Encoded the movie The Iron Giant into high quality MKV h.264 format with English, French, Spanish (CA+LA) and Director Commentary audio, along with English, French, and Spanish (CA+LA) Subtitles as well.
The Signature Edition has one edited scene where the only difference is what the giant's hand is watching on the TV. The Signature Edition also has 2 new scenes that are 38 seconds, and 1:48 minutes in length. They don't really add much to the story, but they are an interesting, neat little filler.
This Blu-Ray was overly dark to the point it was ridiculous. I didn't notice anything being crushed, but a lot of stuff was so dark that it might as well be considered borderline crush. There was so much stuff not visible from being so dark, that should have been more visible.
Here is a Blu-Ray vs DVD comparison. (Use arrow keys or click image to flip between the comparisons)
https://slow.pics/c/UFHl05hH
https://slow.pics/c/0L3ihbVC
https://slow.pics/c/xAwxdXEY
As you can see, that's ridiculously dark, and some parts have become invisible to the eye. Yeah if you know exactly what your looking for, you look hard enough, and you kinda strain your eyes, you can probly still see most of it, but that's just too dark in my opinion.
I adjusted the levels to a much better, and fair level in my opinion. This is brighter than the Blu-Ray source, and not nearly as overly bright and desaturated as the DVD was. Here are a few examples. (These are not the finished video for the encode, they are merely to show examples of level adjustments. The finished are better looking)
(Use arrow keys or click image to flip between the comparisons)
https://slow.pics/c/oIfRBgVa
https://slow.pics/c/WMkUTJiF
https://slow.pics/c/KYp4K1Gp
https://slow.pics/c/1jGX7EAR
https://slow.pics/c/arvROjZI
So if you were like me and hated the Blu-Ray only because of how overly dark it was, this should be a treat for you. The being too dark is about the only negative thing I could say about it. Other than that, it was a well done Blu-Ray, without aliasing, halos, or banding plaguing it.
For playback all you need is the proper codec or media player if you don't already have it.
Combined Community Codec Pack or the K-Lite Codec pack should give you all you need and more to play these back.
If you do not wish to install a codec pack, a modern Media Player such as MPC-HC or VLC Media Player should come bundled with everything you need.
SCREENSHOTS
https://i.imgur.com/OSoQ1s6.png
https://i.imgur.com/cfjrdN4.png
https://i.imgur.com/ygD5XL3.png
https://i.imgur.com/pH8P3rz.png
https://i.imgur.com/MhMUhNW.png
https://i.imgur.com/2CK6LxG.png
CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW FULL SIZE
