side note: Blocky Mess of Pixels Between Her Legs would be a great name for a punk band and/or song.

There's macroblocking on this title?

Pass.

That's all that's ever been there. It was optically fogged, i.e., pixilated all the way back to DVD.

I always thought that the "Eleven Condoms" line from The Walking Dead would be a great name for a band.

Word over at the BD.com forums is that Barnes & Noble's next Criterion Sale starts on 11/10/15!

Psst : Before it was a DVD, it was a ....... movie.

man I really hope they do the christmas gift card deal again.

Point is, the optical fogging first came about for home video releases, and has been the same ever since the initial DVD. People are behaving like this is a recent change.

It's not visible at normal brightness, only if you artificially crank the gamma to "solar flare" levels.

Read what I wrote again. The optical fogging has been removed. However, the scene is so dark that it's not possible to see any nudity in the lower half of the frame.

I've never gotten around to watching this movie but I've been aware of the blurring issue since the beginning and I have to say that using low quality pixelation probably made the issue worse than if they had done a more subtle darkening in the first place.

No, it hasn't. That's the way it's supposed to look on a properly calibrated monitor. In other words, the 'effect' was done so well, it's not in any way detectable by the viewer.

Do you have the disc? Because I do. I am telling you that the optical fogging has been removed. The pixelation currently in the shot is not deliberate censorship. It's just compression macroblocking hidden in the below-black information in the shot.

I am well aware that the fogging was supposed to be disguised by the darkness of the shot and shouldn't have been visible at normal playback levels. Nonetheless, it was visible if you freeze-framed and cranked up the Brightness. Doing so now, the fogging is gone, but macroblocking is exposed. You can make out more of Harring's hips and thighs, but her pubic region is just an indistinguishable mess of pixels. Anyone hoping for high-res whack-off material will come away disappointed.

I can provide NSFW screencap comparisons of the Criterion disc to the UK import from a couple years ago if needed. Or you can just take my word for it that I actually know what I'm talking about.

The censorship was never visible at normal playback levels. The only people who complained about it were those who freeze-framed the shot and cranked up their TV's Brightness setting.

As I remember on my DVD version, once you cranked up the the brightness, the effect was VERY obvious. That was... 13 years ago? Damn. Anyway... I never even checked my UK Blu-ray import for the same thing (since I stopped thinking it was 'censorship' about 12 years ago).

So Josh says it's gone... I believe him. But I wonder if they just did it differently for this Blu-ray. Meaning, maybe they just dimmed the shot down a bit so, even without the effect, the detail was lost in the darkness. It would be a "classier" solution than the previous one. Or something.

Jeez, people. I saw this in the theater and never noticed any blocking. I wouldn't have noticed so much were it not for the continued pointless internet griping. Lynch will never alter this and that's it.

I have the StudioCanal disc, and it's exactly as you describe with your Criterion.

Probably. Check your StudioCanal disc an see if there's a difference. I contend it's the same. Lynch personally promised Harring he'd protect her modesty on home video release. You're saying he's suddenly changed his mind in 2015 because it's on a Criterion Blu?

It wasn't fogged on the 35mm prints. I agree, I wouldn't have noticed it either, were it not for the endless online discussions on it. One could write a PhD dissertation on the three seconds of this film in question.

Crotch pixilation, NSFW:

No, not at all. I was just saying, maybe the method he chose was handled differently. Since this is a new 4K master, they would have had to manually distort the image again, no? So, I just mean... maybe instead of the method they chose last time (blurry zone), they did it more subtle; dimming the entire shot, or just that area of the shot. Josh's information seems to point to the latter, as previously I'm sure others said that there WAS more visibility in that shot on 35mm.

It really is amazing how much discussion there is over something that literally doesn't matter and has no bearing on the quality of the film.

You must have a serious reading comprehension problem. Let me be as clear with you as a human being can possibly be:

1) I have both the Criterion Blu-ray and the Studio Canal Blu-ray.
2) I have watched both discs.
3) I have compared this scene on both versions, both at regular playback brightness and artificially boosted brightness.
4) I have screencapped the shot on both copies and cranked the gamma to expose everything in the shadows.
5) THE TWO DISCS ARE NOT THE SAME. THEY LOOK DIFFERENT.
6) The Studio Canal disc has obvious optical censorship blurring. The Criterion disc does not. It just has random compression macroblocking, which is also visible in other parts of the frame (not just the nudity).

If you still don't get it at this point, that's entirely on you. It is literally impossible (and I mean "literally" in the actual meaning of the word) for me to be less ambiguous about what I am saying.

THE STUDIO CANAL BLU-RAY IS OPTICALLY BLURRED. THE CRITERION BLU-RAY IS NOT OPTICALLY BLURRED.

So... what you're saying is...

they're the same?

First, there's no reason to be a dick (too late for that, I s'pose).

Second, without artificially boosting monitor or projector settings, the appearance to the home viewer is exactly the same regardless of what method they used!

The brightness levels of the shot in the two Blu-rays is about the same. The macroblocking I describe is apparent all over the frame when you fiddle with the gamma, not just the nudity.

For obvious reasons, I haven't seen the movie on 35mm since 2001 and my memory of it is probably not reliable. As I recall, my impression of the initial DVD transfer was that the shot had been noticeably (presumably deliberately) dimmed in addition to the optical blurring. It does still seem overly dark here in comparison to other shots before and after it. In the following few shots that only show her from the torso up, Harring's breasts are well lit, but in this one she's basically a silhouette.

So, yes, I do think that the dimming in that shot is a deliberate attempt to censor her pubic region, and has been since the first DVD. However, I don't think it has been made any worse in that regard. It's been oppressively dark in every video transfer for the movie.

My assumption here is that, at the time of the original DVD transfer, Lynch and Harring were so concerned about this that they both dimmed and optically blurred the shot. In supervising the new Blu-ray transfer, Lynch may have realized that the dimming alone did the job well enough and the blurring wasn't actually necessary.

That has never been in contention. The issue at hand is whether the optical blurring is still present when you boost the brightness of the image. It is not.