I was just watching an old nordic DVD of Halloween 2 with a pretty poor transfer, but on top of the digital artefacting in noisy areas, I noticed things that remind me of the artefacts in the composite video, like the weird fading effect you get next to bright lights or other high contrast areas. There's also that odd vertical streaking (I'm really not good with the terminology here) but it's hard to tell because it's the kind of effect that's muted by the MPEG compression.

The Star Wars LEs are an obvious example, but they use the masters (which is probably two inch tape or something) rather than sourcing it from an actual disc. Are there any telltale signs for a transfer that's just a high quality LD rip?

Most THX certified non anamorphic DVDs were LD ports. The Abyss, True Lies, Die Hard trilogy, Highlander and a few others I can’t remember now. I believe the first few seasons of TNG were LD ports as well.

There’s a big difference between “used the same master as the LD” and “we used an LD for the master”. Making DVDs from actual retail Laserdiscs is very uncommon. You’re talking two more generations away from the master at that point in addition to LD’s problems. Most DVDs made this way are probably pirate or anime or pirate anime.

However, using the same master tape the LD used was very very common in the early years of DVD for the main reason they LD and DVD were for sale at the same time. If something came out on LD and DVD at the same time you can assume they use the same master. Some LDs were mastered in HD which would have made those tapes as good as anything for a DVD source. I think perhaps Bubblegum Crisis fits this category, I think the remaster box set was made with the same masters as the first DVD. Also, Mobile Suit Gundam TV was almost certainly the same master LD and DVD as that was an all new master for a very late LD.

Well the distributor for this particular release of Halloween 2 has a history of making some really dodgy decisions, like releasing a cut version of Conan the Destroyer when it could've passed uncut, or releasing a pan & scan version of Sergei Bondarchuk's War & Peace. Their name is ScanBox but they've earned the nickname ScumBox for a good reason.

I wouldn't put releasing an LD rip past them.

I'm quite familiar with Scanbox entertainment as I own many dvds releases from that particular company, but Scumbox - that's new to me!
I remember cheap dvd packaging, lousy label artwork on discs (even repacked discs clearly meant for other releases). The transfer themselves were not always top notch to be worthy of the dvd format, but that might not be their fault unless their intention was to use lower quality sources. I do remember a lot of compression artifacts in the movies. Because of the low quality I stopped buying dvds locally and imported instead. Much more variety and better quality.

The Project A-ko DVD from Discotek is supposedly a standard analog capture of the JP LD, and the upcoming Blu-ray already has a thread here on it's use of a Domesday86 capture.

I've also heard that Central Park Media's DVD release of DNA^2 (no JP DVD release at the time, and the later JP DVD/BD release used composite masters) was made by capturing the JP LDs, and the person who does most of Discotek's releases also worked there so it makes sense.

Yeah I would imagine a lot of those OVAs that were lost in that fire now have the LDs as the best source available.

I know I've read that some horror DVDs in the early 00s in some European countries used Japanese LDs to make the DVD.

One of them was a German DVD of Umberto Lenzi's Nightmare City, where some reviewers spoke of Japanese subtitles burned into the DVD image!

Other than that, I reiterate that early in DVD's life there were non-anamorphic, letterboxed DVDs that were made from the same masters or transfers that the LDs used. Most notorious were the early Disney DVD releases. Not the animated films, but the other Disney studios like Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures, etc.

If I can find an old issue of Widscreen Review magazine with any of these DVDs I'll scan it in so everyone can see.

I am a bit suspect of some early US anime releases on DVD from back in the day that they might have either been from the same 1" tape masters that they would use for LD (as they had burned in cross-color and dot-crawl artifacts) or used an LD altogether for the DVD release. My argument for the latter would be that a number of these smaller US anime importing companies from back then like Central Park Media didn't have a whole lot of money to spend. So if they already paid a bunch of money for the rights, that might not have included the master tapes in that price (Rob Woodhead from AnimEigo had a funny story about jumping through hoops trying to get master materials after already negotiating for the rights for a certain title--I think it was Kimagure Orange Road.) Thus, it would just be easier to just get the LD of an anime title to make their DVD to lower overhead.

I think the "finally uncut" Manga Video 2006 DVD release of Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie might be in that same boat. At least the uncut disc. The English disc was the same initial North American dub that Sony put out so long ago. The Japanese "uncut" disc featured burned in English subtitles, a very soft picture and composite artifacting everywhere. I can't imagine a 1" master looking this bad!

