hauntnut

Please do. Can't wait to see some more reviews of this release. I remember seeing "The Mummy" on HD-DVD, and then reading two different reviews with two different opinions about the image quality (one said it was great, the other said it was just okay, with which I agreed).

Supermallet

The PQ isn't great. The opening sequence looks awful. The whole thing looks faded, like it's been left out for years and then slapped onto the disc. There are a lot of optical overlays that have not stood the test of time at all.

The sound is somewhat better. The dialogue is a bit harsh, but the sound effects are lively and vibrant.

Those are my early reports, anyway.

Supermallet

I watched the whole movie last night. Things do get better after the opening, and it does have more detail than the Superbit DVD, but it's an incremental step up. Also, Coppola has completely changed the colors in many of the scenes, dialing back a lot of the blues and oranges that permeated the screen. I actually prefer the colors this way, but purists will want to pick up a copy of it on regular DVD as well.

The sound has a lot of range and good reproduction, but surround use is minimal and not as effective as it could have been. I haven't had a chance to watch the extra features yet.

Also, I'm sure no one else cares, but usually when I put a DVD into my PS3, an image of a disc pops up on the menu and it says "DVD-ROM" next to it. When I put in a Blu-ray, a blue colored disc pops up and says "BD-ROM" next to it. For Dracula, it had a little icon with an image from the film and said "Bram Stoker's Dracula Blu-ray". Just an interesting little thing I noticed.

hauntnut

Well, even if it isn't the best Blu-Ray out there, I'm still stoked that they're at least doing something with this movie, considering it was one of the first DVDs ever released but had no special features whatsoever.

Davy Mack

The Lucy vamp scene is WAY more desaturated actually...


The Lucy scene




BD







and SB dvd





one last for the nite...



BD







and SBdvd



it totally depends on your preference. It IS definitely different from the SB dvd,



sb dvd





Blu ray, WAY less color.





Sb dvd







and BD, DIFFERENT color, Green. And darker




SB dvd





and BD, darker and the blue is now green





SB dvd





and the BD, darker and less blue




SB dvd





and the BD

Davy Mack

The original film seemed brighter and had ALOT more color in these 5 or so scenes. The new BD looks too dark in many scenes.
I'm just pointing out the differences.



SBdvd




and BD



The darker transfer of the BD CAN be an issue.
The scene where Harker goes exploring the castle starts with the words from his journal superimposed over the image of Harker. In the DVD, it's plain to see, in the new BD, it's so much darker and washed out looking that you can barely make out the words at all...

dvd




and the Blu ray



The scene where Drack crawls down the castle wall also looks different

dvd




and the Blu ray




So, I'm not judging it and Coppolla has every right to tweak, revise, alter his film. All I'm saying is that the lack of significant detail improvement going to HD notwithstanding, the film that many love in many scenes looks VERY different than it did.
Purists might be pissed. I think some of the scenes work, (Vamp Lucy now improved IMHO) many look the same, but some with the darker image suffer.

DVD Polizei

I think I like the newer version. Has anyone adjusted their brightness a little on their HDTVs to compensate for the dark scenes? Might help a bit while retaining the much better colors.

Josh-da-man

Ugh.

I really don't like what I see there.

Looks like the image is overall darker and the colors are more naturalisitic.

The original had a lush, colorful palette giving the film an ethereal, dreamlike quality. It would appear that the reds and blues have been toned down in favor of more browns and greens, and I don't know if it works at all.

I have the Superbit, and I'll definitely hang onto it when/if I upgrade. (And, actually, I wasn't that impressed with the SB, either. I thought the colors on that came off being dull, where they should have popped out off of the screen.)

Giles

I agree I doesn't work for me either... aw well.

Shannon Nutt

I watched my Blu-ray copy over the weekend, and the transfer (IMHO, of course) is just awful. If I didn't know it was a Blu-ray movie, I would have assumed it was a DVD...and not a very good one, at that.

I don't own any of those early Blu-ray releases that had picture issues, but Dracula is by far the least-looking HD title I own on Blu-ray.

