How great is the 'Shrek' Transfer... (1 Viewer)

[Scott_MacD]

But don't forget that it still had to undergo a compression process to MPEG-2 in order to make it fit on DVD.

Of course I didn't forget that. Given the running length of the movie, the fact that it's CG animation which compresses well under MPEG-2 schemes, and the amount of space available on the DVD9 I'd be very surprised if there was anything amountable to compression artifacts, even if the compression was not human-assisted.
I just don't regard CG movies on DVD as impressive as a clean, sharp transfer from film which requires some skill to telecine and encode well. CG movies just need to be rendered and bingo, we have a clean "transfer" to encode on the DVD. That's all.

 

[Rob Tomlin]

GREAT video quality!
Boring, poor audio quality. This DVD can only compete with the Toy Story DVD's in terms of video quality, not sound!
Great movie though!

 

[Jeremy Anderson]

I think the audio in Shrek is fantastic. Sure, it's not as aggressive in the surrounds as TS2, but it does have some nice subtle surround usage throughout and a very wide front soundstage. It's a more subtle mix than TS2 for sure, but still an excellent track. I think (and this is just my opinion) that too many people are looking for bombast and constant surround usage, when the point is to keep your focus on the front soundstage and what's happening on-screen. I also think they're two completely different types of movies, and comparing them simply on the merit of them both being CGI is unfair.
But then, I think THE GIFT has the best soundtrack of any DVD in existance, so go figure.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

I didn't think Toy Story 2 had a bombastic soundtrack, just more 3-D and realistic given the world we were placed into. Yes, I find directionalized dialog, when done properly, to be more realistic than totally mono and center channel filled as most movies today are.
Shrek didn't have either high fidelity or much stereo or surround activity and it STOOD OUT when a scene being viewed that had a lot of action going on was pretty dull and lifeless in the audio department.
It also seemed to be recorded at a slightly lower level too.
Dan
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Stop HDCP and 5C-- Your rights are at risk!
[Edited last by Dan Hitchman on November 05, 2001 at 10:50 PM]

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

My God!!
On my Sony VVega, with the 16x9 option engaged,

!! WOW!
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To the men and women of the N.Y. police and fire department
God bless you.
To the victims and their families
God keep you.
To the dirtbags who caused all this
God help you!!!

 

[Sean Oneil]

Scott look at Final Fantasy compared to Shrek and tell me if the MPEG compression is as well done on FF
IMHO the compression job and the transfer in general on Shrek were better than the FF transfer and compression job. Much less breakup and noise, and both were 'direct digital' transfers.
There is still some "skill" needed to create a good 'direct digital' DVD transfer.
But, I agree that a transfer that skips the telecine stage will usually show the benefits of such a process quite clearly.

 

[Craig Robertson]

i, too, found the sound flat and lifeless. i started watching in dts and switched on the fly to dd 5.1 to see if it sounded any better. unfortunately, it did not.

 

[mdean]

I wasn't thrilled with Shrek when I saw it in the theatre, but I thought the DVD experience would be better and I was looking forward to the DD sounds filling my living room.
After 2 more viewings, I concluded that aside from being real eye-candy, for me, Shrek just comes up short.
I was surprised that the audio was flat and unremarkable. I expected more. For me, Toy Story 2 leaves Shrek in the dust in all aspects.

 

[Scott-C]

To me, I thought the picture quality was so fantastic (the best I've seen so far) and I thought the audio was fine. It's certainly not an engaging, aggressive use of multiple channels, but it gets the job done. I couldn't take my eyes off the fantastic picture, which made it easy to overlook the audio side!
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