Swing Girls (2004)

BFI 4K Blu-ray has excellent master and grade, no DNR and tasteful HDR

The unrestored track on BFI's earlier release appears to be an almost entirely unmanipulated transfer of the original mix. It suffers from a distracting low-frequency hum. The 4K restoration comes with a restored track, which appears to be the same transfer, but which appears to be cleaned up with a moderate amount of noise reduction and some EQ, nicely opening up the high-end, and which is likely to be preferable to most listeners. All earlier releases sound poor.

Perspecta isn't a discrete surround format, instead only relying on manipulating volume and panning of the mono track across L/C/R channels, based on embedded control tones. As such, even the Perspecta track is technically just the mono mix, though the omission of the proper mono on BFI's 4K is still unfortunate.

> Criterion 4K Blu-ray see caps: https://slow.pics/c/s7AfL3XW

Grain is sharper/clearer on the new Carlotta/Criterion 4K; BFI's grain resolves slightly worse and more so in motion, being a standard Blu-ray; The Toho 4K's grain is softer, probably DNR'd.

BFI Player used to have the same mastering available to stream in 2019.