SW Episode I, Phantom Menace, is there a region with a better NTSC version? (1 Viewer)

As a person with a large screen FP display the region one release is near unwatchable at times. I know Bjoern had posted pics on his site a while back showing that the R2 PAL version was a decent improvement, but besides the PAL speedup issue, PAL just does not look as sharp on my current setup.

I was wondering if any other NTSC region had gotten this release right, preferably with english subtitles for the alien dialogue.

I too am interested. Let me know what you find out.

The quality of the region 1 DVD is just BAD...I have a 119" screen and an Infocus 7200 (HD2) FP.

I do know that when FOX aired it in 480p, it looked better than the DVD.

I heard that Episode 1 will be released on DVD again in 2005, possibly with a CGI Yoda. There's a good chance it'll have a better picture.

Hopefully that will happen. Looking at forum posts it seems the region 2 pal disc comes out the best. The problem is my dvd player by far looks its best outputting 1080i, and for some reason it stutters a little when converting to pal at 1080i, it winds up having jerky motion. The problem goes away outputting 480p, but there is a noticeable loss in sharpness of the image. It is certainly not terrible, but when you combine it with pal speedup it sounds like importing the R2 version is not worth it, especially when the edge enhancement was only lessened, but not eliminated.

You would think with Lucas' endless quest to merchandize Star Wars as much as possible, he would release the same disc this fall with an improved transfer, and perhaps some preview content of episode 3 to justify a new release.

PAL speedup annoys me so I will wait....