This may have been fixed that in the subsequent blu-ray release, but it was a just annoying as all hell that after waiting for many years for an official uncut release in the US, that that's what they gave anime fans back in 2006.

I just picked up Odin Photon Sailer and its not a great master, doesn't look like its from an LD but it does look like a poor master and
probably from the same used for the LD at the time, I don't own the LD but only the DVD.

Also its got burned in subs so it also makes me feel that issue as you posted.

I know that it's a little out of topic, but since people here is so well knowledge about hifi I would like to make a question. Since I live in Europe, Spain specifically. I tend to buy a lot of dvd copies from other countries like Germany, France or Italy. Since 99% of the time they come with the English original audio I don't mind the other languages on the menus etc. The problem is that some of this have forced subtitles and no matter what you select on the menus you're always gonna get disturbing subtitles on the image. Do you know of any player which can deactivate those.
My current player (in case it can be modified or something) it's a Pioneer DV-656A.
Btw, the RGB output on the player is a must for me, since I still enjoy my DVD's in a crt as I do with my laserdiscs.

Is that the anime that Manga Video released in the UK/Ireland as Odin?

I always wanted to see that. Is there a Blu Ray edition or is this stuck in LD/VHS/DVD limbo?

Its the US Manga version that has both releases of the film, US and Japanese cuts. The Japanese cut is nice but the US cut is really poor in quality.

On another note, one film I remember now owing that has the Japanese LD transferred onto DVD is Amazons vs Supermen, it has the image
pushed up to compensate for Japanese subtitles but has been blacked out by a bar.

I think this was more as posted above a practice of early DVDs when your CRT wasn't really able to tell the different at the time but when TVs and
DVD players got better you could clearly tell the differences.

Is the US version different in any way to the Japanese version? Is it edited at all?

Really want to see this now. I remember it in the Manga Video catalogue in the 1990's but I just never got round to buying it, or Venus Wars for that matter. I was busy collecting New Dominion Tank Police, Ninja Scroll, Wicked City and so on.

Aside, I remember having a live action version of Wicked City on VHS years ago. I wonder if that ever made it to Blu Ray? It was absolutely nuts that film!

The US version is cut I think by around 30 minutes. Its pretty odd that this was an early release and they put so much info on this disc.
This may also be one of those stuck in limbo films that can't get a new release?

They do come up cheap, I think I picked up my copy cheap but your shipping is what's going to burn you the hardest as alwasy.

Yep. The US heartbreak tax (aka USPS and their astronomical postage fees) is the deal breaker 99.9% of the time. A shame, I'd love to see Odin. The Japanese version though. 1. I like my content in it's native tongue and 2. I like my content untouched, as God intended.

The US LD release of Odin may not have the best transfer visually speaking, but the Dolby Stereo digital audio on that release is the best you can get. And that Loudness soundtrack deserves to be piped through to an amplified stereo system! But unless it can get a HD remaster one day, the Japanese DVD is the best it'll look. If someone can sync the PCM audio from the US LD to the picture from the Japanese DVD (with toggleable transcribed subs added) then you'd have a good presentation.

Any truth that the original Star Wars release on DVD was just dumped from the Definitive Laserdiscs?

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Original_unaltered_trilogy

I recently came across these old DVDs at a garage sale locally.
Did a damn fine job if that is the case

Nah, people seem to mistake Laserdisc masters for actual Laserdiscs. The masters would probably be on a quadruplex tape or something. Since they're a generation up from the LDs, the DVDs look slightly better on some areas than the actual LDs, such as the black levels.

The SW GOUT disks were probably from a D1 (component) digital master - sadly after edge enhancement et al was applied.

I call DVD's from Laserdisc masters Lazydiscs myself. Most of the major studio disks are from component masters at least, but some titles (and more often extras) are indeed from composite.

Most early DVDs and discs that were not made from newer masters will either reuse the LD (or sometimes VHS) master or the source D1 video master. You'll most often see old masters reused on MOD discs where Warner Archive will be forced to use the best preexisting source and master it to DVD. These old masters also turn up on broadcast, with many films without new masters frequently to this day still turning up on TCM as old video masters. Sometimes they forget or don't update for a while. They used to show the old MGM LD master of North by Northwest with nice color and the original mono (gone from releases since 2000).
Sometimes you can catch Raintree County form the LD master. They used to also run a version of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World slightly different to the extended LD box version.