Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?  

Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

oh boy, hold...

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/252/...rsdracula.html

http://www.digitalaudiovideo.com/blu...iews_14772.htm


and after many said it was really disappointing, I got my copy.

"it seems like MANY more scenes have changes in the colors. When Dracula pops out from the window while the vamp babes are macking on Harker, in the SB, it's greenish blue for one frame and then blue the rest of the shot. In the BD, it's green. Also Drac's head has a green light to it (and less detail in the BD as well!) in the BD and is blue in the SBdvd.
The scene where Mina tries to seduce Van Helsing at the castle foot (night) is TOTALLY different. In the SB dvd, it's VERY amber, and colorful from the fire. The vamp babes that come to taunt Van Helsing are the same color, amber, orangey from the fire. In the BD they have been desturated to almost grey. Effective, yes. Makes them indeed look dead. Different from the original, yep.
Many mor scenes seem to have this select desaturation of background color.
The prelude to the storm scene as noted.
The vamp hunters in their train car. They still have full fleshtones, but the reddish background of the train car has been dialed WAY down. Looks like it was done digitally by computer, as there are small halos around the lights and when the shot moves it looks a bit like colorization.
The PQ is also noticeably darker.
I will try to take some more pix tom'w.

Does it look better with the tweaks? Debatable. Some scenes yes, Lucy looks ALOT more dead now, before she just looked like she had bad blue makeup on.
The purists will probably not be chuffed though.


BD of mina scene








SB dvd





Not the greatest pic. but you get the idea. Camera in full manual mode, same exposure, duration etc.... Exposing for the BD caused the SBdvd to blow out a bit as it is noticeably darker.






another from same scene



BD






and SB dvd




More tom'w....



BD








and SB dvd






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

Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

SB dvd






and the BD, color severely reduced EXCEPT for the faces.




In a few shots, the transfer being darker hurts.

This shot of Drac's castle on the BD the castle just disappears into the sky.

SBdvd




the BD





Sb dvd





BD, darker and much less blue





Because there are certain scenes that are VERY different to the original release.
Some people do care actually.
The original film seemed brighter and had ALOT more color. 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 badly.

Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

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 from avs 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.

grumble, grumble.

Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

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~!



So there you have it. Everyone who has seen it and has chimed in has been disappointed. The same scenes in the documentary look CONSIDERABLE better, More detail, better blacks, contrast, shadow detail.
They have also messed with the colors in many, many scenes so it looks VERY different from before. Altogether a COLLOSSAL disappointment imho.

Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

Dave, I appreciate all the effort. However, I find your stances on Dracula and Halloween rather compelling in their contrast.

On Dracula, you bemoan the changes in color/black level/shadows, though this appears to be the deliberate choice of Coppola.

On Halloween, you bemoan the lack of changes to the night scenes (not blue enough for Cundey's 1999 version) even though it is highly likely that the blues were overdone in 1999 and not true to the original film.

Essentially, you want the DP revised version of Halloween that isn't on BD, and you want the non-Coppola revised version of Dracula that isn't on BD.

Would you say this may be a case of simply being used to one version over the other and Sony/Starz being damned if they do and damned if they don't?

Not trying to call you out or anything, just something I thought was curious. Very interested in your response.

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

Different. The HD in the docs has just not been regraded like the feature. This is no proof at all that the docs are 'right' and the feature 'wrong'. Differently graded material in trailers, docs etc. compared to the finished film happen all the time.

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

Definitely different... Thanks for all the screen shots Dave!

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

Thanks for this, Dave. Very interesting.

Also disappointing that the SB has the nice burned-in titles while the BD has player-generated ones.

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

Maybe I'm remembering this wrong but doesn't Blu-ray support various font stylings for player generated subtitles?

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

Is it certain that this is a new HD transfer, and not the early-90s HD transfer done for the MUSE LaserDisc of this title?

I have always been inclined to attribute the picture quality problems of MUSE HiVision film discs to the film transfers, which were done on rather limited equipment, because the video-based discs are reported to look beautiful.

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

Even standard DVD can support different font styles.

Doug

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

NO doubt that the 2 HD transfers look different.
The clip in the doc where you see Gary drinking has the original burned in subs. The new BD feature has player generated subs, indicating a different transfer. Look, It's Coppolla's film. He can alter the colorscheme until the cows come home. What DOES look very bad is the very crushed and washed out blacks, detail missing in the shadowy scenes.
It also doesn't look as detailed.


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



Now, if this is INTENTIONAL, a really dumb move as now you can't even tell what the "words" are anymore.

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

I agree that these changes are a little baffling. Maybe Coppola has been drinking a little too much of his own wine!

Doug

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

Dracula's often bizarre color supersaturations were one of the film's most defining characteristics, which IMHO greatly helped the visual plan of making Dracula look less like a movie and more like a filmed stage production (if that makes any sense to you).

While I reserve the right to change my mind after watching the BD, right now I think I shall remain happy with my DVD (This is one of 3 titles that will finally get me to choose one side in the format war).

