Sneak Peak: Chicago on Blu-ray, PHENOMENAL... the reference disc of the year (1 Viewer)

I'm still recovering from the shock.

24-bit LPCM 5.1 lossless. That's right. 24 bit.

AVC-compressed 1080p video that sometimes peaked at over 40 mbps!!! That's like running MPEG2 at 80 mbps.

The level of image and sound quality of this disc is unreal. It VASTLY outperforms the 35mm print I saw projected theatrically in NYC when the film was first released. The 1080p sourced from the IP actually results in an image superior to the "mass duped" 35mm print quality of the theatrical prints in this case.

There is so much detail, the image is so sharp and 3-dimensional, it will blow your mind. While you listen to 24-bit lossless, of course.

Hmm, rental for sure. Man I wish I liked the film better.

Sadly, I too, am not crazy about this film. But I only have HD DVD anyway, so I can't experience this new, amazing experience you've had, David.

Ok people,

let's not turn this into thread into fart contest to throw passive-aggressive darts at either the film Chicago or the Blu-ray format.

Should be obvious that this thread is germane to:

1. Those who love the film Chicago (or who at least would be interested in watching it)

and

2. Those who already have BD playback or are considering acquiring it.


Thanks for your cooperation...

Thanks, Dave!
Sounds awesome. We have it in our netflix queue. A fave of my fiancee.

d

Sorry, David, no...er, farting, intended.



P.S. Even though I only own HD DVD, I actually take no sides on this "war." If BD is the only way to get certain things I love, I'm sure I'll respond to it, in time. But currently, I can't even hear the lossless audio formats, since I don't have HDMI.

I agree. This is a great looking and sounding disc. I spent a crapload of money upgrading to a Pioneer Elite receiver that could output 7.1 PCM, but it's titles like this that make it worth it.

About my only complaints are the picture does get very grainy at times(although that's likely due to the source material), and there are a few extras not ported over from the 2-disc set. With a 50 GB disc, there's no excuse for that.

Let's hope the release of Chicago gets Fox to bring Moulin Rouge out on Blu-ray.

You most certainly can hear lossless quality without HDMI. You just have two choices:

1. go analog from your player into your receiver (if equipped).
2. Downmix the 5.1 lossless to 2.0 lossless and go 2.0 over regular digital.

Believe it or not, even option 2 sounds INCREDIBLE. I've preferred every lossless title in my system in 2.0 (played back via ProLogic) so far over the max-bit-rate Dolby 5.1 option. PCM sounds so much more natural. It's the glory-days of laserdisc my friend!

dave

That's interesting. I was actually wondering about that...

When I choose "Bitstream" on the Toshiba player, when playing an HD DVD, I get no sound at all. Nada. I'm connected over a digital co-axial cable to my Boston Acoustics surround sound set up (it's not a receiver).

When I change the setting to "PCM," I get a lovely soundtrack. On this board, I've been told that this is simply 2.0, but to take advantage of the best audio quality from the disks, I'd need HDMI, but my plasma doesn't have HDMI or the equivalent and I can't upgrade my monitor for a long time).

But the sound is still good, using PCM. I'm glad to have that confirmed by you, David.

Oh! The funny thing I forgot to mention is...

When I choose PCM, I actually hear sound from the surround speakers. Plus, the dialogue seems to be coming solely from the center speaker. Isn't it just 2.0? Is this all just an illusion? I seem to be getting full surround sound.

Yep.

When you choose PCM, your HD DVD player decodes the lossless audio to LPCM internally. At that point it's 5.1. If you had HDMI you'd get the 5.1 LPCM directly into your recevier.

But selecting LPCM output your player knows that SPDIF only is allowed to handle 2-channel uncompressed audio, so it downmixes the 5.1 LPCM on-the-fly into 2.0 for your regular digital coax.

The compromise in this case is one of losing a discrete surround presentation, but you're still getting "lossless" audio quality.

Given that the 2.0 LPCM tracks on laserdisc, played in ProLogic, sound SO MUCH BETTER in most cases than the 5.1 lossy tracks on DVD, it's not hard to imagine that the 2.0 downmixed PCM tracks from HD DVD and BD could sound better than the lossy multi-channel mixes.

And so far with every BD with LPCM that I've tested, it's been the case that the 2.0 downmixed LPCM signal beats the lossy 5.1 track... every time!

Nuance, naturalness, musical timbre. It's all there. Even Dolby Plus sound "flat" and harsh by comparison. Don't let those Warner Brothers guys convince anyone that Dolby Plus is "good enough" for most movies. Even an old mono optical-recording sounds better in LOSSLESS than it does in Dolby Plus.



dave


You can run HDMI for audio and stay with component analog for your video (or just use HDMI for video and not for audio... either way). You don't have to upgrade to HDMI for both audio and video at the same time.

Personally I'm already running HDMI for my video and I'm waiting for HDMI 1.3 to upgrade my surround processor for my audio. Then I'll upgrade to a new 1080p projector with HDMI 1.3 as well so I can run deep color to my display to eliminate all color banding.

Just so I understand...

Chicago, Monster House, etc.
PS3 set to PCM over optical
receiver gets uncompressed, lossless 2.0 downmix
set receiver to Pro-Logic
enjoy

Is that about right?

Sounds right to me.

I've been considering an HD-A2 since they are very cheap on Amazon right now. I'll have to compare the PCM vs. bitstream on the optical output with some Dolby True-HD titles. My receiver is an older model without HDMI, but it'll be interesting to compare a 2.0 PCM track against a 5.1 DTS re-encode from lossless audio.

Two more quick questions. The Toshiba also has an internal setting, "5.1 or 2.0." Should I change this to 2.0? Does it matter?

And you're saying I CAN upgrade my sound system, without having to upgrade my monitor. Are you sure about this? Because I could take advantage of the HDMI audio capabilities this way, which might be nice. I'm using the Toshiba to play all my HD DVDs as well as DVDs, and I'm constantly having to change the audio settings back and forth from Bitstream to PCM, etc.

Unfortunately, I can't upgrade to a nice receiver without getting all new speakers as well, since my system is all-in-one.

I did not know this! So this is pretty much the equivalent of listening to an uncompressed Dolby Pro-Logic laserdisc?

Very Cool!

David,

Is this the first 24-bit LPCM 5.1 lossless BD out?
Do you know of any others?

Paul

My BR copy of CHICAGO shipped yesterday from Amazon, so I'm hoping to have it at the latest by Saturday. I cannot wait as I think the movie is a great one, a vastly underrated one to be honest despite its awards.

Mine showed up last week, it is stellar.

Tonight it's Babel on HD DVD or Blu-ray... need to pick one!

- Steve

Why are you suprised when you lay on the hyperbole so thick.

Because this forum should operate at a higher level than that.

- Steve