Octopussy
LD vs SE vs UE vs BD
http://sd.caps-a-holic.com/vergleich.php?vergleichID=199
LD master ported but corrected for SE, SE master cleaned and stripped by Lowry for UE and re-color timed. BD is a 1080p bump.
The LD master has the original MGM logo with plain white UA presents logo. These were errored on the LD, with the MGM lion section leaving a garbage matte, then the UA logo shifting down to center itself onscreen. The LD is very contrasty and has bright whites combined with some deeper saturation of colors. Sadly it does also have some aliasing issues that crop up throughout. The entire LD is cropped on the sides a bit, with the top and bottom edges stretched out a bit to make some kind of 2.20:1 or narrower. (LDDB lists 2.20:1)
Don't go thinking this was a 70mm print as the scanning technology for large format was only getting in place by 1991, and the fact that the SE actually corrects the scan back to proper 2.35:1! Color is far more balanced and loses the overdosed contrasty look. The opening logos are still intact and fixed. Audio is a lossy DD 2.0 copy of the LD PCM. Aliasing problems still present though.
The UE has increased detail from the newer processing, and the new 5.1 remix which is cleaned up but not as detailed as the original 2.0. Most important is that the aliasing problems are gone. Color timing by Lowry is all over the place. Better in one shot, worse in the next. Here they infused in teals, beiges and messed with the brightness levels to make a modern HDTV palatable image out of a 1983 picture, much as they did throughout Moonraker etc. The BD is identical.
At least the 2.0 surround track on UE and the BD is the original. It has some inherent distortion across the board that isn't on the remix track. The remix does a good job at re-purposing the film with split surrounds but it does lose an effect or two I noticed right off the bat and doesn't quite have the same level of detail in the high end as found on the 2.0 original.
So here we have a case where the LD PCM should be added to the BD, which should then be re-timed to better match a print source. OP is a bit tougher than the others to do as it has always had this slight haze cast to its photography that seems to wreak havoc on home video transfers. Each transfer has its moments on color...there are times where I like the LD, times when the SE is better, and times when the UE/BD are better. None are quite consistent but this may be one time where the SE wins overall.
But we have to use the BD for the resolution, bitrate and thankfully the lack of aliasing.