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

No. I said it's coppolla's film and he can change the colorscheme any way he wants, (though I doubt he personally had much to do with this.)
I actually said that the less saturated Lucy crypt scene is MORE effective. BUT, the biggest problem, (aside from the fact that there is only a TINY bit of added detail, is that the blacks are now CRUSHED, washed out, flat and much of the detail that you could see before is invisible. And that the HD clips in the docs. look MUCH better.
Halloween has NO darkness, different shadow detail issues like this. It simply has the greyish-white colors in some of the night scenes, (just like in the divimax) as opposed to the over the top dark blues of the Cundey sequence.

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

Dave, some of the color changes I like and find the film much more natural. Others, like the crushed blacks could NOT be right. There is so much detail that is lost, I find it hard to believe the director did not want us to see what we were always able to see before, such as the carriage riding up the mountain to Dracula's castle. Now nearly everything in that shot is lost. The words from his Journal is another good example.

But the thing that has me saying NO to this release (one I was very much looking forward to) is the lack of significantly increased detail in the image. This is a botched job, and they need to go back and do it again.

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

agreed. I actually like the Lucy in the crypt scene as it's much creepier now. But many scenes like harker wandering the castle have NO impact because you can't see anything. The superimposed "word" too, makes NO sense now. And that fabulous shot of the castle with the carriage driving up the path...? drab, unstriking.

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

I also agree while the color timing changes were intentional, the crushing of shadow detail being lost is not intentional. In addition, I'd think there would at least be some extra detail visible with 1920X1080 compared to 720X480. I mean come on! I'm not entirely buying the source material issue here.

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

Dave, Thank You for taking the time to post the screen shots. I appreciate the effort that must have taken and am grateful, for I now need not buy this version of the film. Bram's Drac is one of my all time favorite films. It successfully did what so many films (that try to) fail to do, remake a classic. I had high hopes as well for this release and no matter what anyone says, those doc shots are a hell of alot cleaner and detailed than the final film. Perhaps a remaster like what happened with Fifth Element is in order. I can't believe after sitting down to re-color and tweak this film that they would sacrifice detail. It makes no sense.

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

Anyone seen a review of the new SD DVD version? Curious to see how it compares to this release. I imagine it will exhibit the same black level issues seen on the Blu-ray release.

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

Well, that pre-order went off my list. Guess i will just keep the SuperBit for now. I am not a big fan of screen grabs, but hell!
Thanks for your efforts Dave, and for saving me some money. Next few weeks are gonna be tight anyway. Lots of good titles in Oct.

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

Hiya Rick. I agree that screengrabs can be wonky and sometimes easily dismissed. I noticed this all first just with my eyes though. Many others at AVS as well.

Believe me. One of my all time fave films and I am MASSIVELY bummed that it doesn't look better, artistically revisionist tweaking notwithstanding.

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

Dave, I just wanted to chime in here and thank you for all of the effort you've put into comparing/contrasting this (and Halloween).

Both aforementioned titles were main reasons for format neutrality this fall, and now I'm going to wait. It's still in the cards for me (once prices come down), but after hearing that these discs aren't all they could/should be, I'm going to sit on it for a while longer.

Thanks for keeping a little extra cash in my pocket this fall. I should probably get my Xmas shopping out of the way now anyway, and who know, maybe Blu players will drop in price by then.

Much obliged, sir!

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

That's pretty disappointing, especially since this could have been one of the titles that might have convinced me to get a Blu-ray player. Winona Ryder running in a gauzy nightie in HD? It could have been sooooo good.

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

This is very disappointing. I'm very tempted to swap Dracula for Hollow Man in my pre-order. Never thought I'd be saying that!

I'd cancel it outright, but I need 3 titles for the coupon.

I was very pleased with the appearance of the SB disc.

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

In many ways, the SB disc looks better.

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

Really disappointed about this release.....this BD was actually one of the reasons I jumped into Blu-ray earlier than expected. I'd like to think (hope maybe a better word) that this is a botched released like the first version of 'The Fifth Element' was and that it will eventually be re-released with a corrected transfer.

I've reluctantly cancelled my pre-order and will just wait for a better or corrected version....until then, I'll stay satisfied with the Superbit. Thanks for the heads-up Dave.

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

People at BluRay.com are all insisting that the new BD is the CORRECT way the film should have looked all along in it's defense. Interesting in that most there defending it haven't even seen it yet.
So I guess the VHS and both DVDs were wrong and the film was really meant to look dull, drab, flat, as soft as a DVD. I dunno...
I saw it a few times in the theater, once AFTER the dvd had come out at a revival in NYC and I always thought those releases were correct...

Re: Does Bram Stoker's Dracula BRD have video issues?

How can they defend how it looks. I saw this movie in the theater. I have the SuperBit. I am almost sure that the double exposure of the letter on the screen was meant to be seen, as it was read. I can live with color changes, or even alternate footage being put back in. But i wont buy a HD disc that has no texture when it used to have it on all the other SD versions! Where is the hi def in that!?