DVD details for
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) More at IMDbPro »

Michel Hafner (31 December 1999):
This DVD version of _Interview with the Vampire (1994)_ was among the first DVDs released by Warner Brothers. It looks pretty good but could benefit from a new edition using the latest DVD mastering technology.
The film element used is pretty clean. Film steadiness is ok. Both could be better but are not critical for overall impression. Since "Interview" is a very dark film contrast rendition must be very good or we have a big problem. As it is it's adequate. Blacks are deep and shadow detail is mostly good. But current state of the art it ain't. Colors are also nice, well saturated and natural in appearance.
Sharpness is ok, but for a 16:9 enhanced DVD disappointing. The same is true for the noise and grain level which is too high. Since the transfer was made teleciné technology has improved and a new transfer would give considerably better results in many areas, especially noise and sharpness.
There are also video artifacts present. Some edges are slightly overenhanced. Noise suppression artifacts may be present, but I can't say for sure since the weakest point of this DVD, compression, is distorting textures pretty much as well.
123 minutes of film using almost all scanlines are squeezed on one layer (the other goes to the pan&scan version) with an average bit rate of about 4 MBit/s using equipment that is now (1999) considered old. What can you expect? There are compression artifacts in every scene. Usually slight but visible: I-frame pulsing, macro blocking, unnaturally moving textures that lose detail when in motion, individually floating image parts that should stay together. The dark images help hide a lot, but with a bright display you will see it nonetheless. Or put it another way, the transfer should be reissued on a dual layer disc with a high bit rate and state of the art encoders.
This DVD version of "Interview with the Vampire (1994)" is not bad, but shows some signs of age and can't compete with state of the art DVDs of today concerning image quality. A remastering would give better results, but for a top picture a new transfer is probably necessary, with less grain/noise and better sharpness to start with. The current version is pretty watchable nonetheless. There are no supplements except for some minimal biographical data. A wise decision given the shortage of bits for the main feature.