PHE Press Release: Braveheart * Gladiator * Forrest Gump (Sapphire Series Blu-ray) - Page 3

Re: PHE Press Release: Braveheart * Gladiator * Forrest Gump (Sapphire Series Blu-ray

I don't think you really want to continue to be offensive, do you, oh "infallible one"? I'm glad that you and your friends will continue to enjoy Blu-Ray classics from the years 1990 and forward. Not my favorite decades for film, but, you know, each to their own. I will look forward to classics and great films from the decades prior to 1990 because frankly not much subsequent to 1990 interests me.

Gladiator on 09/01

Oops!

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

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.

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

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

Re: PHE Press Release: Braveheart * Gladiator * Forrest Gump (Sapphire Series Blu-ray

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

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

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.

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

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...).

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

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.

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

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

Re: PHE Press Release: Braveheart * Gladiator * Forrest Gump (Sapphire Series Blu-ray

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Re: PHE Press Release: Braveheart * Gladiator * Forrest Gump (Sapphire Series Blu-ray

Good one Charles!

Thanks for your efforts

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

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

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

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Roughly my feelings as well. It was the first "tortured main character" film Gibson made. Sort of like he invented a personal gift for it.

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

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

It's not an unusual reaction with a 5.1 mix that's front-anchored with relatively light use of the surrounds. In comparison, a 2.0 track decoded through ProLogic sends a lot more sound to the rear channels simply because of the "bleed" phenomenon. Switch to the discrete mix, and suddenly the surrounds go quiet in scenes where you're used to hearing something from them.

As for the other issues, I'm not even going there.

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

Wrong year. It was Gump that took 6 oscars while Shawshank went home empty handed. Braveheart beat out the following for Best Picture: Il Postino, Apollo 13, Babe, and Sense & Sensibility. Now I love Braveheart (one of my favorite films), so I'm a bit biased, but I think for almost everyone looking at the nominees that year it's easy to see how it won. (Full list of Oscar noms for films of 1995 (1996 awards) here: IMDb: Academy Awards, USA: 1996 )

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

I'm a little surprised at the number of negative comments here. I think these are all solid commercial films, and I have enjoyed rewatching each over the years. I personally wouldn't have named any of them Best Picture (For me, it would have been Pulp Fiction over Gump, Apollo 13 over Braveheart, and Almost Famous over Gladiator, and yes I know Almost Famous wasn't nominated but it should have been), but I think in general they were all worthy of the accolades they received.

These look like quality SEs, and they should draw a lot of attention to the format this holiday season, along with other high-profile titles like the LotR trilogy. Blu NEEDS releases like these if the format is to continue to grow.

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

I'm sure your technical explanation is quite correct. However, I never once felt that the sound field on the Laserdisc was compromised by 'inappropriate' sound effects emanating from the rear channels. Indeed, during the battle sequence and particularly the church choir scene, it was like you were in the middle of the scene.
In any event, I'm looking forward to the "Forrest Gump" release as well as the release of another Zemeckis favorite of mine, "Contact."

Re: PHE Press Release: Braveheart * Gladiator * Forrest Gump (Sapphire Series Blu-ray

Do you mean Braveheart? Actually, "tortured main character" films had been Gibson's stock in trade for years before Braveheart. Prior to Braveheart, he had played "tortured" characters such as his suicidal Lethal Weapon character, Zefferelli's Hamlet and Fletcher Christian ("I am in HELL!!!") in The Bounty.

I almost skipped Braveheart in 1995 because I was so tired of the Gibson neurotic/intense/tortured thing. I'm glad I did see it because I still admire the film.

______________________________________

Saw Forrest Gump once. Found it pointless. Well acted, but I do not need to see it again.

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

Note that I did not use the terms "inappropriate", "compromised" or similar language. Nor would I, since Gump was also released to theaters in Dolby Surround (1994 being relatively early in the deployment of discrete digital systems).

I was simply trying to explain why your comparison of the LD PCM 2.0 track to the DVD's 5.1 track is apples-to-oranges. Don't overlook that I also suggested how you could recreate the LD's sound from the DVD.

Re: PHE Press Release: Braveheart * Gladiator * Forrest Gump (Sapphire Series Blu-ray

Hell, Mad Max is as "tortured" a character as they come.

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

Agreed.

But in fact, I was referring to characters physically being tortured. Heavily and shortly before their execution as well. (Like hanged, drawn and quartered. Or flogged.)


Cees