Has anyone ever considered obtaining the Laserdisc of the original trilogy and ripping it to a computer? Lucas refuses to release the original movies on DVD, so isn't this the only way to get a good digital copy? Does anyone even have hte Laserdiscs for the original 3 movies?
L-A-S-E-R-D-I-S-C? Whoa man, I haven't seen one of those in years!!! I am sure someone has them.... But I heard the sound quality on those releases sucked real bad. Background noise in every (dialoge) scene.
In general, the sound quality of the un-compressed 2 channel PCM audio tracks of laserdisc are almost always superior than a 2 channel compressed Dolby Digital track on a DVD. Give one point to LaserDisc. On the 5.1 Dolby Digital tracks of LD and DVD, that's a harder comparision. Both tracks are highly compressed (as they should be since they are both DD encoded). However, DVD might get a slight edge here since most DVD's are encoded @ 448 kbps vs LD @ 384 kbps. In that case, I wouldn't give either format a point. It's too close to call. But the thread wasn't about sound, it was about Star Wars. I personally don't know anyone who has ripped the original Star Wars LD's to either a hard drive or DVD. However, I'll probably be doing it in a few months. I have the THX CLV editions in my collection. I have already experimented w/ the Criterion Collection edition of Blade Runner and it turned out quite decently. Not as sharp as the original LD but very close. And the sound is still great in DD 2.0 (384 kpbs).
If this thread is still around by then, I will give my feedback on how the transfer went. I expect it to be about the same as my Blade Runner copy.
Hi guys, Yeah I've got the original 3, in CBS-Fox Collector's Edition. These have the excellent PCM digital audio (basically CD-quality) that is encoded in Dolby Surround. Man, back in the 80's I had the heavy ProLogic setup... Today, my Pioneer CLD-1091 player has optical SP/DIF audio output. And my ABit mobo has optical SP/DIF input :^) The harsh part is, you have to capture in realtime! And it takes a manly computer to capture both video and audio in realtime, together. LoL, I have 300 or so. And the audio is not bad, except early discs had analog sound. They were mostly re-released as digital sound came in, in the late 80's (really pissing off the people who already had 'em in analog). AC3 and DTS 5.1 appeared on they very last LVDs, in the 90's. I think my Trilogy is the THX audio, and it is digital 2-channel (Dolby Surround). HEY they invented Dolby Surround sound, for what movie!? For Star Wars, in 1977. Regards
