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First Impressions of the OOT ...

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what does everyone think?
i just scanned through the discs, and here's my opinion ...

i own both the faces and the definitive laserdisc collection (and the japanese discs). i have a reference quality elite LDS2 pioneer laserdisc player ($5000 new), as well as two LD-V8000 industrial players that were previously owned by lucasfilm (the only LD players lucasfilm ever used). they aren't XO, but they produce a damn good image. i also own the editdriod rips and the rowman/47 rips.

to my eye, when played, these official discs look several factors better than any of the other copies i own. SEVERAL factors.

i am more than pleasantly surprised by the quality here (though anamorphic would have been nice, and i'm still holding out hope).

i for one am satisfied. am i alone here or are some of us breathing a collective sigh of relief? if you've seen the discs, please post your impressions.
(i already posted this in the best buy tin thread, but i think it deserves its own thread).

huzzah for archival THEATRICAL OT!!!
it is our duty to preserve star wars history...

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The TR47 edition is very poor compared to modern transfers; the Editdroid is kind of middle of the road. Not surprising to find the OOT better than these. If Moth3r's transfer is any indication, the actual Laserdisks themselves should yield the same or better image than the OOT disks.
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Originally posted by: zombie84
If Moth3r's transfer is any indication, the actual Laserdisks themselves should yield the same or better image than the OOT disks.


not on my equiptment ... by a long shot.


edit: i don't mean to disrespect zion's or mother's amazing work. on the contrary; i'm excited to see the finished products! i'd also be curious to see what these experts could do using the OUT as source material.

huzzah for archival THEATRICAL OT!!!
it is our duty to preserve star wars history...

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I was actually pleasantly surprised by the quality of these new OOT DVDs, and am able
to enjoy the movies without being too distracted by any deficiencies that may be
inherent in the transfer.

These are better than anything I have owned thus far, although I am obviously aware
that something of better quality could be produced through using a brand new transfer
and anamorphic presentation.
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After seeing boris's screencaps, I was getting ready to reject the GOUT. But screencaps don't mean much compared to moving video. So I spent the afternoon comparing my copy of the NTSC GOUT with the best of the LD transfers I have, which are EditDroid (NTSC) and Moth3r (PAL). I looked at various scenes in all three films, comparing all three versions. I have to say that I agree with The Dark Lord. These are significantly better in color, contrast, sharpness, detail and naturalness of picture than any of the LD rips so far.

Of course, it is an unfair comparison with Moth3r, as I was playing back on NTSC (though I looked at the Doctor M conversion, too). I believe Moth3r may be able to better the quality of the PAL GOUT (if they are indeed upscaled from NTSC), working from the PAL THX LDs.

But for those in NTSC land, the GOUT are, IMHO, the best out there right now.
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I've only watched about the first half hour of Star Wars so far (until my computer froze). I'm not quite sure what to think. In the first scenes, I was quite positive that they were much better quality than the rips that I already have. And I'm especially glad that all the reds don't have visible macroblocking on them. The Tatooine stuff has been a pretty mixed bag so far. The worst so far, though, is the scene in Ben's hut. That scene looks pretty damned horrible, in my opinion. To exagerate a bit, I can barely see through the grain in that scene. It looked like someone had dusted off a film reel from 1936. All of the transfer so far has more of its fair share of grain, though. Some of it just seems worse than others. Hopefully, by the time we get to the Death Star, it won't be as noticeable. Overall, I'm pretty impressed... from the standpoint we're forced to take, that is. It looks good for what it is, but, of course, it should look much better. Then again, I stand by what I said back in May. Had Lucas and his cronies stepped in to "remaster" it, it probably would have ended up pretty damned horrible, so I'm almost glad it's the way it is. So! In conclusion, I could be happy with these for the rest of my life, and I see no reason to waste any more money on any more re-releases of these movies. So somebody tell me where to send "Disc 1" back!

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Hi everyone - thought I'd add my impressions of the PAL release of the OOT DVD of Star Wars only.

I watched it on a 76" LCD projector using component connections. Whilst the quality is not up to a modern anamorphic presentation, I have to agree with others here that it wasn't ass bad as I was expecting at all. I own the 'Faces' laserdiscs, and also a number of fan rips from these, and again I have to say this release blows them away, not really surprising when you consider it's one step closer to the mastertape than any LD transfer could hope to be. It shouls also be noted that Lucasfilm have at least tried their best to give the LD transfer it's best chance to shine by giving it the full dual-layer DVD-9 treatment which automatically puts it a few steps ahead of most fan preservations.

True, there is ALOT of film grain, but I don't mind this - it recreates the authentic feeling of seeing it back at the flicks when they first came out. More disturbing is the DNR created grain which brings down the picture quality in some scenes - most notably the Tatooine segments of the film. Overall though I was surprised at the detail levels, and the black and white levels were spot on unlike the 2004 editions.... The colours are a bit washed out in some scenes, but this is due to the film print used. I'd still have the colours in this print though than the horrible artificial mess of the 2004 DVDs. The Bonus Edition DVDs look organic and real in comparision.

