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A few words about...™ (1980) Fame -- in Blu-ray

post #1 of 11
1/13/10 at 7:06pm
Thread Starter 
With the people of Haiti suffering from one of the worst disasters in modern history, the concept of how clean, crisp, or proper the image and audio of a Blu-ray disc look and sound is rather like discussing a flea with a migraine attached to the tail of an elephant.

My condolences and sympathies go out to all those affected.

Nonetheless, we fill up space.

The original Fame, Alan Parker's brilliant visualization of young people who never have to ask the question, "why do you dance..." or sing or play an instrument.  As in The Red Shoes, the retort would be "why do you breathe?"

There is so much dynamism in Fame, as the characters search for what they will be tomorrow, that the film rings totally true today. After three decades, Fame is a film that has stood the test of time.  

Warner Bros. gives us Fame in a gorgeous, film-like Blu-ray, which is fully representative of the film.  My only problem, and it's very minor, is that the audio seems weaker than I recall, but I may not be remembering it correctly.  As 70mm blow-ups were produced at the time, I would presume that there was a 6-track mag, and that the mag would have a bit more guts than what I'm hearing.

Not that the audio is a problem.  It isn't.  But in a typical situation, I play back modern films at around -12 to -14 db via my system. In order to get Fame to sound reasonably full, I had to go closer to -2, and could have gone higher.

Fame is a wonderful film about youth and all that one has to look forward to.  As I noted, it works today as it did in 1980, and could probably even do well in re-issue.  For those who have never experienced it, you're in for a treat.

Highly Recommended.

RAH

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Gear mentioned in this thread:

Fame (1980) [Blu-ray]
post #2 of 11
1/13/10 at 8:40pm
I thought this might be on the new, terrible film of the same name.

Didn't even know the first one was on blu now.
maybe someone could add a year or something in the header to indicate what version of Fame we have here.
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post #3 of 11
1/14/10 at 4:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by TonyD View Post

I thought this might be on the new, terrible film of the same name.

Didn't even know the first one was on blu now.
maybe someone could add a year or something in the header to indicate what version of Fame we have here.
 
Tony,

What made the remake so terrible, as I was thinking of buying it for a birthday gift for my niece?
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post #4 of 11
1/14/10 at 8:28am
Robert I thought it was a bore. None of the excitement and "magic" of the first. I like every episode of Glee more. I'm 45 now so maybe it just didn't click for me. It might work better for Teenager.
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post #5 of 11
1/14/10 at 8:37am
Blindly bought it, glad to read your thoughts on it Robert. Hopefully get to spin it tonight.
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post #6 of 11
1/14/10 at 9:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ron-P View Post

Blindly bought it, glad to read your thoughts on it Robert. Hopefully get to spin it tonight.
Is this another Warner Best Buy exclusive or did you blindly buy the remake.

The original isn't out until the 26th. 

The updated artwork may confuse things.
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post #7 of 11
1/14/10 at 10:55pm
I bought the remake, and we just watched the theatrical run, fantastic film, very well done, very well acted, some great music and talent. We all really enjoyed it and are looking forward to watching the EE.
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post #8 of 11
1/15/10 at 3:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Harris View Post

With the people of Haiti suffering from one of the worst disasters in modern history, the concept of how clean, crisp, or proper the image and audio of a Blu-ray disc look and sound is rather like discussing a flea with a migraine attached to the tail of an elephant.

My condolences and sympathies go out to all those affected.

 

Nonetheless, we fill up space.

...

Not that the audio is a problem.  It isn't.  But in a typical situation, I play back modern films at around -12 to -14 db via my system. In order to get Fame to sound reasonably full, I had to go closer to -2, and could have gone higher.

 


Aye, it's tragic what's happened down in Haiti.  Hope everyone who can lend a helping hand (however small) will do so...

RE: the audio, it seems to be a developing trend w/ Warner releases that use Dolby TrueHD, no?  I also typically found Warner DVDs to require an extra boost too in the past (though maybe not to quite the same degree as their Dolby TrueHD BDs).  Might be an issue w/ the use of dial norm perhaps?

Anyway, glad to hear this is a quality release (beyond that audio issue).  I've been looking forward to this one myself.

Thanks, RAH.

Peace...

_Man_
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post #9 of 11
1/15/10 at 4:01pm
Yup, I find Warner TrueHD tracks going "way" back need 10-16dB boost (over others' TrueHD) to get my normal listening level. I do have ALL compression turned off too, plus associated flagging disabled, so it's not ME.
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post #10 of 11
1/17/10 at 4:02pm
The SD DVD was darn near perfect, so I was expecting good things from this one.  Glad to hear it does not disappoint.

Regards,
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post #11 of 11
1/21/10 at 8:37am
I watched the review copy last night. I think the audio issue, such as it is, results from the nature of the soundtrack. There's a wide gap between the musical numbers and the "production" soundtrack, with the latter playing at a much higher volume. In mixing for the home environment, I suspect the sound engineers were concerned about blowing people out of their seats whenever a song kicked in.

The soundtrack has always been a little anemic in the non-musical sections (although I never saw it in 70mm). I believe, though I'm not certain, that they used a lot of production sound, with all of its flaws. And this was still the analog era.

One annoyance: This is the rare Warner title that's been encoded with BD-Java. This means that, unlike most Warner titles, you can't stop playback and resume from the same point. Well, if you're going to author the disc with Java, at least take the trouble to include basic functions like chapter marks (which is a poor substitute for "resume playback", but still better than nothing) or go to main menu (see any disc from Sony, Fox or Paramount to learn how it's done). Do it right or don't do it at all.

And why, one may ask, was BD-Java encoding employed? So that the Blu-ray could replicate a single special feature from the DVD: a PIP commentary that wasn't all so special to begin with.

Other than this annoyance, which is admittedly minor, the disc is exemplary.
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Fame (1980) [Blu-ray]