This title caused quite a stir: when it was announced that Paramount's US release would assume Criterion Collection branding, many Europeans who bought Region B-Grade players were upset that they would be locked out of the fun. (Criterion's highly respectable history with AV presentation leads a lot of people to assume that their releases will always be the best available, but this isn't necessarily the case). Warner Home Video holds the rights in Europe, so the speculation soon began as to who's release would look better.
This is an interesting comparison not only because we get to see two different attempts at encoding from the same master (OK, the order of the studio logos is swapped, but that's it), but also because of the different codecs used. Warner's fairly cozy past with Microsoft (a full story which isn't publishable, sadly) means that they're using VC-1, whereas Paramount, like most, are using AVC.
OK, so image one...
Paramount (AVC) | Warner (VC1)
The first thing to note is that both versions basically have the same amount of detail visible, for the most part. Neither appears to have been prefiltered, and both are pretty pleasing on the eyes (in the technical sense, that is).
Ah, but look closer. The same amount of detail, perhaps, but only on the Y channel.The Warner version has had the Cb and Cr (color components) quite strongly denoised. I think a lot of encoders actually do this on their own, behind your back, for compression efficiency gains - no idea if that's the case here, or if this has been induced by the compressionist as a manual step. If you look at the magazines on the far right of the frame, the color resolution is lower in the Warner version. Also, the wooden table is harder to differentiate from the wall.
Look also at the bedside railing at the very bottom of the frame. The chroma denoising is strong enough to have actually removed some of the purple lens aberration.
The Warner version does, however, exhibit less mosquito noise. Take a look around the girl's hair.
Onto image 2.
Paramount (AVC) | Warner (VC1)
From later on in the same sequence. Much the same characteristics as above: take a look at the pink/purple flowers and note the heightened color bleed on the Warner disc. Also, the cyan-colored screen on the hospital equipment near the right of the frame is quite interesting. Compare the two versions and you'll see that on the Warner disc, its color extends many pixels above and below its proper position. This is only on the vertical plane - horizontally, nothing seems to be different. Very odd. This is some way away from the 4:4:4 captured by the cameras!
However, once again, there is less mosquito noise, and also a little bit less grain/CCD noise on the Warner frame when compared to the Paramount. Again, it's difficult to know if Warner's disc has been intentionally grain reduced, or if the lessened grain is just a result of the different compression algorithm (probably the latter).
Image 3:
Paramount (AVC) | Warner (VC1)
Very few differences worth noting. Again, more mosquito noise on Paramount's disc.
Image 4:
Paramount (AVC) | Warner (VC1)
Paramount's is clearly better here, showing better grain retention. Warner's job begins to look more like deliberate grain reduction, but without seeing the master, it's impossible to say for sure.
Image 5:
Paramount (AVC) | Warner (VC1)
As above. I'm not head-over-heels in love with the compression on either version, and have seen better results from AVC before. Granted, though, this film is nearly three hours long.
Conclusion: both discs are good, but I don't feel that either of them are 10/10s. My own encoding experience with AVC is nowhere near that of MPEG-2, so if there are any BD compressionists out there who want to chime in, please do. (Still, that's still more experience than most "reviewers"...) Personally, I think that the Paramount version has a very slight advantage, as I don't feel that the higher level of mosquito noise will be as visible during motion as the lessened chroma resolution.
One final thought: neither disc makes this plodding 165-minute tech demo any less excruciating to sit through.
"Excruciating" is an understatement. This was one of the worst films of 2008 and Pitt received a nomination for THIS performance? C'MON!
But man, he ages BACKWARDS. This is GENIUS. Such an original idea is completely worth nearly three hours' running time.
And yes, the best-looking encode or the best-looking master in the world wouldn't make this any less of a steaming turd.