It was such a relief to see the ORIGINAL again on a big screen - I'd not realised how much I'd gotten used to bracing myself for the annoying CGI distractions, and poor music editing of the Special Editions. It was like having an old friend back again.

I did notice some obvious haloing effects in several scenes which detracted from the presentation a little - computer read outs make this especially visible. I'm wondering if these are present in the NTSC version of the DVDs or whether they're part of the D1 master? I'd be grateful if someone could let me know as if not I may order the other two as NTSC discs. I also prefer having the sound run at the original speed rather than the 4% PAL speed up. Having said that the soundtrack was glorius, and possessed of a perfect balance between dialogue, music and sound FX - again unlike the Special Editions. Bass had real punch as well. As has been mentioned elsewhere, the soundtrack is actually the 1993 mix, so it can't strictly speaking be called the 'Original Theatrical Edition'!!! Still overall I reckon it's the best mix of the soundtrack available, give or take a few missed lines.

Overall then, I'd give picture quality a 6 out of 10, and sound 8. Much better than I expected, though it's still a crime that we are not getting anamorphic transfers. BUT I reckon it's th ebest we'll have them for the forseeable future until the price of film scanners goes down enough to warrant a full fan-funded transfer ;o)

Cheers,

- John
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Has anyone with a 16X9 TV zoomed in on the picture? How did it look then?

And I have my DVD player set up via component connections. But to use the Zoom on my TV, you can only do this in A/V mode. Is this totally going to make my picture look like crap or what?
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I have a 32" 16x9 T.V. hooked up with composite cables, and I zoomed it in and it looked pretty darn good considering how old these films are.


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P.S. Forgot to add all my above observations were with the image zoomed in, like others here. So the picture can be considered very good to stand up to this zooming, and on a 76" screen!

My MAJOR gripe about these discs though is the menus are anamorphic, and yet when the film is zoomed in to be used on a 16:9 projector, or 16:9 TV (and I use both) the subtitles disappear off the bottom of the screen. This is a stupid over-sight which I shall contact Fox UK about. No excuses for this...

Do the NTSC versions suffer from this as well?
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I was like a lot of people here, very wary of the quality of these. I was expecting a way-off black level and a way-too-soft image, but I was happily proven wrong. Yeah, all of the shortcomings here are true, but meh. I'm happy to have shown my interest in the OUT by plopping down money for it.

The hardest part was deciding whether or not to buy the full screen or widescreen set. On the one hand, I already paid for the widescreen box set and didn't want to buy the same product a second time. On the other hand, I feel downright dirty buying a fullscreen disc... I went with fullscreen.

I used to be very active on this forum. I’m not really anymore. Sometimes, people still want to get in touch with me about something, and that is great! If that describes you, please email me at [my username]ATgmailDOTcom.

Hi everybody. You’re all awesome. Keep up the good work.

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Well I picked up Star Wars today and will pick up Empire and Jedi next month. I ran it on a 32" 4:3 set so I can't comment on the letterbox. I'm quite pleased with this. First time seeing the film in widescreen as I hadn't bought (or rather kept) any of the previous Lucasfilm releases so I was feeling like a kid again. The only problem I found and wonder if it's due to a disc layer change or chapter change, but just at the end of the scene were Tarkin says to execute Leia and then it cuts to the Falcon in hyperspace, I get a sound pop. Has anyone else experience this? Should I return it for a new disc?
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Ok- I just finished watching Star Wars (haven't gotten to ESB or Jedi yet- I'll give you my impressions as soon as I have). Keep in mind that I have a small 4:3 TV (a 20" Sony Wega, & I have it hooked up via component cables to my Sony RDR-GX7 DVD player/recorder with no external receiver or speakers).

Here's what I think:
I think the sound is great. I assume it's the '93 mix, and it sounded wonderful, even from my TV's built-in speakers. I noticed a slight "pop" at the layer change (which is right after Tarkin says "terminate her...immediately!", BTW). I suspected this was generated by my DVD player, so I tested it later on my Sister's RCA DVD player, and there was no detectable pop, just a second or 2 of silence.

Now for the picture.....I was expecting the picture to be better than the DC and Faces laserdiscs, and it was. In fact, I think there is a HUGE improvement in the picture quality. (I haven't done an A/B test with a LD yet, I just wanted to sit and enjoy the film without any interruptions). But just sitting there watching, I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that this DVD blows the LD away. However, I did notice quite a bit of aliasing, which I expected- due to the fact that there's aliasing on the LDs, and I think some of the LD's relative fuzziness masked some of the aliasing, so it seems a bit more obvious on the DVD.

