As I expected, Noshame's edition of "Icarus XB 1" is a direct port of the older Czech release, a fact making visual comparison superfluous (i.e. the screengrabs are bitwise identical). Thus, at the bottom of this page, you'll find only one set of screenshots representing both DVDs.

Thanks to the good folks at Second Run, "Ikarie XB 1" came out in the UK on this universally praised DVD. The comments on the web led me to believe that it was based on a new master, so I was curious how it stacks up against the 2006 Filmexport release.
     Well, as you can see in our gallery, the master's not new, but it has been cleaned up considerably (a fact not readily apparent in the screenshots but pretty obvious "in motion") - the only clean-up FEX did (that I noticed) was simply deleting one severely damaged frame (left "as is" on the SR DVD):

I am a bit disappointed; I was hoping that - similarly to "Man from the First Century," another B&W 'scope sci-fi flick previously released by FEX (admittedly, that DVD was utter crap compared to Ikarie) - the film'd had a new HD scan made, and that Second Run based their edition thereon... Not everyday is a Sunday, I guess, but their effort still is an improvement on the Czech DVD (which, I think, is out of print anyway). Highly recommended! (c:

It probably won't come as a surprise that the restored Blu-ray blows the older DVDs out of the water, but the comparison *does* reveal an interesting couple of points:

1. The Blu shows quite a bit of extra picture on all but the right side of the frame.
2. The DVDs, but - interestingly enough - not the heavily cropped TV broadcast, are squeezed horizontally, a fact most obvious in screenshots where circular shapes appear.

Update: Following up on user comments @ the Zóna discussion board, here's an example where the horizontal squeeze (or vertical stretch?) the DVDs exhibit is more readily apparent ==> click the pictures to get a closer look: