JadedSkywalker said:
There is a US NTSC letterbox set from 1992 but far less common. Its not rare either. But back then everyone wanted full screen tapes.
I have this set of the letterbox tapes and they come from the same video master as the Japanese Special Collection, the same as the US first issue widescreen laserdisc releases. With the same misframed image to fit the Japanese subtitles which aren’t on the video but they never corrected them.
Jedi is the worst effected. And it wasn’t corrected until the remastered THX releases which began with the definitive laserdisc collection and faces laserdisc, and also the widescreen tapes.
^ I bought that set when it first came out , would often tell people who were against the black bars on the top and bottom that this was the directors intent and that when watching fullscreen 4x3 movies , you were only seeing a portion of the whole image , a movie screen is rectangular , not square . They would look at me in complete bewilderment . Funny how things changed over time . I still have all the tapes as well as the book and certificate it came with , but lost the box and my TESB tape in a move . You are right , its not rare , and it pisses me off that people are artificially inflating the price of this set on Ebay . I would like to replace what I lost . The same thing is starting to happen with the prices of the red hi-fi label individual tapes . What makes me laugh the most is when I see articles about " The most valuable vhs tapes of all time " , and they show a picture of the 95 faces fullscreen box set , which is literally the most common and widely available set out there .
