Very disapointed with this one. It looks suspiciously like an upscale to me. Although the image is clearly cleaner than the UK DVD I have (the original non-anamorphic Anchor Bay release, not sure how it would compare with the later anamorphic version - even less favourably no doubt!), this only seems to be down to a better compression codec. I just can't see any more actual detail in the image at all. At least, certainly not hi-def detail.

If you look at the first shot with the title in, the words looks fuzzy around the edges compared with the DVD. Could this be upscaling artifacts?

Perhaps others with a more expert eye could give their opinion?

DVD shots are always first:

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/3833/withnaildvd01.png

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/8163/withnail01.png

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/6523/withnaildvd02.png

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/692/withnail02.png

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/1007/withnaildvd03.png

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/3864/withnail03.png

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/6427/withnaildvd04.png

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/9649/withnail04.png

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/4462/withnaildvd05.png

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/8492/withnail05.png

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/8035/withnaildvd06.png

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/1315/withnail06.png

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/9275/withnaildvd07.png

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/8729/withnail07.png

Correct me if i'm wrong, but if it's an upscale then wouldn't the DVD shots and the HD shots look the same? Not a perfect transfer but clearly it has much more detail than DVD and your screen shots show that!

The "fuzzyness" around the titles is simply film grain, and the reason you don't see it on the DVD is because it doesn't have enough resolution to display it. Film grain is not a bad thing, this movie is meant to be grainy and dull looking! It looks miles closer to film than the DVD shows from your screenshots. Mine has just arrived so i'll be watching it later.

That looks pretty good to me. Look at the detail of the stubble on the man's face in pic #3, or the pub front in #4: on the BD you can clearly read "Jazz" on the poster, while on the DVD it's all blurred.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but if it's an upscale then wouldn't the DVD shots and the HD shots look the same?

No. An upscale has a number of distinct advantages over a DVD. For a start, these particular DVD shots are taken from the 2001 non-anamorphic release. If an upscale, the blu-ray is likely culled from the new SD master that was created for the 2006 3 disc edition.

Also, an uspcale will always look slightly better than a DVD, because it will be upscaled directly from the uncompressed video master and then have the advantage of far better video compression which blu-ray provides. The DVD will be strangled by the low bit-rate MPEG2 encoding.

A fairer comparison would be with the 2006 DVD, but I don't own it, so can't provide screenshots.

The "fuzzyness" around the titles is simply film grain

It doesn't look like grain at all to me. This looks like some sort of digital artifacting.

This doesn't look particularly good to me. Very poor definition and poor contrast.

I really hope this isn't what we can look forward to with The Long Good Friday.

Eww. It looks like it was degrained and then had a random video noise filter added.

I think your DVD shots are using a blend deinterlacer, by the way. Apparently this one went through a NTSC->PAL standards conversion.

Here's a couple of shots from the 2006 DVD. Sorry about the jpeg but it should give you some idea of the quality.

http://img2.imageshack.us/img2/9872/pdvd008aw.jpg

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/5592/pdvd009o.jpg

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/4983/pdvd010f.jpg

I think your DVD shots are using a blend deinterlacer, by the way. Apparently this one went through a NTSC->PAL standards conversion.

Yes, I believe you're right. My DVD player has a 'frame' option for the pause mode which will show a weaved pair of fields instead of deinterlacing a single field, and every single frame has combing. This shouldn't occur on properly mastered PAL DVDs because of the 2:2 cadence.

It's an awful DVD in every respect really, which is why the blu-ray is so disappointing, as it really doesn't have much of an advantage over it.

Here's a couple of shots from the 2006 DVD.

Thanks for that!

This pretty much seals it for me. My money is on upscale. If it wasn't for the poor MPEG2 compression on the 2006 DVD, I really don't think you'd be able to tell the difference between it and the blu-ray shots.

This pretty much seals it for me. My money is on upscale. If it wasn't for the poor MPEG2 compression on the 2006 DVD, I really don't think you'd be able to tell the difference between it and the blu-ray shots.
I agree. I don't think I'll bother upgrading. (I only have a 42" TV anyway, so the difference would be miniscule.)