DVD Review HTF REVIEW: Finding Nemo (TOTALLY RECOMMENDED) (1 Viewer)

[Aaryn Chan]

Since it was originally in 1.85 in theatres, did they opened up 9 pixels or did they chops the sides..?

 

[Jeremy Allin]

Finding Nemo comes in a "normal" plastic snap case (ala Columbia Tristar pictures) that's the same size/shape of a normal single-disc case. It's got a flip-out hinged holder for the extra disc.

That's correct. That's a double-amaray case.

The double-alpha cases are the older-style cases like the original 2-disc release of Independence Day and The Abyss came in.

 

[Adam_Reiter]

Nice to see Disney is so flush with cash they can afford the postage and packing on four separate mailings to send what could have been mailed in one shot. Any stockholders reading this? Those are your dividends fleeing your wallet and heading for the Post Office.

Malcom, why you gotta be fartin' in David's review thread?! Sheesh!

I for one, thought that is was just about the coolest thing I have heard of when David phoned me about it. Very cool of Disney to have fun with Nemo's release.

David, as always, your reviews are the best. I hear you about the 2 diskers..... man, sometimes I get so tired of typing, I could just scream!

 

[Malcolm R]

I don't recall saying anything was wrong with the review. As usual, David has given us fantastic detail, description, and analysis.

I was simply commenting on the wastefulness of the packaging considering how Disney is whining and crying at every opportunity these days how their revenues are down, then they do something like this.

 

[Rob Tomlin]

This is definitely one of my most anticipated DVD releases of the year!

DD EX! Cool!

Thanks for yet another excellent review Dave!

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Nice to see Disney is so flush with cash they can afford the postage and packing on four separate mailings to send what could have been mailed in one shot. Any stockholders reading this? Those are your dividends fleeing your wallet and heading for the Post Office.

It's called "publicity". Reviewers get scores of DVDs all the time, so the studio wanted to make sure we took special notice of this one. The actual cost was clearly pretty minimal; I doubt it set them back more than it'd have cost them to run one ad in a newspaper, and I'm sure it got reviewers to take notice.

Sometimes ya gotta spend money to make it, ya know? And this was actually a very cheap attempt at such. Cripes, MGM sent out full home haircutting kits to publicize Barbershop - I'd estimate those suckers sell for $50 bucks each in stores. Wanna complain to their shareholders too?

 

[Paul_Scott]

that little bit actually makes Disney seem...gasp...cool?!
i wasn't really anticipating this as much as the Bogeys this week, but the review (and the anecdote) did change my mind.

 

[Rob Dwyer]

Any possibility of seeing some scans of all that cool stuff Disney sent you?

(especially the letters )

 

[Runar_R]

The only negative comment I have about the "Finding Nemo" dvd, is that the guys at Pixar has TOO MUCH FUN! I mean, my job sucks pretty bad on a good day. It doesn't help to see the Pixar-guys having water-fights etc to cheer people up during "tough times". Come on guys, do what the rest of us do: Get drunk.....

Other than that my main comment is: Wow, that's pretty.
(Guess I wouldn't be much good as a reviewer...)

Great review David.
Has anyone managed to find any easter-eggs yet?

 

[Bjoern Roy]

David,

great review! I would also give the audio a 5/5, great bass extention, very detailed yet smooth. Love it.

The compression issues you mention are of course an even bigger issue on my setup than on yours, its really a shame they didn't make disc one a widescreen movie only disc with high bitrate and put all the extras on disc 2 (throwing away the P&S transfer, or bringing out a seperate release with it).

The scenes that show the banding or the mosquito noise, i wouldn't rate better than 4/5, but they aren't as bad as those on the Lion King release. Luckily, there are many scenes that compensate for these problems, yielding breath taking images, for example the outside scenes in the Sydney harbor. So on average, i would agree with something like a 4.5 or even 4.75 rating in the PQ department.

We will see if the PAL release will improve on the compression issues, since as far as i know, these WILL have the movie only on disc one and extras on disc two.

Kudos to Disney for the lovely 'Dory' packaging games they played with you. Just hilarious!

Regards
Bjoern

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Bjoern,

Naturally your eyes/system are the reference to which I aspire to aim towards. Saddened to hear that the MPEG noise is indeed visible on your system, but at the same time happy to hear some validation that my reveiw is reasonably accurate (bizarre that Lion King seemed less MPEGy on my system but more so on yours. I defer to your display system's resolving capabilities have no doubt!).

