Showing posts with label Dracula (1931). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dracula (1931). Show all posts

Friday, 3 December 2021

Dracula (1931)

1991 MCA LaserDisc: More natural than the later DVDs and the UHD, but suffers from being an analogue track - distortion, mainly.

1993 CIC Video LaserDisc: The same audio mastering as the 1991 LD, but digital. Of all the editions here, this is my overall favourite. It clearly has some form of hiss management going on, but marginally less than the later editions. It lacks the problematic EQ changes of the DVDs and blu-rays.

1999 R1 Universal DVD: Very similar to the 1993 LaserDisc but with an unfortunate slight treble boost and some bass reduction. The opening music sounds better than the rest of the film (and I think better than the opening first minute of the 1993 LD).

2004 R1 Universal DVD: Probably the worst sounding of the bunch. Slightly more hiss reduction than the 1999 DVD and the 1993 LD. Some bass and midrange boosting that ironically makes the noise floor even louder sometimes. Has some spectral artefacts that suggest an encoding error.

2006 R1 Universal DVD: Same mastering as the 2004 DVD but more competently encoded.

2013 Universal Blu-ray: Slightly less hiss reduction than the 2004/2006 DVDs, but still with the EQ issues. There's honestly not that much more noise reduction here compared to the 1993 LaserDisc; the EQ issues are more noticeable to me.

2021 Universal UHD: Identical to the Universal blu-ray.