That being said, the DVD has a level of crispness and clarity that is simply not present on the laserdisc. I have a good LD player, not as good as the X0 or the X9, but it's a Pioneer cld-d703 and it supposedly has a picture that's as good as some of Pioneer's mid-level ELITE players.

Honestly, on my little TV, I don't think I would really notice a difference between the SW SE DVD and the OOT DVD, aside from the fact that on the OOT DVD the colors look more like the Star Wars I remember (and I don't think it looked 'washed-out', either), and the SE DVD is darker and has the ever-present 'blueish' tint. There are some film speckles here and there, but none that aren't on the LDs that I'm used to watching. I didn't notice any additional grain or film 'weave' either.

One thing that I realised after the film was over, is that I didn't notice ANY garbage mattes. Maybe it's the way my TV is adjusted- but I didn't see any at all.

All in all, I'm extremely pleased with my first viewing. I really don't think that the screen caps I've seen posted are indicative of the DVD's quality. My only gripe (aside from the non-anamorphic issue) is that they made the Huttese sub-titles in 2-lines (instead of one line, like they are on the LDs) which is sure to screw up people trying to zoom in on this disc on their 16:9 TVs. The DVD probably won't look as good on a larger TV, but I'm really pleasantly surprised at how good it looked on my little TV, and I hope the other 2 movies look as good.

I found myself getting a little teary during the last part of the film when Luke turns off his targeting computer, even though I have seen this film so many hundreds of times over the last 24 years that I've lost count. Maybe it was just a bit of left-over emotion from yesterday's 9/11 anniversary....whatever it was, it was really great to watch the un-f**ked-up version of Star Wars, looking better than it ever has on my TV. Yes, I wish it was anamorphic, but I can safely say that I'm never watching the SE DVDs again, nor do I think will I ever find the need to watch my LDs again.

Anybody want to buy a nice, used LD player?? I'll throw in the laserdiscs free.

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I'll go get Star Wars tomorrow. I was going to stop on the way home but decided to come straight home and watch the evening news. Sorry fellas, I'd rather watch Katie deliver the news than stop for a DVD.

From the look of the screen grabs, and now the descriptions, it's going to be very watchable and considerably better than I had expected. Good - I can finally stop wasting energy wondering about how I'm going to be watching Star Wars in the future.

Let the Lucas insanity continue full speed. He's of no interest to me anymore - not even remotely. I wish him all the best with whatever internal demons he's trying to overcome.

Now, if only the news were an hour.
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Well I just went to Circuit City and made my contribution to the George Lucas' welfare fund. He should be able to buy several boxes of Wookie Cookies and Twilek Twinkies now.

I really like the nice litho-poster prints that Circuit City gave away with the DVDs (and the way I had to search around the store to find them) They are a lot larger than I expected. I also scored a very large poster (that probably wasn't meant to be free) but they gave it to me anyway.


Honestly, I was more excited about the season 1 Voltron DVD box that I bought today also. Then I decided to go ahead and pop Eps IV in my DVD player and I am very satisfied with the quality. I will probably put the mileage on my TR47s. Again, of course they don't look like the greatest thing in the world, but the are more than acceptable. Remember we asked for unaltered. I'm fine with this and through buying Star Wars DVDs for quite some time. I'm not even interested in the HD world right now.
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Check out Empire. From just skimming through it I noticed a few occurrences where the very bottom of the frame has a thick red line when changing from one shot to another.
1) The awesome shot in the cockpit of the Falcon from behind looking out the window approaching Cloud City. When it changes to the shot of the crew facing left, the last frame before the shot change you’ll see it.
2) Also, the establishing shot of Leia in the penthouse in CC, when the shot changes from the exterior to the interior.

I’m at work right now but I’ll put up a capture when I get home if no else does by then.
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Originally posted by: casualimp
The only problem I found and wonder if it's due to a disc layer change or chapter change, but just at the end of the scene were Tarkin says to execute Leia and then it cuts to the Falcon in hyperspace, I get a sound pop. Has anyone else experience this? Should I return it for a new disc?
Sorry I didn't see your post earlier. Yes, I noticed it as well. You're right, that does seem to be the point of the layer change. It seems to depend upon your DVD player, because it did it in one of my players, but not the other.