Curious...what did you think of the softening of the image that I mention? Was the image sharp/detailed to your eyes? Or did it vary scene by scene the way that MPEG noise seemed to? Did you see this projected theatrically or is this your first experience with Nemo? Can't wait to hear how the R2 PAL version stacks up.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Saddened to hear that the MPEG noise is indeed visible on your system, but at the same time happy to hear some validation that my reveiw is reasonably accurate (bizarre that Lion King seemed less MPEGy on my system but more so on yours. I defer to your display system's resolving capabilities have no doubt!).

The Lion King is definitely overcompressed. The transfer is definitely reference-quality, but the compression is definitely not reference quality.

To quote myself:

"The disc is not quite reference or Superbit quality. There is enough mosquito noise to disqualify it from that level of quality. The bitrate is somewhat low for an animated title, this is likely due to including two versions of the film and having three 5.1 tracks.

The typical viewer isn't going to notice this unless they have a 70-100" screen (or greater). Viewers that are very discerning of digital artifacts may notice the noise on smaller sets."

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...39#post1829139

FWIW, the noise was quite apparent on my 53" ISF-calibrated set.

Looking at 'Monsters Inc', 'Beauty and the Beast', 'TLK', and now 'Finding Nemo', I just can't help but be disappointed at how Disney is handling many of their multi-disc sets of their blockbuster films. All but Nemo insist on including multiple versions of the film on one disc. I was hoping for a change with Nemo. Animated films do require lots of bits to avoid noise, it sure would be nice to start seeing sets where disc one contains just one version of the feature, and in OAR, with no extras.

 

[Peter Kline]

David,

The image (on film) in the theatre varied from very sharp: i.e. the barrier reef where the family lived and the dentist' office, to the deep ocean where the image was full of "dirt" and other debris and had limited "visibilty" at times. All of this to replicate the way the ocean really is.

Peter

 

[Jeremy Allin]

I agree. It really is too bad we can't just have a version that is OAR-only with no special features on the first disc. :frowning:

Although The Lion King is amazing, I noticed a great deal of mosquito noise during fast-motion scenes or objects. BTW, I watched it on a 47" Panny (user and service level calibrations performed). Granted, someone who was not used to looking for these kinds of things probably wouldn't have noticed anything, but it did distract me a fair amount.

I'm disappointed to hear that Finding Nemo shares this problem to a degree. I'm still looking forward to it though.

 

[Christian Preischl]

Regarding the audio/visual commentary:

All of these shorts are 4x3 encoded 1.33:1 and so if you don’t have a DVD player that can auto-adjust aspect ratio like my Panny or a display that will do the same, you might have to manually switch viewing modes on your display if you care to keep things properly proportioned

I'm watching this right now, my TV has auto-switching capability but it doesn't have to switch. It's true that all the clips ar 4:3, but they're still 16:9 encoded, so the TV stays in 16:9 mode. I don't get why they did it that way since many of the clips (mainly storyboards) are widescreen, resulting in black bars not only on the sides but also on top and bottom, but at least there's no switching.

(I bet it's actually encoded with P&S on the fly, so the clips probably will fill the screen on a 4:3 TV if the player's set to 4:3, but I haven't checked).

Chris

 

[PS Nystrom]

Best... review... ever. Seriously. It was entertaining and informative throughout. That's a pretty big feat when you know going in that the movie is awesome and feel 99% sure the DVD will rock. Bravo and thanks,

Pieter

 

[Christian Behrens]

I thought the marketing stunt was pretty cool and made me laugh out loud. Oh, and one final word: MINE!

 

[Joe6pack99]

ya i am pickin this up Tues morning at BB!

 

[BruceKimmel]

I just finished watching this DVD. I read the comments here and I just sit and scratch my head. I consider myself pretty sophisticated, I have a wonderful 55" Mitsubishi TV, a top of the line progressive scan player, blah blah blah and I will go out on a limb here and say this is one of the best-looking DVDs every made. You can chatter and nitpick all you like - there is NO softness anywhere, I see no "banding" in fact, I don't know what you people are going on about. Then, I look at things you all consider to be reference and I scratch my head at that, too.

If this isn't one of the great DVDs then give me this "lesser" quality every time. And that, folks, is a recommendation.

 

[ChrisBEA]

Can't wait to pick this up!
Just have to decide which "freebie" I want.
BestBuy: CD wallet
Circuit City: Mouse pad
Media Play: Bruce's Aussie Dictionary and a goldfish(!)