Well, despite my assertions I would not buy this, I broke down this morning and picked up Star Wars (IV) at Wal-mart. I brought it home to compare to “Dr. Gonzo’s” anamorphic laserdisc transfers, and here are some observations:

I viewed this on my 65” Mitsubishi HDTV, and did comparisons using both my Toshiba HD-A1 HD-DVD player and my Malata DVP-520 DVD Player (via component video connections in each case.)

The picture quality is definitely an improvement over the laserdisc transfers. The picture has more clarity, and the colors are a tad more vivid. Still, this transfer has its problems, largely because it is non-anamorphic. “Stair-stepping” is visible on many images, and is easily apparent in several scenes on my 65” screen.

Also as previously reported, the subtitles (when Greedo speaks) are cut off at the bottom on a widescreen TV when one zooms the picture to frame it correctly.

I made a discovery that I have not yet seen on any of the internet forums that I frequent. The disc is not correctly “tagged” as a widescreen film.

I own a Malata DVD player that will automatically frame non-anamorphic DVDs on my 16:9 TV if the disc is tagged properly. Even though a disc may be 4:3 non–anamorphic, most letterboxed DVDs are still tagged as containing a widescreen film (The Abyss DVD is a good example). When this is the case, my Malata automatically zooms and frames the picture accordingly for 16:9 TVs, without me having to manually zoom the picture.

This DVD is NOT tagged correctly, and as such, I had to scale the picture manually.