Slashdot Mirror
Star Wars DVD Box Set Released
dealsites writes "CNN reports that George Lucas is releasing the Star Wars DVD box set early on September 21, 2004 due to piracy concerns. Lucas had intended to release the box set of the original 3 movies after Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was released. However, he mentions that due to piracy concerns the profits are being eaten up and there might not be a market for the films at that time. The box set contains the changes that Lucas has made from the original releases. CNN also reports on the top 5 major changes. Lucas is quoted as saying that he never intends to re-release the original 3 movies in the first CNN link."
Star Wars here and Empire and Jedi here
Get the EULA T-shirt
Film has vastly more resolution than modern video devices are capable of displaying, including HDTV.
The process of transferring a film goes (roughly) like this:
Source material (film) -> master (video) -> cleanup -> duplication master -> consumer product.
"Remastering" refers to re-transfering the original film elements on a telecine, and cleaning them up to provide the best quality master for mass production possible. Unlimited quantities of DVDs may then be created from the duplication masters.
So they aren't creating the consumer DVDs from the VHS masters, but rather re-transferring from the original film elements. That, with the additional cleanup work (e.g. Scratchbox) is what makes a remastered/restored film look good.
Doesn't the saying go "you can't get something from nothing"? How do they get "DVD quality" from old film? How could it look any better than the original VHS quality?
....
I'm sure there are 50 people replying right now, but
It's better because the original film is significantly higher res than VHS (one would think this goes without saying, but anyway). Even if it were a simple direct from master copy to DVD, you'd still get a significantly better end result than could be achieved by VHS. But typically they'll do other things in the process like cleaning up the print (digitally) while they're at it. Also note that the 35mm film is higher res still than DVD (which is actually quite low res) so there is still a lot of headroom there for even better quality formats in the future (e.g. DVD-HD).
Home video sales now account for nearly 60 percent of Hollywood's revenue. DVD sales are not only the fastest growing part of the movie business, they're changing the way Hollywood does business.
He says DVD sales can save a film like "Dark Blue," which pulled in a modest $9 million in theaters. "It actually did more revenues in DVD than it did at the box office," says McGurk, because the DVD market is a man's world.
Blockbuster films now often sell more than 10 million DVDs in the U.S. alone. And that's at $20 a pop. And with DVD players still in only half of American homes, Hollywood believes those soaring sales will just get hotter still.
Finding Nemo grossed $320 million from DVD sales in 2003. "Consumers spend more money on the DVD version of almost every movie than they do on that same movie in theaters, including blockbusters such as The Lord of the Rings, Finding Nemo and Pirates of the Caribbean" (USA Today). CNN/Money reports that the movie studios "pocket roughly 80 cents of every dollar on each DVD sold, a take well above the 50 cents for each dollar at the box office" and The Hollywood Reporter says that "studios are earning about 60% more upon initial release from video sales of theatrical feature films than they did during the VHS-only era". So, not only are video sales up overall, DVDs are more profitable for the media companies than VHS or the box office.
And the future looks rosy as well. PriceWaterhouseCoopers has a sample chapter of their Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2004-2008 report online which says:
We project filmed entertainment spending in the United States, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), Asia/Pacific, Latin America, and Canada will rise at a 7.5 percent compound annual rate, reaching $108 billion in 2008 from $75.3 billion in 2003. EMEA will be the fastest-growing region, rising by 10.3 percent compounded annually to $36.9 billion in 2008 compared with $22.6 billion in 2003. The U.S. market will expand at a 6.3 percent rate, from $34.3 billion in 2003 to $46.6 billion in 2008. Spending in Asia/Pacific will increase from $13.3 billion to $17.3 billion in the five-year period, growing at a 5.4 percent compound annual rate. Filmed entertainment in Latin America will total $1.6 billion in 2008, up from $1.3 billion in 2003, representing a 4.6 percent gain compounded annually. Spending in Canada will rise from $3.9 billion in 2003 to $5.6 billion in 2008, 7.7 percent compounded annually.
This is anything BUT piracy eating into sales. Mr. Lucas, would you like to change your answer?
*sigh* It has 525 lines of which it uses 480. It then uses interlacing so you have a 50Hz refresh rate at approximately 240 lines per field. With DVD you can get the full 480 lines because it is deinterlaced.