A Few Words About A few words about...™ Bram Stoker's Dracula -- in BD (1 Viewer)

[Garrett Lundy]

Which is what we've been saying in two seperate threads. There is no check/balance system in place. "Is the new video correct: yes, because we say it is and you have no direct access to the original to refute it."

Conspiracy theorists have been working under this premise for decades: Who killed Kennedy, was the moon landing fake, holocaust deniers, why isn't there any airplane wreckage at the pentagon, the French have been inbreeding Jesus's kids for 2000 years, etc etc etc.

Undoubtedly the illuminati were responsible for producing this new BRD/DVD transfer.

 

[Jack Johnson]

My scenarios are little more earth-bound:

Competent professionals did iffy work on an off day...

Or:

Under the direction of Francis Ford Coppola, the new transfer was taken in a subtly different direction. And in the name of not stoking broad customer dissatisfaction, SONY prefers that the official word on this one be that it's faithful.

Or:

It's faithful.


Or:

Illuminati, Freemasons, or The Order of Skull and Bones...



--Jack

 

[Robert Harris]

As regards the use of an AP or other "reference" material, for my projects going the digital route, they are run side-by-side with data files as corrections are performed to scanned data.

It should be acknowledged that generally answer prints are not perfectly correct, as one should not be running an OCN repeated times to make small corrections best performed at the dupe stage. This is also true for dye transfer materials, which in many cases do not track terribly well on a continuous basis, and must be corrected on the digital side.

When a daily print returns from the lab after production of a new digital negative, it is again put up on screen against the AP or "reference."

The point being that whatever reference is being used, it is generally NOT screened, and then left to memory.

RAH

 

[Douglas Monce]

Maybe the subtleties of the subdued color didn't come across well in NTSC. It's one of the reasons that the chroma information is eliminated from most B&W presentations on NTSC, you end up with a fair amount of chroma noise in B&W if you don't. Maybe the chroma noise was unacceptable in with a subdued color scheme .

Doug

 

[Stephen_J_H]

FWIW, I'm not anti-Mack and I'm not saying Dave's crazy (read my post more closely; the phenomena I referred to come from the discipline of social cognition, which is how people make sense of the world. They are not diagnoses). It is so easy to misconstrue comments if you don't take the time to read them. I know I've done it on occasion.

Dave, if I offended you, I'm sorry. That was not my intention.

 

[Dave Mack]

no offense taken! (love your sig by the way!)

i agree that memory when looked back on is very unreliable.
anyways, happy holidays to all and i just want to honor my word of not saying anymore re: the transfer now.
just moved back to nyc with a baby, not sleeping much, in-laws, so my thought process is often wonky!

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Say no more.

 

[Mike Williams]

Finally picked up Bram Stoker's Dracula last night, as I got it as part of a sale. I had been afraid to get it up till now as a result of this thread and the pictures posted. At times I thought the print looked quite unremarkable and other times thought it was incredibly, detailed, colorful and beautiful. But I looked for the black crush scenes throughout the movie, and at no point did they come across on my display as the movie was running the way they look in the pictures posted here . . . for which I am very pleased.

 

[Bryn]

I've also watched it over my Xmas break ... I have to agree. It looks great on my 1080p display. Spectacular at a few points.

This rates for me alongside a small number of other discs, 12 Monkeys being another, which show off hi-def's ability to show both what the filmmaker intended and the limitations they achieved it within (Coppola's being self-imposed as I recall).

That's a real treat and I am also very pleased.

 

[hourglass]

I watched this last night. I have to say, I'm amazed there's so much controversy over this film.

For what it's worth, I was a huge fan of this film when it was released. I probably saw it a dozen times in the theater. In all the times I've seen it since then on VHS, LaserDisc, and DVD, I've always felt let down in a big way. The picture was never as I remembered it.

That was remedied last night when I watched the Blu-ray. I remember parts of this film being so dark in the theater that it was impossible to find the popcorn on the seat next to you. Those parts are back. I remember the effect of the diary writing being superimposed on the screen coming off as a very subtle effect - something I didn't catch until after multiple viewings. On the previous home video releases this subtlety was completely lost.

