Dracula: Prince of Darkness

[Stephen@Cult Labs]

Reaper says everything looks great.

[PaulD]

Originally Posted by Daemonia

'Believe' and 'knowing' are two entirely different things. I've read reviews of BDs that trashed them, saying they're poor HD transfers. But I bought them anyway and, to my surprise, they look terrific. To me, at least. So I tend not to go with static images. Who knows the conditions under which those screengrabs were taken. Maybe one person's monitor will show them differently to another. Maybe the screengrab wasn't taken using decent screengrab technology. Maybe they have been overly compressed for JPEG etc etc.

I think that screengrabs can assist in determining *really* botched transfers (Elite's The Deadly Spawn and Predator to name but two) but overall I am totally in agreement with you. I've read incredibly condemning reviews of all sorts of blurays which my eyes can't seem to find a problem with (including Don't Look Now and BU's Torso) and find it insane that people genuinely hold such opinions. Maybe it's just me and my embarrassing inability to spot a frame of interlacing or banding in an otherwise flawless transfer. But since I don't watch my BD's frame-by-frame over the course of half a day I'm happy enough in my ignorance, y'know?

Originally Posted by Stephen@Cult Labs

Reaper says everything looks great.

Reaper only watches Night of the Living Dead in 16:9 so....

[Daemonia]

Originally Posted by Stephen@Cult Labs

Reaper says everything looks great.

Exactly. And so do I most the time, so my opinions on the matter are probably invalid anyway.

Actually, the only 2 BDs I had a problem with were The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (it just didn't look right to me) and Optimum's Escape from New York which was obviously a really bad transfer. I didn't need to consult any BD technicians to work that out.

In fact, there's so many self-proclaimed 'experts' on film forums these days I just get lost in all the technical jargon. For instance, this whole thing about 'crushed blacks'. Just what the **** is it? I can't say I've ever seen it and probably wouldn't know what it was if I did. Things can get too technical, y'know? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the studios are kept on their toes, but some people aren't happy with anything.

[Daemonia]

Originally Posted by PaulD

Reaper only watches Night of the Living Dead in 16:9 so....

That's probably the one thing he and I would disagree on.

But in the film community there's been complaints since day one of DVD. The DVD isn't anamorphic, it doesn't have DTS, incorrect ratio etc. A lot of the complaints back then were valid, but with BD I can't help but feel that people have gone from genuine complaining to minute nit-picking. I've read on some forums how every Blue Underground BD is botched, even Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue. Now that I just can't agree with. The only BU BD that looked a bit off was Stendhal Syndrome, but even then it was head and shoulders above any other transfer I've seen. Makes me scratch my head in puzzlement sometimes when I read comments on other forums.

[PaulD]

Originally Posted by Daemonia

That's probably the one thing he and I would disagree on.

You and every other person on this forum, I strongly suspect.

I totally agree on you regarding the self-proclaimed Bluray Police. I genuinely don't see how they can enjoy the film while pointing at all the examples of crushed blacks and minor artefacting. A lot of the sites (oh, ok, one in particular) seem to not care about the film itself which strikes me as odd. I'm sure they do and the main focus is the quality of the transfer but unless it's a total cock-up on the scale of Predator I don't see the need for worry


Incidentally, and to bring this back to topic, I just want to say how good it is that Studio Canal are taking the synching issues as an opportunity to completely restore the intro sequence. I mean, that's some excellent care and pride for what you're doing. Kudos!

[zane]

@Daemonia
It´s great that you have friends on that you can rely on if you want to choose which bluray to buy and which not I stick to the screenshots.

But please don´t make capsaholic worse than they are, they are a great site for people like me and naturally I own some of the relases they compared there - and trust me, they are quite acurate. In all the cases, their screenshots resemble quite a lot the result on my TV-screen

But of course we should go back-to-topic, sorry for bringing in a negative commentary

[Daemonia]

Originally Posted by zane

@Daemonia
It´s great that you have friends on that you can rely on if you want to choose which bluray to buy and which not I stick to the screenshots.

But please don´t make capsaholic worse than they are, they are a great site for people like me and naturally I own some of the relases they compared there - and trust me, they are quite acurate. In all the cases, their screenshots resemble quite a lot the result on my TV-screen

But of course we should go back-to-topic, sorry for bringing in a negative commentary

Hey, if you think screencaps are a reliable gauge of whether you want a DVD/BD or not, that's completely up to you. Not knocking you for that. I'm just saying that in my own experience screencaps have proved somewhat inconsistent and unreliable. If there's one bad frame in a 1000 and they post that one frame, then obviously it'll look bad. All I want to really know is how the film looks in motion. I'm not going to watch it a frame at a time.

[Mojo]

Play have this up again for pre order on 30th April. I guess this is the corrected disc?

[The Reaper Man@Cult Labs]

Someone mention my name?


And as for the NOTLD 16:9 thing......so what?


I KNOW 4;3 is the original aspect,but it doesn't mean to say I like those black bars at the side!

I'll need to dig out my old D E R telly!

(As those under 35 say WTF is that?)

[The Reaper Man@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Stephen@Cult Labs

Reaper says everything looks great.

Everything except COOL AS ICE.....