Yeah, it's hard to tell from the trailer, but they've completely scrubbed out the grain and then sharpened. I wouldn't be surprised if they got Disney to do that 'restoration'.

(2020-07-22, 04:39 PM)Doctor M Wrote: Yeah, it's hard to tell from the trailer, but they've completely scrubbed out the grain and then sharpened.  I wouldn't be surprised if they got Disney to do that 'restoration'.

Here's it on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BldhTk6snwc

It was done in France by the same people who "restored" Perfect Blue as well. 

See here.

What's funnier is that in an interview about it, when asked if Oshii was involved, they skirt around it;

Quote:Est-ce que Mamoru Oshii a été impliqué dans le process de restauration ?

Le film Ghost in the Shell réalisé par Mamoru Oshii et son équipe en 1995 fut un travail de commission produit par le studio Production I.G pour le compte du comité de production du film. Ce dernier est l'un des premiers à regrouper des partenaires américains et britanniques pour une production d'un long métrage d'animation japonaise. Le process de validation s’est fait avec un comparatif image source / image restaurée en splitscreen. Vous pouvez d’ailleurs retrouver des extraits vidéo de ce travail de validation parmi les nombreux bonus présents dans nos éditions Blu-Ray et DVD.

Google Translate:
Has Mamoru Oshii been involved in the restoration process?

The film Ghost in the Shell directed by Mamoru Oshii and his team in 1995 was commissioned by Production IG on behalf of the film production committee. The latter is one of the first to bring together American and British partners to produce a Japanese animated feature. The validation process was done with a source / image comparative restored in splitscreen. You can also find video clips of this validation work among the many bonuses in our Blu-Ray and DVD editions.

So yeah. Avoid it.

I like the new cover design of the steelbook version，but cant find it on amazon，is it out of stock already？

Update：My bad，its a Best Buy exclusive.

It seems the new US UHD release is noticeably brighter with more vivid colours than the previous JP UHD release. See here:
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p...tcount=799

The US release looks more like the BD whereas the JP release more resembles the muted look of the original DVD releases. Can anyone comment on which is more accurate to the theatrical presentation?

Thread's been dead a few years, and I was wondering where this movie stands now.
I've had zero time to work with this myself. I do know that the 'Judgement' release is in nearly the same quality as WOWOW, which was probably the source, but it was converted to 23.976.

IIRC, some of the animation was done at a higher frame rate. I don't know if I remember correctly, if audio tracks need to be synced to WOWOW untouched, if it should be re-encoded to 1080p59.94, or if there is a better version out there by now.

Thoughts?

Anyone see and compare the new 4k HDR transfer?

Edit: Finally got to see some of the 4k release (not the U.S. version which I understand to be inferior HDR-wise) and it is quite satisfying. It lacks the crappy softness that the previous 'enhanced' releases had. English subtitles and dubs don't seem to have changed (but are now upmixed to ATMOS).

My go-to watching version for years had been a remux I made with a 720p PSNR release (I believe a re-encode of Judgement's HD version) synced with the audio tracks from the DVDs in Japanese and English with DTS-ES and DD-EX audio and some really nice .ASS subtitles that were positioned on screen lined up with any Japanese text (like the opening prologue), not just at the bottom.

While the new 4k BD has all the subtitles at the bottom, I see no reason to try to make a custom version with the Judgement 1040p copy or WOWOW HDTV copies. If anyone needs these versions, let me know.