The bonus material thats in 1080i (making of docs) looks fine...not sure why those behind the film transfer opted for such a dark, grainy and muddy look.

matome

I'll pick this up for comparison as I'm very familiar with the various incarnations since the Criterion laserdisc days. I liked the blue color palette from the original transfer, so this may or may not work for me, but I like the movie enough to give it a shot.

Thanks for all the work Dave.

Josh Z

As I recall, the Copolla-supervised Criterion laserdisc had different colors than the DVDs. It would be interesting to compare that to the BD.

hauntnut

Well, having seen these screen captures comparing the color changes and darkness levels, I think I'm going to hang on to my old edition of the movie. This is just one of those movies that they shouldn't have messed with; it looked fine the way it was. And to think that the darkness level has been tampered with to the point that certain details are lost is just saddening.

indiansbsa

Who would have thought that Dracula bu ray (first try) would stink and Halloween blu ray allegedly has been hit out of the park..

Unbelievable...

hauntnut

From what I've read about the "Halloween" Blu-Ray, the creators didn't try to mess around with the color scheme and contrast levels. Which is a shame, because I was really looking forward to that particular disc. But after seeing the one screenshot where Dracula's castle completely disappears into the darkness at the top portion of the screen (see previous post), there's just no way I can convince myself that this is a solid transfer that will satisfy.

ali_b

Ok, I've just check my Criterion laserdisc of Dracula, and that has not a hint of the blue seen in your standard DVD version - the colours are almost spot on with the BD of it.

Edit - I've had a skim through the rest of the Criterion laserdisc and the colours seem to be the same as those on the BD. There's little point me posting photos due to display and camera differences (and also because my only digital camera is on a mobile phone). My BD has shipped from the US (to the UK) now, so if no one else has done so by the time it arrives I'll do some A-B comparisons when it arrives.

DVD Polizei

Fixed.

hauntnut

It would appear that, according to the above screen shots, that even the subtitle font in certain scenes has been tampered with. Can I just ask what the heck is going on here?

chanster

Looks like player generated titles on the bottom

Davy Mack

Ok, the more I have watched the disc, the more I feel that they just botched the new transfer. I had already said that it looked flat, darker, washed out, (Bracke was RIGHT on the money with his comments...) but lo and behold, I just got through with watching all the new docs. on the disc that are also in HD. Well, guess what? The scenes from the film in the docs. look MUCH, MUCH better. Blacks are, gasp!, black, there is more and better contrast and there is MORE detail. It looks sharper, NOTICEABLY so. And not in an artificially enhanced, electronic sort of way.
The scene with Harker in the carriage on his way to the castle looks terribly dull, flat and lifeless in the film transfer. In the doc. about the visual FX, the same scene (also in HD) looks GREAT. When Harker pops his head out of the window, (low angle shot) you can actually see the top of the inside of the carriage in the doc. scene, giving the shot MUCH more depth. In the film transfer, nothing at all is visible behind his head. It's completely gone. Crushed and blended into the dark-grey-like blacks.
The matte shot of the carriage going toward the castle looks AMAZING! In the film transfer, flat, dull, much less detailed and less colorful. Almost as if they used the untweaked and unmessed with HD master for the docs. (Possible since the docs were produced a bit ago)

Other scenes as well, Dracula stabbing the cross in the prologue? MUCH better in the main doc. ARGH!!!!!!!! SO frustrating as it's obvious this could have and SHOULD have looked better. The argument that, "well, the master was soft..." doesn't hold so much anymore.
It looks like they just crushed the dynamic range, filtered out some of the detail and then screwed with the color palate in many places. Remember my shot where the castle blends into the sky on the BD and NOT on the SB dvd? This is exactly what's wrong with the film transfer. They just crushed the HELL out of the contrast. The scene where Harker wanders through the castle and comes across the vamp babes? A soft, dark, washed out mess where much of the amazing set is unable to be seen.
Too bad. I saw an HD version on Comcast last year which looked better than this.

