Have you seen the restored L&H films on Blu-ray? They look amazing with a level of detail we never got with Super 8. Same goes for the Our Gang Hal Roach sound films. Amazing restoration work.
Yes, I commented a lot about them in another thread a couple of years ago. Rented the DVD version of L&H from library, but have seen some of the HD versions online. I've only seen the Vivendi DVDs for Our Gang.
In short, for the L&Hs I have in 16mm, I much prefer them to "The Definitive Restorations." I project films on a screen 5 feet wide, but my HD TV is not that wide. I would probably love the restorations they did projected from 35mm film. My understanding is that they did too much DNR for the discs, although in other forums the people who worked on them vehemently denied it. They trump most of my Super 8 copies, but not 16mm.
Regarding Super 8 -- it's not the smaller gauge that can make them look less than desirable, it is a combination of the lab work and the negatives they worked from. Derann in the U.K., before they went out-of-business, produced many full-length Super 8 prints of the Disney animated classics. They still go for big bucks when someone is willing to sell their copies. I've never seen one in person, but I've heard they are fantastic. I do have several Disney shorts (Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy) that Derann released, and they are pin-sharp with great color.
Regarding L&H, Blackhawk did print some that look great in Super 8 and 8mm. I have PUTTING PANTS ON PHILIP in both Standard 8mm and Super 8, and the former may actually look better! You could fool someone into thinking they were 16mm. One of the keys is having a projector with a top-tier lens and a bright bulb. In general, Blackhawk releases of L&H silents are usually a step or 2 above the talkies in terms of image quality, though titles like COUNTY HOSPITAL, SCRAM, and PERFECT DAY are top-notch.
Regarding the digital versions, I'm not a fan of digital trickery to make the films look "better." The best thing they did with "The Defintive Restorations" was finding the best surving film elements, and when they happened to be on nitrate film stock (which any original camera negative from that era would be), they made copies onto safety film. I do endorse digital editing to stitch together scans of the best film elements together when it is not possible or practical to physically splice them together. For example, and I know this happened in the case of some of the recent Buster Keaton restorations, they might find film elements of, for example, PERFECT DAY from 2 different archives, half a world away. In that case they could scan a print from archive 1 (without transporting it to another country), and do the same with a print from archive 2, and digitally take the best image quality from each print to assemble a complete digital "print" from the 2. Not sure if that was necessary with the L&H restorations, though.
One of the things I really like about L&H in 16mm is that it is fairly easy to find very good to excellent condition prints that were printed when the negatives were younger. I have a few printed in the 1940s made directly from the original 35mm camera negatives -- which means they theoretically look better than the 4th generation prints released to theaters in the 30s, despite the smaller guage. (OCN->fine grain-->dupe neg->release print.) That's why so many of the original negs for L&H are either gone or in bad shape -- they were over-printed. Another reason why a 16mm print can look better than the blu-ray disc -- the 35mm original negative that was used to print the 16mm may no longer exist in some cases! These 16mm prints are not cheap, relatively, but the prices have come way down in the last few years. You may be surprised to hear, however, that I recently picked up a few 16mm L&H talkie shorts for around $30 each! I remember when they cost around $100, maybe 10 years ago.
It is my understanding that for the L&H restorations, a different team did the digital "stuff" after the "photo-chemical" team did their job restoring the film elements. Aside from DNR, there are also things they can do to alter brightness, contrast, and even "edge sharpening."
When the final disc is produced, it will probably look different on my TV and disc player vs. your's vs. someone else's. There are far too many virtual "knobs" on these newfangled HD TVs to change the look of the image. For film, there also are variables, such as lens, lamp, projector, screen, but the difference will not nearly be as great as with digital equipment.
Well, my "in short" became long, and I probably repeated myself from other threads, but once I get going it's hard to stop!