logo Sign In

Post #413570

Author
zombie84
Parent topic
Editdroid's SW 1977 DVD (Mysterious 720p Anamorphic LD Preservation?) (Released)
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/413570/action/topic#413570
Date created
8-May-2010, 9:03 PM

Okay, so I think I have this figured out. It IS the GOUT. Basically, what they did is ripped the GOUT and put it into photoshop, where it was uprezed to 720p and made 16:9. The gate weave was filtered out, the grain was reduced a little bit, they boosted the fine detail by 75%, and color-corrected it to better match the levels of the Laserdisc itself (a little less saturation, a little less contrast, and a hair red shifted; possibly the black levels were brought down a bit, but the caps I have posted have been black-level crushed in the caps, not the video itself).

So, that's what the video is, as far as I can tell.

I also just finished watching the LFL Pwnage edition, thanks to Kurgan.

I can tell you that IMO, I would prefer ED2. In terms of grain, I would say they are close, Pwnage may be a bit less, but the difference is not really that noteworthy IMO (I was actually a bit disappointed at how little grain reduction Pwnage had, they could go about 10-20% further). However, Pwnage has much too much saturation, at times it pops and becomes distracting like in 2004 SE, which disappointed me and I like the levels of ED2 much more, even if its saturation is a bit washed out at times (I actually thought GOUT was the best representative of color--more than the LD, but not to the point where it was popping); Pwnage has a better luminance to it, but sometimes the black levels crush out detail that ED2 and GOUT preserve. In addition, Pwnage still has aliasing issues--they are reduced, but still there (an improvement, nonetheless though). The clincher for me is the detail level though. ED2 still has more detail in most shots than any other version I have seen. See the example listed before (R2). Pwnage has the exact same detail level as the GOUT (naturally), but ED2 gives some scenes more fine details, such as the extra dirt smears on R2 that are less apparent (or not apparent) on the GOUT/Pwnage since it was treated in Photoshop. Also, because Pwnage is single layered, I definitely noticed some subtle compression artifacts; ED2 is dual-layered and has none. Obviously we are splitting hairs here, but both transfers are so good that this is what it will come down to.

So, I guess whether you like this or LFL Pwnage depends on what is more important to you--a little bit more detail in ED2, or a little less aliasing in LFL Pwnage. But IMO because Pwnage has a bit of compression, too much saturation, and still-apparent aliasing, in addition to its lesser detail, I would still say ED2 is the best transfer of Star Wars to date. I do like that Pwnage has the 2.0 soundtrack though. If someone re-authors ED2 with hairy_hen's 70mm mix in place of the 5.1 here we would be all set.