4K restoration on Star Wars — Page 46

Gogogadget said:

Gogogadget said:

Really don't see how anyone can defend the GOUT.

It's the best officially released source we have yes, but it's still unwatchable.

"Unwatchable"? More hyperbole. "Unwatchable" is a good word for those VCD encodes of theater bootlegs shot with a low-end camcorder that were circulating on the internet in the late '90s and early '00s. It is funny that this site thrived for years on copies of the OUT that were inferior to the "unwatchable" GOUT. I guess no one was actually watching their LDs or LD-to-DVD transfers back then, you know, because if the GOUT is "unwatchable", the LDs were "extra unwatchable" and the LD-to-DVD transfers were "extra, extra unwatchable".

Maybe you should try a TV for which 4:3 DVDs were intended.

I had the original Star Wars on VHS in the 90s as a young kid, I had a small portable TV in my bedroom and it was perfect, at least so I really thought.

The GOUT was released well after everyone already adopted 16:9 TVs, hell, the other disc in the set was Anamorphic 16:9 and this was at a time when HDTVs were becoming more of a household item and less home-theatre enthusiast too.

If you seriously think the GOUT was acceptable in the mid 00s, then I don't really know what to tell you, because it was shit then and it's worse now.

No, not everyone had adopted 16:9 TVs in 2006 (much less well before 2006), nor even most people. You could even still buy brand new 4:3 standard definition CRT TVs in mainstream stores at the time (e.g. Wal-Mart). 16:9 DVD releases were pretty standard in 2006 because they benefited the ever-increasing number of people who had widescreen TVs, and they were 100% backward compatible with 4:3 TVs, so there was no downside to them.

23.5 million HDTVs shipped in the U.S. in 2006, with a 1998-2006 cumulative total of 54.7 million. There were about 119 million U.S. households in the mid '00s, averaging 3 TVs per household. That's about 357 million TVs, and even if every single one of those 54.7 million HDTVs that shipped from 1998-2006 were sold to consumers and were all still in service in 2006, that only accounts for ~15% of the TVs in U.S. households in '06. Or, if every single one of those 54.7 million HDTVs that shipped from 1998-2006 were each sold to a member of a different household (highly unlikely) and were all still in service in 2006 (also highly unlikely), that still doesn't get you to even half the households.

But this is beside the point, because "disappointment" (which is what your entire post is about) has nothing to do with the question of objective video quality (which is what my posts have been about, including the post that you replied to). You being disappointed with the GOUT's pixel aspect ratio doesn't make it "unwatchable", or "horrendous", or "terrible" by any logical standard.

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.)

At least your opinion isn't self-contradictory, unlike the opinions of people who praised the '93 and '95 LD releases, and fan-made DVD transfers from them, yet bash the quality of the GOUT.

Harmy said:

No, but it is "unwatchable" and "horrendous" and "terrible" by today's standards and it was at least "horrendous" by 2006 standards.

Which means that, according to you, the GOUT-source parts of your "Despecialized Editions" are "unwatchable" and "horrendous" and "terrible". Actually, they go beyond those things, because they've been upscaled and re-encoded (among other things I'm sure), all of which results in inevitable loss relative to the source.

Harmy said:

Anyone's disappointment about the pixel AR doesn't make it "unwatchable" and "horrendous" and "terrible"

I'll let peoples' own words speak for themselves, and more than one person has listed the 4:3 AR as their chief or only complaint about the GOUT.

- the fact, that it was a 13 years old transfer at the time of release, with heavy DVNR on top of that, is what makes it "unwatchable" and "horrendous" and "terrible," certainly by today's standards but it was at least "horrendous" by 2006 standards too. Back in the day, I was happy watching VHS on a CRT screen - today, I find the same combination unwatchable, because I'm used to a much higher standards.

"Unwatchable" and "horrendous" and "terrible" are terms which denote the bottom of the barrel, especially when you think all three terms apply in combination. The LaserDisc releases were worse, so where are they on your ladder? The VHS releases were worse still; where do they fit in "by today's standards"? How about the VCD releases?

