Black Christmas (1974) - 11/15/13

[Dickieduvet]

Originally Posted by HuggyBear73

Are there forced German subtitles on this disc?

No, totally removable subs

[HuggyBear73]

Originally Posted by Dickieduvet

No, totally removable subs

Thanks for info! Do you know if SHANE and THE BIG TRAIL (Koch Media) have removable subs? They just came out in Germany within the past month.

[Dickieduvet]

Not sure about those 2 but German releases very rarely have forced subs. It's France where this is an issue.

[HuggyBear73]

Originally Posted by Dickieduvet

Not sure about those 2 but German releases very rarely have forced subs. It's France where this is an issue.

Ok thanks!

[Scoot79]

I love how they basically used the Alamo Drafthouse poster for the cover. I love that artwork. Since I'm such a major fan of this film, I just ordered a copy (seeing as it's region free) of the Blu-ray and the DVD too. I won't be able to play the DVD of course, but I wanted it just for my collection anyway. I already have the 2008 US BD and DVDs (the Canadian Anchor Bay releases with the superior Christmas tree art) as well as the 2002 Collector's Edition DVD (with the original 1974 artwork) and the 1999 Image Entertainment/Warner Bros. LaserDisc and the 1986/1994 Warner Bros. VHS cassette tape.

[NoirFan]

Why would Capelight NOT include the correct, original mono mix? Obviously it wasn't due to space constraints. A really careless and unfortunate oversight, and one that already has me regretting ordering the disc. If they felt the need to include a gimmicky, manipulated 5.1 mix to satisfy potential teenage customers, then fine, but there is ZERO excuse for not offering the accurate, legitimate soundtrack as well. Has anyone pressed them to provide an explanation either by email or on their Facebook page? I'm assuming they have one. Now I wish I hadn't bought it, but lesson learned - always do thorough research first!

[bgart13]

Finally compared, but there's two things I see different that aren't necessarily good things with the German disc: it's softer looking and it's zoomed in a bit.

http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergl...D=1492#auswahl

Does that mean the US/Canadian bd was sharpened? I could imagine it might be part of the difference. I don't notice the blacks looking deeper, either. I know, it's only caps, but...

[Rockercub]

I just took another look at the two, and the blacks looked about the same in the scenes I checked. I think it's accurate to say that the US release is a bit sharper, but it also has a lot of visible, moving grain. Could that be the result of sharpening the picture? I don't know, but I'll take a small decrease in sharpness over that distracting grain or scanner noise or whatever it is.

[Dickieduvet]

Believe me the Capelight is light years ahead of the US/Can version. It's not sharper it's just riddled with compression artifacts.

A better comparison from Katatonia here:

http://www.horrordvds.com/vb3forum/s...6&postcount=94

[deepbreathsanddeath]

The capelight version does look quite a bit better there.

[bgart13]

Originally Posted by Dickieduvet

Believe me the Capelight is light years ahead of the US/Can version. It's not sharper it's just riddled with compression artifacts.

A better comparison from Katatonia here:

http://www.horrordvds.com/vb3forum/s...6&postcount=94

Still not seeing a significant enough difference to make the purchase worthwhile, simply based on the caps. Truly disappointing. I'll wait for someone to revisit this correctly.

[Dickieduvet]

In motion the difference between the 2 is plainly obvious. Unless somebody unearths the original negative and gives it an expensive overhaul I really can't see it getting any better. Haven't heard anything about a 40th Anniversary edition being announced for this year yet but who knows

[bodybag]

Originally Posted by Dickieduvet

Believe me the Capelight is light years ahead of the US/Can version. It's not sharper it's just riddled with compression artifacts.

A better comparison from Katatonia here:

http://www.horrordvds.com/vb3forum/s...6&postcount=94

Those comparisons from Katatonia are mixed up. capelight had to zoom in a bit to get rid of that irritating wobbling that plagues the US Blu.

Also they corrected some of the more irritating artifacts and compression issues, so the image looks smoother.

