Original Star Wars Films

[Rasczak]

Now that it seems unlikely that we will get the three original versions of Episodes IV, V and VI I was wondering what people planned to do.

Currently I have a number of widescreen VHS versions of the originals that I am thinking of transferring to DVDR just so that I can watch the "originals" every now and then. However I was wondering if it would be worth acquiring a laserdisc player and the original laserdiscs and archive these to DVD instead. Would this give a substantially better picture? What about audio - were the originals just stereo?

You'll have to forgive my ignorance I never got 'into' laserdisc as I only left Uni and started work just prior to DVDs launch in the US so didn't see the need to get into a 'dying' format. However if the quality is that much better it might be worth it.

Is anyone else thinking on similar lines?

[nathan_silly]

If you want to transfer LD Star Wars to DVD-R, then find the SE with AC-3 (Dolby Digital 5.1)

The original- non CG- versions are just in stereo, and picture quality is much lower than the SE's, from what I've heard.

[Rasczak]

Thanks for the reply,

If you want to transfer LD Star Wars to DVD-R, then find the SE with AC-3 (Dolby Digital 5.1)
No - I don't want to transfer the SE - I'm sure Lucas will release these on DVD eventually even if he does modify them again. It's just the original originals I worried about.

The original- non CG- versions are just in stereo, and picture quality is much lower than the SE's, from what I've heard.
I might as well just archive the VHS then. Oh well - thanks for the help!

[LV426]

The picture quality on the very last (THX approved) LD versions of the original films was

a) much better than you will ever see it on VHS
b) not nearly as good as the SE's. But, then, the SEs were produced using state of the art techniques, not available when the original films were made.

The improvement in quality between ep4 and ep 6 is quite noticeable.