Films

WB 4K Blu-ray only has Final Cut and contains a bad Atmos remix with new sound effects. Original Final Cut mix was removed.

Indicator Blu-ray is encoded by FiM and likely better than Kino Lorber Blu-ray

Indicator Blu-ray is superior to Kino Lorber transfer see caps. 2K restoration

2K scan from a 35mm safety duplicate negative made from an original tinted nitrate print in the Marion Davies Collection at the Library of Congress.

FiM encoded, 4K restoration for both theatrical and director's version

Sony 4K Blu-ray see caps

Recovers quite a bit of highlight detail, looks less harsh and clipped in the video footage than the old BD.

5.1 on the 4K is a downmix of the Atmos remix.

4K Blu-ray only has an Atmos remix with a phasing issue

Popeye was mixed for a failed Vistasonic system with 4 discrete tracks (L/C/R/S). That mix has never been released on home video in its original form.

The older 5.1 track appearing on older DVD/BD releases sounds excellent. It appears to be a slight upmix of the original mix, only splitting the surrounds and adding LFE. It sounds close to the old analog LaserDisc, which is likely the original mix in a matrixed form.

The 5.1 included on the UHD is a new remix which significantly differs from previous tracks. There are new foley effects all over the place. Music is jarringly spliced in from different sources. Unlike the old 5.1 which had clearly discrete surrounds, the channels surrounds overlap somewhat with the fronts here.

Details on the new mix from Paramount's former head of restoration: https://youtu.be/P-AmjqViJyE?t=788

The 2.0 tracks on all DVDs/BDs are just downmixes of their respective 5.1 mixes.

Samples

The older track sounds significantly more natural. The WAC BD uses a new mastering which sounds much worse. A lot of the dialogue sounds off, sort of echoey, garbled or even artifacted. Its overzealous click removal also erased some sounds. Its only positive is a new EQ that brings out the bass more making some of the score more effective.

It seems that the new mastering likely uses AI "enhancement" or some other form of aggressive filtering, resulting in extended peaks despite losing real high end detail (most pronounced on sample 3).

Samples (WAC is mislabeled as UHD)

Commentary is mono on the Blu-rays and panned stereo on NTSC DVD (different channels for each speaker).

The old discs use a significantly worse transfer with faded colors, color fringing and a strong green tint throughout.

The 4K has lowered dynamic range.

The UHD has audible artifacting and sounds metallic.

The older Studio Canal disc has incorrect pitch - 0.7 semitones lower than it should be. As their PAL DVD release was pitched correctly despite running at 25 FPS, it's likely they just took that master and slowed it down without accounting for that.

Arrow includes the original Dolby Stereo mix in a matrixed stereo form, as well as a discrete 4.0 track.

> US Kino Lorber see comparison and caps

Kino Lorber has an exceedingly poor encode, only slightly improved by the DV layer.

Universal's BD uses the same transfer as the old LaserDisc and sounds a bit better than Plaion's, which has worse dynamics.

Plaion's Atmos remix is tastefully done and preserves the original mix's characteristics, the 5.1 track on Kino's release is overly aggressive and unbalanced.

Criterion has English subtitles burned in for the entire film, stylized to look like an old film print.