DVD Review HTF REVIEW: The Little Mermaid - Disappointingly NOT Recommended (1 Viewer)

[Ray Chuang]

By the way, I was at a Best Buy store today and saw the movie played back on a Sony Grand WEGA SXRD KDS-60A2000 60" rear projection TV. TedD's comments was confirmed because I noticed all the underwater sequences looked a bit "soft" on line details but the above water scenes were vastly sharper. On the Sony TV, the color quality of the movie was quite good.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Just to clarify,

the underwater scenes are softer than the above-ground scenes. But even the above-ground scenes look softer than expected on my display (hence why I assume there's something a bit off in this presentation).

If anyone wants to get a feel for what I'm seeing... be sure to watch from the same viewing agle. I sit about 1.6 screen-widths back from my screen, which is an appropriate "theater" proportion for a well mastered DVD (HD lets you get closer).

In other words, so see the image at the same scale that I'm watching on my projector for comparisons sake, if you have a screen that's 3 feet wide, sit exactly 4.8 feet (3 x 1.6) back (the distance of your eyes to the center of the screen) and see what it looks like from there. If your HD display is 5 feet wide, then sit back exactly 8 feet and see what it looks like from there.

Not that this would be a realistic viewing angle you'd do for a feature film with your friends in your own HT with a 30" flat-screen... but it will at least give you an idea of the kinds of problems you can see "wide angle" like with a projector that you won't see "narrow angle" with conventional TV viewing screen-size/distance ratios.

Note! A little distance can make a big difference. Sitting 8 feet back from your 5 foot wide HD display is giving you a 1.6 screen width/distance viewing ratio. That's a reasonable "theater wide" viewing experience. Moving back just 2 to 4 feet will make a big difference in how a bad transfer suddenly looks sharper/clearer because the small details start to fuse together. That's the way many "ok" DVD transfers look... they show problems in wide-angle but look good in narrow-angle for conventional TV viewing.

The best DVDs look good at both viewing angles.

 

[TedD]

David, I am sitting 1.3 screen widths back from my 9' wide screen. Sony Qualia 004 1080 SXRD projector. I still can't agree with your "Not Recommended". Maybe the fact that I am upscaling to 1080 using an HTPC with Theatertek and a high end NVidia video card feeding DVI to the projector makes a difference. I don't know. I do know bad video when I see it, ("Cold Mountain", anyone?) and this isn't bad video. Maybe you have been watching too much HD DVD? I know that I have to mentally recalibrate my video standards after watching any HD DVD.

Ted

 

[Luis Esp]

I too was disappointed, especially with the sound.
Every character sounds congested, and I had to do a double take to see if Flounder's dialogue wasn't rerecorded.

Even Jodi Benson's voice doesn't soar the way it does on the laserdisc. I have the original clv as well as the 1998 cav rerelease.

I was also disappointed with the lower frequencies of the storm and the destruction of Ariel's cavern.

The one thing I was hoping Disney would have included in disc 2, is the Little Mermaid special that aired on the Disney channel with Alyssa Milano. Watching Ariel, it's clear to see that Alyssa was the inspiration behind Ariel's look.

Even the free case that was exclusive to Future Shop was cheesy.

 

[RobBenton]

The image isn't bad but is a bit muted and soft. The sound I as well thought was horrible. They have vocals and instruments coming at you from all speakers without much thought put into it. I enjoyed the home theater mix for aladin and lion king but this is bad. The vocals and instruments sound very over compressed and fuzzy.

 

[Ray Chuang]

One thing I didn't like about the Home Theater Mix on The Lion King was that sometimes the placement of the surround sound elements was just strange compared to the original mix (which is fortunately available on that DVD).

 

[Mike Frezon]

Well, I went back to the disc tonight and took the time to do some A-B comparisons with the original DVD release.

The differences between the two audio mixes are clear. Yet I find it extreme to say the mix is botched. It IS different. And, it IS a shame the original mix wasn't included on the disc. But, I just don't find the lack of fidelity in this recording that David does.

The first major criticism is as follows:


And this is what lead me to my series of questions earlier (questioning my own ears). After I heard the new mix I couldn't understand where David was coming from. And now, after doing my own A-B comparison witht he original DVD, I am still confused. I did very close comparative listenings to the two presentations (my family now officially knows I'm nuts!). After listening to Part of My World, Under the Sea and Poor Unfortunate Soul, I hear absolutely no difference in the reproduction of Jodi Benson's, Samuel E. Wright's or Pat Carroll's vocal performance. At no time did I find the tonal qualities, timbres or the overall performances in the new release to be "flat, dry, brassy, or electronically" impacted in any way. The voices sounded as true and clear as any other recordings of these songs that I have heard.

Again, I know the mixes are different and we are all entitled to how we feel about the DEHT mix. I just don't understand the extreme remarks about the quality of the audio as a whole.

It could be, I'm sure some will say, that my gear isn't sensitive enough to pick up some the nuances described by Dave. But, then again, his criticisms don't take on the feel of a nuanced opinion. I've got to believe that, according to what Dave wrote, even I should hear a dramatic difference in fidelity...and I don't.

