As far as the TOD goes, these past couple of nights I went through a UK Blu-ray set issued a couple of years ago but which I just jumped on the bandwagon to get ahold of before it goes out of print: "William Castle at Columbia", containing the eight films from the US Sony DVD set a decade ago.
I decided to get it because of Powerhouse/Indicator's reputation for deluxe releases (I already had a few of theirs), and to have what should by all rights be the greatest transfers of the Castle films which are a fun favorite in this household. The amassing of material and the packaging scores high, no question about it. I was only disappointed to find that I'm looking at the same transfers from a decade ago, albeit it in HD and with appropriately high bitrates. But shame on me for "ass-uming" these were probably new scans. It's nevertheless a beautiful set of the films themselves, and not only every supplementary feature that already existed, but loads of very good new ones. No regrets.
In checking out each movie, I first watched the main titles and a few select moments from the DVD set, then went right to the new Blu-ray for the same film to compare as best I could. On the very first one ("The Tingler"), I was stunned to see the identical defects on both. Example: flickering main titles (yes, I know about opticals), unsteady picture otherwise, and a bit of flickering/contrast issues within the film. I went back to Indicator's blurbs about the release, and that's where I learned that, sure enough, this was Sony's existing HD transfers -- so what we get is what had been prepared for release on the DVDs, which is light years away from what's possible now with 4k scans and other technology.
BK should correct me if I'm wrong about any of this. I'm just trying to watch a little more critically than I have before.
Bottom line, though, a lovely release, which actually proves that the US DVD set was no slouch, because the transfers were certainly good then, and it, too, was packed with extra material. But Indicator has gone over the top with fun new stuff, and I'm happy to have the set.
