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

Michael St. Clair

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 3, 1999
Messages
6,001
Bruce,

It's not a matter of being sophisticated or not, some people just don't notice artifacts that some of us do, especially in realtime.

We've been through this many times before. And it's not a putdown, we just aren't all the same. I for one am thankful that HTF welcomes reviews that are more critical than the average viewer would care about.

Tons of people, including many DVD reviewers and numerous HTF members, don't even notice artifacts as bad as Link Removed in realtime. The more subtle artifacts of other recent 2-disc Disney releases will be noticed by even fewer people...

If you don't see 'em, count yourself lucky. :)
 

Aaryn Chan

Supporting Actor
Joined
Jul 5, 2002
Messages
511
1.77 and 1.33 aren't much of a difference. Why didn't they just let the tiny blar backs in, it would'nt kill anyone to have those. I understand 2.35 bars are much hard to accept, but 1.77.. they're thin like papers.

We coul've had a great transfer in exchange of paperthin blar backs.
 

Bjoern Roy

Second Unit
Joined
Oct 15, 1998
Messages
315
Aaryn,

while i agree with you that the P&S crowd should be 'made' (hehe) to tolerate the black bars on releases like these, i think that your TV has a tremendous amount of overscan, if you call 1.77 black bars 'paperthin'!

Bjoern
 

BruceKimmel

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Jun 9, 2003
Messages
165
Actually, aside from enjoying the movies I watch (the good ones anyway) I am critical - I have had issues with many DVDs - they just aren't the same as other's issues. I don't happen to think, for example, that the new Warners Looney Tunes set is the second coming. But the Nemo disc is simply spectacular. I've been going to the movies since I was four years old (way back before most on this board were born) - I went four or five times a week during the summers, and certainly twice a week minimally when school was on. I have been in the film industry since 1970 - I've watched a LOT of movies and I think I'm fairly competent when it comes to judging images. I simply do not see what anyone is talking about re Nemo. It makes me wonder if people are going through these DVDs frame by frame looking for things. First, one would have to ask WHY and then second one would have to ask WHY. Watching the film in real time (as opposed to realtime or whatever that is) these things are simply not visible to my eye. I went back and looked for them again, and they are still not visible to my eye. I'm not talking about The Lion King or any other disc, I am specifically talking about Finding Nemo, which I think looks better than both Toy Story DVDs and just about any other DVD in my collection, including the handful of Superbit titles I have.
 

DaViD Boulet

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Feb 24, 1999
Messages
8,826
Hey Bruce,

Apparently other people saw lots more MPEG noise on Lion King than I saw...so we're all in the same boat...sometimes we see problems with DVDs and sometimes we don't.

Regarding this title, I agree it looks great ... definitely a "demo disc" to be sure. But I'm curious...check out that one particular scene I'm talking about...the one where they see the "light" in the deep-see darkness. On your system, you don't see any "bands" circling the light? Very interesting (I saw the same effect on two different systems and so did dvdfile...but if you don't see it that's very interesting...what DVD player are you using??).

Oh...and naturally when we review the goal is to put the DVD throught the paces and give it a critical eye. Yep...I freeze-frame, step through frames one at a time, and watch the video at normal speed from 3, 2, and 1 screen-width viewing distance to really get a feel for the digital encoding. I figure that if I can give folks a reasonably accurate idea what it looks like under these most critical conditions, then everyone can extrapolate to his/her own situation. But rest assured I'm telling you what I honestly see...and certainly the "banding" I saw in that one scene was obvious to me from 3 screen-widths back under "normal" viewing conditions (didn't have to "try" to see it).

In any case, your reaction to this DVD is exactly why I said the following:

Ok, to put this in perspective I just spent a long time talking about some very minor image quality flaws. Most of you will get this disc and say “WOW! It’s breathtaking...what the heck was he complaining about?” Honestly, that’s what I’d say if I had read my own comments first and then saw the disc (on either system...direct-view or projection). So take heart Nemo fans...the image on this disc *is* breathtaking to be sure. You know me...just got to be thorough so that the most critical viewing conditions (to the best of my ability) are reflected in my review.
 

JohnSterling

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Oct 17, 2002
Messages
130
Aside from the human factor reguarding the video critisisms, don't forget the equipment. I've purchased 6 DVD players in 2003, and currently am using 4 around the house. I can promise you that I can play Lion King or TFE Superbit in any of the four, and they'll all look different from one another.

BTW...nice review. Can't wait until Tuesday.
 

Tony Whalen

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2002
Messages
3,150
Real Name
Tony Whalen
Great review! I'll be pickin' this up tomorrow! :D

Just gotta ad that I think the PR folks at Disney are brilliant... the way the review-copy was sent to you was priceless. Not to mention Dory actually answering the phone. Bravo. :D
 

Gary Rhine

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Mar 7, 2000
Messages
64
Amazing how different (better) the soundtrack sounds on my friend’s Lexicon processor/amp/7.1 system than on my own “decent” 5.1 system. I thought it sounded "great" on my system...but on my buddy's system it sounds *supurb*.
Not amazing at all to those of us who have been enjoying Lexicon's Logic-7 for years.
 

DaViD Boulet

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Feb 24, 1999
Messages
8,826
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,

Very interesting thought. It had never occured to me that these might actually be 16x9 encoded 1.33:1 clips (with the pillarboxing bars hard-coded into the 16x9 frame...possibly with a P/S flag allowing 4x3 TVs to display full-screen). Are you 100% certain that this is the case?

Since my progressive-DVD player automatically scales all 4x3 material to a 16x9 frame (with pillarboxing) I can't easily test.

If anyone out there can verify one way or the other let me know and I'll update my review. If the Pixar folks really have 16x9-encoded these 1.33:1 video clips to keep aspect ratio constant while "branching" the video commentary then certainly they deserve some kudos and I should alter my review to reflect that (I'm loaning the disc to my friend Matt who has the Sony 10HT right now and next time I stop by his place we'll do some more indepth testing of these clips).
 
Joined
Oct 30, 2003
Messages
23
Great review!

However - am I the only one who hated this movie? Dory was just so dammed annoying it just ruined it for me. I wanted to punch the screen. What a voice - I couldn't imagine ever sitting through that again! :angry:
 

DonRoeber

Screenwriter
Joined
Feb 11, 2001
Messages
1,849
I was watching Nemo on my laptop this morning, which usually has pretty good colors. Did anyone notice that Marlin "glows" a bit when he's in the open sea. He's an orange fish, and often has an orange aura around him. I've only watched up to the
jellyfish scene

so I don't know if this continues, but I thought it was strange. I don't remember if the theatrical version was like this or not.
 

DaViD Boulet

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Feb 24, 1999
Messages
8,826
Don,

Watch the extras about the animation. The animators tried very hard to give the fish the translucent "back lighting" like they have in real-life when sunlight is behind them.

It's part of the great artistry of this movie and the DVD does a great job capturing this effect.

-dave :)
 

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