In watching this film on Blu-ray, I made sure to watch for the things people here had complained about. I saw none of them. My screen never showed me an image as washed out and strangely colored as any of the screen captures that have been shown here. There was film grain present throughout the whole picture - as there should be since the image originated on film (I'll never understand why people have a problem with this...) - which indicates beyond a shadow of a doubt that the full resolution of the original print is present and accounted for.

Also while watching, I was reminded of a few other things which were mentioned here - namely to do with screen calibration.

I distinctly recall one of the most vocal people who were slamming this disc stating that his monitor/projector/whatever had been calibrated with Video Essentials in his HD-DVD player.

I think this is an entirely invalid method of calibrating your image. The simple fact is, your HD-DVD player is not your Blu-ray player. There is nothing which should lead anyone to believe that the video output of one machine will match the video output of any other machine - be it the same format or an entirely different one. I wouldn't even go so far as to trust two machines of the same make and model to output precisely the same signal levels. Sure, they're gonna be close, but nothing is perfect.

With my own equipment, I've seen that calibrating my monitor by using a DVD with THX Optimizer on an upconverting DVD player results in a substantially different picture than the same DVD in my Blu-ray player into the same input. Additionally, using the 7669 pluge and other screens on a Sony Blu-ray disc shows further discrepancy between the formats. With the Blu-ray calibration screens, I was able to get a much better representation of where my sharpness and contrast settings should be. The other ways were all close, but the ultimate test - using my eyes across various source discs - proved that the Sony Blu-ray patterns were clearly superior for calibrating the picture.

I realize this is my first post here and I'm in no way trying to belittle the folks who already posted here. I'm sure they're familiar with their equipment and are capable of calibrating a monitor. I feel, however, that an assumption has been made regarding cross-calibrating with different hardware and I strongly feel that this -- while getting close -- doesn't get it close enough.

I feel this disc has suffered an unwarranted level of bad press. I would urge anyone interested in this title to check it out with their own eyes and form their own opinions.

hg

 

[JonZ]

I passed on this based on negative comments.

 

[nickcole63]

Hi there, to the experts or can anyone explain why, despite the controversial colour corrections problems, this Blu Ray movie is in STANDARD DEFINITION.
In terms of definition this is the same as my DVD and Superbit DVD version.
TESTED at the same time on 2 same HDTV and 2 same Blu Ray players.
Any reasons for doing that. I paid considerably more to get the HD version and this movie is not at all an HD movie.

 

[Brandon Conway]

I can only think that you got the DVD in the BD package by mistake...?

 

[Douglas Monce]

Determining the resolution of a film transfered to video requires a full screen resolution chart. As there is no full screen resolution chart anywhere in Dracula, saying that it is SD resolution is kind of like saying that grass is suddenly growing on the far side of the moon.

Dracula on blu-ray defiantly displays more detail than the SD version, as looking at the fine print of the end titles will clearly show. Understand that this film used filtration on the camera lens that will reduce the apparent sharpness of the final image. Also the film stock used can have a huge effect on resolution. The higher the speed of the film, the less resolving power it has. This is not a flaw, it's the way its supposed to look.

Doug

 

[Douglas Monce]

I think I was the one that brought up the Digital Video Essentials. But I wasn't slamming this transfer at all. I think this is the best this film has ever looked.

You are right. You can't calibrate with one player and expect that calibration to work with another. Each player has its own idiosyncratic output levels. Fortunately, on my HDTV, each input has it's own settings, so I can put the DVE in each of my players and get almost exactly the same image from each.

