**Official Thread** - The Limited Edition 2006 DVD Release

I need to remember that next time I see someone talk about adding Padme in the ghost scene. Yareal Poof is gold.

 

So, like, anyways...

Are these worth buying?

 

I would go back and read several pages of this thread starting on the date it was released.

 

Yes, I would say it was worth buying. I enjoyed seeing and hearing certain elements that were changed from edition to edition. Both the good and the bad changes. I would have loved to have a branching edition where you could watch either version and at any time. Thereby allowing a comparison between the changed scenes without needing to switch discs.

 

It's a ripp-off. But if you want the originals, you have to buy them. So in a way they ARE in fact worth buying. But the picture quality is a mess. Even for non anamorphic DVDs they look absolutely inferior to other letterbox titles like 'The Abyss' or the first release of 'Titanic'. There's much more visible aliasing and blocking than those titles have. Even the SE-Laserdisks don't have that problem. There also seem to be some problems with colour timing / saturation, 'cause even with a perfectly THX-optimized display, you can see the garbage-mattes (we all agree, they are there on the SE-DVD as well, but dial in your set correctly - and you'll never ever SEE them). And I really know, what I am talking about, I've seen them all on a 42" LCD-Flat.
But if that's the way, Lucas himself wants his most successful films in their initial incarnation to be seen and (cough) enjoyed in the years to come - who are WE to argue with him???

 

Hmmm... okay, here's the thing. I don't need another widescreen DVD of the 2004 version. Are there fullscreen ones with fullscreen bonus disks? That is the only possible way I would even think about it. I mean, I have my vhs copies of the OTT. My VCR works still. (shrugs)

 

In the US, there seem to be fullscreen SEs plus Widescreen O-OTs. There is no fullscreen bonus O-OT anywhere.

 

Really? It's 4:3 letterbox or nothing?
There are still people out there who buy fullscreen. My TV is only a 21-incher. It was a higher-end one at the time, and the resolution is wonderful - it does the job.

For the LOTR, I bought the theatrical releases in fullscreen, and the exteneded ones (which are only anam. 16:9).

I would have bought the O-OT on DVD in fullscreen. Alas.
This is me not buying it.

 

Can understand why anyone would buy any DVD in "fool-screen".

But that's just me.

 

Like I said, a small tv.
"fool-screen", lol! Sounds like Waterboy's mom!

Watch wahd screen, boy! Fool-screen's the DEVIL!

 

and this is one of my predictions being fulfilled.

back when the "letterbox transfer=no fullscreen O-OT" news broke, I said that there is always a market for fullscreen dvd and that both LFL and the customers would be missing out.

 

TIP FOR IMPROVING PICTURE QUALITY OF YOUR SW "BONUS" O-OT DVDs.

...if you are watching them on a widescreen HDTV and have a progressive scan DVD player, that is.

Came across something interesting today quite by accident. Finally had purchased the collectors edition 2-disc FROM DUSK 'TIL DAWN (the one w/ FULL-TILT BOOGIE included) and when I popped it in my DVD plaer, I found that it was NOT anamorphically enhanced. Nice 1.85:1 rectangle in the middle of my 16x9 TV screen. Bummer.

So, while trying the "zoom" setting on my DVD player, I accidentally switched it's progressive scan mode from "film" (called "auto" on my Panasonic) to "video". Turned out that this cleared up the zoomed image considerably and partially reduced the edge "jaggies" found when non-anamorphic DVD video is blown up this way. So, I popped in my O-OT ESB. Set player back to "auto/film" and there was the zoomed, fuzzy image. Set p. scan to video, image looked much better. Not SE better, but certainly an improvement. So for those with both p. scan DVD players and HDTVs, this might be a cool trick to try. Most p. scan DVD players have the feature in which users can switch p. scan modes for either film or video. If your's does, it's worth a try.

Can anyone (zombie, perhaps) explain why this is? I'm assuming that non-anamporphic DVDs (usually older releases) were often straight ports over from laserdisc--much like the "current" O-OT discs. Guessing thant the type of partially analog video source used for LD may play a factor in p.scan for "video" making a difference in overall picture quality.

All I know is that this makes my O-OTs look much improved when watching them "full-size" on my widescreen HD set.

 

B, I, N-G-O
B, I, N-G-O
B, I, N-G-O
and Bingo was his name-O.


I'll buy another trilogy if and when (touch wood) something happens to the 2004 set I have. Or, if there is a 2007 anniversary set with enough changes, bells, whistles, bonus features, etc to make it worthwhile.

I mean, was anyone here crazy enough to buy the 3-disc 2005 set - and these 2006 ones just to have all of them???

 

With widescreen you have the option to zoom in and make the picture full screen. With fool screen, you have no options. No self respecting movie expert such as myself would ever be caught with a fool screen DVD. Alot of stores don't even carry them.

 

First of all, the zoom thingy doesn't always work properly. Second of all, are you really a self-respecting movie expert? Wow, I'm impressed. Ever kiss a girl?

 

Can't speak for guitarjedi, But I have certainly kissed several girls in my day. Even had intimate relations with a few. The proof of that would be my 3-yr old daughter and another on the way.

So I am a self-respecting movie lover (who has seen plenty of action w/ the opposite sex) who would NEVER stoop to buying any fullscreen DVD when the widescreen version is available. Have returned several DVDs received as gifts that were "foolscreen" to get the widescreen versions. And not just 'cause I have a fancy widescreen TV. Used to search far and wide for "letterbox" VHS back in the pre-DVD days. Thank God LFL made letterbox SW VHS. Even if all I had was a lousy 13" standard TV, I'd still get widescreen movies. You get the ENTIRE picture at it's full resolution. Not only are both sides of the image lopped off in fullscreen, the fact that the image must be magnified to fit a 4:3 ratio causes it to lose sharpness and accentuate grain in the picture. But, if you just don't care to experience movies the way they were intended to be seen, that's your perogitave (and loss, frankly).

