2005 War of the Worlds 11/22 (1 Viewer)

[George_W_K]

Tony, please, more details on this. Nice blend of LFE and surround activity? Clarity of dialogue? A lot of LFE use?

Thanks,
Geo

 

[Harold Wazzu]

Just wish they would offer another great bonus disc like "The Field of Dreams" disc, now that was worth it.

I expect Best Buy and/or Circuit City to offer some kind of bonus disc as well.

 

[Travis Brashear]

Has there ever been a case of two retailers offering two different exclusive bonus discs for a title before? I don't recall one...

 

[Seppo]

Short review:
http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6282383.html

No word on audio nor pq but the extras get a good praise.

 

[TonyD]

in a word geo, YES!!

all of the above was great.
the scene that stands out for me is when the tripods start to destroy the overpass behind cruise's house.

thunderous sounds from everywere and i think the missinng sound e/x and lfe from Sith is right here.

 

[Ben J Loews]

Hey there guys, my first post here in the HTF.

TonyD, can you comment on the quality of the transfer?

What bitrate is it running etc?

Do you have the "2 disk edition" or the "single disk" release?

Cheers.

 

[Tino]

Welcome to the HTF Ben!

Best Buy will be offering an exclusive "book" with War Of THe Worlds.

 

[Ben J Loews]

Cheers Tino.

I am really looking forward to this DVD release, and am curious to know what the video transfer is like.

This was (for me) along with Sin City, one of the most enjoyable films of the year.

Mind you, WOTW wasn't without its faults, but I still enjoyed it.

 

[George_W_K]

Be careful, comments like that lead to 30 pages of Star Wars diehards defending the sound mix!

Thanks for the reply on the sound. I'm also curious on how the video looks?

Welcome Ben! This also is one of my favorites, even with the faults.

 

[Joe Wong]

I don't remember how it looked or sounded when I saw it in the cinema, but here is my (and therefore my opinion only) short summary of audio and video for the 1-disc DVD...(I forgot there was a 2-discer as well...I hope the transfer is exactly the same as I don't have much time for extras in any case - I would be annoyed if the 2-disc version sports better audio and/or video)

Video: a little grainy, kinda washed out like Minority Report, if not quite as cold (maybe it was Spielberg's stylistic choice, but when's he going to get back to colourful action films?)

Audio: holy cr*p! Pardon my French...hang on to your hats (and walls)... the bass on this DVD is enormous...very loud, yes, and most likely overcooked...but the way it rippled through my Buttkicker'd recliners was like nothing I had experienced before...I almost felt like I was riding a wave at times! The lightning storm and first appearance of the tripods is intense and electrifying...full marks for the sound design.

Cheers,

Joe

 

[TonyD]

joe good desctription of the video, this is how i remembered it to be when i saw it earlier this year.

dvd is a good representation of what it looked like on the big screen.

 

[Joe Wong]

Tony,

did you get the 1-disc as well? Now I'm in a little bit of a quandary...I'm a Spielberg fan, and would preferably have gotten the 2-disc (if I had only remembered there was one, but the store didn't have it yet so I assumed the 1-disc was it)...even though I don't find I have enough time for extras these days (it's the collector in me that thinks maybe in 10-20 years' time, I could sit down and watch these extras )

WotW is good but not one of Spielberg's greats (IMO), but there's so little of him talking about his craft that having the extras may be good...

Maybe I could wait for the inevitable HD version on Blu-ray/HD-DVD...hopefully with even more extras...

Hmmm...what to do?

Cheers,

Joe

 

[Ben J Loews]

I don't suppose they have produced 2 different transfers to take into account the additional space on the "2 disk edition" (from not having the featurette)?

This is one thing that really bugs me about DTS DVD releases totally crammed with languages. Surely the market is such now that studios could release DTS disks with just a DD2.0 track instead of 2 or 3 DD5.1 tracks to save space?

 

[Joe Wong]

Ben,

that would annoy me to no end if the transfer on the 2-disc is better.

Joe

 

[TonyD]

i only watched the 1 disc version.
but i'm sure that the only difference is the addition of the extra disc.
i think both movie discs on each is identical.

 

[Niko Nykanen]

Screenshots from the DVD:




Check out the blooming in the background:



Ummm.. that´s NOT the way it looked at the cinemas.. What´s going on here? :frowning:

 

[Cory S.]

It's quite washed out. Spielberg loves the washed out look but it wasn't to that extent in the theatres likes these screenshots seem to show. Interesting...

 

[TravisR]

Just to play devil's advocate, how many times can you have seen the movie to remember exactly how it looked in the theater? I'd imagine that most people saw this once or twice about 4 months ago. Or how do you know that the prints were the 'correct' look that Speilberg wanted.

It seems like every DVD that comes out now has people worried about what it looks before seeing it.

 

[Niko Nykanen]

Yeah, I´m not worried about the washed out look. It´s the excessive blooming that wasn´t there in the theaters that bothers me..

Well, it was the best suimmer movie IMO and I work as a projectonist so.. I was scenes from it a few times.. It did Not look like that.

 

[Robert Anthony]

Yeah, I would have noticed blooming like that. I really hope that's not what the disc looks like when I get it. Not to sound dick, but I hope you got a defective one man. if they ALL are that blown out, to the point where it's blooming more than a hothouse garden, I don't know if I'll be able to watch it. It almost looks like a hackjob soap-opera daydream scene right there.

And as far as audio comments go, I loved the sound mix in this theater, but so far, the only in-depth comment on the soundmix was SOLELY about bass, and that's it. It's pretty much all anyone is arguing in the Sith thread, too, not just star wars diehards. Not that anyone needs reminding, but BASS is not the be-all, end-all of a sound mix. Overcooked bass is never a positive. Accurate bass--that's positive. Helps add to the clarity and transparency a reference mix should have.