The image is reasonably sharp and well defined, but it lacks the hyper realistic clarity of a brand new movie. The element utilized for the transfer is very clean and displays very few blemishes. Film grain is apparent in many places, although it never becomes overwhelming. Flesh tones are natural, while the rest of the hues provide solid saturation. Reds, which were problematic in the previous analogue Laserdisc editions, are especially well rendered here.
Blacks are pure, but the level of shadow detail is nowhere near that of a new film.
Digital compression artifacts do not make their presence known. The Dolby Digital 5.1 channel soundtrack is a definite improvement over the original matrixed surround track, although the original recordings do have their limitations. Clearly directional sound effects seem to be limited to the space battle scenes, however the track does serve up a great deal of ambience from the surround channels. The sounds of the starship s engines provide a strong sense of presence that effectively places the viewer on board the Enterprise. Dialogue is always clean and intelligible, even during the battle sequences.