Bollywood’s got the blues
This week sees the release on DVD of one of this year’s most successful Hindi films – the romantic and dramatic multi-starrer Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (‘Never Say Goodbye’) from writer/director Karan Johar. 2006 has been a tremendous year at the box office for Bollywood thanks to smash hits such as the superhero actioner Krrish, the rollicking comedy Lage Raho Munna Bhai and the fabulously entertaining Kajol comeback vehicle Fanaa. Most of the above films have also received refreshingly pleasing treatment for their DVD releases, boasting cracking 5.1 Dolby Digital audio, a plethora of extras and detailed, progressively-encoded video. However, they (along with many others) all unfortunately share a common niggle – they’ve all got the blues. An ugly blue tint to be exact.
These days, most Indian DVD distributors have their biggest DVD releases authoured by a company called Prasad Labs. When given ample resources, Prasad have been known to churn out some of the highest-quality Indian discs ever seen. Their work for Tamil DVD distributor Ayngaran in particular is very highly regarded. However, over the past year or so, many of their discs have seen a new colour-correction filter implemented that has greatly spoiled otherwise first-class transfers. The filter appears to maximise every blue/turquoise hue in the picture, rendering it looking far different than was intended. Last year’s sunny comedy Salaam Namaste wound up appearing cold and damp thanks to a dose of the blue stuff. It may be a case of Prasad merely working with the materials they’re provided with, but whoever is responsible, hopefully they’ll soon cheer up and remove this peculiar pigment from our TV screens. In the meantime, here’s a little visual evidence to back up the crime…
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Hi, Carla. Many thanks for the comments and the link. My own blogroll and this particular WordPress skin don’t seem to work well together, so I’ve no links page of my own set up yet. Once I do though, I’ll be sure to add Filmi Geek as well. I’ve also enjoyed reading your posts at your blog as well as at the BollyWHAT? forums - which seem to be up and running again 
Your post on Dil Se’s various DVD releases was particularly disheartening for me. I can’t believe I don’t own the best quality copy of one of my absolute favourite Bollywood movies. This was also eye-opening. One learns to be hopelessly compromising with these Indian DVDs - especially me, as a person who didn’t even own many DVDs before I got into Bollywood, and who doesn’t know all that much about the technicalities of DVDs in general.
Basically you learn to do with so little - if the subs work fine, and I don’t have to launch a nuclear missile to get the DVD out of the box, and the picture isn’t grain paradise, I’m happy. But these sort of news always dampen my spirits. So the best quality out there isn’t giving us the best quality? Boo to these developments, especially as these new DVD’s cost much more than your average Eros crap.
I’d never noticed this phenomenon before - although admittedly I am not at all discerning about technical matters. Now, can you do an expose on the ridiculous subtitles that keep appearing, even on beautifully-made movies?
Beth, if you talking about random appearing / not appearing subs in Bollywood DVDs. I found that using my remote control feature off “off/on” subs doesn’t always work; and you have to switch them on/off from the main menu - this has worked for me (when subs keep reappearing)
I think Beth is referring to all the weird English translations that crop up on Indian DVDs - South releases especially. “I am a cashew nut extract” from a song in ‘Dumm Dumm Dumm’ is one of my favourites. 
Yes, definitely the translations. It’s as though no one reads them at all before they’re released - and I keep hinting I’d like the job, but Yash Raj hasn’t called…. And Stephen, someone told me about that cashew nut one! Fantastic.
What do you think of the Don DVD. That was not done by Prasad, and not using the traditional method of re-grading the film from negative for DVD. Hence the difference between theatrical print and DVD ‘print’.
Actually the blue tint is not due to Prasad Labs. Yash Raj Films do thier own telecine work (within their in-house facilities, or via a third party) which is then recorded onto a digibeta source. Afterwards, the digibeta is given to Prasad Labs to encode and author for the DVD format.
Ayngaran do their telecine transfers at Prasad labs (supervised by the film-makers), and they have no problems with any forms of blue tint on their DVDs - unless it was part of the film e.g. night-time scenes.
If there is anyone to blame then it’s the telecine technicians used by Yash Raj Films.
Thanks for the info, Sunny. I did have a feeling that Prasad may just be working with what was provided to them. It must be a third party responsible for the telecine work then rather than YRF themselves, since the blue tint has shown up on DVDs from Adlabs and UTV as well.
October 20, 2006 @ 10:55 pm
Hey, it’s carla from BollyWHAT? - I just wanted to say that I enjoy your blog, especially the interesting technical posts like this one. I also wanted to let you know that I’ve placed a link to you on my filmi blog, Filmi Geek (www.filmigeek.net). Keep up the great posts!