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Originally Posted by irascian  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". |
I can't tell you why it looks as it does, I can only guess, and whilst I make absolutely no attempt to condone what is apparently a cut-price, ham-fisted and quite slap dash attempt, I can tell you with that 'some sort of restoration' was indeed undertaken. It might be ****-poor - I haven't got this disc, and the evidence as I see it suggests hanging on for a better version - but I know that for a fact. Certainly I'm misleading no-one here, or have I misread your - with the deepest respect - slightly hysterical accusation?
ITV DVD has turned out a disc which is better than their previous attempts, better than the plethora of PD abominations out there, but poorer in many respects to the now quite aging SD transfer from Criterion, based on the very same quite tired materials. Those, it seems, are further facts.
Comparing ITV DVD to the BFI, or indeed Criterion - and, as good as they have been of late, not everything the BFI has turned out has been wonderful - is a non-argument. They are different organisations with vastly different priorities.