PHE Press Release: Braveheart * Gladiator * Forrest Gump (Sapphire Series Blu-ray) (1 Viewer)

[Ron-P]

Oops!

 

[frankie108]

The enveloping sound field generated by the Laserdisc edition of Forrest Gump was nothing less than spectacular and was not carried over to the DVD edition. If the BD doesn't mirror the Laserdisc effort, I'll just stay with my broadcast HD version.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Are you referring to the LD's PCM stereo surround track or its DD 5.1 track?

 

[Robert Crawford]

Can we cut out this type of "tit for tat" discussion because it's pointless as well as worthless to the rest of us. Thank you.






Crawdaddy

 

[Edwin-S]

I'm looking forward to "Gladiator" and " Braveheart". I may even finally break down and rent "Gump" on Blu. I've never seen it because the premise of a near moron rising to wealth and prominence just seemed dumb to me; however, I may finally give it a chance and watch it.

I always thought the whole idea of movie collecting/watching was to sometimes go outside of one's favorite "niche". I just don't get the mindset that post-(fill in the era) films are all garbage, just like I don't get the mindset that pre-(fill in the era) or B&W movies are unwatchable. I guess I musn't be much of a collector.

 

[CraigF]

I am kind of surprised to see so much love here for Forrest Gump compared to Braveheart and Gladiator....thought it would be the opposite with such a male-dominated audience. Anyway, I like them all and think they all will have plenty to offer in a BD incarnation (I do not think all movies will have "plenty" to offer, regardless that they may look better on BD). I have no doubt I'll get all of these at some time, but I have a self-imposed $20 limit for a BD that is a DVD replacement, so it may be a while (why I'm often a year late on BD comments LOL...).

 

[Robert Crawford]

My girlfriend calls me the original "macho man", yet Forrest Gump is a personal favorite of mine and I'll watch it more than Braveheart and Gladiator put together.

 

[CraigF]

Actually, I have too. Let's just keep that private between the two of us...

 

[Charles de Lauzirika]

Actually, it's much closer to five. But I suppose I could ask Paramount to drop about an hour's worth of the new material I produced if that's what you really want.

 

[David Coleman]

Am I the only one curious as to why Gladiator has a DTSMA track? I'm more inclined to believe this is a request of Ridley Scott than a studio shift in policy. However it is possible that Dreamworks may head that direction separate from Paramount.

 

[Christian Preischl]

Maybe it has to do with the fact that Gladiator is being released by Universal - who always use DTS-MA - outside the US and that way they can use the same audio track for all regions.

 

[Tino]

Good one Charles!

Thanks for your efforts

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I'm a girly man and I love BRAVEHEART (top 2 favorite film) and
GLADIATOR.

Forrest Gump is undoubtably in my top 10 as well. Incredible film.

 

[Brandon Conway]

This. I believe this is the same reasoning behind Warner's Watchmen getting DTS-HD MA rather than TrueHD.

 

[Jim_K]

I guess I'm just glad that I can enjoy and appreciate films from pretty much every era. Here's a dirty little secret... Spartacus was a new release at one time and Gran Torino will be considered a timeless classic in the future.

It's pretty hard to begrudge Paramount for releasing 3 of their most popular catalog titles, whether one likes them or not. It's certainly not a bad thing for the format.

Braveheart is one of my all-time favorites and I'll also pick up Gladiator which I enjoy. Not really a big fan of Gump.

The only downside is Paramount's shift to the higher SRP but it's not unreasonable and sadly seems like a bargain compared to Warner's $85 box-o-junk exclusives. Hopefully sales are good enough to encourage Paramount to reach a little bit deeper into their catalog next year.........Apocalypse Now, The Conversation, Chinatown.

 

[Carlo_M]

Two of the three will be immediate day and date purchases with me.

Gladiator: Love the movie, the premise, the acting, the directing, and of course Charlie's fantastic extras.
Forrest Gump: Big Zemeckis and Hanks fan, and the same writer (and many of the same themes) as Benjamin Button, another movie I loved.

Regarding the third...
Braveheart: solid film at the time that hasn't stood the test of time with me (I've watched my DVD copy once since owning it in 2000). I admit there may be some lingering resentment that it swept the major Oscar categories while The Shawshank Redemption went home empty handed. If there's a solid sale later on down the line (or at Fry's on release week) I'll probably pick it up.

Still not 100% sold on the "Sapphire" name. I mean, if you're going to choose a gemstone name to infer high quality, why not go with diamond rather than a semi-precious stone?

 

[frankie108]

My LD machine has no AC-3 capability .The Dolby Surround track was what I was referring to.

 

[Michael Reuben]

It's not surprising you found that more "immersive", but that's because of the sound format. ProLogic is less precise than discrete 5.1 formats, and sound "bleeds" into the rear channels even when it's not supposed to be there.

You could probably get much the same effect from the DVD by setting your player to output a 2-channel PCM downmix and running it through a ProLogic decoder. That would give you an "immersive" experience, even though such is almost certainly not the intent of the sound designers. A similar adjustment will no doubt be possible with the Blu-ray.

 

[Jesse Blacklow]

And I'm wondering how a PCM 2.0 track, even with surround encoding, would be more "enveloping" than the Dolby Digital 5.1 track on the DVD, although I would agree that the lossless PCM would certainly have more fidelity than the lossy DD. And I'm even more confused at how one would be comparing an HD broadcast version that wouldn't have anything better than a DD5.1 soundtrack running at or lower quality than the DVD soundtrack (or worse, DD2.0) as equal to--let alone superior to--either the LD or the BD's confirmed lossless 5.1 channel soundtrack, to say nothing of the video bitrate and resolution increase the BD would have over all 3.

 

[Cees Alons]

Ruby is red, sapphire is best know as blue.
(Formally it can have any colour except red. Ruby and Sapphire are names of the same crystal: corundum).
And it's extremely hard

.


Cees