I'm a long time lurker, first time poster, and all that...
Moth3r's PAL transfer of ANH has drawn me out of the shadows. It also made me sign up with a newsgroup provider, just so i could get hold of it - and thanks to russs15 for his newsgroup tips, Astraweb was just what I was looking for.
I have to say this DVD looks amazing. Detail-wise this is the best laserdisc transfer I've seen to date - that includes TR47, Editdroid, ISOMIX and DR Gonzo versions. It looks like the extra resolution of the PAL source discs helps a lot, as even rescaled to an anamorphic picture, it looks crisp, and the starfields are so much more visible than other versions. I don't know what you've used to resize the video, Moth3r, but it's done a superb job. Hats off to you.
As Moth3r pointed out its not perfect, i noticed dozens of line drops through out the movie, and compared with other version, the video looks a little undersaturated, with maybe a red-bias, but its nothing that can't be remedied by cranking up the colour on your tv. Another distracting thing is the disc change between side 1-2, which as moth3r says, is missing the screenwipe as ben and luke are lifting c3po. However, it wasn't this that was jarring as much as the shot of ben's hut which it cuts too, which appeared to be a lower resolution still of ben hut on freeze frame for a few seconds. The difference in quality, and the fact it looked like the video had been paused was enough to jolt me out of the movie for a few seconds.
The other slight distraction is as this is the first transfer of star wars I've seen in PAL for quite some - despite living in the UK - everything just seems to move slightly too quickly compared to the NTSC versions i'm used to, so it'd be interesting to see how an NTSC version of this transfer compares.
Just wanted to say, Moth3r, you've done a great job with this transfer, thanks for releasing it to the masses, and I can't wait to see what you come up with next.
Impressive. Most impressive, some might say...