Has any info ever come to light as to why TSWLM was remastered for Blu Ray, and the other films weren’t? The Lowry master didn’t seem to be the worst of the lot on the UE DVD releases.
Actually, the TSWLM Lowry master was pretty horrific and absolutely riddled with EE. I recall it being the only UE DVD that was definitively a downgrade from the earlier SE line.
Comparison here: http://sd.caps-a-holic.com/vergleich.php?vergleichID=195
It’s shocking, however, that they could not also shell out for a new Goldeneye transfer or at least use the cropped (albeit good quality) Lowry version rather than resorting to an LD-era master!
On another note, as I mentioned before, I found some ancient 720p HDTV caps of Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service predating the BDs on RuTracker a year back. Resolution is unfortunately not terribly good. Yet, the colors and contrast are different from both the BD and UE DVD. I suspect they’re the Lowry master without any release-specific tinkering.
Screencaps (3 for each film) can be seen in this photo album: http://s1194.photobucket.com/user/AluminumFalcon/library/HDTV James Bond
BD and UE DVD caps lifted from caps-a-holic and labeled as such in the corner. The HDTV stills have no letterbox bars. If you organize each movie’s sub-album by Filename, you should see the caps in the following order: BD - HDTV - SD DVD.