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Jay

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Join date
22-Feb-2003
Last activity
20-Jan-2026
Posts
2,440

Post History

Post
#65196
Topic
HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/65196/action/topic#65196
Time
Warner had some level of ownership in the company that manufactured the snapper cases. That's why they've used them for so long. I believe that relationship is over now, which is why you're seeing new releases in keepcases.

Warner is probably my favorite studio when it comes to DVDs. Their releases are consistently reference-quality, and as Patrick says, their re-releases offer genuine improvements over the original disc. The Good Fellas remaster is gorgeous. One of those DVDs that makes my DLP projector look like it's projecting film.
Post
#65195
Topic
LD Players, What is the machine of choice??
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/65195/action/topic#65195
Time
In the land of "budget" LD players, the CLD-704 is king. Basically the same guts as the Elite CLD-79 but without the fancy Urishi finish. Probably the best bang for your buck.

Stay away from the Sony LD players. Horrible reliability problems. Panasonic made some good ones though. If you find an LX-600, pick it up. I've heard some say it's equal to the Pioneer players, and it's supposedly built like a tank.

Be careful with ebay. Lots of junk on there. LD players also break very easily during shipping if they're not packed well, and most used decks don't include the original box.

I'm also looking for an LD player myself. I had a CLD-79 and an LD-S9 (imported from Japan, beautiful machine). Both bought new, both immaculate. Sold them a couple years back and have regretted it ever since. Someday I'll replace the LD-S9, but funds are too tight right now for that. I sometimes dream of getting an HLD-X9, also a Japanese import, but they run anywhere from $2500 to $5000 depending on condition. They're special because they use a much more advanced laser pickup than traditional LD players, making them capable of seeing through rot and other disc problems.

I was hoping to have an LD player by the time the Star Wars DVDs hit the shelves so I could watch my THX "faces" LDs, which I kept after selling my LD players, but I haven't found what I'm looking for yet. I've sworn not to purchase the DVDs, but a small part of me hopes my fiance secretly buys them for me just so I can get my Star Wars fix. I watched AOTC a couple weeks back. What a poor excuse for Star Wars the prequels are. Unsatisfying in so many ways.

Good luck in your search.
Post
#63847
Topic
Search Feature for the list
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/63847/action/topic#63847
Time
No no no no no...don't sign up again. I monitor the list for profanity and such, but the confirmation procedure is automatic. Duplicate names/addresses go through.

Let me know what e-mail address you would've used to sign up, and I can search based on that.

It really is time I built a public search tool for the signature list. I'll try to get to that this week. I'm guessing traffic is going to increase a bit over the coming months.
Post
#62166
Topic
Who Here has a Home Theather Setup.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/62166/action/topic#62166
Time
Quote
Originally posted by: JangoxFett
I what just wondering if you guys and gals here at the OT had a Home Theather, Big Screen or Projector with Sound System Setup?.

I am planning to get one to view my star wars films on. I want a 16x9 150" wall screen and Projector to add to my 5.1 Sound System.

so far I see that most "Good" projectors are Very Pricey. almost like a used car. I saw one for 1599.99.

I would love to see some pics of your set up for more ideas.


Thanks.


As a home theater enthusiast, I suggest you stay out of the hobby. It quickly becomes an obsession and will drain your wallet faster than any woman ever could

It all started back in junior high school when I dug an old stereo receiver and a pair of speakers out of my mom's attic. One of the tweeters didn't work, but I didn't even care back then. I used some summer job money to pick up a Technics CD player and became hooked on home audio.

The next year I picked up a cheap Magnavox stereo receiver (50W per channel I think), a Technics 5-disc carousel changer (I precariously perched the first one on top of a cardboard box and it fell victim to my jumping cat), and my mom bought me a pair of Bose Interaudio 4000 XL speakers for Christmas (now sitting inside my front door and heading toward the dumpster). I also bought a 19" Sony Trinitron around the same time since I had a bad gaming addiction.

Right before I graduated high school, I upgraded to an Onkyo Dolby Pro Logic receiver, but never could afford the speakers to complete the setup because I was heading into college and needed beer money. That receiver was a tank and, along with my trusty Trinitron, survived 4 years at Penn State (okay, 5 years ) and was just recently sold on ebay. 12 years altogether--a pretty good run, and 12 times longer than I could go now without upgrading.

After I graduated and moved to Jersey, I picked up another Onkyo--a 797 THX Select 6.1 receiver--and paired it with a Polk speaker setup. Picked up a 32" Sony Wega and was in heaven. The old Trinitron went to my nephew's bedroom and is still there. This, I thought, was the ultimate. It couldn't get any better. My neighbors hated me and I was in home theater nirvana.

