Archived: Insiders Thread

[Jack Torrance]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Anyway, next time I get a chance, I plan to ask Floyd if/when? we all can expect a Pink “Wall” to be coming the Blu-ray way in the future.

PM, you must've seen my wish list!

Hope you are at least "Comfortably Numb" post surgery...

[Dave Mack]

Ok, sorry to kinda veer out of the thread but I just wanted to follow up with paidgeek. I did watch all of Dracula.
It's good, some moments look very good, some shots believe it or not have LESS detail than the SB dvd. But....


Ok, woah. I've watched alot more and 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.




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.
Same input on projector, HDMI splitter. Same everything.






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



more and better 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.


Kind of revisionary. Most of the film looks the same colorwise (although the new BD is noticeably darker) but many scenes have been completely changed color-wise.

[Rob71]

Originally Posted by Dave Mack

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.


Kind of revisionary. Most of the film looks the same colorwise (although the new BD is noticeably darker) but many scenes have been completely changed color-wise.

It's hard to tell from just a few pics, but I don't see anything that would make me not buy it. I never saw it in the theater, but from what I've seen it looks fine. Besides I don't have the DVD of it and you can't really go wrong for $20.

[NutsAboutPS3]

Please can you give timestamps for the Dracula pictures you've posted? I'd like to see how they look on my DVD copy (which isn't the superbit), but don't want to rewatch the movie as I want to wait till I have it on BD to watch it again (I have a very low tolerance for repeated viewing of movies).

[mattym]

looks like the whitebalance and colour temps are well off for the SB version, but the BD screenies just dont look sharp. Wont bother me on this one though as i dont have an urge to watch it, but would annoy me if it was a title i wanted

[Dave Mack]

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




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





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.


The color is only altered in certain scenes.
Most of the film looks the same, Some look radically different.


I mean like here, this is not just dialing the color down, this is outright changing it.


Sb dvd







and BD, DIFFERENT color, Green. And darker





I do think it's a bit flat and washed out looking. The SB dvd definitely had more detail in the shadows. Some scenes look pretty good detail-wise, some look the same as the dvd and believe it or not, a few look LESS detailed. These were VERY grainy in the DVD and it's possible they did some DVNR.

Altogether a mixed bag. Sorry I went off on the tangent but just wanted to get my point across where I started.
I shot these all in full manual mode on my dig camera, exposure and iris, f-stop, length of time etc, white balance all being the same. Any difference is in the transfers, not my camera.

The BD is darker, flatter, more washed out looking. A few scenes have more detail. many scenes stylistically have had the color altered. Overall, not bad, not great. If you're a purist and loved the way it looked before with the crazy over the top color, some newly revised scenes might miff you. The darker palate obscures some details that are present in the DVD, (castle against sky, Harker kneeling with words superimposed over his image.

Anyways, that's all she wrote. Still glad I got it but it seems like it should've looked better, soft image notwithstanding.

d

[Spankey]

If I'm choosing, I go with the BD. The SB version looks blown out, almost to make up for deficiencies with NTSC. The movies was always pretty dark, and it looks a lot more natural in HD. The Lucy shots look more like I remember when I saw the film print. That was many years ago, but hey. Overrall, I would say the BD looks more natural.

[Esox50]

Quite interesting Dave. Thanks for sharing. I like all of the color changes (except for 1), but do also see that the offset to the desaturated color seems to be loss of detail in some scenes in the background.

If this is what Coppola supervised and wanted to do, then I'm ok with it. Hopefully, my copy will arrive soon.

[lch]

a question dave,
are you using the same player to player both version ?
or are both players tuned to your panel ?
if so, it look more like dvd brightness level very high and saturated while the bd version brightness level quite low.

[lokus]

Hate to sound like an a$$ but do these screencaps along with their comments belong in an insiders thread? This is typically for questions to Blu-ray insiders.

[lokus]

paidgeek/insiders,
I don't know if that has been answered before so I apologize ahead of time. Is there any particular reason why Blu-ray supporting studios aren't doing separate encodes at higher bitrates to show the potential superiority in quality for movies released on Blu-ray?

[Dave Mack]

Originally Posted by lch

a question dave,
are you using the same player to player both version ?
or are both players tuned to your panel ?
if so, it look more like dvd brightness level very high and saturated while the bd version brightness level quite low.

