[Test] Aliens open matte

[BronzeTitan]

I read somewhere (an interview or a review) that their standard procedure for the Blu-ray was to smooth the film and then re-grain it because the source was so noisy. I could barely believe what I saw from an uncompressed screen-cap of the "hibernation awakening" shot. Their "re-grain" looked like tiny sand particles on their skin ... some almost black! Impossible for any kind of "film grain". A quick search couldn't find it to show here. I did find a similar shot in non-compressed .PNG but it's of a darker area and doesn't show up quite as obvious:

BTW, the previous posts of screenshot comparisons, which I snagged from the browser's cache, were in .JPG and I guess the compression smeared away the obvious re-grain problem I once saw. I wonder if a Blu-ray 1080p cap in .PNG available for this shot?

And, too, the same frame from the HDTV?
BTW, if it's not an issue for your project, then don't bother. (A bug-hunt always draws me into the details.) 

[spoRv]

Here you are the PNGs from BD and TV:

[BronzeTitan]

Thanks!    Yep, that's the shot!  

[Stamper]

One thing to know, most masters are done twice, for TV and for Blu-ray, when degrained, they then add the grain back, except TV always ask for the clean no grain version. Hence the differences. So if you wanna regrain, use the HDTV. Also use FilmConvert because it's the only software that produces real grain, a plate won't do as grain reacts differently according to anything moving on screen.

[spoRv]

Will not apply any grain, apart on the HDTV slices to let them be as much similar as possible, grain wise, to the BD.

Also, HDTV is not only grainless, but highly compressed and lacks details in comparison to BD.

[Stamper]

Maybe panup will produce more detail!

[spoRv]

Maybe panup will produce more detail!

In comparison to ... ?

[Stamper]

If you pan up both the BD and the HDTV? As they are from the same master they might contain different information.

[spoRv]

PaNup = PAL and NTSC upscale

As there will be no upscale here, it would be just an overlay; I've tested this, with different percentages, and result is always softer than Blu-ray, so I think I would use only the latter.

[spoRv]

Found a second HDTV source; it's an important discover, as it would help to replace the missing part of the previous version, and to improve quality of the "slices"; it could also be possible to take in consideration a median of the three sources, can't say if quality would be better than BD alone, though!