Then I stumbled across the AVS Forum where I learned about front projection. This is where it gets really nasty.

I'm on my fifth digital projector in two years.

Sold the Onkyo 797 due to some glitches (which, it turns out, weren't glitches at all, just bad internet press and misinformed customers) and upgraded to a Rotel RSP-1066 preamp and RMB-1075/RB-1050 amps for a 7.1 setup. It sounded great, but now the Polks were the weak link in my system. They simply couldn't resolve the detailed sound of the Rotel gear.

In comes a complete M&K S-150 THX Ultra speaker system. The sub is larger than most people's TVs. This setup completely blows away the Polks. I keep the front Polk towers and subwoofer and hook them up to the college tank Onkyo (remember him?) in the office with the 32" Sony Wega. This is my gaming rig. Streets of Rage never looked or sounded so good. The rest of the Polks (two center channels, two bookshelf speakers, and two dipole surrounds) sit in my closet until I decide to put them up for sale. I originally wanted to use them for a 5.1 gaming rig, but space was too tight. Maybe when I buy a house.

After a few months, I decided the feature set of the 1066 was too limited, so I upgraded to an Anthem AVM 20. Unbelievable piece of equipment. Built like a tank and sounded amazing. I kept the Rotel amps because they were more than enough power for my small theater.

Just last week, I sold my AVM 20 and bought a Harman Kardon DPR 2005 receiver. Rather than traditional analog amplification, it uses a digital amplifier. This means anything sent to the receiver digitally (Dolby Digital, DTS, a CD player connected via optical or digital coaxial) stays digital until it's sent to the speakers. Let me tell you, these new digital amps are going to bring audiophile-quality sound to the masses.

In terms of price and feature set, this is a downgrade from the AVM 20, but in terms of sound quality, it's definitely an upgrade. This thing sounds better than the AVM 20/Rotel amps ever did, and is 1/3 the price. There is ZERO background noise and the dynamic range is incredible. The 2005 is a higher-end digital amp (about $1100 street), but that's because the power output is insane for a receiver (200W x 7 channels at 4 ohms). There are much less expensive models from companies like Panasonic and Kenwood that sound just as good but don't have the power to drive large, hungry speakers. If any of you are in the market for a receiver, I highly recommend trying one with a digital amp (SA-XR50 or SA-XR70 from Panasonic, some from Kenwood and Sony also). There are guys out there who are dumping thousands of dollars in gear and hooking up their $10K+ speakers to a $300 Panasonic digital amp because it sounds that good.

The M&K's are also on their way out. Upgrading to James Loudspeakers. This upgrade is bordering on sick, but I'm an American, and excess is a way of life for me.

Oh, my current projector is a Sharp XV-Z12000 DLP projected onto a 92" screen. I calibrated it with a colorimeter and special PC software. Looks like a giant reference monitor.

Hi. My name is Jay, and I'm a home theater addict.
Post
#60019
Topic
1995 VHS
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/60019/action/topic#60019
Time
Quote
Originally posted by: Luke Skywalker
you guys think they'll ever do away with pan and scan?
or think it will always have a market?


HBO currently crops 2.35:1 films to 16:9 (1.78:1) for their HD broadcasts. Super 35 films have the mattes removed.

Even when widescreen TVs become the standard, there will still be 16:9 P&S for wider aspect ratios. Fortunately it's a rare thing for studios not to release DVDs in their proper aspect ratio, so I imagine the trend of dual P&S/OAR releases will continue into our widescreen future.
Post
#59796
Topic
General DVD Talk
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/59796/action/topic#59796
Time
Quote
Originally posted by: bad_karma24
Criterion's The Rock. No DVD could ever surpass it's quality of transfer.


Agreed. Reference video quality. An extremely natural, unfiltered look with about as much detail as the DVD format can provide.

Superbits are all marketing hype. There is nothing technically different about the process Columbia/Sony uses when producing the discs. They just increase the bitrate. There are plenty of high-quality, high-bitrate discs from other studios that blow away most Superbit releases without any lame marketing BS.
Post
#59481
Topic
HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/59481/action/topic#59481
Time
Quote
Originally posted by: bad_karma24
Sounds like a nice set-up. I assume you've gone and calibrated the gray-scale, tightened the guns, etc. It reminds me of Bjoern's.

The one thing I don't like about HD on HBO and Showtime is that more often or not they're broadcast in 1.85:1 regardless of their OAR. Very annoying.


