star wars original trilogy

[point_vector]

Finally!
the new star wars original trilogy on dvd came out today.
Did anyone watch it? What are your impressions?
I don't really want to blow it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, but it looked like crap! The four sets of laserdiscs I already own look better. I'm not really that much of a stickler when it comes to those kinds of things, but come on. The grainyness of the movie really makes it lackluster. Please post your feelings on the subject!

[Mug Funky]

if grain's the only problem, i'm up for buying them.

do a bitrate/quantizer scan and tell me the peak and average quants (and whether it's nonlinear or linear scale) and i'll make my decision :)

if it's sharp and not full of blocks it's a good encode - removing noise also removes detail, and if there's bitrate to spare there's no point removing detail.

[Chainmax]

I don't know about image quality, but they are not anamorphic :(.

If I had money, this is what I'd do:

Buy this latest release to legally own the latest thing George has done with the OT and to have the "best" official release of the unaltered OT.

Shelve that forever, wait for the X0 project's release and enjoy the unaltered OT the way it was originally meant to be seen.

[Episodio1]

http://www.x0project.com/about.php

Why didnt Lucasfilm take the original reels? Even if they 'destroyed' them, there should be interpositive (or something like that) used to make the special editions.

[Eleo]

Man who cares to be bothered with this anymore. There have been so many releases of this it's not even funny. Obviously next up it will be released on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Perhaps then there will be more conflict over how it was released, and then it will be released again in a different form.

[Mug Funky]

not anamorphic? what a crock! they didn't just do their own LD transfer did they?

the restored 1994 (was it 94?) editions were anamorphic... back when nobody's TV even squished to widescreen.

as for the interpositive films - i'm sure Lucas is keeping them safe until the opportune moment to release the "newly discovered" original trilogy in whatever format wins the HD/BD scuffle.

it really is enough to put anyone off the movies forever... in fact, people might simply realise that they're not particularly good films anyway :). i'd much rather watch Back to the Future or Total Recall to be honest.

[desta]

I recently bought the UK PAL dvd's for the original trilogy. I noticed a lot of field blended frames, when i went through. Anyone else noticed this? Are the NTSC releases clean?


Blended Frame

http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/2277/blendedpj7.png


Prior Frame

http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/2210/priorsm3.png

[Mug Funky]

hmm.... these aren't LD transfers now are they?

the blending looks like it might be from noise reduction - similar to degrainmedian's limiting?

does that lightsaber luke's got blend in a similar way?

[desta]

These are from the retail dvd's. The screenshots are untouched, and unfiltered.

[Mug Funky]

yeah - i figured that. i was wondering if Lucasfilm hadn't just done what the X0 project was doing, only cheaper and nastier...