DVD Review HTF REVIEW: "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" (Highly Recommended!) (1 Viewer)

[Allan^L]

If you haven't opened it, you can always return it.

 

[Ernest Rister]

OF course I opened it...I thought maybe this was going to be another obvious double-dip title, a'la Black Hawk Down...just didn't know I'd be double-dippped within hours, not months.

 

[Bernhard]

I also saw the movie for the first time yesterday and really liked it.
Picture quality was generally very good but there were a few instances of VERY bad compression artifacts, especially at the beginning of the movie. Perhaps they aren't as obvious on a TV as on a 6,5 foot wide screen but at times it was quite distracting.

No gripes about the dts track though, the sound was a real experience!

 

[KyleC]

Sorry for the late post but I just watched it on Monday. This is hands down the best DTS track I've ever heard. Scratch that, the best surround sound track period. The scenes that took place on the lower deck were great. You could hear everyone walking around on the upper decks. It was just an amazing track. I agree that this movie isn't justified on a small screen. I still have a 27" :frowning:.


One question, on the fog and night scenes did anyone notice like a shimmering effect? It looked almost like a Northern Lights kind of effect. Sorry I don't know the technical term.

 

[Chris Atkins]

Watched this movie 1 1/2 times last weekend.

What a wonderful film...just hits all the right notes. Too bad it lost best picture...the wrong film won, IMHO.

 

[WilliamG]

I had to watch this again, because the first time I saw it I was a bit indifferent. Do NOT watch this if you have just come in from a long, bad day at work and are tired and/or sleepy. It just won't work if you do. I was well rested and gave it a second spin this past Thursday. Now I can gladly say that this is an extraordinarily GREAT movie!

Everything that has been said about the sound mix so far is on target. Absolutely amazing! I had to laugh at myself, though; In true HT form, Master and Commander was viewed with all lights off at night. During the "below deck" scenes, the natural creaking of the ship, the sound of the waves rushing, etc., I actually felt a little seasick!! Thank goodness my wife wasn't at home to laugh at me.

 

[Sean Moon]

Chris, while I agree that this picture deserved all the accolades that it got and possibly more, LOTR deserved Best Picture and then some. Both are wonderful films.

 

[T r o y]

I went by Blockbuster after work Friday and traded in my Star Trek Insurrection DVD for Master and Commander single disc version for $12.99.

After viewing it last night with my wife , I must agree with everyone's comments on this one. Pic and Sound were terrific! One of the best DTS track I've ever heard. I would've turned it up a little bit more , but you know, I had the fam in there with me. And it didn't hurt matters watching it on my 92" screen.
Peter Weir sure knows how to film a big budget epic on the high seas. If LOTR had not been in contention for Best Pic, then This one surely would have one that category.
I'll definately be getting in some more viewings on this one.
Highly Recommended

Troy

 

[Ernest Rister]

"LOTR deserved Best Picture and then some."

Too bad "Lord of the Rings" wasn't nominated this year - "Return of the King", however, *was* nominated.

Fellowship of the Ring should have won best picture in 2001.

 

[KyleC]

No it was after that had happend.

 

[ChristianLiemke]

So, the DTS-track is in DTS-ES. What's about the DD-tracks? Are the english and french ones in DD-EX?

 

[Andy_MT]

fox delivered on the audio but failed on the video as far as i'm concerned. so very, very soft. too soft. as i recall, fox did a great job with from hell, but there's no sign of that greatness here. the video's ok, but it should be a lot more than ok for a film of this scale. it looks more like it came from their budget range than one of their recent A releases.

fox should really be doing better work than this. they're not a small distributor. they're about as big as you can get. and they've done great things in the past.

i'm beginning to wish warner and universal would handle all the video transfers on new releases. they seem to be the only ones who seem to care. granted the others can deliver, but they're so inconsistent. it's not a very nice way to pay back those that bought the film legitimately.

 

[Darren Haycock]

Universal? Are you serious?

 

[Sean Moon]

Universal's quality is shaky at best, for every good DVD they put out lately, there are five that are pretty poor quality it seems, just look at the American Wedding DVD. Warner, New Line, and Fox are honestly the only studios consistent with picture quality across the board. While Master and Commander is not reference the whole way through, as the foggy scenes did look rather poor, the rest of the film looked spectacular to me.

 

[Andy_MT]

ok, haven't seen [all] of universals recent dvds. i take it back. universal, phooey!

ok, so there aren't any studios that are 100% greatness, but of all the universal dvds i've bought over the last couple of years, every one has been good stuff [pq wise]. guess i've been lucky.

new-line i'd strike from the list. they've gone done a slippery slope in the last few years. not as consistently impressive as they used to be. too many dodgy looking dvds. and fox, well, i would have said yes, but this dvd disappointed me, so i'm on the fence about them. still think any new big budget film should be reference or near reference, period. won't accept anything less. sorry.

 

[Sean Moon]

Just out of curiousity, which DVDs from New Line have you found disappointing lately? All of their new releases that I have seen have just been top notch. Hell, even their stuff from way back in 98 (Blade) looks better than most DVDs put out today.

 

[Andy_MT]

secondhand lions, lord of the rings (2 disc), 15 minutes, thirteen days, blow being a few. the last 3 were infifilm releases, so i guess that's where the quality went (putting everything on one disc). LOTR too soft. same with SL. granted, some of new lines earlier dvds were impressive (eg. blade, dark city, state & main, american X).

wonder how much of the softness of this disc (M&C) was attributable to the cinematography. have a hard time believing it was supposed to look this soft. especially given the length of the film and a DTS track.

 

[KorbanPelecehan]

The track is DTS 5.1 Only not ES. But you can make it manualy be a ES MATRIX 6.1.

Q: Importanly i want to know if the original DTS ES MATRIX (Pirrate Of Caribean) is better than the DTS ES MATRIX decoding DTS 5.1 from Reveiver ??? or just the same ?

 

[CraigF]

I have only watched this once, and according to my decoder it is dts 6.1 ES Matrix and DD 5.1 EX; I listened to the dts. This ES/EX info is contrary to the back panel page, on the Canadian release at least, which has the same disc content as the U.S. release. I don't know if the French DD track is EX (for Christian).

Just my opinion, without knowing your decoder etc., but I doubt there'd be much difference with how you generated the back channel track with the dts. If your decoder is in a dts mode, I suspect it would be using the same "algorithm" to get the back channel, whether or not it recognised the ES matrix flag. This would be a good experiment, probably better done with a rich soundtrack like M&C with all the other sound channels except the back one(s) turned off.

 

[KorbanPelecehan]

I use Yamaha RX V440 and in the auto mode they choose DTS only for the disc.