It's a DLP, which is digital. No guns to tighten Focus is tack-sharp and doesn't require all the fiddling CRTs do. I did grayscale and complete color calibration using a colorimeter and test patterns (OpticONE and Avia PRO). The Sharp 12K has a highly configurable user menu that allows you to adjust not only red, green, and blue bias/gain, but also adjust the color decoder so you can plot red, green, blue, yellow, cyan, and magenta on a CIE chart with near-perfect accuracy. I calibrated the projector to mimic the characteristics of SMPTE-C phosphors, which are the phosphors used in professional monitors during mastering. I'm about as close to seeing what the telecine operator sees when he creates a master from original film stock as anyone can be.

Bjoern has an incredible setup though. My "theater" is really just an extra 14' x 11' bedroom in my apartment that I dedicated to my movie watching activities. I'll probably be buying a house in the next few years, and when that happens I'll design and build a true home theater. Should be fun.

HBO does tend to crop scope films to 1.78:1 (16:9), which sucks. Sometimes they open up the mattes on Super 35 stuff like they did with Harry Potter, which also sucks. Showtime is almost always OAR.
Post
#59416
Topic
HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/59416/action/topic#59416
Time
Well, think of it this way. It's not like you have to dump your existing DVD collection to adopt HD-DVD or BluRay. Your DVD player isn't going anywhere, and the new decks will be backwards-compatible. There's no reason you can't continue to enjoy your DVD collection while making new purchases of HD material. I certainly won't get rid of my DVDs until they have HD replacements. And I certainly wouldn't worry about HD-DVD/BluRay failing. I'd say there's a very slim chance of that. It also won't be replaced for MANY years. All the studios are currently doing their HD masters in 1080p. They'd have to go back and do the masters again if they wanted to go even higher, not to mention the fact that going higher than 1080p would yield no benefit to 99% of consumers. Only people with 100"+ projection screens would benefit from that.

In your case, and in the case of many others, screen size is what determines your need for HD. Viewing distance also comes into play. I'd say for the majority of users, DVD is more than satisfying at 60" or less. The differences between DVD and HD are less apparent, especially if you haven't been exposed to significant amounts of good HD material. For me, aside from resolution, color accuracy and depth are the most noticeable improvements. If you ever have occasion to see the exact same material in both DVD format and HD (I see this quite often because many of my DVDs are broadcast in HD on HBO and Showtime), the differences are easier to spot. I watched a bit of Matrix Reloaded on HBO in HD a while back, and even the reference-quality image on the DVD couldn't touch the HD version.

Another issue is the ability of the display to resolve everything HD has to offer. Most CRT-based projection TVs are limited to 1080i/540p (or 480p if your TV supports it natively, many don't). A select few support and can actually resolve 720p. The holy grail--for now anyway--is 1080p. It's really only possible on CRT displays with 9" guns and the latest digital displays. As 1080p-capable digital displays filter down to more reasonable price brackets, then you'll see HD in its full glory and the differences will be much more apparent.

I sit about 11' away from my screen. I have a Sharp Z12000 DLP projector, which is 1280x720. I'd like more pixels than that. It looks really good, especially after I calibrated it with a colorimeter (HD looks like film), but I can still make out the pixel structure sometimes. Contrast is about 4000:1, and with the lights out it looks like a giant plasma.
Post
#59366
Topic
HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/59366/action/topic#59366
Time
I try not to get into these DVD vs HD-DVD vs BluRay debates anymore because I recognize that my priorities are different from most consumers. I actually look forward to the day I can sell all my DVDs on ebay and replace them with HD versions.

Watching movies at the screen size I do (92" diagonal 16:9), DVDs are inadequate. The resolution is too low and the color fidelity isn't there. I hear a lot of people claim that with proper scaling and higher pixel counts on digital displays, DVDs can approach HD quality. That's true in part. Closeups on reference DVDs look outstanding on my setup. Medium shots look really good. Watch any far shots with lots of small details, and you'll see a huge difference between DVD and HD. DVDs look soft and muddy in comparison.

HD on disc will start out as a niche format, but sales of HD displays are booming. Whoever wins in the end--HD-DVD or BluRay--will do just fine because morons like me will buy the first deck out the door. If there are a significant number of titles available on HD-DVD that I can't get on BluRay, then I'll just have to buy both.

Also keep in mind who's pushing HD on disc; it's not the studios. They're happy to sell you the same content again, sure. The real push is coming from manufacturers who can't profit on DVD player sales anymore because Chinese manufacturers are flooding the market with $40 DVD players. Manufacturers need a new format so they can sell expensive decks.


To address a few points I'm too lazy to go back and quote:

Claiming laserdisc failed because it didn't offer enough of an improvement over VHS is silly. The benefits over VHS are huge on a good TV. The best LDs I've seen are superior to most non-anamorphic DVDs. LDs failed because they're 12" wide and many movies required two or three discs. DVD took off not primarily because of image quality improvements, but because it's a 5" disc that reminds consumers of CDs, which they loved to death until they started raping content providers by downloading MP3s. Lazy consumers prefer convenience to quality. That's why microwaves are so popular.

