Van Helsing HD-DVD: Questions about the transfer
 

Disclaimer: My TV is not ISF-certified triple gold platinum diamond calibradjusted. I ran Video Essentials a while ago but haven't gone back to it.

I've heard reviews of the Van Helsing transfer being fantastic. Well... It isn't. The darker scenes are pretty bad, in my opinion. Note, I didn't feel this way about Constantine or some dark scenes in Jarhead. Or dark scenes in 24 on Fox HD.

Is this just me? I'm willing to bet it's neither the transfer nor my equipment and that they just did a bad job on the movie, since nothing else on it (acting, directing, effects) was any good.

Van Helsing is all over the place. You're right about the darker scenes. There is artifacting all over the place. You can see it in the night skys and particularly on the floor in the bell tower when Van Helsing first walks in.

On the plus side overall it is a good tranfers in the daylight scenes and the CGI castles look incredible.