I ordered the PAL DVDs, because I assumed they would be sourced from the same masters used for the French/German laserdisc releases in 1995. The PAL laserdiscs are in some respects superior to their DC/Faces counterparts.
I haven't received my discs yet, but I'm getting worried that I'm going to be disappointed - from what I've seen so far, it looks as though the PAL discs have been created by upscaling the NTSC source.
Here's my reasoning:
- The shot from the PAL DVD showing the blockade runner and the star destroyer (provided by boris here) has framing very similar to the NTSC laserdiscs. The PAL laserdiscs are framed much tighter for this shot.
- Reports of distracting "telecine wobble". This wobble is most noticeable in the NTSC laserdisc of ANH. The PAL laserdisc doesn't suffer so badly.
- No one has mentioned seeing the famous "burn marks" in the first scene with the droids. These marks are a trademark of the PAL masters.
- Reports of aliasing. A side effect of upscaling; also, Citizen noticed bad aliasing in the NTSC discs in the rebel base scenes (can't find the post now).
- Every screenshot I've seen so far seems to be less detailed than my PAL laserdisc transfer.
If this is truly the case, then it is very disappointing (I know the whole non-anamorphic issue was disappointing from the start, but I thought I might at least be able to salvage something from these discs).
The possibilty of a Moth3r laserdisc transfer V1.1 is looking increasingly more likely...