Claiming HD has no advantage over DVD because one D-VHS movie doesn't look all that great is absurd. Having had HD via cable for about two years now, I can tell you that the best HD broadcasts--which have lower bitrates and overall lower quality than D-VHS--completely decimate DVD on a good setup. View a D-VHS tape such as Fight Club, and you'll see what HD can do. As digital displays evolve to support 1080p, then you'll really see some shit.
Post
#59043
Topic
2004 box set changes
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/59043/action/topic#59043
Time
Quote
Originally posted by: Zombie Chewbacca
Anyone else think film alteration is a lot like plastic surgery? The changes don't exactly improve anything save a quick boost of self-esteem. Oh, and it's highly addictive.


Funny that you posted this. Here's a post I made at the AV Science forums just last night:

"Lucas's repeated edits to the trilogy are like Michael Jackson's attempts to fix his bad plastic surgery with even more bad plastic surgery.

If only we could transport both men back in time and show them nothing was really wrong with the original in the first place."
Post
#58704
Topic
Reminder: Bootlegs of commercially available DVDs (such as the upcoming trilogy release) are NOT PERMITTED
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/58704/action/topic#58704
Time
I'm seeing links to bootleg downloads for the upcoming release of Star Wars.

DO NOT POST SUCH LINKS!

The original theatrical cuts are unavailable on DVD in an official release, so I turn a blind eye to those. Not everyone can have a laserdisc player and the original LDs.

However, the upcoming 2004 cuts will be available for you to purchase if you want them. Whether you agree with the changes or not, PAY FOR THE DAMN BOX SET if you want to watch it.

I understand many of you would like to see just how much has changed from the originals; I have the same desire. This site can't afford to defend that position. If we're associated with distributing bootlegs, or even allowing them to be provided via our forums, we could get into serious trouble.

It's not hard to find such things on the internet. Just don't post them here.
Post
#58703
Topic
Reminder: Bootlegs of commercially available DVDs (such as the upcoming trilogy release) are NOT PERMITTED
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/58703/action/topic#58703
Time
I'm seeing links to bootleg downloads for the upcoming release of Star Wars.

DO NOT POST SUCH LINKS!

The original theatrical cuts are unavailable on DVD in an official release, so I turn a blind eye to those. Not everyone can have a laserdisc player and the original LDs.

However, the upcoming 2004 cuts will be available for you to purchase if you want them. Whether you agree with the changes or not, PAY FOR THE DAMN BOX SET if you want to watch it.

I understand many of you would like to see just how much has changed from the originals; I have the same desire. This site can't afford to defend that position. If we're associated with distributing bootlegs, or even allowing them to be provided via our forums, we could get into serious trouble.

It's not hard to find such things on the internet. Just don't post them here.
Post
#58702
Topic
Reminder: Bootlegs of commercially available DVDs (such as the upcoming trilogy release) are NOT PERMITTED
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/58702/action/topic#58702
Time
I'm seeing links to bootleg downloads for the upcoming release of Star Wars.

DO NOT POST SUCH LINKS!

The original theatrical cuts are unavailable on DVD in an official release, so I turn a blind eye to those. Not everyone can have a laserdisc player and the original LDs.

However, the upcoming 2004 cuts will be available for you to purchase if you want them. Whether you agree with the changes or not, PAY FOR THE DAMN BOX SET if you want to watch it.

I understand many of you would like to see just how much has changed from the originals; I have the same desire. This site can't afford to defend that position. If we're associated with distributing bootlegs, or even allowing them to be provided via our forums, we could get into serious trouble.

It's not hard to find such things on the internet. Just don't post them here.
Post
#58701
Topic
Reminder: Bootlegs of commercially available DVDs (such as the upcoming trilogy release) are NOT PERMITTED
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/58701/action/topic#58701
Time
I'm seeing links to bootleg downloads for the upcoming release of Star Wars.

DO NOT POST SUCH LINKS!

The original theatrical cuts are unavailable on DVD in an official release, so I turn a blind eye to those. Not everyone can have a laserdisc player and the original LDs.

However, the upcoming 2004 cuts will be available for you to purchase if you want them. Whether you agree with the changes or not, PAY FOR THE DAMN BOX SET if you want to watch it.

I understand many of you would like to see just how much has changed from the originals; I have the same desire. This site can't afford to defend that position. If we're associated with distributing bootlegs, or even allowing them to be provided via our forums, we could get into serious trouble.

It's not hard to find such things on the internet. Just don't post them here.