A Christmas Carol Blu-ray

A Christmas Carol

 (1951)

Drama | Fantasy



Ebenezer Scrooge (Alastair Sim) contentedly meanders through his life as a cruel miser until one fateful Christmas Eve when he is visited by three ghosts. The spirits show him how his behavior has degenerated over the years as his heart has become colder. Using events from Scrooge's idealistic past, dreary present, and dismal future, the apparitions try their best to melt his steely soul. Will Scrooge see the error of his ways and learn the true meaning of Christmas? Check out this hailed classic and find out! Many critics widely consider this the definitive film version of Charles Dickens' cherished novel.

For more details about A Christmas Carol on Blu-ray, see the A Christmas Carol Blu-ray Review

A Christmas Carol Blu-ray, Video Quality

 


There is a substantial upgrade in image quality on this new 1080p/MPEG-2 encoded Blu-ray from even VCI's excellently restored DVD release of a couple of years ago. I was immediately struck by the brilliant contrast, which offered wonderfully inky blacks and a similarly excellent grayscale. Whites bristle nicely in the snow scenes and never bloom. Sharpness and clarity are quite good as well, though the film grain does occasionally devolve into noisiness at times. All of this is not to say the source elements are not without their problems. Though VCI touts that it went back to 35mm source elements, which is certainly laudable, there doesn't appear to have been any really meticulous cleaning on this transfer. While the bulk of the film looks quite splendid, videophiles will still be able to notice scratches, flecks, dirt and debris from time to time.

There is one rather strange anomaly on this transfer, and it's something I mentioned in a previous review for another site on another VCI product, their SD-DVD release of Burke's Law, the old Gene Barry television series. Occasionally on that release as well as A Christmas Carol, motion suddenly "jumps," as if a frame or two is missing, though the soundtrack continues apace and there are no missing seconds from the timecode if you engage "Display" on your BD player (I mention this only for readers who may think it's a fault with the BD itself rather than the transfer). A good example of this (just one of several) on A Christmas Carol is near the end of the film, at circa 1:18:17 and again at 1:18:22, when Scrooge is at the window saying "What a beautiful morning" and obviously lurches. I guess it might be a missing frame, but one would expect the sound to skip there, which it doesn't. Another moment is at 1:22:18 where one would think the piano playing in the parlor would be slightly interrupted if it's missing frames we're dealing with. I have to wonder if this is an authoring problem, or perhaps a playback issue endemic to PS3's. I did get some emails after my Burke's Law review stating that other owners of the title were experiencing the same thing. If this had been a port over from a PAL transfer I could almost understand the timeshifting, but since VCI states they've gone back to 35mm masters to do this new Blu-ray, I'm frankly at a loss to explain it.

A Christmas Carol Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 


Unfortunately, the audio options on this Blu-ray are not up to the standards set by the generally excellent image quality. Two Dolby Digital mixes are included, the original mono track as well as a repurposed 5.1 surround mix. Both choices sadly leave quite a bit to be desired. I frankly couldn't stand listening to the 5.1 for very long, as it is saddled with such bad chorusing and reverb that I personally found it unlistenable. That same chorusing effect is still apparent, though less bothersome, in the original mono track. The original track, while not egregiously damaged, has noticeable hiss and an overall boxy sound that is evident throughout both dialogue and underscore, though that problem is widely variable. For instance, the opening bass-heavy brass music sounds pretty acceptable, but then the first patch of dialogue has an over-reverbed sound. That use of reverb is similarly variable, and seems to abate once the film moves into its more intimate, interior sections. The 5.1 mix manages a few ambient surround moments, notably some of the music and foley effects during the Spirits' appearances, but there are really no "wow" moments in the surround repurposing. LFE is non-existent and indeed pretty much any low frequencies are missing from this overly compressed sounding soundtrack.

A Christmas Carol Blu-ray, News and Updates

• Classic Christmas Carol Gets Blu-ray - June 29, 2009

A Christmas Carol Blu-ray, Forum Discussions

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