The French
Édition Limitée arrived in the mail today. As expected, the "version cinéma" is a decent encoding of the old Warner master, probably the best we are ever going to get: it's doubtful that anyone will have the inclination to fob off customers with a UHD encoding of it. As such, the set is worth getting if you want that cut of the film. The
word over at blu-ray.com is that the equivalent Australian set has a worse encoding of the same master, and there seems no reason to doubt it.
EDIT: The FR (top) BD definitely has a higher bitrate than the AUS (bottom) BD.
There are English and French DTS-HD MA 5.1 tracks and a DTS-HD MA English 2.0 track (
presumably a DTS encoding of the LPCM 2.0 on the AUS BD.). I've not done any volume matching, but this is what the spectograms look like:
FR TC BD English 2.0:
AUS TC BD English 2.0:
FR TC BD English 5.1:
For comparison, here's the 5.1 from the FR DDC BD...
...apart from the absence of the ice-pick lobotomy at ~8kHz. it looks similar to the 5.1 on the TC.
The FR BD's 2.0 doesn't strike me as anything to write home about. The LD PCM will probably sound better.
The second disc is, of course, the "Director's Definitive Cut" and looks the same as the US and UK releases -- no surprises there. Unless Mann decides to recut the film yet again, the inevitable UHD BD will most likely be the Director's Defintive Cut in 4k. If we're lucky, something will be done about the levels.
At present, the best prospect for an updated fan project is a regrade of the UHD BD (whenever that shows up) with sections taken from the French disc and some LD audio.