hey photodroid,

here are a couple of things which you could use to judge how interesting and early on your version is. In the first death star scene early print versions had much more colour in them especially the blues of the walls and greens of the uniforms, later on this scene had become very grey.

likewise the end death star attack had some blue tints among the greys, which later became just plain grey.

but if you dont want to wind thru the tape to those parts just the very first shots of C3PO walking in the tantive ship corridor should give you an idea of what youve got. If C3PO looks very flat, dull and one dimensional in colour then its probably not going to be too exciting on the rest of the tape, but if he looks really reflective and really 3-D metallically (almost mirror like). Then you could be onto a winner! The more clear and mirror like he is the better. You could check that first minute or so, if you want to risk playing the tape at this stage. There is the chance playing and pausing it might degrade it. But its your tape, so its your call. If from what you can remember it was a really good version and youre not confident of how your video player is going to behave you could consider lending it to one of the guys on the forum who have got the real high end set ups going on. But the again you might want the satisfaction (and hassle) of capturing this yourself. Whatever it looks like though this sounds like it comes from a unique source and therefore potentially could have specific elements present ONLY on this version/tape... So guard and protect this tape with your life!!!!