Ordered a copy from Amazon last night and it arrived this morning. I made a rip of my DVD and the Blu-ray so I could do some side by side frame comparisons (I don't know how to share the images or what the best practices are for doing so) and then played both discs synchronized on different players so I could toggle back and forth between them to get a feel for them in motion on a large screen.
The Good: There is a huge improvement in picture quality, with a good bump in resolution and decrease in macro-blocking and artifacts. The subtitles are no longer super-blocky. The video also fills the whole frame on the BR (the DVD is windowboxed). Titles and credits are much cleaner. Way less aliasing throughout. The black floor has been raised, which reveals more detail in the shadows (the DVD has massive black crush and fairly dark midtones). There are some color changes, but the garish oversaturation of the DVD has been pulled back and there is more range and subtleties to the colors.
The Bad: The increase in resolution isn't amazing, with the picture looking like a fairly soft HD master. Maybe I got spoiled by watching the 4K Yojimbo/Sanjuro last week, as they're in a whole other class altogether. The blu-ray is certainly not as crisp and clear as a semi-modern film can and should look. I'm guessing this was finished digitally and, being a 1998 film, was earlier on in those days so likely has a master working within late 90's technological limitations (I noticed there is a "Digitaly Edited by" credit on the end credits, so that makes me suspect I might be right). While there are certainly benefits to the lighter look (as I mentioned, shadow detail), I feel like maybe they lightened it just a tad too much, making it look a little flat and a bit hotter in some of the highlights than it should. I think there's a happy medium in there somewhere where a bit more contrast and deeper blacks are conserved. Regarding color moments, the bold reds originally stuck out to me from my viewing years ago and even though the DVD was overcooked, the new BR has made those bold reds into more of a red-orange, which is less striking.
The Ugly: Okay, I know the color got mentioned already in the previous two categories, but I think the color is a bit of a mixed bag. The one aspect that deserves an "ugly" is that the water at the end really stood out, as the old DVD was a deep blue and now it's a brighter, universally dreaded, teal. I also noticed some of the flying through the cloud sequence in the opening and ending had a bit of teal lean in the BR grade as well, but it's a little more subtle, whereas the water is a huge difference. The BR also features cropping compared to the DVD (though the DVD did occasionally reveal the rounded corners of the film image, so may have shown a touch too much). Now, a slight punch in with the BR to clear the occasional rounded corners of the DVD would be understandable, but there are very substantial crops at times that didn't have those corner issues in the DVD. And the crop isn't consistent, at times cropped to lesser or greater degrees, with crops also varying in which sides they are cropping off.
The Rest: For the special features, the BR has all the same special features as the DVD and they are still mostly widescreen windowboxed within a 4:3 frame. Going back and forth, I feel like the DVD actually looks better, with less interlacing/combing artifacts on the DVD on my system, likely due to my system correctly fixing those problems and the BR conversion getting those problems baked in. Overall, the difference in quality isn't huge as they are both less than stellar looking, SD produced extras. And while the special features are largely the same, there are a couple minor differences: 1) The Photo/Stills Gallery on the DVD is a menu of photos you click through manually, but the BR has them as a 1m26s slideshow with music (about 2 seconds per photo), and 2) the Cast Biographies are again a manually clicked through gallery on the DVD while the BR again has a slideshow with music (6m44s) that plays through at about 25 seconds per slide.
I'm not sure how I feel about this one. It is certainly a massive upgrade over the old DVD, but it's not a great looking image and often lacks detail (though certainly more than the DVD). I can't help but wonder how much of that originates from the master and how it was originally mastered/rendered in the first place. We may be dealing with source limitations. The BR is clearly the winner between the two, however, and I have a feeling it may be the best we're going to get. I would feel a bit disappointed at full price ($20), but at the $13 I paid it's a worthy upgrade.
Last edited by jabba359; 04-16-2025 at 05:41 AM.
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Samurai Fiction (1998) Blu-ray
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