If we give this a number scale, 1-10, with 1 being "unwatchable" and "horrendous" and "terrible", and 10 being the best Blu-ray releases, then the VCD releases would be a 1, the VHS, Betamax, and CED releases would be a 2, the better LD releases on a high-end player would be a 4, the GOUT would be a 5 (the best DVD releases would be a 6 or 6.5), and Blu-ray would be a 10. One could argue slightly different numbers for each of those, but I'd love to hear a logical argument for giving the GOUT a 1.

Wait, what is the GOUT if 1 = 1 full glass?

I'm excited to see if this conversation gets any sillier.

TV's Frink said:

Wait, what is the GOUT if 1 = 1 full glass?

I'm excited to see if this conversation gets any sillier.

 You mean: any sillier than your non sequitur?

Harmy said:

MaximRecoil said:

"Unwatchable" and "horrendous" and "terrible" are terms which denote the bottom of the barrel, especially when you think all three terms apply in combination. The LaserDisc releases were worse, so where are they on your ladder? The VHS releases were worse still; where do they fit in "by today's standards"? How about the VCD releases?

If we give this a number scale, 1-10, with 1 being "unwatchable" and "horrendous" and "terrible", and 10 being the best Blu-ray releases, then the VCD releases would be a 1, the VHS, Betamax, and CED releases would be a 2, the better LD releases on a high-end player would be a 4, the GOUT would be a 5 (the best DVD releases would be a 6 or 6.5), and Blu-ray would be a 10. One could argue slightly different numbers for each of those, but I'd love to hear a logical argument for giving the GOUT a 1.

 Simple, we are talking today's standards - VHS and LD are dead formats (and were in 2006 as well), so they don't enter into the debate about today's standards at all.

Anything can be judged by today's standards. But even if you want to arbitrarily limit it to formats which aren't technically "dead", then even if the GOUT had been the best possible DVD release, it would still only be marginally better than what we got when compared to the best possible Blu-ray.

By the way, VCD isn't a dead format, and it is worse than VHS.

Harmy said:

VCD is a format, which was never really alive :D

It is one of the most successful home video formats in history. Do you agree that VCD is the bottom of the barrel? If so, explain how the GOUT can also be bottom of the barrel.

And I'm actually pretty sure that a really good PAL anamorphic DVD would be closer in quality to a BD than the GOUT would be to that DVD.

First of all, PAL loses points simply because you are stuck watching films in fast-forward; good for projects where you can fix the framerate, but not so good as an as-is release. In any event, a Blu-ray has 5 times the resolution of a PAL DVD. This makes it suitable to far larger screens than a PAL DVD, i.e., 1080p is good for typical movie theater size screens while PAL DVDs certainly aren't. 

On the other hand, a 16:9 DVD containing an e.g., 2.35:1 movie only has a relatively small increase in resolution in the picture area, about 25% more than a 4:3 DVD containing a movie in the same aspect ratio (and this extra resolution is only in the vertical), which is a far cry from Blu-ray having 500% more resolution than a PAL DVD. Having 5 times the resolution trumps having slightly more vertical picture resolution plus less and/or better DNR.

Harmy said:

I'm sure there are parts of the world, where people are still watching B&W TVs but that doesn't mean, that B&W TVs aren't dead technology (not to mention, that there are parts of the world, where people don't even have electricity).

As mentioned by another poster, recent movies are still being released on VCD, so it is not a dead format.

SilverWook said:

That makes me wonder if a digital tuner would even work with a monochrome set?

Yes, it would work fine. It just needs to output an NTSC signal, which all of those digital tuner boxes that you use with older TVs do. NTSC was specifically designed to support color and be backward-compatible with black & white.

Black & white CRTs have an extremely high quality image potential. Just play a game of e.g. Asteroids or any other black & white vector arade game to see it. The reason for that is: the inside of the CRT is only coated with a solid sheet of white phosphor rather than droplets of red, green, and blue phosphors in a triad arrangement. This means that black & white CRTs never have any convergence issues, because there is nothing to converge (only one gun instead of three). On top of that, black & white TV have no shadow mask or aperture grille, so there is nothing between the glass and the phosphor impeding the brightness or breaking up the image. This is why the color vector arcade games don't have such razor sharp lines with such an intense glow as the black & white vector games.