Columbia's T3: Rise of the Machines (DTS edition from Hong Kong) (1 Viewer)

[Chris Xolotl]

Thanks Jay. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Many if not all of us here that buy a lot of asian DVDs from Universe already know about the poor qa/qc they have on their discs. This seemed to have started when they bought new machines a while back and still haven't fixed that problem. Take note of "Twins Effect" as the latest DVD that had botched batches. I've had problems with newer pressings of their older catalog stuff.

 

[Chris Xolotl]

I've truly found that "crap" players (Apex, Daewoo) tend to play defective or dodgy discs much better than the "premium" player (Sony, Toshiba etc). YMMV

 

[Mark-C]

My crappy cheap budget Wharfdale play's all the disc's my expensive Denon struggles and freezes with.

 

[DeanWalsh]

15 titles or not, I have about the same amount of Anchor Bay titles and have encountered numerous problems with those in the past. To write off the entire catalog is unfair to the company.

 

[Jay Mitchosky]

To write off the entire catalog is unfair to the company.

Absolutely agree. As it is to write off everybody's equipment. But your point is valid when framed in that manner.

 

[Brett C]

Well like it or hate it, what Dean said was his opinon,maybe not illustrated in the most tactful way, but it wasn't any less constructive than the post preceding it. And regardless if 15 titles is enough to warrant saying their entire catalogue is fine or not, its still more objective proof than anyone else cared to submit on this topic. Maybe their own inhouse encoding is dubious on the Chinese titles and on the very few imports where they've done the transfer themselves,but as its been stated,in most cases the releases of the American films are just straight ports of the R1 transfer,(supplied) with a DTS track supplied by the International Distributor,(what this topic started on). A perfect example being Driven, it was released outside of the US by Franchise pictures and if you look at most of the DTS titles they've done of the US films(Universe and laser co), they are films made by that company,(Franchise).They supplied Roadshow in R4 with a DTS track as well, I guess by this logic its a fake as well...

 

[Roger Mathus]

Yesterday I watched the Hong Kong R3 release of T3 from Columbia Tristar and the dts track was indeed impressive. Try Chapters 12 and 24/25.

I also have "Hero" and to me that is one of the best sound encodings I have experienced (dts track).

I also have had the same experience with Universe releases with regard to poor sound.

In general I have found Korean releases of excellent quality. Also most of the early Japan releases of USA movies that included dts used full bitrate.

 

[Harminder]

I posted this same message on the R1 board, thought I'd put it in this thread too:

I got my Region 3 version of T3 in the mail on Thursday and I watched it in both Dolby and DTS and let me say, both are great tracks.

BUT, the DTS has the edge over the Dolby. Although both tracks hit you right in your chest with the boom, the DTS track's sound direction is much better and focused. I found the Dolby track to be a little "going-all-over-the-place" in terms of its direction.
I also find the surrounds to be used a bit more in the DTS track, to get you really into the feel of actually being right there in the middle of the action.
Also, the DTS track is louder, so make sure your windows are closed... "trust me." The DTS track is worth the price of the DVD alone.

I hope this helps some of you people who are torn between what region to get. But in my opinion, I say to get the international, Columbia-Tristar releases, cause you'll have the best of both worlds, DTS and Dolby. If you prefer one or the other after watching the movie in both formats, at least you won't regret not buying the DTS version to check it out for yourself.

It will also send out a message to Warner Bros. that their low quality Dolby and lack of high quality DTS options on their DVD's won't cut it anymore. And if we can find an better alternative, we don't mind going through the depths of the internet to find it.

The video transfer was near flawless with only minor colour variation here and there, other then that, absolutely beautiful video transfer.

I really liked this movie and enjoy the DVD even more. I just ordered the region 2 version of The Terminator: UE from Japan with the DTS track and I'll post a review on it when I get it.

Thank you for reading

 

[Runar_R]

I just got my copy of the R-3 T3. When I was about to add it to my dvd-profiler, I noticed that it missed a bar-code. Anyone else experienced this?

 

[CharlieC]

Mine does not have the barcode either... So I used the UPC for R1 instead.