I know, more than any other catalog re-release, everyone was clamoring to know whether the four-year-old Blu-ray of Love Actually has been made obsolete by next week's "All-New 10th Anniversary Digital Restoration" Edition.
"Digital Restoration", my eye.
UPDATE (11 Oct 2013): It's come to my attention that aside from an AVC encode rather than VC-1, the notable difference is that this new disc is the US soundtrack cut rather than UK, so it features a track by Kelly Clarkson during the office party sequence instead of one by Sugababes, just as US audiences originally heard regardless.
There is no difference in supplemental features compared to the 2009 disc. The new one adds a DVD, iTunesHD/Ultraviolet code, and a really cheap tin ornament.
Looking at the core feature file on each Blu-ray reveals that they are different sizes (about 2GB different). I'll be damned if I can tell a difference by looking at them. Color, texture detail, and other things like black levels and overall contrast look effectively identical to me. I did not re-watch the original disc the whole way through nor the new one, but watched the opening 20 minutes of each, along with a few minutes-long sequences throughout (specifically the "All I Want For Christmas is You" bit). Maybe they re-encoded a tiny bit and re-did the BD-Live ads or something, but in ways someone who loves or likes the movie would notice, the discs are functionally identical. Oh, I did find one difference...the menu loop video fills more of the screen now.
The below gallery denotes from which release each image was captured, merely resized to fit the site width. they are not frame-to-frame matches, but representative of roughly the same moments in particular scenes.
In case you were wondering...as cloying and didactic and obvious and stupid as this movie is, I like it a hell of a lot, in spite of myself and my generally gourmand taste profile.
Bottom Line
The new one is pre-orderable for $19, but the basically-the-exact-same one is a better buy for $5 cheaper at $14. The ornament, Digital Copy (no iTunes Extras), and a DVD aren't worth $5 more to me, but therein lie the difference. It doesn't seem like they are taking the 2009 disc out of print, but they might. alternately, it could be in the $7.99 bin at you big box retailer this winter.
