TServo2049 said:
And it looks like the BD transfer has red boosting. Marty's jeans already look teal in the WOWOW/DCP (I think this was a bluescreen composite, so that would make sense), but in the BD they look almost green...
The presence of red boosting actually gives credence to your "recycled DVD master" theory. Those transfers were usually done at HD resolution, weren't they? (Though that does beg two questions: 1. Why are the end credits squeezed on the BD and not the DVD? And 2. Why would Universal source from an older, inferior master when they had a different one that was better?)
Yes! About Marty's pants, I've seen some 35mm references on ebay and his jeans (especially in the optically composites shots) are closer to teal.
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/47848
About the transfer theory, BTTF was shot Open Matte (1.37:1) and it was scanned this way too. Maybe, for the BD, they grabbed the 2002 RAW scan, or something like this, and made some few adjustments in framing color, dirt, DNR, EE, etc.
I just think it's an old master because the entire film looks soft and it has video artifacts. Which leads me to the conclusion that this was scanned in low-res (1080p) by todays standards (4K).
Interesting questions.
1) Maybe the squeezed credits are a flaw from the "recycling" process.
2) Maybe they didn't. If that is true, so the DCP and WOW masters are just the 1080p DVD master without the processing made for the BD. I mean, I didn't do it yet, but I think if you upscale the DVD and compar it with the DCP they will be pretty close.
This has been done before: Jurassic Park BD. It's the same DVD master with fancy filters.