I did read your post and I was doing some research before I answered your question. From what I have been able to find online, MRA Entertainment released TWO different copies of the film, the first in 1999 (the one that I posted the ebay link for and the one referenced in your hi-fi writer link) with an LPCM track and the second release was in 2003 (the one that you posted an ebay link to) that had a Dolby track (which is even in the description of the ebay link you posted) and that second one is the WRONG one! The way you can tell it's the correct disc is by the "Silver Screams" logo on top of the front cover of the DVD. Yes, it's from an old transfer. Yes, it's the old censored version. Yes, there is a really good chance that it's identical to the LD PCM audio track. Should it be acquired? Hmmm... That one review I posted earlier suggests that there are no clicks, pops, or drop-out which would mean that it's not identical to the LD audio. But there's two things to consider there: one, how reliable is this guys review? (some of the other ones I have read by him for discs that I own, were not always accurate) two, what if it's the track sounds like that because of noise reduction? (although, again, I have a hard time believing that considering how poor the picture quality of that DVD is)
Really, without getting it, I'll never know... Is it that important? NO!
Now, on to the foreign dubs and things I have "discovered."
So, the French and German dubs are lower fidelity than the English version, mostly because there was some noise reduction applied there too, although not as liberally as the English track. One first glance, some of the elements appear to be from the same "master" (i.e. identical scratches, clicks, etc. to the English track) and some appear to be from different elements. Most likely, won't use anything from either of these. The Italian track has everything dubbed, including the Latin bits, and a lot of the crowd yelling too. Some of the sfx are different too. The parts that are the same, also appear to be from the same "master" as the English version, although a generation later (in other words, a dupe which introduces more degradation) Some noise reduction was applied, although it seems to be less than the French and German dubs. And then, there's the Spanish dub... it has almost no noise reduction at all, if any. The elements used in it appear to be from an entirely different "master" than any of the other language versions (given away by scratches, clicks, fidelity, etc.) To make things even sweeter, it's a nice "middle-ground" in quality between the English LD PCM track and the CD audio I have now.
Most of the parts that I wanted to fix involve no dialog (except for the uncensored dialog, which is also on the CD) so I should be able to use a combo of the CD and Spanish dub to fill in ALL parts that need it.
HOLY SHIT!!! Before I posted this, just out of curiosity I checked the uncensored dialog part on the Spanish dub. That part is in ENGLISH (it roughly switches from "It's alive. It's alive!" in Spanish to "In the name of God, now I know what if feels like to be God!" in English!)
I was right that the CD has been slightly filtered. This part of the audio on the Spanish dub is COMPLETELY UNFILTERED and doesn't have that "crystallized" sound to it that is present on the BD and to a lesser extent on the CD. But on the Spanish dub, it's a "raw" transfer!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!
With this development, I can now confidently say that I have EVERYTHING I need to do a complete proper preservation and separate restoration of the audio:victory:
