HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

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.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

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.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

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.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

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.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

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.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

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.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

(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.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

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.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

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.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

I'll defer to your reading and stand corrected. I confess to getting confused in Edwin's DTS-HD MA thread.

The larger point is valid, though. A lot of the problems people reported with the DD+ track resulted from listening to it through S/PDIF connections.

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.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

Hey Micheal, I should have been more clear about what I was trying to say. I did not mean for it to sound like there was a claim that anyone ever claimed that DD was every bit as good as DD+. I would doubt that very much to be honest with you. But if I remember correctly that Dolby Digital was considered to be good enough at the time and that people really didn't need anything better. I am talking about way before HD came out and we had DD+ of course. I would agree that DD+ is an improvement over DD, that I would not arruge about for any reason. Heck I had a DVD version of Red Dragon that was damaged and I picked up the HD-DVD because I knew it would sound better than the DD track on DVD. And after listening to both I am glad I did pick up the HD-DVD. Now that is not to say that I may not pick up this title again on Blu-ray with a DTS-HD MA track later on.


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.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

I don't know about "good enough", but DD was extremely good, and a marked improvement over prior formats, given the limitations on bandwidth and storage capacity that existed when DD first appeared (and for quite some time thereafter). It was never intended, nor did anyone expect it, to be the last audio format we'd ever need.

M.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

Yes, that was always the problem. Just the HD DVD DD track was much lower than any avg. soundtrack. It really threw people off (and turn them off as well).
Specifically, people had 'problems' w/the "shockwave" scene.
My problem w/the HD DVD DD soundtrack was the scene from the gunship (helicopter) that started off w/the second badguy transformer (in the desert) standoff. It's the shot though the copter looking down; man when that gun opened up in the theater, it was my fave gun blast of ALL time! Visceral, even. Could never dup that w/my HT, no matter how high I turned it up (other bombastic sounds shook the room; like the opening badguy transformer attack). Just at home I could never get the: beat "Predator" & "T2" gun sounds.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

Absolutely. Improper settings and connections often keep people from getting the most out of their home theaters and as more people enter the hobby it is good to point out common problems.

And for the other discussion that is dominating this thread I would recommend that everyone read this article:

Signal to Noise - Dolby TrueHD & DTS-HD MA vs. Uncompressed PCM | Home Entertainment

It was originally posted by Phil Iturralde in another thread. It is an excellent read.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

Hey DavidJ, thanks for posting that link, it was an interesting read.


I was not aware that there where many Dolby Digital Plus tracks on Blu-rays. I am sure there are a few like King Of California, but I thought that HD-DVD was where the majority of DD+ tracks ended up?

But that article was a really good read and was well written.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

Like Dave said, I´m also one of those people, that 90% of the time chose DTS-release over DD (back in the SD DVD-days). Of course, there were other factors as well (extras - or lack of them - and the fact, that there are some truly mediocre DTS-mixes out there)..

With Blu-ray-titles, I´ll be choosing lossless/PCM (I don´t really care which one, as long as it´s PCM, Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA) over DD/DD+.

"Transformers" with lossless = good enough for me = good news (then again, I´m not a huge fan of the film, so...). Blu-ray just delivers the goods.

( Still, I can live with "plain" DD also if it comes to that. Not the end of the world.. )

I don´t fully see, what´s the "argument" here. I thought, that most of us like the lossless audio... (except Filmmixer, of course..)

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

I think that is true, but the article it more interested in a comparison of the original audio with the different codecs available and DD+ does quite in the objective testing. Still, from a marketing standpoint I doubt we will see it as much as we did in the days of HD DVD.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

That has NOTHING to do with the codec being used, that is something you dont like about the mix. TrueHD will NOT improve that in any way as the mix is the exact same between the DD+ and TrueHD.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

Where do I say it has anything too do w/the codec/format being used?
The only times I mention "HD DVD DD" is too identify which soundtrack I'm addressing.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

Sorry. My post was a copy and past to a dif response in another forum and I got things all screwed up. My post had nothing to do with your quote that I quoted. I dont even remember what I was going to say in ref to your quote.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

Ha, ha!

After my post about your post...
I started read the other new posts on this thread and thought...
he's not talking 'bout mine!
That will teach ya too leave HTF! ;-)

EDitEDbyED:
I think we're all in agreement things don't sound good for the old HD Disc.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

This Blu-ray is going to be one the first titles I play through my new future Denon AVR-2809ci with a Panasonic BD30K Blu-ray.

I can not wait to do an a/b between the DD+ on the HD-DVD and the Dolby True HD Blu-ray. Granted I am going to do that with my current system but will repeat it when the once the new equipment gets purchased and set up.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

Sweet review.

This was my most anticipated DVD and now it's my most anticipated BD.

I can't wait to gawk at all the minute details that are present in the body designs of the Autobots and Decepticons, they scream to be beheld on BD!

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

Disc does indeed look and sound sweet (probably my new reference disc).

However it now also has a dubious distinction: longest to load on my PS3. I don't know if it will take as long to load each subsequent time, but the first time I popped in the disc on my PS3 it took well over a minute to get off of the loading screen. Other BD-J discs that have a minute-plus load time on other BD players load in mere seconds on the PS3. I guess I got spoiled by that. This is the first BD-J disc I have that has taken so long to load.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

That's odd Carlo, I just spun this on my PS3 with not loading problems at all, fired right up.

While I find the image is on par with the HD-DVD the audio is not. While the upgrade to the TrueHD track is not huge over the previous DD+ it's noticeable, quite noticeable. From the voices sounding clearer and more detailed, to the overall sound stage being bigger and more enveloping, to the films score right down to the small little sound details that I know I did not hear on my HD-DVD. It's quite a noticeable improvement and worth the upgrade just for that TrueHD track.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

I finished watching this tonight and a reference quality A/V disc indeed. Awesome film-like image and great TrueHD track. Watched on a Pioneer 51FD.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

Ron, what firmware are you running? I'm on 2.42.

Some time later this week I'll pop the disc in again and see if it takes as long to load.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

This raises a question that i've been meaning to ask PS3 owners, is it possible to upgrade the firmware the way you can upgrade the FW on a stand-alone BD player? It's easy with stand-alone players, just burn the file to an image disc, pop it in and let it do it's thing but i'm curious about PS3's.

Thanks.

I'm dying for this disc but I have to wait until Friday! Good to know that I won't be disappointed, especially since I never owned the HD-DVD version just the SD DVD.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

Ed, I watched the Blu-ray Transformers last night and there IS an Iron Man trailer on disc 1. IIRC it is the theatrical trailer. The easiest way to get to it is to go to the scenes menu and select the chapter with the end credits. Fast forward through to the end of the credits and press play just prior to very end. When the film ends, a pop-up menu will appear containing the Iron Man trailer and two additional Transformers trailers.

Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Transformers (Highly Recommended)

Yes, but it´s much easier via Internet. Only reason NOT to upgrade the firmware via net (PS3) would be the lack of Internet-connection... It´s that easy.