I would LOVE Xylon to some screen grabs of the identical shots, (coachman scene primarily) to show the difference between the film itself and the footage in the docs. Paidgeek should also REALLY find out what happened. If this is an example of what to expect from Zoetrope, than just hang onto your old DVDs. They might not be in HD, but will probably look MUCH better.

There is virtually NO boost in detail over the Superbit. Only in a few shots is it really apparent.
The image is darker, flatter, compressed dynamic range-wise. In many scenes the color has been messed with.
I would hang onto the Superbit. If it wasn't for the commentary and the new docs, I would pass this right along.
I would LOVE paidgeek to look into this.
If the transfer just looked dim, washed out because of the film elements, fine. But seeing the EXACT same shots in HD in the new documentaries looking MUCH better makes you realize that someone screwed the pooch.
Take this for example, in the SB dvd, it is CLEAR that the words from Harker's journal are superimposed over the shot of him at the door in the castle. in the BD, because it's SO much darker, flatter and crushed, you can barely see them at all and would NEVER register that these are "words: that have been superimposed.


dvd




and the Blu ray



This isn't just bad photography on my part, this is how it looks.


Here's an example. I took these with the same exposure setting on the camera in full manual mode.

Shot from the BD film...




and from the visual FX documentary.






Look how much more detail you can see.... and before anyone says, "well, the darker version looks more realistic because it's night..." BSD has NEVER looked realistic. 1/2 of the detail in the amazing matte painting is now totally invisible.


and here, film on the BD...







and the same shot in the documentary...






from the BD film...





and the doc. Look how much more you see in the dark. You can see the roof of the inside of the carriage!




And here you can see in the new BD film transfer, (they now have player subs and the burned in, probably optically printed from the original is gone) that there is less detail and it's flatter. Look at Vlad's hair. WHY on earth is it less detailed than the original shot which was an optical composite with the subs? It should be MUCH more detailed.





in the doc. version, (original burned in subs) you can see detail and depth in his hair on the sides of his face~!




You can try and sdjust your monitor, PJ however you like but there is picture information simply MISSING from the transfer of the film on the BD, YET it is present in the exact same scenes in the documentary. The blacks are so crushed that much of this info. is gone for good. Adjusting your display will not help. All the detail in the castle when Harker wanders around and finds the vamp babes? You can't see it. The top of the inside of the coach in the shot above? You can't see it. All the great detail in the amazing matte painting of the castle and the cliffs as the carriage approaches? You can't see it!
These shots are just EXAMPLES. Ask anyone who has the disc. Read the reviews. The new transfer is bad. It has almost no more detail than the SB dvd. Is dull, washed out, flat, NOTICEABLY darker. And in many scenes the colors have been totally changed. I'm not just talking about less saturation, I'm talking about the light on Dracula's head changing from blue to green.


Sb dvd







and BD, DIFFERENT color, Green. And darker




Last year I saw an HD broadcast of BSD and it looked EXACTLY like the SB dvd, just much more detailed. Many at avs saw and some taped the same thing. Unless the VHS, WS VHS, first dvd and superbit dvd ALL were incorrect, this does not look like how I and many others knew the film to look.

Why do the same scenes look MUCH better in the docs. then? They have the original burned in subtitles for Dracula's romanian dialog. The new transfer uses player generated subs.

chanster

This looks like what Anchor Bay did to Halloween SD. Remember the brown leaves of fall in Illinois turning into green leaves? The Blue Door where Michael cuts that turns into white? Same damn thing.

I refuse to believe Coppola did something to revise the movie. The movie I saw in theaters had all these funky colors going for it, it was not drained like this Blu Ray.

hauntnut

Does anyone know if the new standard-def collector's edition DVD of this movie has the same transfer as the BD?

Giles

that's a good question, but the BR for me when I order it from Amazon - is 5 dollars less than the standard CE - what to do? what to do?

Josh Z

I guess I'll have to dig out the laserdisc. It's been a while since I last looked at it, but I remember quite clearly that the writing in this shot was plainly visible, not crushed like the screen shot here.



So even if they did reuse the old Copolla-supervised Criterion color transfer, it's been changed in other ways.

DVD Polizei

I do like the documentary shots better.