post #91 of 167
4/27/09 at 7:54pm
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Originally Posted by Lou Sytsma
It is a sign from the gods - I already have this on HD but the BluRay has been released on birthday. It would be foolish of me to ignore such a sign.
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Originally Posted by Nelson Au
Happy Birthday Lou! Beware Romulan's bearing gifts!
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Originally Posted by Ensign Eddie
Amazon shipped it this morning with an expected delivery date of tomorrow (up until it shipped, the expected delivery date was always 4/30). I guess Paramount hasn't asked Amazon to hold off shipping until release date after all.
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Originally Posted by Nelson Au
I decided to watch Charlie X, it was the one I really wanted to see first. I wasn't that impressed, only because it's not that different from the HD-DVD! So it looked terrific! But I'll watch more critically in the evening, when my HT room can be dark. (It's got a lot of high windows that I can't shade)
I don't think I'll mention much more about the PQ because it really looks better then ever. You can see the pores on Shatner's face and the wood grain on the sets! Colors are vibrant and beautiful. What I wanted to talk about and get feedback on is the audio and the ability to change from original optical effects to the new CGI effects. I have an older B&K surround processor so it won't do the new audio codecs. I had to manually switch it to DTS audio for the down converted audio. That sounds great! But the big realization for me, and I've seen and own every single video release of Star Trek TOS, is the mono audio. What a treat! I have not watched the laserdiscs recently, but what I have forgotten is how much better it sounds in terms of hearing all the effects and dialogue up front. There is a scene in Charlie X when Charlie is walking about the ship, as he's backing out of the Jeffries tube and the two techs are climbing out, you can hear a medium pitch whine, and it's pretty loud. When I switched to the new digital track, which I did via the menu, you can't hear that anymore. It's been dialed down to almost nothing but the dialogue is fine. And yes, you can hear the original titles music if you select the mono version. And I was watching the titles in both the original opticals and CGI with mono sound. But I'd be curious to hear from those with newer processors, what options you have for the audio, if you're limited to hearing the original titles music in Mono only. The scene when Uhura is trying to reach the Antares, you can hear the sounds of the subspace radio audio as Uhura is trying to dial up the gain. In Mono, it's really loud! And it sounds good! Makes me wonder why, when they remixed the audio, they decided to tone it and the earlier Jeffires Tube sequence audio down. The next big question was how did the original optical effects look. They looked fine, lots of grain. And the shots in Charlie X were just ship shots in space. Some had some dust from the optical layers. Wasn't bad, was what I expected. But one sideview shot was in black and white, while the others I saw were in color. Okay, the other test I wanted to try was switching between optical effects and the new CGI effects on the fly. I have a new Sony BDP-550 Blu Ray player. You have a choice to play either version from the menu at the start, so I picked the original version. As the Antares is coming along side the Enterprise, I used the angle button on my remote and nothing happened! So then I popped the menu back up and I was able to switch it by selecting he CGI version from the menu, but this restarts the episode. By the way, you can only change angles when the effects shots appear, not during live action. So I tried it again, played the episode with the original effects. When I can time it right and press the angle button, it will switch, but there's a delay and it switched maybe 1 out of 3 tries, So timing is critical. One time, after it switched, it reverted back to the original optical effects. After messing around a bit, I tried it another way, the instructions in the pop-up menu say you can switch from optical to CGI by either the angle key, or use the camera icon on the pop-up menu. I tried that and it seemed to work. but it was still hit or miss for me. I'm curious what you guys find as you try this feature. For me, it seems you should decide which you want to watch and stick with it! (edit: The optical effects shots are very short too, so by the time you hit the angle key and the player has a chance to reset, it's too late, it's over! Probably why it didn't work for me) I'll be doing a more in depth viewing as this week goes along. For now I wanted to see if the first disc would play since it was floating around in the case when I bought it. You guys will enjoy this if you've never seen the HD-DVD! Star Trek Lives! (I use to write that on the blackboards in high school!) |
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Originally Posted by James_Koch
So guys, is this set awesome?
I ordered it from Best Buy, but instead they sent me the Nickelodeon Emma Roberts flick Hotel for Dogs. I just can't believe they screwed the order up that bad. |
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Originally Posted by Ric Easton
Happy Birthday, Lou! Maybe I'll open up one of the remaining Romulan Ales I got from The ST Experience in Vegas!
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Originally Posted by Lou Sytsma
Oh and while its nice to have the original SFX shots, I'm definitely going to be watching the enhanced versions going forward.
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Originally Posted by nolesrule
What kind of purist are you?
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Originally Posted by Johnny Angell
I am curious, you have prime, correct? Yours was shipped on Monday and you'll get it Tuesday. Mine is shipped on Monday and I'll get on Wednesday and I have prime also. Why the day difference? It's my understanding they don't count the day it ships as on of the 2 days shipping time.
Are you quite close to where they ship from? |
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Originally Posted by Ric Easton
Another BTW... A friend of mine at work just mentioned her kids were getting into Star Trek (collecting the new toys). They had been into Star Wars big time. I told her I had all the episodes, but now I'm wondering what to start them out on. The kids are 8 and 6. The Animated Series? Season 1 from the beginning? Would they be too slow for a kid's attention span? Go right to The Wrath of Khan?
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