BD 26 Two-Lane Blacktop

[peerpee]

FWIW, MoC used exactly what Universal sent them and didn't do anything to the master whatsoever. Bearing in mind this is a Techniscope film, from the comparisons at that link the Criterion looks to have much better grain structure, which suggests to me a newer HD scan? Either that or the master that Universal sent to MoC had some "Universal filtering" applied, perhaps intended to reduce grain for HD TV or HD download, and Criterion were able to go one step back to the original scan, minus this tinkering.

[tenia]

FWIW, MoC used exactly what Universal sent them and didn't do anything to the master whatsoever. Bearing in mind this is a Techniscope film, from the comparisons at that link the Criterion looks to have much better grain structure, which suggests to me a newer HD scan? Either that or the master that Universal sent to MoC had some "Universal filtering" applied, perhaps intended to reduce grain for HD TV or HD download, and Criterion were able to go one step back to the original scan, minus this tinkering.

One can also suppose that Criterion use the HD transfer they did for the DVD at the time, and which might have no tinkering. That could also explain the difference.

[peerpee]

One can also suppose that Criterion use the HD transfer they did for the DVD at the time, and which might have no tinkering. That could also explain the difference.

According to the Criterion DVD and Criterion Blu-ray booklets, both these Criterion releases utilise the same Monte Hellman-approved 2K scan that was carried out at Universal by Universal folk. This is the same scan and the basis of the Universal HD master that MoC received.

It appears that there has only been one scan, all Criterion and MoC releases utilise it, but the master supplied to MoC had some extra Universal fiddling (probably for HD TV, HD download, not sure). This is looking like the most likely explanation, because MoC did nothing to it.