A Few Words About A few words about...™ King Kong -- in HD-DVD (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

When Universal Home Video crosses their "T"s, dots their "I"s and gets everything right, the resultant discs may have equal, but cannot be bettered.

There is an inherent level of quality in every format that is perceived by the public and industry professionals alike as "Reference," and most of the studios reach it eventually.

So far we've seen Reference Quality on a handful of HD-DVDs.

Phantom of the Opera, Unforgiven, Van Helsing, Sleepy Hollow, Sky Captain, Batman Begins and "good night and good luck" come to mind on the short list.

Now we have another.

Universal's King Kong is frame perfect.

At over three hours, the addition of uncompressed audio may have lessened image quality, and is not a part of the package, but that image quality is not only stunningly perfect, but will withstand viewing at a mere three feet from a projection screen surface.

Overall resolution, color, shadow detail and black levels are all at theatrical quality, making Kong an absolute winner. So much so that many prospective buyers of HD may be forced to jump on the bandwagon.

King Kong is a sight to behold -- a perfect HD-DVD, and an extraordinary addition to one's home video library.

Amazing!

King Kong from Universal comes Extremely Highly Recommended and receives the RAH seal of approval.

RAH

 

[Paul_Scott]

I have this pre-ordered and am looking forward to seeing a few select scenes again on a 1080p display.

This is about as close as I'll come to owning a video game I suspect, as my finger will be working the chapter skip button quite vigorously I think.

 

[andy wells]

I got it early today (can't say where) but it is QUITE stunning. Well worth the purchase. Paul.. just curious. Wouldn't you be better of renting the movie, if you didn't like it enough to sit through it again? Just curious.

 

[Paul_Scott]

While I was dissapointed in many of the narrative elements, I did enjoy the production design, and there are sequences that I do look forward to seeing again. I'll use the disc as snack food. If I don't have time to watch a full feature, or if I just want a little before or after feature kick, I'll pop a few scenes of this in and marvel at the craft and the HD imagery.
I'm hoping it will be nice to have for that aspect, though I do dislike the idea of purchasing content now soley for demo purposes.

That's the reason I'm torn about pre-ordering Superman Returns, another film I greatly disliked as a story, but would love to have for repeated access to a few isolated moments here and there.

 

[Ron-P]

Does it have TrueHD?

 

[andy wells]

Nope. DD plus.

 

[Paul Arnette]

Does the HD DVD have the same 'watermarking' issues the SD DVD had?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:H...g_Kong_DVD.jpg

 

[Craig S]

Sounds like this was a great choice for Microsoft to bundle with their HD-DVD addon for the XBox 360.

Now if Amazon would just ship mine... :frowning:

 

[AaronSCH]

KONG IS KING! I just finished watching this unbelievable disc about 5 minutes ago. Though initially I wasn't a huge fan of Peter Jackson's take on this cinematic classic, my affection has grown since its arrival on DVD. When I got my sweaty hands on a copy earlier this evening I expected 'big things' (no pun intended) but I didn't think it was possible for HD DVD to be taken up a notch from what I have already witnessed. This HD DVD presentation has the WOW factor that will have your friend's jaws dropping. It's just perfect.

 

[Steve Tannehill]

Agreed. I've seen the DVD upconverted to 1080i, and this blows it away with increased resolution and clarity.

This was a great way to break in my freshly ISF-tweaked set.

- Steve

 

[Ron-P]

Bummer. Some say that Universals DD+ is a higher bitrate over Warners DD+ and was told that Universal says it's equal to that of TrueHD.

Great movie but I own the SD so I'll skip a double-dip on this one.

 

[George Cifrancis]

I got a free copy of King Kong with my XBOX 360 HD-DVD drive I picked up yesterday. I have my XBOX 360 hooked up to my 60" Sony SXRD (R60XBR1) and the movie looks fantastic! I haven't had a chance to watch the whole thing yet, but from what I have seen it looks great. For those with XBOX 360's, the HD-DVD is a pretty good deal. It is $200 and comes with a remote and a copy of Kong on HD-DVD.

 

[dpippel]

DD+ is lossy compressed and TrueHD is lossless. A huge distinction.

 

[Steve Tannehill]

However, for those who saw the movie theatrically in Dolby Digital, there little if any distinction.

This is a tired rehash of the silly DD vs. DTS debate of DVD days gone by.

- Steve

 

[dpippel]

I don't think so Steve. Dolby TrueHD and DTS-MA represent the first time that lossless multichannel audio for film soundtracks has ever been available on DVD. Besides, I wasn't saying that I thought the exclusion of TrueHD on Kong was a big deal. I was merely pointing out that there is a big difference between lossless audio and lossy audio. It's more important to some than it is to others, but a lot of Blu-ray/HD-DVD early adopters are just as excited about the inclusion of high-res audio as they are about the video improvements.

 

[Jesper]

Can't wait for this title..

Thank you for the reviews Robert Harris!

 

[Ron-P]

It's important to me, I want both HD video and audio.

 

[Greg Conti]

Like I didn't already want this movie before!!! Really can't wait to get this now.

 

[Ron-P]

One other reason I'm holding off is the EE cut coming later. Rumors are there is one and knowing Jacksons track record we'll get one, I'd rather not have to tripple-dip for Kong.

 

[AaronSCH]

Ron, get rid of that SD version on Ebay and pick this sucker up. You won't be sorry even if they get around to releasing the extended cut on HD DVD. Personally, I think even the theatrical version needed to be tightened up a bit. I suspect the extended edition will feel excruciatingly long. I predict this one is gonna be hard-to-find right around Christmas