IMPORTANT UPDATE:
I had two choices: give up, and leave The Matrix [spoRv] "as is", with its own glitches - and I must admit I'm quite happy with it, but not entirely of course - or use the open matte HDTV versions; in this case, result will be 100% perfect, color wise, but without the original intended aspect ratio...
A dilemma that *maybe* now have a solution... I managed to do an alternate color matching script, but that's not perfect as the original one...
After many months of testing and working on color regrading, I realized (maybe wrongly, who knows?), that sometimes it's not so important to make a color grading that is 100% the same of another source, but that the most important thing is to retain the "spirit" of that color grading...
That is not an excuse, as I'm still able (with a LOT of work) to produce an almost 100% identical color grading in almost all scenes of a movie (e.g. Halloween), but with some movie, the task is so time consuming that I was ready to throw the towel - The Matrix is the thoughest movie in this context...
The new attempt *seems* to be quite good; no artefacts at all - at least, not visible in the first test clip I made - and, while not perfectly the same of the DVD, it retains the "spirit" of it, with a better quality... it seems that the DVD has a pink blanket that I was not aware of before.
Well, a picture worth thousand words, so here you are some screenshot comparisons:
as you can see, there is a "compromise" where previously in the old CM there where artefacts, but I think it's still better to have some shots near, color grading speaking, the BD instead of bad artefacts with 100% right color grading...
test clip - each 255MB, no sound:
Please take some time to do your own comparison and let me know what do you think... I'm also open to do two versions, an open matte 100% color grading similar to DVD but with wrong aspect ratio, AND a, let's say 90% color grading similar to DVD but with right aspect ratio...
Or, I could make a mix, using the new CM where I previously used the upscaled DVD, but I fear there will be too much difference in color grading between the shots...
Thanks in advance for your feedbacks!