You know, on a regular old WEGA CRT LD looks amazing and doesn't suffer most of the artifacts from scaling and de-interlacing that I see on my LCD. I watched Batman Forever (1995) [15100] a while back and was blown away by the PQ on a 27" CRT. Note, that is also a 59 mint mark from Pioneer USA.

The first disc I can see with the 59 mint marks is Casper (1995) [42571] in October 1995.

My hunch is that all Pioneer USA AC-3 discs came from HD masters intended for DVD, some of which were THX certified but not all. All Super NTSC LDs, except the very early ones like Casper, have AC-3 and some/most are THX certified.

So far aside from Pioneer USA 59 mint marks, THX and AC-3 seem to be the only tell tale signs of Super NTSC. Again, HD (progessive) masters intended for DVD is what makes these all possible as far as I can tell. The sad part, as mentioned already, is that most of these movies have excellent DVD or even BR releases now so the usefulness of this is somewhat moot, unless you haven't already bought these movies in a more recent format. I'm not sure about you guys but I'm happy to just watch the LDs I have as opposed to spending $20 on a BR for something like Mission: Impossible or Casper (Lol).

From reading the SupeNTSC specs, i am not sure a progressive source is necessary. Only that the source material is component video is what matters i think, so even component betacam 480i/576i could be encoded with SuperNTSC.

That's likely correct although I highly doubt that the masters intended for (major Hollywood) DVDs were interlaced. The reason being is due to the bit budgeting. It takes less data to store a 24fps progressive file than it is a 30fps (59.94i) file due to the frame count. The DVD player outputs 480 i/p by converting the 23.98 progressive MPEG-2 to NTSC compliant video. In 1996 when DVD was released the most prevalent home display was a CRT so NTSC was a necessity. They could always create an interlaced version for TV/Video once they make a 2K master at 23.98p. Rip a DVD and check out the VOB/MPEG file. Here is a snapper case DVD from 1999 pre-dating the HD transition in the US.


I'll even go so far as to say that the progressive nature of the masters is THE most important factor; more so or at least equally important than Super NTSC encoding...

So to address your statement there are possibly 480i component masters that got SuperNTSC encoded for LD. Maybe Anime stuff? Maybe computer animation stuff? Maybe shot for TV stuff?

I will disagree on on that point. Since it is states in the SuperNTSC docs that the main goal of SuperNTSC is to reduce cross color artifacts, progressive vs. interlaced has no bearing there, and is irrelevant. Whether there is a component master is all that matters when that is the goal.

I will, however, agree that SuperNTSC masters of films would be progressive scan, obviously. However, any TV show shot in betacam (est. 1982) or later evolutions of the format, could also be superNTSC encoded. SuperNTSC was invented to improve broadcast TV, and then partially adopted to LD. The "Test Disc for Widescreen Television" is clearly shot on video, and i think it might be SuperNTSC (looks spectacular decoded via my SuperNTSC decoder check the screenshots thread for my samples). So possibly any "intended for TV" material could be SuperNTSC encoded as well.

wait, "most important factor" to what?

the first time i read that, i thought you were saying progressive source was the most important thing for material to be encoded with SuperNTSC, but i may have read that wrong i see now...

Yeah, I think after all of this SN exploration I'm saying that a progressive scan master is more important than SN encoding alone for the best PQ on LD and the reason later releases (even without SN encoding) look so much better than LDs from say, 1990. I think a progressive master may negate the need for SN encoding. Progressive masters don't need to be telecined, just scanned. Then when its time to make the NTSC/PAL master they can do the frame conversion digitally (?) It is easier to make an interlaced version of a progressive master than the other way around. Scan the film once at the highest resolution then down convert from there.

In the final analysis of the best LDs for PQ you'll find a correlation with a DVD release around the same time and thus likely a progressive master was made and used for LD which *may* have been SuperNTSC encoded.

There are plenty of examples of the opposite; LD NTSC masters used for early DVDs that were non-anamorphic LBX.

The T2 Extreme DVD has some really insightful info regarding the process of transferring a film to video. Scans of the insert: