It's the "Look" second version. I found it for $7 per disc at the lowest price but that was a few years ago - I've even seen this set hit $300 on eBay!
Star Wars: The Original Trilogy - The Second LOOK Bootleg Version - NUKED*
- DVD and DVDr versions are readily found
This was the most common version on eBay auctions in the summer and fall of 2001. These are the original versions of the movies (not the 1997 Special Edition). At one time, I heard reports that these were taken from Asian Video-CD's. In fact, they were taken from the 1995 LaserDisc releases; the Video-CD's were presented in pan-and-scan only and in even poorer video quality than found on these bootlegs. They include decent static menus, with a choice of audio track (several languages), the ability to turn off subtitles, access to chapters, and a featurette of some sort on each disc. As with some of the other bootlegs, the time display on all three discs does not work. Chapter stops are present, but skipping forward during the movie jumps to title 2 (the featurette) rather than the next chapter. This occurred on both my Panasonic A310 and my Toshiba SD-1600. The bit rate appears to stay around 2.0 to 2.5 Mbps in most areas, although it did increase to closer to 5 Mbps near the end of Jedi.
Video quality was somewhat poor when using my Panasonic DVD-A310 to the Mitsubishi TV. In some cases, parts of the image would appear to "twitch" (digital artifacts and "noise"). One case was near the end of Jedi, when the Super Star Destroyer rolled to port and crashed into the Death Star. The smooth outer areas of the upper hull seemed to crawl during that sequence. As with Version A, there was a noticeable deterioration when using component video (SD-1600 to Toshiba 20"); similar blockiness and severe artifacting, although perhaps not as severe as with Version A. Some sections (oddly, those with higher bit rates, which may be a coincidence) avoided the artifacting but displayed severe display problems of other sorts, such as horizontal bars of color scrolling across the screen. I also took a look at one of the discs on a computer DVD drive, and found that the video in that case suffered severe problems with artifacts and some sort of interlacing.
The liner notes for Empire and Jedi are fairly reasonable. A New Hope is a bit more interesting. The front cover includes E-Wing fighters at the bottom (these may not look familiar, because they never appear in the movies; they were introduced as new fighters in the Dark Horse comic book series "Dark Empire", set about four years after the end of Return of the Jedi). The back cover describes the disc as the "complete revised Star Wars trilogy comprising the Special Edition of Star Wars" even though it is not the SE version. The back also includes pictures of Han in carbonite, AT-AT walkers on Hoth, Jabba, and a group of Naboo troopers, even though none of these appear in the movie. The copyright is also listed as 1997 (the year the Special Edition was released) rather than 1977; Empire and Jedi use the years the movies were released, which is more accurate. A New Hope also tosses in the note that the disc is "Sony Playstation 2 compatible," which has also been done on some "real" DVD releases. Lastly, the disc itself for A New Hope says "Special Edition."
DVD Features
- Interactive menus
- Chapter Selection
- Dolby Digital 5.1 mix
- Selectable subtitles
- empire and jedi suffer minor audio delays
- SOURCE: www.prillaman.net and edited by me