AntcuFaalb said:

MaximRecoil said:

the question of objective video quality

The use of the DVNR1000 was not only heavy-handed in 1993, it was unnecessary*. I can see the smearing on my 13" 4:3 CRT (Sony KV-13FS110). This looked like shit in 1993 (DefCol LDs), 1995 (Faces LDs), 2006 (GOUT DVDs), and now.

And, yes, people complained about it in 1993 on Usenet; mostly on alt.video.laserdisc.

I know this is just my opinion, so it's certainly subjective, but I think it comes a lot closer to being objective than many of assessments given in previous posts.

(* FWIW, I've seen the pre-DVNR1000 master used for the DefCol ANH. It's not that dirty; certainly not dirty enough to make the use of the DVNR1000 a requirement for release. I think this is just a case of George&co. wanting to play with toys again.)

There were video magazines that made the same observations at the time. I almost took the DC boxset back to the store because I thought some of the discs were defective in some way, and I was rocking with a 21 inch tv at the time.

I didn't know what DVNR was back then, but I knew something didn't look right compared to previous releases.

There were so many things botched or simply half assed on such a prestigious and expensive Laserdisc release, (it was the flagship THX mastered title) it's not even funny.