[irascian]

I actually only saw the film for the first time a few months ago - on standard DVD, but as a rental from LoveFilm. I gave up on the Blu-Ray after about half an hour because I didn't want to watch the thing all over again with such bad quality.

So, alas there's no side-by-side comparison (doesn't the DVD Beaver site give you that?). All I CAN say is that the picture on so-called HD Blu-Ray was as disappointing to me as the original DVD had been and my initial thought was "Christ. They haven't even taken the dust off the print". It's soft, the contrast is dreadful and there's crap all over the film.

I've not been this disappointed since the "special edition" of "The Killing Fields" which boasted a "digital restoration" that comprised leaving all the crap and debris on the film.

I come back to my original point: If the BFI can clean minor, obscure stuff up so that it looks like it was shot yesterday I don't understand how/why the bigger companies can't do the same. And to claim they've undertaken some sort of restoration, or that a poor quality master is somehow worth rushing onto HD when the evidence is all to the contrary is, at best "misleading" and at worst "deliberate attempt to extort money from gullible punters".