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In Michael Dean's screen grabs, the Criterion clearly has more detail than the laserdisc. Although the Criterion screen grabs look darker than I remember, I do agree that the DVD has too much contrast, almost _as if_ the disc was laid out for the extra (sub zero) range of Blu and not corrected well for the DVD, the result being that it's all a bit too dark (sunk below zero). Again, I'm just saying it's as if, though I don't know the actual technical reason. Nothing you can do to adjust the contrast unless you want to recalibrate the set for just this one disc. Best you can do is raise the back light all the way. It's why I recommended people get the BluRay, not the DVD--not to mention the added details of 6 times the pixels. On the positive side, the overall feel and texture is very good on the DVD, assuming you watch in a dark room. I had trouble watching the DVD in a brightly lit room, but the Blu was fine. I'm sure there will be differences in different sets, but that's how it is on my Samsung LCD (which I understand is the worst technology for differentiating shades of darkness) which is decently calibrated, at least for white levels... anyway, I compared them on the same equipment.

If you look closely at those screen criterion grabs, you can see the nice texture (or smooth balance of lighting)
picture 1: on the ship's gunwale
picture 2: too dark, but see the jacket and steps
picture 3: the creases throughout the shirt
picture 4: pretty much anywhere

On the down side for the Criterion DVD, you don't really see the rivets on the ship's wall in the first picture. It's lost in the darkness. However, I do see it all in a dark room.