http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/848/636793u.jpghttp://img36.imageshack.us/img36/3474/speask1.jpg

15.00Mbps AVC | Blu-ray | Canada | Alliance | 2009-04-07
35.98Mbps AVC | Blu-ray | Japan | Sony | 2008-04-23

Canada bitrate and frame size/type graphs

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/8881/cabitrate01s.pnghttp://img14.imageshack.us/img14/8131/caframesize.png
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/8485/caframetypecount.pnghttp://img225.imageshack.us/img225/6158/caframetypesize.png

Japan bitrate and frame size/type graphs

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/6639/jpbitrate01s.pnghttp://img200.imageshack.us/img200/7178/jpframesize.png
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/4229/jpframetypecount.pnghttp://img199.imageshack.us/img199/1029/jpframetypesize.png

Screencap comparison - Mouseovers here (http://comparescreenshots.slicx.com/comparison/14499/) (click Stop on this thread to not waste time downloading from both servers)
http://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-00-35_A.pnghttp://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-00-35_B.png
http://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-08-22_A.pnghttp://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-08-22_B.png
http://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-08-56_A.pnghttp://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-08-56_B.png
http://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-18-01_A.pnghttp://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-18-01_B.png
http://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-18-20_A.pnghttp://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-18-20_B.png
http://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-24-18_A.pnghttp://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-24-18_B.png
http://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-32-12_A.pnghttp://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-32-12_B.png
http://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-42-24_A.pnghttp://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-42-24_B.png
http://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-44-28_A.pnghttp://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-44-28_B.png
http://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-57-40_A.pnghttp://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/0-57-40_B.png
http://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/1-06-59_A.pnghttp://chidragon.thedessie.com/bdcomp/trainspottingcomp/1-06-59_B.png

They're both using the same old telecine that every DVD dating back to 1998 was sourced from. Alliance's encode opens with the Miramax logo and Sony's opens with the Universal logo.

First up, even those opening studio logos exhibit wobbling. You know you're in for a poor start. Plenty of black specks throughout, EE is evident, and there's some gate weave in various scenes.

I can deal with all that, because it still looks film..ish. Then all of a sudden around the 42-minute mark, DNR kicks in! Horrid, horrid DNR that couples with the EE and whatever other processing to create disgusting artifacts around edges. Around the 1-hour mark, it mysteriously goes away as if it was never there and the previous 20 minutes were a horrible drug-induced hallucination...

But no, it's definitely there. And on both discs, of course.

Alliance's authoring house for this disc was again La Boîte numérique (http://www.laboitenumerique.com/en/blu-ray_and_dvd/the-blu-ray-story/). No surprise that it's gamma-boosted and poorly compressed.

Sony's Japanese high-bitrate AVC obviously has neither of those issues.

Both releases keep the full-frontal nudity intact, but Japan gets the uncut version while Canada gets the R-rated cut with part of a sex scene and one close-up needle insertion replaced with other footage.

Both have the same opening narration. I would guess it's the UK original since that's what Universal and Alliance always released. Anyone know the difference vs. the US theatrical/DVDs?

Thank you my friend for one more elaborate comparison. ;)

I wasn't such a big fan of this filme, so I guess I'll skipt this time around.

From the caps the japanese version looks very good (aside from the 20 odd minutes you pointed out) and miles better than the canadian disc.

Sony has been doing a very good job on most of their releases.