Doug

 

[nickcole63]

Hi, thank you, I do not think so, how can it be. It looks like that no one is actually realized about this as the quality of the older dvd and
superbit-dvd version was a more or less of good masterization. Not sure about the latest dvd collector edition. Who knows, may be is been actually downgraded?? definetely I do not want to spend extra money on another DVD just to make my good reliable testings. Anyway even so as You say it could be that I got a dvd version in the BD package, do you actually clearly see a HD picture quality if you got the previous DVD versions or you are not sure??
I also got copies of other films on dvd and BR and I can spot very clearly that there is a difference in HD when I play them one after another on the same machine. Saying so I would like to complain anyway about the quality of any HD movies about grain and noise. It could be better or may be this is marketing. Who knows, very soon there will be releases of the same again, just like more or less the SUPERBIT and extra money coming in their pockets
Regards Nicole
NB: Sorry about my non perfect english but it is not my main language.

 

[nickcole63]

Hi, thank you. Not discussing the way they filmed it and indeed it is been transferred at HR1080p24 and my ps3 would give me a speed of 20mbs speed. It could also be transerred and spread on a 1000gb disc and quality will be the same. You are right; the only think that I can clearly see in HD is the final prints and also the menus. I bought this expensive BD version because I wanted to see a film in HD and not just the final prints or the menu in HD. I have not actually gone through all the posts but it seems that no one is more or less noticed that this is not an HD movie and I can see that all the talking is been only about the new colour corrections that is been given to this movie which it not what I am actually discussing as that would definitely be a matter of personal preferences. I must assume also that this is the same as the new DVD collector edition.
Anyway, I do not get you about saying that you can spot a clearly HD on this film. I believe many people is been doing a lot of confusion as they possibly at the end, spotted HD in the final prints, same as I did and you did.
Well, I properly tested it because I could not believe it the first time I was trying to watch it and before my testings. This film is been tested against my DVD and superbit DVD version (I got 2 same HDTV and 2 PS3 players) in many hundred still frames, as well as watching it at the same time in parts and I also found that some of the superbit frames, are actually possibly clearer or sharper, believe it or not, than BD.
Have you actually done the same testing or you rely on what you remember about a previous dvd experience also supported by the fact that this is a BD and we automatically think to see a better picture. Please, see if you can do the same testings as me, if you got a chanse and let me know. If I am wrong, the only think I can think of is that by mistake this UK version batch is been wrongly masterized with the lower but good quality DVD version. I doubt about it as I clearly spot HD in the menus and in the final prints. I also wrote to SONY and no answer yet after 3 weeks. Can you also explain this? I do not think this is the way it should look as it suppose to look like a HD BD or then the Dvd version, unless is been PQ downgraded on purpose, is the best option for the same money. Finally, the average quality on most of HD DVD and BR is poor compared to a good DVD version. I really think that they want us to believe that grass is growing somewhere there in the moon.
Regards Nicole
NB sorry about my English but I hope is understandable

 

[Douglas Monce]

Well I don't know about you, but I can see the grain of the film. If you can see the grain, you are seeing more or less the full resolution that the film has to offer.

Doug

 

[RickER]

Your Blu-ray player knows when its playing a Blu-ray disc...the little blue light comes on the front of my machine. They also physically look different on the information side. So i always know when its a Blu-ray disc. Just because a movie has grain doesnt mean its not HD. As a matter of fact, if it is shot on film, i better see some grain! Beyond that, Dracula on Blu-ray looks great, even with the color changes, and one or two scenes with a darker image from previous versions. Its HD, but maybe i dont understand what your asking. Sorry if thats the case.

 

[nickcole63]

Hi, sorry I am not talking about any grain or not being a Blu ray disc. What I am saying is that the recording definition or sharpness is exactly the same as my previous DVD and DVD superbit if not even worse in some frames. Have you actually got this film on normal dvd?? Double check it and see if what I am saying makes sense.This BR movie is the standard version of dracula film in a BR disc, may be only colour corrected improved. I do also not understand people that at all costs want grain in any film. That is usually a sign of a bad master or usually are grained on purpose for special effect. Darker scenes in a dark environment are more susceptible of grain because it was surely shot with a higher ISO film and usually is got nothing to do with special effect but with a bad film master. Have you used a 50iso v 800iso camera film. look at the difference about grain. I was wondering if possibly your American version is a real HD Dracula film but Idoubt about it. What would be the purpose of it??
Regards Nicole