Blu-ray Review HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended) (1 Viewer)

[Joe_G]

Yeah, I can't put my finger on it. It's been so long since I seen it in the theaters, so I don't remember how it sounded exactly and what's missing in the home video mix. All I know is it just doesn't sound right.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Thanks Jesse.
It had better have ALL of them!!!

 

[PatWahlquist]

Wasn't this a problem of the Toshiba firmware not playing nice with MPEG4 transfers? Glad I backdated mine to 2.5 when I could.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

Where you watching using a player and display that supported 24FPS?

 

[Jeff Robertson]

No in both cases. However, I believe both players are Toshiba made. Is the Xbox 360 external HD-DVD a Toshiba mechanism?

For the curious, I have Toshiba HD-XA2 connected to a Sony rear projection CRT (1080i) and the Xbox drive is connected to a Sharp LC-37D90U 1080p LCD (with a Windows XP box in between

 

[John Wielgosz]

I experienced similar 'jaggies' with my old HD-A1 and Toshiba 46h84 1080i CRT. They disappeared when I upgraded to a Sony SXRD 50a3000 1080p set. Is your Xbox drive/Windows XP box setup outputting a 1080i or 1080p signal? It sounds like something isn't de-interlacing properly in the video chain.

 

[Tim Glover]

On my 1080/24p Sony Projector using the A-35 the only jaggies I recall were of the first scan of the school near the beginning there is some on the school building itself. Not huge, but noticeable.

BTW, what happened to the improved Michael Bay supervised, color times image? Didn't he say he knows what his films are supposed to look like back when the HD-DVD was released?

Just having some fun.

 

[Todd smith]

You must have an equipment and/or setup issue. This was the most explosive soundtrack I listened to on either BR or HD-DVD last year. I can feel the hair on my head stand up at times from the ridiculous LFE. I am bitstreaming the track over HDMI out of an A35 though to my pre/pro for decode and if you are using analog, decoding in the HD-DVD player or S/PDIF you may not be hearing what you should. Report back when you dont have setup issues and can give a proper report. If this track is not blowing you away (literaly) there is something wrong.

I also have to wonder how much of the "improvement" with the TrueHD track is simply due to the overall volume being louder. 6-10db is a HUGE dif. If you dont properly level match these tracks, even a dif of 1-2db can make 1 track (TrueHD) sound better. I will judge for myself, but I think it is important to level match (not just by ear, but SPL meter to be as accurate as possible) before making comparisons. At this point I would bet the dif would be VERY minor at best.

 

[Jim_K]

Happy to read the BD True-HD track smokes the old lossy DD+ track! In your FACE!

Huzzah! j/k

I've got a buyer lined up for my HD DVD copy (I can't believe people are still buying these things. )

 

[Jeff Robertson]

1080p. Also, I'm using PowerDVD 7 for playback. No problems with other discs, by the way. I'm only seeing the jaggies in Transformers, and only certain scenes.

 

[Jeff Robertson]

I do not doubt it. My XA2 has 2.8 firmware (no pressing reason to update to 3.0). I hear that v2.8 doesn't solve the jaggies over 1080p/24 but judging by that problem description, it is a constant and not just scene specific like what I have seen with Transformers.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Nice review Pat!

I am so all over this title as soon as it comes out. I own the HD-DVD and the video on it looks good and the DD+ track is definantly better than the standard DD track on SD-DVD. How ever I can not wait to pick up the Blu-ray version with Dolby True HD. It is nice to hear that the Dolby True HD track does offer a good improvement over the previous lossy track.

 

[DavidJ]

Actually Michael, I believe that Edwin stated that he had his A2 (ok I double checked the thread and it was an A1) using the analog outs of his receiver in that thread. Assuming everything was setup right with the right FW he should have been hearing a strong DD+ track.

It is a shame that I have had to postpone my AVR upgrade because I was looking forward to comparing the True HD track with the DD+ in a true blind test with volume levels taken out of the equation.

 

[Wayne_j]

I do think the large audio level could be the only difference in the soundtrack between the HD-DVD and BR. A feature film sound mixer at AVS compared the two perfectly level matched and concluded that it was the same mix and couldn't tell the difference between the tracks.

 

[Brent M]

I've been following that thread closely. Film Mixer is a very knowledgeable and well respected member of AVS so I pay attention when he comments on these types of things. After reading his findings it seems that the TrueHD track isn't really much of an improvement over the DD+ after all.

 

[Jari K]

(first rewind)
If there´s one thing I remember from the "war", it must be this Film Mixer. I heard about million times back then, that "DD+" is "enough" when it comes to audio (hence 30gb HD DVD is "enough", etc etc etc) and that "Transformers" can´t sound any better. Ever.

