I have the original DVD. Its green.

Ok, I've got the pixellation problem at the very beginning of chapters 15, 19, 21, 22, 24, 27 and 28. It's not huge, but especially noticeable on chapter 28 when the falling snow turns briefly into falling pixel squares. It's not the worst thing in the world, but should have been caught by reviewers and certainly should have been caught by the manufacturer.

About the new transfer: I like it. That starry night scene baracine was complaining about looks even better on the new transfer in my opinion. I have a 27 inch Standard Def TV and I can see the stars just fine. I also have the Superbit and find the shot in that version to have brighter stars, but the rest if the image is much flatter whereas in the new one, the carriage and the blue surrounding it have more texture and that blue is just amazing.

The Superbit is decent, but I think I prefer the new one. The Superbit transfer has a lot of dirt and grain and is overall more shaky. Where the Superbit often seems just washed in primary color at to the point of being flat and uninteresting, the new one is lush and has a subtle and evocative color palette that feels more right for the film. In comparison, the Superbit transfer looks like a 1980's music video.

It's like seeing it for the first time, again. I like that it's not afraid to be dark, and those moonlit shots are beautiful. The castle is truly frightening in this one. The skin tones, everything about this new transfer is just gorgeous. But I do think it would benefit from watching on a nice TV and in a dark room. If you've got the sun glaring in the windows or a fully lit room, it might not look as good.

I do question the changing of the subtitles to the jarring yellow. I prefer the old ones, though they were a little more difficult to read.

I have a 40-inch widescreen high definition rear-projection TV and a high-end progressive scanning DVD player. In the new transfer, the stars don't show at all unless you play the film in Torch Mode (Standard Mode), which I have never done for any film in my life since I own decent equipment. As far as I'm concerned, if a DVD can't be properly viewed in Theater mode, it simply is a defective DVD.



I've gone back to watching the Superbit edition tonight (in DTS sound) and it's like being reunited with an old friend whose life has just been saved from extinction. I glory in the myriad of subtle colour shades and I notice a thousand beautiful shadow details I hadn't noticed or had just taken for granted before. I wondered for a while if I should have had my home theatre system exorcized or at least blessed by a priest after playing that Sony abomination but I guess that's just superstition and everything will be all right again...

So, I guess at this point its pretty clear there will be no replacement program. Looks like we're stuck with the pixelation until the next anniversary edition, lol.

Says who? It's only been a topic of conversation for a few days. Maybe the studio will pick up on it, if it's not being discussed already...

I though this might be interesting to some on this thread: bacharine has had a change of heart regarding the transfer.

From:
http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread....48#post8217848

The price on this dvd was pretty cheap.
Do you think they knew they were putting out a transfer that didn't look good so they put this dvd out with a low price?

Why would they go to the trouble of creating a new transfer if they wanted to cut costs when they could've easily used the transfer from the superbit release?

No, I don't think so.

Bucknaked2k: I've been through the disc replacement thing a few times and they usually don't wait this long. I hope I'm wrong though.

I watched the 2-disc standard edition last night and didn't notice any glaring issues. After reading about the pixelization I went back and checked out ch. 19. At first I didn't notice the issue until I used the jog on my remote and slowly walked it forward. The pixelization was there.......now I can't help but notice it even at normal speed lol.

I'm hopeful (and agree). This is obviously a defective disk -- wouldn't it look pretty bad for them not to replace it? (I also emailed Bill Hunt at Digital Bits, and he said he was going to look into it...)

Here's hoping the studio (or whomever is responsible for replacement) does the right thing...

I have the very first release,with the bad reviews of the new version I think I will be buying the superbit. I am a newbie to superbit dvds and was wondering if a superbit dvd will work in any dvd player ? or do you need a new dvd player for a superbit disc?

Nope. They will play in DVD Players. You just need a specal thingy for the DTS track{the SB have a regular audio track too}

"Superbit" is just a gimmick on Sony's part. The only thing it means is that the DVD has no special features (save a DTS audio track), instead opting for a new transfer that maxes out the bitrate of the DVD so it will have less compression and a better picture and audio. Other than that, it's just another plain-vanilla DVD.

But in the case of Dracula, it is a superb transfer, and, in this case, one of the few SDs that are superior to the Hi-Def edition.

Thanks for the info guys. I will def get the bram stokers dracula in superbit then I don't have a dts thing but I guess i dont need one if it has a regular audio track. It will probably be the only superbit I buy since I love this movie so much and was disappointed to see the bad reviews of the special edition.

Maybe not a bad decision since there is apparently an encoding problem anyway. The Super-Bit edition is apparently bright and colorful, and is championed by many on these boards as the transfer of choice.

I would say renting them and comparing is in order.

I own both discs and way prefer the new one. In comparison, the Superbit is scratchy, grainy, and the colors are garish and overbright like a bad 80's rock video.

I watched the Collector's Edition the other day on my Oppo and 32" Olevia HDTV and it looked stellar! I didn't notice any problems with pixalation, but also wasn't looking for any either. I just sat back and let it all sink in.

I'm watching on a 50" Panasonic plasma and I think the new Special Edition looks fantastic.

Have you heard back from Bill Hunt? I'm still hopeful too. But the lack of a response from the studio is a little discouraging.

Just watched mine today. No problems either.

Just wanted to weigh in on the pixelization issue: I watched the film last night (before reading any of these comments) and found far more than a pixelization problem. At the chapter in question, just after Mina is greeted by van Helsing on the steps, the image stutters, then COMPLETELY FREEZES. No amount of stopping, restarting, ejecting, fast-forwarding, etc., could get my player (a JVC N312 that plays pretty much everything) through that scene, and I ultimately had to just skip to the next chapter to resume play, missing 10-20 seconds in the process. Very unacceptable, IMO, and definitely in need of a studio replacement.

As for the transfer, I thought it looked great. :-)

So is the lack of response so far from Bill Hunt... I only heard back the first time from him, that he was going to look into it (and to let him know if I heard more). I've emailed him since two or three times, letting him know that more and more other people are reporting the same issue on this thread, but have yet to hear back anything. But hopefully he's still looking into it. He seems like a good guy...

A few other people have reported this issue too here, but not too many. I'm guessing that some players react to the defective disc in this way, while most just show pixelation. IMO, the people who say they have no problems at all just aren't noticing the pixelation for some reason (unless there's just a huge batch of bad discs instead of all of them being bad -- but I'm doubting this at this point). Either way, the studio really should step up and replace these defective discs. Fingers crossed!