- Post
- #50054
- Topic
- OT bootleg DVD reviews
- Link
- https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/50054/action/topic#50054
- Time
originally posted on....
Sat March 13, 2004 11:10 AM
Well I’ve seen the TR47 Star Wars DVD’s. They really are pretty damn good. In fact out of the four sets I have seen they are the best yet. The picture is really good. I played them on my 57” Widescreen and they looked a bit soft at parts but on the smaller 36” TV they looked just fine. Don’t get me wrong the movies look awesome in their 57” HD glory. All the dirt and scratches on the image are obviously from the Laserdisc they were taken from. That would account for the soft parts too. I compared the DVD set and my Definitive Edition Laserdiscs and they are about spot dead on. If you really, really, really look hard you can find MINISCULE differences. But it’s nothing that you would even start to notice on a low end screen (or if you didn’t have a bunch of free time to actually look for them). Now that I think about it I should go check out the soft parts. I bet money they are on the Laserdiscs too.
As for sound it was the first time I had watched a bootleg set not in 5.1 and let me tell you this is the best sounding set I have ever run through my system. The Three other sets were all in 5.1, yes, but it was a mixed up version from a 2.0 source. So what you get from that is sound the wraps around you but sounds very flat once it gets past the front sound stage. I ran this through a Dolby Prologic II receiver and the sound really defused nicely to the rear sound stage. It sounded great. I would be will to take a leap and say it’s the best sounding the Original Trilogy will even sound. Of course I say this assuming that George Lucas will never release these on DVD.
The set has the three movies on three discs all with no menus to eat up space for the movie. They also have quite a few chapters for the ease of navigating the movie. The set also came with a bonus disc with a bunch of boring crap that I fell asleep watching and a fifth disc with files for printing out your own case covers, inlays, and disc covers. That was a very nice touch and something that is greatly appreciated.
My only complaint with this is that it isn’t in Anamorphic Widescreen as I thought it was. Don’t get me wrong this is the best widescreen transfer I have ever seen of these movies but it’s not anamorphic. That is of course easily fixable with the zoom feature on your TV. The movies are (For the first time I know of in bootleg form) actually presented in its true 2.35:1 ratio. I have seen anamorphic DVDs of these movies that actually crop the movie to around 1.75:1 which also cuts off all the subtitles. So I’m more than happy with this non anamorphic set. Of course if you don’t have a 16:9 TV you don’t give a damn about that. But I do so there.
In closing I would say this is as good as it gets for now. To quote Darth Vader…
“Impressive…Most Impressive”
Equipment Used:
57” 16:9 HD Toshiba Projection TV (I can’t remember Model Number)
Pioneer VSX-D810S (Receiver)
Pioneer DV-F727 (DVD Player)
M&K V-1250 THX Subwoofer
Infinity 12” Subwoofer (Again no idea on Model Number)
M&K 550 THX Surround (X2)
M&K LCR-750 THX Front (X2)
M&K 750-THX Center (X2 - one in front and one in rear)