I'll still buy these because I'm just too lazy to seed a fan-made DVD.

Yeah, I was exhausted last time I had to leave my PC switched on for a few days while I went off to do some other shit...

BUT would the resolution survive stretching to anamorphic 16x9 using the letterbox OUT as the source for a fan-made anamorphic? or would is simply look like grainy ass?

I have fanmade transfer of the Definitive LD's to DVD-R which feature anamorphic widescreen. The video quality isn't fantastic but I think it's pretty good for a fan effort, esp considering the material they had to work with. It'll never match what professionals with access to master copies can do but it's not bad. If someone made a similar effort for the OUT DVD's, I'd bet the video quality would be better than the LD transfers. It'll be interesting to see what's coming.

Of course it would. Lanczos resizing was made for upscaling and it does an amazing job. I can't speak for other fan created DVDs, but anytime I've ever upscaled video using Lanczos and a few other filters, the result is better than the original. See my ROTS DVD as an example.

Over at HomeTheaterForum.com, site owner Ron Epstein had this to say:

[hr]

UPDATE 5/23

just want to let you folks know the newest developments
as of today....

One of the magazines I have been talking to has actually
contacted LucasFilm.

It has been absolutely confirmed that these are going to be
the original non-anamorphic transfers used for the 1993 laserdisc
release.

I wanted to post this for anyone out there that is still posting
on other forums that none of the information we have been reporting
to all of you is valid.

There has been a further statement made from LucasFilm as
to the reasons for what they are doing, but out of fairness to
the upcoming article that will be written, I am not going to talk
about this right now. In a few days there will be a story posted
and linked here that all of you are welcome to read. It will explain
the situation in more detail.

In the meantime, I urge all of you to continue mailing, emailing
and phoning your concerns to LucasFilm. Apparantly they are
willing to talk to fans and perhaps some of you may be able to
post a few comments that I am unable to discuss at this time.

[hr]

We need to get this "further statement made from LucasFilm as to the reasons for what they are doing" out ASAP

I'll take a look, thanks!.

Very intresting...yes I agree with you DP we need to get this info out asap. It will be intresting to read what Lucasfilm has to say about this.

The article Ron Epstein was referring to:

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6337246.html

[hr]

Lucasfilm: Original Star Wars 'bonus'
Fans protest release of laserdisc prints on DVD
By Susanne Ault 5/23/2006

MAY 23 | In the wake of extreme fan protests, Lucasfilm is positioning its release of the original ’70s theatrical versions of the first three Star Wars movies as bonus features.

As groused about on various DVD enthusiast Web sites, including www.thedigitalbits.com and www.hometheaterforum.com, Lucasfilm confirmed the studio is not remastering these early films. The prints for the Sept. 12 DVDs of Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope, Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars: Episode VI—Return of the Jedi come from laserdiscs of the films released in the mid ’90s. This means that Episodes IV-V1 will be presented in widescreen but not anamorphic, thereby not making full use of modern TV screens.

Lucasfilm acknowledges that some imperfections are embedded in the prints, but director of publicity John Singh said the company felt there was little need to invest resources into sprucing up films that have already been restored to pristine form.

Special edition versions of the films with additions made by George Lucas were released in theaters in the ’90s and on DVD in 2004.

“We put a lot of time and effort into digitally restoring the negatives for the 2004 DVD releases,” Singh said. “The late ’90s theatrical versions represent George’s vision for Star Wars. We hoped that by releasing the original movies as a bonus disc, it would be a way to give the fans something that is fun. We certainly didn’t want to be become a source of frustration for fans.”

Although the prints aren’t in the best of shape, the masters used for the laserdiscs “do look good,” Singh assured.

Both old and new versions of Episodes IV-VI will be included in the Sept. 14 Star Wars sets, to be distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The revamped ’90s theatrical versions will be offered in anamorphic widescreen.

This release also represents the first time the movies will be available individually.

Fans have threatened to boycott buying the original Star Wars films if they aren’t cleaned up.

“These are the versions that the fans saw as kids back in the ’70s—this was how they grew up,” said Ron Epstein, HomeTheaterForum.com co-owner. “George doesn’t like these versions, and it’s not the way he wants his legacy to be remembered. But fans [are saying], ‘You aren’t doing us a favor [in putting out] what basically amounts to a laserdisc transfer.”

