlier.)

"Episode III" was ALL Lucas. A fluke, I guess,because it's slightly better than...

..."The Star Wars Holiday Special"- Lucas co-wrote with Bruce Vilanch and Pat Proft. (Pat wrote Police Academy!), and it was directed by a guy who does a lot of "_______ On Ice" TV specials.

And then 5 circles of hell below that is Episode I

 

[BasicBlak]

When I began to watch Star Wars on my 211, it started off in Dolby 5.1 then became standard stereo.

Did this happen to anybody else?

I don't know if its DISH, the 211, or my Yamaha amp.

PQ and 5.1 audio was flawless on my well-broken-in 811. Quite possibly a 211 issue...which worries me, as I'm contemplating an upgrade and I hear both the 211 & 622 can get a lil' hinky at times.

 

[BasicBlak]

I was excited to see that the original trilogy is finally being released on DVD (NOT the 'special' editions). BUT (if the rumors hold true), they are using the laserdisc masters...which means it won't be anamorphic.

I'm afraid it isn't a rumor...consider it fact. Lucasfilm itself has officially announced that the Original Trilogy will be released unaltered AND unprocessed as mere bonus features of the special editions. Kinda sucks, frankly. No sense in me investing in a laserdisc master on DVD when I already own the actual '93 LD box set fed thru an iScan Pro 480p upconverter. It's not anamorphic DVD, naturally...but it's a damn great picture on my 720p DLP set and will more than suffice under the circumstances. Kinda ridiculous our making Lucas any richer than he already is if he doesn't give a crap enough about his fan base to provide the industry-wide minimal standard of anamorphic processing, "bonus" feature or not.

 

[BasicBlak]

It's no coincidence that the less Lucas has to do with a Star Wars movie, the better it is. ...And then 5 circles of hell below that is Episode I

*LMAO!!!!* Couldn't agree more, Sparks!:clap

 

[Purogamer]

Episode III was way overhyped, it wasn't that good. Episode II was better...

King Kong wasn't much better, so don't drag peter jackson into this just yet...

Ya know, just when lucas makes it look like he's giving us what we want, he screws us again. The guy is going to get killed if he keeps this up.

 

[M Sparks]

King Kong wasn't much better, so don't drag peter jackson into this just yet...

I think he meant the guy who made "Meet The Feebles", "Braindead" ,"Forgotten Silver", ect. That guy's a genius.
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Wait...it's the same Peter Jackson? No freakin' way!

 

[Tom Bombadil]

I agree whole-heartedly with M Sparks rankings of the Star Wars movies.

As to the poster with the upconverting Pioneer DVD player, sure many player upconvert, but they "invent / repeat" information. All a DVD provides is 480i. An upconverter is line doubling and then extrapolating information to push it to 720p. But there is no more real digital information there than a 480i source.

True 720p and 1080i provide far, far more digital information. Although you certainly aren't going to get all of original information from E*'s compressed transmission. But a true 1920x1080i @ 15MB/s image should look much sharper on a good HDTV set than a typical 720x480 @ 6MB/s DVD (and many DVDs are only 4-5MB/s).

If they didn't then D* and E* shouldn't worry about even bothering with 1280x1080i HD Lite. Just put all of the HD channels into 720x480 @ 6MB/s and upconvert them with the receivers.

 

[M Sparks]

Just put all of the HD channels into 720x480 @ 6MB/s and upconvert them with the receivers.

Boy, I wish they would do that with the SD channels!

 

[M Sparks]

(and many DVDs are only 4-5MB/s).

Yeah, my new DVD player can display realtime bitrates, and I was shocked at how low some movies were. (I know that's a common feature, but I had an ancient JVC until recently.) I think a lot of people have no clue at how much more quality DVDs are capable of.

The broadcast outlets around here were still requiring commercial spots to be delivered on Betacam tapes until recently. I finally convinced them to install $50 DVD players. I encode the spots at CBR 9mbs and they are almost indistinguishable from the masters, and much better than Betacam.

Again, this is why I'm more of a realist when it comes to HD-Lite. DVDs get compressed to less than half their potential quality. DBS has been crushing SD channels to almost unrecognizable levels for years. OTA-HD...which has the highest potential for quality...gets smushed to make room for 24 hour weather channels. I'm not happy about HD-Lite, but I'm not surprised.

 

[dfergie]

I will have to compare the bitrate I got from the Replay Clips vs the Dvd when I am off Friday...

Worked today but comparing bit rates the Replay version actually has higher bitrate... ranging from 5.88 to 10.20 in the fight scene in the chancellors office where the dvd ranged from about 5.66 to 8.60...

 

[Tom Bombadil]

We can still hope that HD DVD and/or Blu-Ray commercially recorded DVDs will have high bit-rates. Or at least some company markets a SuperBit equivalent in those formats.

I have a couple of DVDs where the bitrates are around 2.5

 

[dfergie]

Repeat in 3 minutes... on HBO

 

[tonyp56]

Watching something in OAR, when your display device is not the same aspect ratio, does nothing to give you more picture! You are not gaining anything except cutting the tops of peoples heads and sides of the image off. Along with the bottom of the picture. If you dont' believe this, watch a DVD that has both 2.35:1 and 1.78:1 (somewhat 1.85:1 too) aspect ratio on the same disk. Pay attention to certain scenes, and you will see that you are losing parts of the picture when you watch 2.35:1. When you display something that is in the wrong aspect ratio, your TV, STB, DVD player, etc. has to "fit" it onto your screen the best that it can, and that is why you get bars, and even though you can't see them, side edges are cut off too.

If you don't believe me, test it, check it out, but don't tell me it doesn't happen. Better yet, use Windows Media player to play a DVD on your computer, and while it is playing change the dimmensions of the player. If you stretch it horrizonally, you will see that the top and bottom close (black bars on top and bottom), if you stretch it vertically, you will see that the sides close (black side bars). And if you had that ability on your TV it would be a different story, but you don't you have a fixed size, and fixed position that you can't change. Therefore your TV, DVD player, and/or STB is having to get as much info on the screen and most of the time cuts part of it off just to get it on the screen.

If you want to watch stuff in OAR, you will have to get a display capable of OAR for anything above 1.85:1. 16x9 is not going to display something OAR that is in 2.35:1, I don't care how much you think it will. I don't like watching stuff in "widescreen" because it just doesn't look right on my screen. It wasn't meant for my 16 X 9 TV, it was meant for the theaters, and it will not look right on my 16x9 TV.

It is like pushing 1,000,000 MB/s through something that is only able to carry 10 MB/s, you won't get that extra speed, you will simply get 10 MB/s.

Of course, I know that everyone is upset because something started out as 2.35:1 and now it is 1.78:1 or 1.85:1, but I'd rather those big powerful machines doing the downconverting than my, in comparison $200 DVD player, POS Dish 811, and POS 40" RPTV from RCA doing the downconverting to get the picture to fit on my screen. I can see a big difference from a 2.35:1 DVD and the 1.85:1 version in PQ, and that is why I don't like stuff that is WS.

 

[lakebum431]

What are you talking about????? In OAR you see the entire picture. There will be black bars on the top and bottom but you actually see the full width of the picture. There is no cutting off tops of heads unless you zoom (which you should not be doing). Please explain what you are talking about?