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Originally Posted by nordicdusk  Yeah please do would really appreciate that. Thanks |
Well, I got the BU disc a few weeks back but have not had the chance to check it out until last night. Until I get my projector set up back on the go after moving house, I'm watching the discs on a 37" Panasonic 720P plasma.
I would have to say that without doubt, the BU is the better of the two. Firstly, it's sharper than the Arrow version and that's noticeable on a 720P image. It's not dramatic by any means but I think the problem lies with the higher contrast on the Arrow version. If you boost the contrast you are generally going to lose some detail.
I think the boosted contrast may also be partly responsible for the compression nasties on the Arrow disc. I encode a lot of video and generally try to avoid boosting contrast and brightness as artifacts tend to rear their ugly heads.
As has been mentioned, the daylight scenes show this up the most with the night scenes looking quite a lot better. The Arrow disc is by no means bad and during the night scenes there is little to nothing to choose between the two versions. Actually, the daylight scenes in the Arrow transfer seem to be better in places than others. The compression artifacts are most noticeable in the background of shots with no camera movement which makes me think the grain structure has freaked out the encoding set up. The fact remains that the feature is around 10gb bigger on the BU version and it shows.
Obviously, the packaging on the Arrow disc is far superior and this with the set of extra material makes it worth picking up for me. Especially as I got it for around 8 quid. If they could have just rocked the encoding and held back on the contrast, this would be the definitive version I'm sure.