Aware of the uproar, Lucasfilm is in the process of directly contacting its upset fan base in an attempt to smooth things over.

Some fans had been speculating that Lucasfilm was saving its big gun efforts for the new generation DVD formats. But the company said that at this time, there are no plans to release the original ’70s Star Wars versions in high-definition.

“We absolutely appreciate the fact that these fans are so passionate,” Singh said. “It’s indicative of the fact that they care so much about Star Wars.”

[hr]

Lucasfilm acknowledges that some imperfections are embedded in the prints, but director of publicity John Singh said the company felt there was little need to invest resources into sprucing up films that have already been restored to pristine form.

Special edition versions of the films with additions made by George Lucas were released in theaters in the ’90s and on DVD in 2004.

“We put a lot of time and effort into digitally restoring the negatives for the 2004 DVD releases,” Singh said. “The late ’90s theatrical versions represent George’s vision for Star Wars. We hoped that by releasing the original movies as a bonus disc, it would be a way to give the fans something that is fun. We certainly didn’t want to be become a source of frustration for fans.”

Although the prints aren’t in the best of shape, the masters used for the laserdiscs “do look good,” Singh assured.

I wonder if they still intend to insert the origional opening crawl in ANH, or was that just a lie.

It'll be there, although it's entirely possible it was never going to be in there originally, since they were using the 1993 LD masters. Not exactly a far-fetched conspiracy theory, but the reference to the old crawl was deleted from the news article on starwars.com the night it was posted and then re-integrated the next day. One could ascertain that someone at LFL screwed up and they realized they'd have to add the original crawl in to deliver what was promised. Or something.

OK, this is off-topic and a little weird. I was reading through today's posts and thinking, as I think I posted somewhere earlier, that the only shoe left to drop is for us to find out that the OUT has been compressed to a small enough size to fit on a DVD-5 and leave room for the Xbox demo. And then I thought, how big are those things anyway? So I put the ROTS bonus disc into my computer and the first thing I saw is that its name is "CHARLOTTE_DISC2." Wtf? I took it out, put in disc 1 and sure enough, it's "CHARLOTTE_DISC1."

Anyone else notice this? Anyone have anything different? What the hell's that about?

The Xbox stuff, btw, took up about 400 MB.

I think that was reported by StarWars.com when ROTS was first released. They said a few of the first batches of the release had the name "Charlotte Disc 1 and 2" and that was the code name they gave for the DVD sets. I do believe the report said it would be fixed for the next batchs that got sent out. They said to consider the ones that say "charlotte" on them a "collector's item". Mine have the same thing.

I guess that shows how much attention I've been paying to the OS since ROTS was released.

Now it's time to eBay this fucker.

"Charlotte" was the code name for ROTS.

"Laura" was the name for TPM.

"Mary" was AOTC

"Eve (White)" = ANH SE

"Eve (Black)" = ESB SE

"Jane" = ROTJ SE

"Sunrise" = The OUT for the upcoming release

Thanks for this.

Sunrise is an interesting codename given the Starwars.com: Charlotte's Web story link by ET:

"Firstly, they each had to be a single-word female name, just to keep it pleasant and short; secondly, it had to relate to a film that was owned or distributed by [Star Wars saga distributor] Twentieth Century Fox

That's a Van Ling thing - not an actual directive.

Van isn't doing anything for these "Bonus" (!) OUT discs. Hence, the different code name.

I've all ready e-mailed and msged Zion about this (wasn't sure which one he checked the most) since I was really curious about this. I wonder if in this latest deal with the OUT DVD's if this will 'push' Zion to finish the XO project for the unaltered OT or not. I wonder where Mike Verta is at with his project as well...

The X0 Project's ANH should be done before the new DVDs are out.

Nothing altered or anything like that. Just a cleaned up, color corrected version of the OOT the way it should have been released - in anamorphic widescreen and PCM audio.

ESB and ROTJ should follow.

Awesome!

I'd much rather pony up the cash for XO version than the "official" disc.

They won't be for sale obviously, though I'm sure they'll find their way to all the usual places in time.


But I'd still like to see some OUT screens posted as soon as DF gets his hands on them.

Have any of the X0 members considered making a 5.1 mix from the loosless 2.0 soundtrack ?

We have other sources of 5.1.

No, I don't mean the DVD.