laserdisc said:
I have a question which will no doubt drive people mad, as I'm sure it's been But can some in the know clear up the quote (or misquote) above? Are the blu rays the same resolution as the HDTV broadcasts? Why does Harmy say he would still need to work in 720p? Is it because upscaling oot elements to 1080p becomes noticable? Thanks.

The film scan upon which the HDTV version and the Blu Rays are based is the same resolution. It's an old low-res cruddy scan by today's standards, so even though the Blu Rays are technically 1080p, they really aren't that much better than 720p given the lack of detail resolution in the source material.

Actually Harmy could work at 1080p using Blu Ray sources and private film scans. I don't think he'd get much benefit for the abovementioned reasons, but every little bit counts I suppose. IMO the sweet spot for Star Wars preservations based on the Blu Rays is 720p until there's a new 4K scan of the film.

ALSO: Harmy is using the Blu Rays as a source, so that quote is already wrong on one point. While they aren't really that much more detailed than 720p would be at the same compression ratio, they do have more detail than the HDTV versions due to less compression.