Originally posted by: Grinder
But won't the PAL versions still be better due to the higher resolution? Does anyone know at what resolution the LD master was made?

Apparently it was made in "standard definition", which would imply NTSC resolution as the USA is an NTSC country. But keep in mind the same digital master was used to create the "pan and scan" releases (NTSC and PAL), which implies there was enough detail for that. The PAL LD's *do* have more detail in them, however it can be speculated that even though this is the case they were still resized from NTSC resolution. You could conclude that they must have used a source higher in resolution then SD NTSC for the Pan & Scan releases... but knowing how much they didn't care about creating decent PAL versions back then, it's more likely that the master is SD NTSC, sadly. The audio on the PAL versions (1993 and 1995) was however pitch-corrected, something they didn't pay too much attention to back then (you have to lower the pitch by about a semitone to make it sound perfect - however its generally accepted that the pitch difference isn't noticeable unless you're running between watching differently played versions of the film). So with that in mind it could lead you to conclude that they were paying the PAL release special care, and so perhaps the SD source is PAL resolution.

But if this is the case, then why scaled-down the source for the NTSC dvd? wouldn't it be better to up-scale it so that you're not loosing detail?

Everything points to the source being SD NTSC.