also, T'bone has a caught a rumour that 2007 might bring some kind of monster star wars box set for the films 30th anniversary. more deleted scenes and all manner of stuff. re-touched films? certainly. apparently lucas is again tinkering with the films for the 30th anniversary.
the only way for us to get OOUT on DVD in top quality is for LFL to do what they did to the 2004 SE. rescan the original film neg, recomposite everything digitally.
considering that to make the 1997 SE, the had to scan and recomp everything in the first place, there must be a full versioin of the original film to start with, Lucas just doesn't want to acknowledge its existence.
so, if Lucas won't do it, that leaves us with this.
all this pissing and moaning ignores one factor which I don't think anyone has mentioned.
laserdisc.
=
film neg
to master tape
to laserdisc processed version
to capture version (raw footage reinterpolated by a computer system)
to re-encoded. (ad infinitum depending on how many processed you run it through.)
that means, our bootlegs are between 4 or more steps between us and the original film which is a lot of processing.
new OUT DVD
=
film neg
to master tape
to dvd
we rip the DVD which is the same as the DVD gives us 2 generations away from the original.
gives us more grain etc but we are working with more raw footage. okay, it means the film grain is there (bear in mind that the lowry processing pretty much eliminated the original film grain anyway, giving us a really pristine image but it always felt a little odd to me because its almost too perfect.)
then I can use my filters, colour correction etc to bring the footage up. Russ15 knows what my filters can do after I showed him some samples from when I fiddled with the editdroid version.
of course. all the work being done by X0 project is relevant because as the LD and the new OUT DVD is struck from the same master tapes, then the footage suffers from the same problems of dirt, grain, damaged frames etc.
so what they're doing will work just as well on a source, if framed the same, is closer to the original neg.
(BTW guys, a release of any of your scripts to bring up the starfields to public domain would be quite nice
)so, while this release isn't exactly top, we were already adjusting non anamorphic LD to be anamorphic, so nothing changed there, we have an original source to look at.
I think the only unanswered question is whether or not the original trilogy release to come is using master tapes? or master tapes that had the additional processing etc for LD added to it.
if its untouched, then it's gotta be worth using to some degree, even if it does need adjustment and fixing.
I know I've burbled a bit, but I don't think anyones mentioned that point yet.