What was done for the 1995 THX mastering?

Mielr said:

The "Faces" LDs and VHS tapes from 1995 are from the same master as the Definitive Collection LD set from '93, and the same master (except for the original scroll on SW) was used for the '06 GOUT DVDs.

(The '93 VHS set in the Hologram box were sourced from a previous master - different soundtrack, too).

Aside from new telecine transfers, they used a 'dirt concealment' technique on the Faces/DC releases, which actually caused some unfortunate smearing and artifacts.

Anyone have a few shots of the 1993 Hologram set?  I'd like to know what I'm looking for and I don't think I've seen it.

Thanks kindly,

Shawn

But they used the same 1985 Interpositive right? Which I am still  confused about. That IP was created and used once in 1985 for home video, once again in 1993, and scanned for the special edition. So what is the big deal using it again for a decent dvd? Why would it be any more difficult than any other catalog title from 1985? If Star Wars was a minor 70s cult film wouldn't there be a press release like "Good news fans! We have located an IP from 1985 that was only used 3 times! Throw away your bootlegs!!"

It wouldn't be a big deal, Lucasfilm just uses that as an excuse. There would probably need to be some significant color correction done since it is probably faded quite a bit by now, but yeah, the 1985 IP is just one of many sources that are viable for a new, high-def release.

As for the original question, the 1995 THX release is the same print used for most other home video releases (all of them?), the reason it looks better was because the telecine was optimized by THX standards and it was the first time the films had been mastered digitally. As a result the films are crisper and cleaner and have better color and sound quality than the previous releases.

Does anyone know if it was the same master from the 1993 DE just re-mastered and re-transfered, or was it a whole new telecine from scratch? The DE had the ghosting issues from the dirt concealment, but is this on the THX sets as well? If not, my question is why LFL used the 1993 version for the GOUT, since there was a HQ master made for Laserdisk for the 1995 set as well.

Hm. So either they used the same technique and hence have the same problem, or it was the transfer to the tapes/disks that was THX supervised, not the actual master--but does that even work that way? I thought "mastered in THX" applies to the master, not the transfering process. If its the same as the DE, then a new master would have to be a copy of the DE master (which was a D1 tape, I believe), making it a generation removed.  Does this even make any sense? Something seems missing here.

You know I vaguely remember a friend saying his faces tapes were more "colorful" than he'd ever seen the movies. Did they just...jack up the color when they were making the pan and scan version of the '93 source? (Since VHS was 99% of the thrust of that faces campaign and all the other tapes from '85 on were just repackagings? And the 93 definitive collection laserdisc has the THX logo on it if that means anything?) Plus, I feel like laserdiscs are just aging weird when looking at them now.

You might be right about the digital mastering--now that I think about it, my 1993 VHS says "digitally mastered" on the side, I am pretty sure. I guess it's really just the THX process that makes it unique. Personally, though, the films looked sharper and cleaner, especially where dirt and grain were concerned. This could just be tricks in the telecine, I suppose.

As for why they didn't use a restored OOT built for the SE, the restored version of Star Wars wasn't quite so step-by-step. It wasn't like they restored the whole film from start to finish and then did the enhancements. The enhancements were being done at the same time the restoration was, as the pieces were ready, so there was never any moment where there was a full film of restored footage, it was always a piece here, a piece there. ESB and ROTJ were not even part of the plan in 1995, those SE's were only decided only around 1996, so the restoration of those was done after the THX videos were already on shelves.