The German BD looks much better in motion, but is still light-years away from being called good or even acceptable.

german quote from capelight support which i pretty much summed up:

Beide Discs beruhen auf der gleichen Abtastung, die leider viele Wünsche offen lässt. Da die US-Disc gnadenlos wackelt, haben wir den Bildstand korrigiert, somit gehen natürlich einige Pixel verloren. Dafür ist halt der Bildstand bedeutend ruhiger. Für uns die Priorität. Auch hat die US-Disc in über 1300 Frames Encoding Fehler. Telefonstrippen z.B. sind dort Blöcke bzw verschwinden ganz, das ist richtig übel. Diese Probleme hat die deutsche Disc nicht. Das Rauschen ist auf der US-Disc noch aggressiver, aber auch die deutsche Disc ist noch sehr körnig.

Meiner persönlichen Meinung nach, sieht die deutsche Disc in Bewegung deutlich besser aus, was auch in den internationalen Foren mehrfach bestätigt wurde - wenn die Frage aber ist: hat irgendeine Blu-ray des Filmes weltweit ein tolles Bild, ist die Antwort leider nein.

[Dickieduvet]

/\ Translation

Both discs are based on the same sample, which unfortunately leaves much to be desired. Since the U.S. disc wobbles mercilessly, we have corrected the image steadiness, so of course go some pixels lost. For this the image level is just much quieter. For us the priority. The U.S. disc has Encoding error in over 1300 frames. Phone stripping example there are blocks or disappear entirely, that is really bad. These problems did not the German disc. The noise is on the U.S. disc even more aggressive, but also the German disc is still very grainy.

In my personal opinion, the German disc in motion looks much better from what has been repeatedly confirmed in the international forums - if the question is: has any Blu-ray of the film world's a great picture, the answer is unfortunately, no.

[bgart13]

Since I haven't gotten around to BC for my holiday viewings yet, I'll be sure to do so looking for the wobble and encoding errors - which I've never noticed before. Do any caps show these encoding errors, btw?

[Dickieduvet]

Caps-a-holic shows some rough screens. Look at capture 9, the extreme right hand side on the wall in the telephone exchange is swamped with compression artifacts, horrendous!

Obviously these aren't as noticeable in motion but they are certainly there on the US edition.

[dullboy]

Originally Posted by Dickieduvet

/\ Translation

Both discs are based on the same sample, which unfortunately leaves much to be desired. Since the U.S. disc wobbles mercilessly, we have corrected the image steadiness, so of course go some pixels lost. For this the image level is just much quieter. For us the priority. The U.S. disc has Encoding error in over 1300 frames. Phone stripping example there are blocks or disappear entirely, that is really bad. These problems did not the German disc. The noise is on the U.S. disc even more aggressive, but also the German disc is still very grainy.

In my personal opinion, the German disc in motion looks much better from what has been repeatedly confirmed in the international forums - if the question is: has any Blu-ray of the film world's a great picture, the answer is unfortunately, no.

So, isn't this saying that Capelight did zoom in on the picture? That would mean that Katatonia's image labels indeed are swapped. The pics that look better to me are the ones that are NOT zoomed in...indicating that they are from the US disc. Those images look less smeary to me.

[Mahadeva]

I took these screenshots myself, using VLC:

US Disc:




German Disc:

[dullboy]

^^ Ok, so the German image IS zoomed, meaning that Capsaholic labeled correctly and Katatonic did not. Man, I don't know why each of them vehemently claims the other is wrong...confusing.

And so I guess that brings me to actually having to see the German disc in motion to make a decision on whether or not I want it...the grabs of the US disc just look better to me and the German look smeary and not as refined grain-wise.

[Mahadeva]

Originally Posted by dullboy

^^ Ok, so the German image IS zoomed, meaning that Capsaholic labeled correctly and Katatonic did not. Man, I don't know why each of them vehemently claims the other is wrong...confusing.

And so I guess that brings me to actually having to see the German disc in motion to make a decision on whether or not I want it...the grabs of the US disc just look better to me and the German look smeary and not as refined grain-wise.

I'll see if I can make a small video sample and upload it somewhere if it's not against the rules of course.