(now FF to the present day)
My question is, that why should we argue about this again now, when we don´t have to worry about "space" anymore and all BD-releases can include also lossless/PCM-audio? Things are good. To me it´s only natural, that "Transformers" in BD has lossless audio now. I would say, that we should all be happy about that. Again, no one is forced to "double dip" this title and yes, the "DD+" track sounds just great in its own right.

 

[Loregnum]

Yeah imagine that....peope are buying perfectly good discs at a discount. They are nuts.

I can't believe people are selling perfectly good discs at a loss for whatever reason that IMO is illogical.

Anyway, I am interested to hear more about this trueHD/dd+ comparo and see if it is worth picking up the blu-ray copy to replace my hd-dvd copy. Seeing as the feedback is mixed (hardly a "OH THE TRUEHD SMOKES THE DD+! RUXORZ!!") I will wait and see.

The fact that a guy in the sound mixing business says the diff is minimal or non-existent I guess means nothing compared to consumers who go in with a flat out bias.

FWIW, I prefer to have lossless tracks on my discs but I also realize it doesn't guarantee supreme domination if a DD+ track was done well. The Bourne Ultimatum on hd-dvd IMO proves this as the DD+ track to me sounds as good or better.

 

[Dave Moritz]

If I remember correctly the same claim was made about people not needing anything more than Dolby Digital back in the day. While I would agree that DD+ is a step forward over standard DD. I would not go as far as saying that lossy DD+ is just as good as Dolby True HD lossless. Back when it was only DVD and it was DD vs DTS, I choose DTS ever time. And so when HD came around I was ready to just buy DTS-HD MA just because. I purchased my HD-DVD player I was ready to see what lossless was going to offer us all. It ended up that more titles on HD-DVD where in Dolby Digital Plus instead of lossless. I have allways felt DD was not all that good and had its flaws. DD+ does sound better but to me there is still something missing. After I purchased my Blu-ray player I started listening to titles with PCM and Dolby True HD. IMHO Dolby True HD is a noticeable improvement over DD+ even with the use of DN. And while I can not currently listen to the full bore DTS-HD MA the core DTS track still IMHO sounds better than DD+.

I used to hate buying DVD's with a DD track, but today with HD video and lossless audio. When I go to buy a title if I see PCM, DTS-HD MA or Dolby True HD I know I will be getting the best audio available. I obviously can not say at this point how much better the Dolby THD track is over the DD+ version on HD-DVD because I have not heard it. But I have a feeling that Pat's review is going to be spot on regaurding the audio track. So far on the titles that I can listen to both DD+ and Dolby True HD, I prefer the Dolby True HD every single time.

Blu-ray has the space and does not have the data rate restriction of HD-DVD, we should get lossless on all our Blu-rays. Now if they want to also put original mono tracks and or a lossy track for backwards compatibility, I have no problem with that. I for one will be buying the Blu-ray version of Transformers and I doubt the HD-DVD version will ever get played again. And while I am sure that to the above mentioned film mixer at AVS, the DD+ track sounds just as good. I am sure that there is another film mixer out there that will say that the DD+ mix does not hold up to the Dolby True HD track. And since Michael Bay was so anamate about this movie getting a Dolby True HD track, it feel that he must have heard both DD+ and Dolby THD tracks. It will be very interesting indeed once the Blu-ray goes on sale on 9/2. Not everyone hears sound the same way so it will be interesting to see how many perfer the DD+ mix and how many perfer Dolby True HD.

Now there are some HD-DVD titles that have DD+ tracks that I will not be replacing. Titles like You Me and Dupree, Dirty Dozen, Enter The Dragon, Blazing Saddles and the Break Up will not get upgraded to Blu-ray. Hell it is to exspensive to replace everything and I think most of us would agree that upgrades are reserved for titles that are the most important to us. And since The Matrix trilogy has Dolby True HD already I will have to skip the Blu-ray release. But I will replace titles like Bourne Identity, U-571, King Kong and Transformers with DD+ tracks with Blu-rays that have Dolby True HD or DTS-HD MA tracks.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Uh, no, the same claim was not made about DD. FilmMixer at AVS is commenting on his specific comparison of two actual tracks that he compared. No such claim was ever made about DD vs. DD+. (Yeah, there were some people who preferred the mix on the DVD, but that appears to be more of a configuration issue than a sound format issue.)

Your own comments are merely a repetition of generalities, not a report on a comparison of specific tracks. Get back to us after you've done a careful comparison of both tracks, as Pat Wahlquist and FilmMixer have done. They may have come to different conclusions, but at least they've actually listened to what they're comparing.

M.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Michael Bay seemed to felt very strongly that this title deserved a lossless track. I would assum that he must have heard both DD+ and Dobly THD tracks for himself. And as far as listening and comparing, I have done this with other titles already. But I will be doing this once I have the copy of Transformers in my hot little hands. Again like I stated above, that we all do not hear sound the same so what sounds better to you, me, Pat Wahlquist, Film mixer at AVS will not allways be the same. Heck otherwise we would not have all the different brands of speakers we have today.