Thanks for your comments, Bruce. My copy arrived today and I'm going to check it out tomorrow.
I'm wondering if this is similar to the situation with The Guns of Navarone, which looks exactly how it's supposed to look?
Space shouldn't be an issue as 4 hours of HD can easily fit on a dual-layer disc without compression issues, but perhaps they didn't have a skilled compressionist. (I just made that word up!)
First review is out. Unfortunately they say it is over-compressed and over-processed. I'm hoping the reviewers here disagree. Anyway, it doesn't affect my pre-order. I want The Great Escape in high-definition and I'm buying it no matter what the reviewers say.