Just a quick update.
Reel 1 has been dry scanned and we have some very good news, there is :56 seconds of extra footage in the opening scene (compared to the current Paramount BLU). This is the remaining footage Paramount deleted from all its individual prints (and its master negative) two weeks after the film premiered in the U.S.A. Paramount retained the scenes they trimmed but did not keep the individual shots they removed. The Scorsese restoration restored only two of these shots.
Very luckily, although reel 1 has a few splices, none occur in the :56 seconds we need. None of the titles occur in the :56 seconds we need. Overall, after a thorough cleaning the print should yield excellent results.
So now we are deciding whether it is worth it to scan the entire print. There is actually evidence of digital cleaning errors in the first reel of the BLU. Meaning that Paramount's automated dirt and scratch removal process actually removed things it shouldn't have. I caught a few when going frame by frame to compare the two cuts, who knows how many others are spread throughout the film.
The colours on the print, even uncorrected for the intended bulb colour, and from an uncleaned dry scan, (and also from a compressed MP4) look fantastic and quite different compared to the BLU. The IB has a lot more blue and yellow in its palette.
Some comparison screens (please don't judge the sharpness, the dry scan was just done quickly as a reference, and the file was compressed for web), these are not the extra shots but shots I could compare to the blu (top IB TECH/BOTTOM BLU):
[img]http://i.imgur.com/OmuYRfo.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/M5Y01iw.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/aiWeszE.jpg[/img]