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I have been counting down to this day since may, It has been about 120 days and this day is finally here! I do wish that lucas would

restore the unaletered versions,but these versions from the remastered thx versions of the 90's still look so good on dvd compared to

the old vhs! I bought three sets. One for my brother and two for me.I bought the best buy tin set and a set from circiut city that came

with three nice lithographs. They even gave me a little poster. I went to alot of different stores to see if there was anything offered with

the films and best buy and circuit city had the best. The only thing I was disappointed about is I wanted them in full and

widescreen.Sometimes I have trouble seeing things so I like the fullscreen too. I wrote to star wars . com and they told me that the

unaltered trilogy second disc would be available in both formats. I guess they were wrong. I doubt that will matter to most pepole but

since they told me it would be available I was disappointed. I know alot of you are mad at lucas for dumping these on the second disc

and not restoring them especially since these are the films that started it all and are history. I agree with you, but since I will not watch

the special editions and have to worry about ruining my vhs tapes this release means alot to me. I can finally watch my favorite movies on

dvd. I tried to get laserdiscs and copy them but they had so many dropout specks they didn't look nearly as good as these dvd's do. It is

a shame We have had to spend so much money on this but these movies have meant so much to me since childhood I am willing to do it.

Some pepole don't want to give lucas anymore money but unfortunatly money talks and maybe if these sell well he will change his mind

someday about restoring them. At least this is helping to preserve our favorite films. I will be enjoing these! I have waited so many years

for these dvd's!
Jennifer Cox
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Aaah, so many good posts and so many things I want to address. Let's get cracking!

First of all, I watched Star Wars on my computer, with a 15.4" hi-def widescreen and zoomed in. The zooming didn't really affect the picture quality as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure it would look much better on a standard definition TV. As I guessed, the grain wasn't as noticeable in a lot of the scenes on the Death Star. Something else I noticed was how a lot of lines in the picture ended up very jagged-y. I'm not sure of the terminology for that. And as long as I'm on the subject, what is aliasing?

I, too, had the layer change. I knew it was there, because it was there on the '04 DVDs as well. It makes me sad that I'm almost used to it by now, and when I don't get a slight pause, it throws me off.

Unlike some others, my subtitles aren't quite cut off. The very bottom of the second line is, but nothing is unreadable. Of course, if they just left the subtitles burned into the original picture in the original font, then we wouldn't have problems like this in the first place! Honestly, this is my biggest gripe. I hate that.

In regards to the red line on the screen, I haven't watched Empire yet. But as long as the subject is up, I noticed a blue line on the edge of the frame in two scenes, both of which are part of the planet Yavin. If you're watching on a standard TV, I'm sure you wouldn't be able to see it at all, as I know it would be part of the overscan area, but if you watch it on a computer or an LCD screen, has anybody else noticed this?

Well, I think that's it. I really enjoyed the movie and was so into it by the Battle of Yavin that I didn't really notice anything bad about the picture anymore.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape

I, too, had the layer change. I knew it was there, because it was there on the '04 DVDs as well. It makes me sad that I'm almost used to it by now, and when I don't get a slight pause, it throws me off.
Did you get a 'pop' at the layer change, or just a pause?

Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
Something else I noticed was how a lot of lines in the picture ended up very jagged-y. I'm not sure of the terminology for that. And as long as I'm on the subject, what is aliasing?
Yup, the jagged-y lines are aliasing.

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Just a pause, I believe. And thanks for confirming the aliasing for me.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
Aaah, so many good posts and so many things I want to address. Let's get cracking!

First of all, I watched Star Wars on my computer, with a 15.4" hi-def widescreen and zoomed in. The zooming didn't really affect the picture quality as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure it would look much better on a standard definition TV. As I guessed, the grain wasn't as noticeable in a lot of the scenes on the Death Star. Something else I noticed was how a lot of lines in the picture ended up very jagged-y. I'm not sure of the terminology for that. And as long as I'm on the subject, what is aliasing?

I, too, had the layer change. I knew it was there, because it was there on the '04 DVDs as well. It makes me sad that I'm almost used to it by now, and when I don't get a slight pause, it throws me off.

Unlike some others, my subtitles aren't quite cut off. The very bottom of the second line is, but nothing is unreadable. Of course, if they just left the subtitles burned into the original picture in the original font, then we wouldn't have problems like this in the first place! Honestly, this is my biggest gripe. I hate that.

In regards to the red line on the screen, I haven't watched Empire yet. But as long as the subject is up, I noticed a blue line on the edge of the frame in two scenes, both of which are part of the planet Yavin. If you're watching on a standard TV, I'm sure you wouldn't be able to see it at all, as I know it would be part of the overscan area, but if you watch it on a computer or an LCD screen, has anybody else noticed this?

Well, I think that's it. I really enjoyed the movie and was so into it by the Battle of Yavin that I didn't really notice anything bad about the picture anymore.


My biggest problems are the horrible ghosting and and the aliasing. other than that they are pretty good.

P.S. My copy of ESB has more grain than Star Wars.


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Oh, joy. By the way, what is ghosting?

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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I didn't notice any ghosting the 1st time around.

It's when you see kind of a duplicate-image near another image, only very faintly, kind of like when you're watching TV and the reception isn't good.

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Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
Oh, joy. By the way, what is ghosting?


Here is a fine example of ghosting on the new DVDs:http://img216.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fgdfg1kf8.png

Ghosting