Check out the bonus materials on either Disney's SLEEPING BEAUTY or the DIE HARD 5 STAR COLLECTION DVDs to see segments that will show you why widescreen is both far more aesthetically pleasing and correct in terms of the filmmaker's vision.

Or just check the following link:

http://www.widescreen.org/examples/starwars/index.shtml

 

Yeah i remember buying widescreen VHS tapes in the specialty sections of video stores that were marked "Widescreen". Those giant FOX clamshell widescreen cases--i used to love those; shame that the Star Wars releases were just normal. I think FOX used to even put a sort of "widescreen explanation trailer" at the head of their tapes, along with other trailer and behind the scenes featurettes. Shame they still dont, since those just preached to the choir. Die Hard and Pearl Harbor Directors Cut are the only DVD's with widescreen explanations that demonstrate through video split screens and animated zooming the differences between widescreen and pan and scan (the term "fullscreen" is completely innaccurate--its only fullscreen if your TV is 4X3--soon all tv's will be 16X9, so "fullscreen" will come to mean that aspect ratio). Only problem is that the Die Hard DVD had it as a hidden feature and the Pearl Harbor DC nobody bothered with. D'oh!

 

I am very happy with my copies of the Limited Edition 2006 DVD release of the OT. I think video looks very good on DVD, it may not look as good as the 2004 versions, but the original theatrical versions still look very good. I am pleased to say that they are part of my Star Wars DVD collection.

 

So you switched on the deinterlacer. If that's necessary to improve film material, that usually should be playable progressive, then they obviously have messed something in the telecining process. Film material should be best viewed in progressive scan...
Reason for this could be, that they swapped A/B-order of the halfpicture scanlines. Usually it's A1/A2-B1/B2-C1/C2. If you get X1/A2-A1/B2-B1/C2-C1/...-cadence, a lot of cheaper players have a problem, getting the correct halfpictures together. But that would cause heavy picture distortions. I don't think, that's the problem. If you compare these DVDs to the '97 LD there is just too much blocking alongside edges - even for LD. My suspicion is, that they did not use a real LD-Master in '93 but a VHS-(optimized)-Master. Did anyone ever count, if the picture really consits of 480 DIFFERENT lines? Maybe A1- and A2-lines are identical - that would in fact make a better picture with deinterlacing than with progressive scan...

 

No. Really. In my collection of several hundrets of DVDs, these letterbox ripps are definitely some of the worst DVDs I have EVER seen. Even letterbox titles like Abyss, Titanic or Days of Thunder, look a lot better than these. You might not care. You might enjoy them nevertheless - that's up to you. But if you really don't see any differenz between these LD-Ripps and REAL DVDs, you might either need a better TV or glasses...

 

I watched TESB last night. Ugh. This film looked absolutely awful, especially during the Hoth scenes. I'm not referring to matte lines or dated visual effects; that's to be expected. No, I'm referring to image degradation, a weird gauze that appears over many scenes, and of course the many image shakes throughout the film. I swear my VHS looks better! At least the original edit was preserved. "Bring my shuttle" and "You're lucky you don't taste very good" are back in their proper glory. And the end chase scene flows so much better without arbitrary shots of Vader flying to his command ship intercut with it.

*sigh* I don't know if this DVD is worth any money. I'd rather watch my VHS, I think.

Let's hope ROTJ fares a little better.

 

George Lucas has a bit of a cheek releasing these as a bonus, any star wars fan is gonna have the SE anyway, why would we rebuy?

The guys a legend as if it wasnt for him there'd be no star wars but he is starting to take advantage now

Its not even a clever marketing ploy, its all out blatant. He should have released the O-OT on their own with special features such as a documentary comparing the changes to warrant people spending their hard earned cash on another copy of the films.

Its because of the disrespect shown for the fans that I wont be buying - as much as I really want them

 

What I'm not getting is, when switching my player's progressive scan output (which is on) from "film" to "video" isn't the image still p. scan--just a different frame rate? Or is it actually being deinterlaced?

Anyway, all non-anamorphic DVDs I have seem to benefit from setting output this way when zooming the picture to fill the screen. SW--and all others--don't see a massive or even fairly large improvement in picture quality. The O-OT ins't gonna come close to the SE, PQ-wise. But it does improve the sharpness and sorta smooth out some of the rough edges ("jaggies") a bit. W/O this setting change, you can see the individual resolution lines (?) when viewing any horizontal line/surface and in the eyes/mouths of actors--causing a slight 'blurriness' to the picture. Don't know if the same type of transfer situation occured w/ my other DVDs like this.

Have to remember to switch player back after doing this though .

 

What part of me having both versions did any of you ratio format snobs miss?

 

Today I knocked out ROTJ. This probably looked the best out of the three films, but there were still noticeable dirt specs and artifacts throughout the film and the level of detail wasn't the best. Still, I'll pick "Lapti Nek" over "Jedi Rocks" any day and it was good to see Sebastian Shaw at the end over Hayden Christensen. ROTJ still has the best space battle out of the entire saga.

So after viewing these discs first hand, I have to say I'm woefully disappointed in Lucasfilm for putting out such a shoddy product and I do not believe I'd be getting much of an upgrade over my current video versions, so unless these DVDs go for dirt cheap before the end of the year ($10 or less), I will not be getting them.