When I reviewed the US HD DVD release of Serenity back in July, I proclaimed it the greatest-looking non-theatrical presentation of a film I had ever seen. That particular disc retained that title for an impressive period of five months, before being dethroned... by its UK counterpart. As it happens, the US release was actually mastered using an early version of Microsoft's VC1 codec - a codec that they have continually worked to refine, bringing down the bit rate requirements. For the UK release, Universal decided to have another crack at Serenity, partially in order to free up some space for additional audio tracks (given that VC1 is now capable of producing excellent results with a mere 10-15 Mbps bit rate).

The US release, to me, looked absolutely perfect. Sharp as a tack, beautifully grainy, rich colours and contrast, and not a smidgen of edge enhancement on display. The UK release is... more perfect, if that's possible. No, the differences aren't massive, and I don't expect the majority of people to even notice them, but the new encode takes an already spectacular-looking disc and makes it look just a hair better. The most significant difference, if we can actually call it significant, is that the grain is very slightly more pronounced, further amplifying the film-like nature of the HD presentation. It also seems to be microscopically more detailed. This tends to be most noticeable in the form of improved definition of the skin texture during facial close-ups, although some of the wider shots also look a little crisper. I rated the US version a 10/10 for image quality, and I don't think I'd drop it to a 9 even having seen the UK version - perhaps more of a 9.8 (although I prefer not to get that specific when it comes to overall ratings).