The Old Dark House 4K UHD (1932)

[Areyakiddin]

Releasing July 26th from NSM Records with a choice of four covers:




All 4 editions up for preorder on Amazon Germany:
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Boris-Kar...6&s=dvd&sr=1-1
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Boris-Kar...8&s=dvd&sr=1-3
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Boris-Kar...0&s=dvd&sr=1-4
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Boris-Kar...3&s=dvd&sr=1-2

[chas speed]

I would put down the UK Blu-ray release of this title as my all time favorite disc.

[nicwood]

I hope you’re all not going to get too excited early one as this is a NSM release and NSM is one of the very worst labels out there. They’re using all tricks in the book to make old, dated masters appear HD and now even 4K. Their main objective is to sell loads and loads and loads of overpriced mediabooks to collectors that have no idea what’s actually on these discs. Oliver Krekel & Digi Dreams isn’t far off from NSM. This dreadful strategy works like magic as there’s a huge crowd in the German-speaking region that mainly collects packaging variants with the disc being secondary. They’re doing this for over 10 years now just like that and they’re still in business. NSM have released some UHDs in the past, all of which got abysmal reviews / feedback. If this new release is a notch above that, we should probably be happy. I don’t own any previous edition of the film but when reading such euphoric comments about earlier BDs, I can’t recommend enough that you’ll keep them for now at least.

[brian9229]

Oh my...

[MifuneFan]

Standard edition coming November 28th

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/alte-fins...%2C143&sr=1-67

[Driver78]

It's probably an HD upconvert of some old VHS slapped on a 4K disc

I have several NSM Mediabooks and fully admit to buying them for the packaging. I was fully aware of the general lackluster-ness of the actual discs when I purchased them They seem to be waning in popularity, though. I've had a few of these sitting unsold up on Ebay.

[brian9229]

Yeah this disc ain't no upconvert, this is right on par with Bride's restoration and uhd and looks terrific.

[Big-D]

Has it been given an HDR upgrade?

[DanHF]

Got my copy today, and happy to confirm that the disc does indeed include a very nice HDR grade, and that the 4K upgrade does indeed improve even further on the already-impressive blu-ray edition that’s been around for a while now. The disc includes the same two audio commentary tracks, the “Daugther of Karloff” featurette and restoration trailer. Very happy with what seems like the definitive home video release of this all-time favorite!

[Alfred E. Neumann]

Anyone else having problems with the HDR grading and the contrast?
Lamps, candles and white shirts for example are too bright and overblown.

[DanHF]

I did notice that the contrast seems excessive at times.

[MartinScorsesefan]

Just placed an order. I m thrilled that this is a legitimate release.

[DanHF]

I decided to do a side-by-side comparison with the Cohen Media Group blu-ray and came away from it finding the new 4K release much too heavy on contrast and brightness than looks natural to me. I’m returning the recent German release; perhaps a different label will produce a more enticing 4K disc in future, but honestly the existing blu-ray looks so lovely that it’s not really a priority anyway. And I may be wrong, but this 4K doesn’t seem like a clear improvement.

[MartinScorsesefan]

I’m watching it projected on a 120 inch screen. To me, it looks superior to the Cohen BD. The HDR is nice with good shadow detail. Maybe using a bulb based projector is curtailing some of the bloom that other viewers are seeing on(presumably) flat panels with very vivid HDR.

[Alfred E. Neumann]

Originally Posted by MartinScorsesefan

I’m watching it projected on a 120 inch screen. To me, it looks superior to the Cohen BD. The HDR is nice with good shadow detail. Maybe using a bulb based projector is curtailing some of the bloom that other viewers are seeing on(presumably) flat panels with very vivid HDR.

I‘m using an Epson projector with HDR.
It’s impossible to get rid of the blown out highlights, the details are gone.

[MartinScorsesefan]

I’m also using an Epson, the 5050ub. Maybe our settings are different.

[LloydK]

This is a decent 4K-release, more in line with their Halloween releases than their botched ones.

Bright highlights are quite strong in this HDR grade.
There is no noise/grain reduction applied to counter it, which is a big plus. Nitrate film prints can have these bright highlights as well, and while I doubt this was referenced with a print, this might be more accurate than the usual SDR grades of old b/w movies. I'd recommend it.

[koberulz]

Originally Posted by MartinScorsesefan

I’m also using an Epson, the 5050ub. Maybe our settings are different.

The 5050UB doesn't have proper tonemapping, does it? Could well be the difference.

[MartinScorsesefan]

According to reviews it does. I think everything I watch looks great, unless it’s a crappy transfer or a bad encode. I’m really kind of a dinosaur, I love 4k but I still don’t understand a lot of the lingo.

[Cecil B. DeMille]

I'd really love to see a side-by-side comparison between this recent German UHD disc and the Cohen/Eureka releases. Unfortunately, I doubt that the familiar screenshot comparison sites will be all too interested in this 1930s horror classic.