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While perhaps not a reference transfer - there's some level of grain manipulation and motion-related oddities going on, and my money's on it being scratch repair related - I can say without hesitation that it's a massive improvement over the old Anchor Bay DVD, and one of the better looking Italian genre transfers on Blu-ray currently at that.

The bonus materials looks pretty interesting... if you speak Italian, of course. :)

(Posted on Monday, June 6, 2011 at 2:27 AM)

I'll be interested to see what you make of the transfer. I haven't sat down and watched it, from a quick look it's OK, but didn't exactly blow me away.

(Posted on Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 1:29 AM)

I'll be picking this up. I was just watching the Medusa DVD, which has a superior transfer to that of the Anchor Bay release. Hopefully the BD retains the look of the Medusa disc.

(Posted on Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 3:29 AM)

One of my absolute favorite movies, and the Dylan Dog comics are great also. I wish the book and comic specials featuring Francesco Dellamorte would be published in English, but Francesco in the movie is very similar to Dylan (and, of course, looks just like him for obvious reasons).

Is this the same BD shown on caps-a-holic?

http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleiche/index.php?vergleich=dellamorte_dellamore

Different cover art, but both released in Italy.

If it's the same transfer...it looks good in spots, but has some weird issues (like the feathers in the eighth shot, for example).

Hope there's a Region A-friendly release of it soon, preferably with better PQ than what I'm seeing.

(Posted on Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 3:53 AM)

That sort of area-based combing is what makes me think scratch repair. The Midnight Legacy release of ALIEN 2: ON EARTH has the same problem - it only occurs on high-motion areas and looks like maybe the DSR filter is interpreting the footage as 1080i when it shouldn't be... I honestly can't think of what in the world else it could be.

Good to see the aliasing wasn't just on my end. There's some black crush going on, too, but the AB release was way too bright, so I can't say I really mind seeing it from the opposite end of the spectrum too much.

(Posted on Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 7:27 AM)

Looking forward to the review.

I had expected some darkening of the image based on screen comparisons with the DVD at the link above, but in fact the blacks on the BD are noticeably clipped.

For example, in the scene set in the ossuary, Anna Falchi's veiled face is even more veiled on BD - it's just a black blob. On the DVD, her face is distinguishable underneath the veil.

The damage to the opening of the film makes it unwatchable as far as I'm concerned, which is disappointing as the BD otherwise improves on the DVD in picture and audio quality (though it's also missing English subs for the Italian track).

(Posted on Saturday, June 11, 2011 at 8:38 AM)