Well, looks like I'm a little late with the screenshots this time, so here's a comparison with the R1 ADV Tsuioku-hen... I mean, Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal DVDs (barf). For the most part the BD is a huge improvement, though things are not as good as they could be, due to both choices made in the production of the BD and unfortunate reality.
There has been grain removal applied, though not nearly as severe as some. There's still a fine grain structure there for the most part, but it's pretty light. I can't see any signs of detail loss or smearing of detail. So while I'd prefer they leave the grain alone, I don't find what they did too objectionable.
The unavoidable issue is with scenes that used SD digital compositing and/or CG. Those are upscaled. Screenshots 21, 30, 33, 46, 48, 57, and 58 are upscaled. The only alternative is to redo the animation for those portions from scratch. I think Lain is the only anime that has had that luxury so far, and it will likely rarely be repeated. But beyond that, there are scenes that show no signs of any digital work and were definitely done on film that are upscaled as well. I suspect that the film elements for those cuts were probably lost at some point. Unfortunately archival of the original film elements has not been a very high priority in the past, so this will not be the last release affected by this. The percentage of upscaled scenes is extremely low in the first two episodes, but it goes up in the third and especially the fourth. It is somewhat disappointing that some pivotal scenes in the last episode are upscaled, even knowing that it was unavoidable.
I've also read complaints of black crush - this I think is a bit wrongheaded, or at least forgetting what RK Tsuioku-hen looked like in the first place. The dark scenes have always been very dark/murky, from the original LD release (which I still own) onwards. I used to have the R2JP DVD director's cut. Just as dark. The ADV DVD is has more black crush than the BD as well. Unless if you're going to insist that every release of Tsuioku-hen ever has independently made the same error, I think it's a lot more likely that this is the way it was originally made.
In the end I'm quite satisfied with my purchase, if not overjoyed. It probably the best that Tsuioku-hen will ever look, and I can finally get rid of those ADV DVDs.
BD screenshots cropped to 4:3 (1440x1080), DVD screenshots bicubic resized to 1440x1080
01
R1DVD |
BD
02
R1DVD |
BD
03
R1DVD |
BD
04
R1DVD |
BD
05
R1DVD |
BD
06
R1DVD |
BD
07
R1DVD |
BD
08
R1DVD |
BD
09
R1DVD |
BD
10
R1DVD |
BD
11
R1DVD |
BD
12
R1DVD |
BD
13
R1DVD |
BD
14
R1DVD |
BD
15
R1DVD |
BD
16
R1DVD |
BD
17
R1DVD |
BD
18
R1DVD |
BD
19
R1DVD |
BD
20
R1DVD |
BD
21
R1DVD |
BD
22
R1DVD |
BD
23
R1DVD |
BD
24
R1DVD |
BD
25
R1DVD |
BD
26
R1DVD |
BD
27
R1DVD |
BD
28
R1DVD |
BD
29
R1DVD |
BD
30
R1DVD |
BD
31
R1DVD |
BD
32
R1DVD |
BD
33
R1DVD |
BD
34
R1DVD |
BD
35
R1DVD |
BD
36
R1DVD |
BD
37
R1DVD |
BD
38
R1DVD |
BD
39
R1DVD |
BD
40
R1DVD |
BD
41
R1DVD |
BD
42
R1DVD |
BD
43
R1DVD |
BD
44
R1DVD |
BD
45
R1DVD |
BD * No equivalent frame, the background is different, maybe the original footage was lost?
46
R1DVD |
BD
47
R1DVD |
BD
48
R1DVD |
BD
49
R1DVD |
BD
50
R1DVD |
BD
51
R1DVD |
BD
52
R1DVD |
BD
53
R1DVD |
BD
54
R1DVD |
BD
55
R1DVD |
BD
56
R1DVD |
BD
57
R1DVD |
BD
58
R1DVD |
BD * Possibly the biggest issue with the ADV release, the missing epilogue text in the JP releases.
59
R1DVD |
BD
60
R1DVD |
BD
