zombie, you'd have a stronger case if the overall image was significantly softer. That is, if the grain wasn't being revealed because of loss-of-detail, then the image itself should suffer more loss-of-detail. But there is only a slight softening of the image overall in the pre-93 disc; not enough to hide all that grain, especially in the shadow areas. Remember, grain doesn't simply appear as pixel-size (or-subpixel) "dots" but often at large enough sizes to introduce actual tone and luminance variations on the image. If you take a grain pass in post, and "blur" it to any degree, you don't see the tiny flickering, but you can easily spot the residual luminance and tonal impact on the imagery. That is, it leaves a distinctive trace of itself on the image, outside of the "shimmering" pixels. Even if the pre-93 LD had suffered pixel-size loss-of-detail obfiscating the grain, these shifts would still be present in the imagery, and here there is no evidence of it. You would find it most likely in the gradient areas around the smoke, which are rendered in the pre-93 image with extremely natural gradients, absent typical filmgrain impact, above and beyond what is naturally present in the stock. In fact, in this regard, the "grain" on the 2006 DVD would more likely be regarded as dirt, since if it were grain, these impacts would be impossible to smooth out without utterly blurring the image.

But again, this particular shot I think may have been sourced from a different print. There are hundreds of other shots with equal grain discrepancy, however, none of which exhibit a strong enough loss-of-detail quotient to explain the lack of grain. And again, no matter how you cut it, my pre-93 laserdisc imagery is cleaner than the 2006 DVD, albeit a touch softer in many, but not all scenes. Watching them A/B on every calibrated monitor and consumer TV here leaves an unquestionable impression that the pre-93 laserdisc is the superior, "cleaned up" one... It doesn't even "feel" softer, while watching it, and probably for good reason - even in this frame-by-frame scrutinization, the sharpness difference is quite subtle. Is that progress? 1% sharper, 20% dirtier? You guys are an easy crowd, I guess.

_Mike