PS3 playing the BD,
Oppo playing the dvd

Both going into the same input on my PJ through and HDMI splitter so the display is the same. The reason either the dvd looks a bit blown out or the BD looks dark is because I kept the camera at the same iris, exposure yada yada. The Bd is NOTICEABLY darker than the dvd, that's why there is a discrepancy. I wanted to show the color changes more than anything.
Anyone who has the SB dvd knows it doesn't look particularly blown out.
There are certain scenes that are simply too dark now.

When Harker is exploring the castle, there are words from his journal that are superimposed over the image of Harker. very clear on the dvd, on the BD, you can barely see the words and cannot make out what exactly they are.


dvd




and the Blu ray




In the shot of the castle against the night sky, on the dvd you can clearly see the top of the castle, on the BD, it blends into the sky.

SBdvd




the BD




Now about the colors. I only showed examples of where they are different. For most of the film, the prologue etc. they are the SAME. So it appears that just SOME select scenes were tweaked.

Like I said, The color is only altered in certain scenes.
Most of the film looks the same, Some look radically different.


I mean like here, this is not just dialing the color down, this is outright changing it.


Sb dvd







and BD, DIFFERENT color, Green. And darker

[Dave Mack]

Originally Posted by lokus

Hate to sound like an a$$ but do these screencaps along with their comments belong in an insiders thread? This is typically for questions to Blu-ray insiders.

I actually went over that. because paidgeek and I were discussing this because Highdefdigest gave it a horrible review and many early member reviews at AVS were saying the same. Aside from there being much less detail than what would expect, many scenes look like the color has been severely desaturated. Many people were complaining that it didn't look right. People were cancelling their orders left and right. I just wanted to demonstrate to paidgeek what I observed.

k...?

[Dave Mack]

Originally Posted by Spankey

If I'm choosing, I go with the BD. The SB version looks blown out, almost to make up for deficiencies with NTSC. The movies was always pretty dark, and it looks a lot more natural in HD. The Lucy shots look more like I remember when I saw the film print. That was many years ago, but hey. Overrall, I would say the BD looks more natural.

Yes and no. I mainly did thes shots to demonstrate the color issues and wasn't too worried about whether they were all perfect exposure-wise. The dvd is certainly brighter, BUT, there is more detail in the darkness. When Harker wanders the castle in the dvd, you can clearly see more pic. info in the dark. In the BD, those scenes look flat, washed out and pic. info is just gone in certain shots.
To some purists, the dramatic changing of the colorscheme is upsetting. The change from blue to green is quite apparent in once scene and not just simply timing it different, that's revisonism.

I have no problem with it if it's what Coppolla wants now. Some like what he wanted back then.
In some ways, it seems like Coppolla wanted the film to look more realistic and less over the top than before, (the vamp Lucy in the crypt scene seems much more realistic now, darker and much less BLUE) and has altered certain scenes to make it appear that way.

[WickyWoo]

To me it says that Coppola redid the color timing in his new approved transfer. Looks a lot better to me, not that I'm an expert on the film. I don't think you're taking into account the intended look. Especially the green says to me he did an extensive re-grading

[Deciazulado]

David, the interesting thing is you're comparing the BD to DVD as if the DVD was the reference (where have I heard that before) where you should be comparing it to the theatrical presentation. The Dracula I saw on the theater was not closer to a "'technicolor" musical it was more dark reds blacks and browns, I remember a dark and murky film. (I've never watched on DVD) Right now the only scene I remember having bright colors was the dandy Dracula with the cool blue John Lennon sunglasses.

[Dave Mack]

. Most of the film looks the EXACT same color-wise. I've said this many times. It's just CERTAIN scenes that have had this done. Maybe 4 or 5. I didn't take any shots of the scenes that look the same because they look the same. I also have seen the Criterion Laserdisc which had an approved transfer and that had the same colors as the SB disc.
Do you own the SB dvd? Are you getting the BD..? If so, then you will see for yourself soon enough. Most people I know who saw Dracula feel that the SB dvd and the Criterion Laserdisc accurately reflected the very over the top colorscheme in the theatrical version. When was the last time you saw it in the theatre? I saw it just a few years ago at a revival at MOMA in NYC, 35mm print. Looked just like the DvD.

[Bombthroat]

Maybe it's just me, but I think the screenshots of the BD version look way better. Since Coppola was involved with signing off on this transfer, he too must believe this is more representative of his original vision.

[Frode]

Did Coppola alone work with the colorist, or did they bring in the DP too?

[Dave Mack]

I agree. It works for me. But for some they want the earlier, more colorful version. What Coppolla chose then and now, 15 years later can be very different. I was just pointing this out. It's still a bit too dark looking and flat regardless of the color alterations IMHO.