captainsolo said:

IMO I now think the best color-wise for both are the original DVDs because they struck a video master from the restored prints. Of course you then have to factor in the fluctuations caused by a 2000 era process but still at least for RW, the old DVD just has that spark that is lacking in even the new BD.

Agreed. The first DVD release is closest to RAH's intentions, judging by its accuracy to the 70mm print I saw. I don't know why previous transfers tweaked the color away from this.

That said, I'm vaguely curious to see the pre-restoration LDs of both films. Might be interesting. Rear Window looks like it was colored warmer before in the restoration comparison on the DVD.

hairy_hen said:

I saw Rear Window in the theater the other day. The picture was bizarrely soft, but the AMC's around here seem to have that problem on just about everything, so it didn't surprise me that much.

I've heard, though I might be incorrect that many theaters project Fathom events on the projectors they use for commercials before the movie and not their actual movie projectors.

PDB said:

Aluminum Falcon, I got a HDTV copy of Rear Window that is 4:3 and another that was 16:9. I believe both were off the "Russian Tracker". Let me check to see if they are actually different from the official BD. They may be the same master.

A 4:3 copy? That's interesting. I can't find anything off of the Russian Tracker anymore. Even if the 4:3 is the BD master, it would be interesting if it was open matte, as the laser was.

I have a 4.37 GB copy of the pre-BD Rear Window HDTV broadcast, though I know better quality (1080i) was floating around before.