My bottom line, I think the use of the terms "botched", "travesty", "morons", and "tone deaf" are extreme to describe the job done to bring the audio on this DVD to its audience. I, too, wish the original mix was included for those who would prefer it. That is always a good practice when re-engineering a sound mix. But I most respectfully disagree with Dave's opinion of the SQ on this release.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

That's my fault. I have been rather busy these past two days
and had forgotten to link David's review on the main page. It
has now been linked.

By the way, I suppose I should announce this here and now
(though I don't want to throw this thread off topic).....

This is David Boulet's final review for HTF. David informed
us weeks ago that he received an offer to write reviews for
another website that we are quite fond of (but will not mention
here at this time).

David will be replaced by a new reviewer, Ben Williams, who
we have faith will do an excellent job in representing Buena Vista
product.

We are very sad to see David go, obviously for the fact that
the quality of his reviews have been recognized across the
Internet. Fortunately, David will remain an active member of
this forum. We wish David the very best success in his future
endeavors!

....now back to discussing the Mermaid release!

 

[JamesTLewis]

Whatever happened to the lovely presentation boxes like The Lion King and Aladdin?

 

[Mike Frezon]

Congrats, Dave! I hope this doesn't mean you won't be weighing in any more around here with your thoughts on various topics. Although I disagree with your opinion on this release, I have always found your reviews to be comprehensive and insightful. Good luck!

 

[narkspud]

In regards to the audio, David is right. All the voice tracks sound like they've been heavily denoised and EQ'd. They sound wooden, distant, like all the life has been squeezed out of them. There most definitely is a "spread" to them . . . not sure what exactly they did, but it's there. If you have a way to sum your system to mono, try doing it to this mix of Mermaid. If it had been mixed properly, the voices in the center track wouldn't be affected. On this mix, strange things happen to the few high frequencies that they have left.

Reverb, echo and digital delay has been applied in excess and clumsily. When Ariel is singing "Part of Your World," there's this electronic reverb all over her voice that's supposed to make her sound like she's inside the underwater grotto. Not too difficult a trick to pull off for a competent audio guy, but here it just sounds like they've run her voice through a digital reverb unit set on one of its presets. Seems strange to say about a cartoon about a mermaid, but the illusion of reality is destroyed by the clumsy application of the technology.

By contrast, the music and effects are bright, busy, and way, way upfront. They, too, have had the snot no-noised out of them, causing them to sound cold and lifeless, but they've also been EQd much brighter. The result is that they just don't "hang' with the voice tracks. It sounds like you're listening to two different recordings played at the same time rather than a cohesive mix.

I was never crazy about the CD soundtrack of this flick -- don't care for the heavily reverb'd "broadway cast album" sound they went for -- but it is obvious from both the CD and the previous home video issues that the Mermaid soundtrack was recorded much better than this mess would indicate. The voices had punch, life, and high frequencies. The effects were subtle and complemented the mix rather than drawing attention to themselves. That's what I wanted, and expected, from this DVD.

There were a couple of points in the review I wasn't sure I agreed with in reference to the video -- specifically, I think some of the artifact criticisms may have been caused by artifacts of the cel animation process as it was practiced at the time (like the sketchy outlines from the Xerox process, or the flickering brush strokes in Ariel's hair). But you're right, it does look dark and fuzzy, and I notice the film grain has been heavily filtered as well. I was lucky enough to see the DLP digitally projected version a few weeks ago at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood. Looked fabulous. Razor-sharp, great color, no artifacts anywhere, and that was from my seat way too close to the screen. Unless this is a completely different transfer, the blame lies in the encoding.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Eric,

THANK YOU for hearing what I'm hearing. Your description is EXACTLY like what I'm experiencing... in sharp contast to the 5.1 mix on the original DVD and LD 5.1/2.0!

 

[Brendon]

Thanks for all the reviews David! It was pretty much your in depth, passionate reviews of Bambi, Cinderella and Lady & The Tramp that caused me to go out and buy those discs despite never having seen the films themselves. My film viewing self has been enriched as a result.

Keep up the standard of writing, depth of understanding and passion in your future reviews: they've been greatly valued here at HTF.

Cheers!

 

[RomanSohor]

your reviews were always my favorites here at HTF DaVid

From a huge Disney dweeb to another, I tip my Mickey Ears to you.

 

[MatthewA]

I am definitely sorry to see you go. Hopefully you will continue to post on HTF and provide insights.

 

[BrettB]

Congrats David, thanks for all the hard work here at HTF and good luck in your new endeavors.

 

[Dustin James]

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[David Ruiz]

I don't know about you guys, but I have Infinity IL-60 speakers all around and unfortunately, I heard exactly what DaVid described in his review.

I wrote a friend a long e-mail about how terrible this new DVD looked and sounded.

The biggest complaint I have about the new sound mix is that it does sound very electronically filtered. It's "clean" but it's "too" clean. They sucked all of the life out of the vocals and this is especially apparent when Ariel is singing. "Part Of Your World" sounds ridiculously bad. It's just as DaVid described: Flat (very, very flat), Lifeless, filtered, and even brassy, like a low-quality MP3.

I hated the sound with a passion. It was dull and lifeless and the worst part about it is that I don't even have the original mix to compare it with. I've never owned any release of the Little Mermaid before now, so I've never heard it any other way, but I can definitely tell how terrible it sounds, compared to other movies that sound truly remarkable on my speaker system.

As for the video, although I have the Z4 projecting an image of 127" (16:9), I have only watched this movie on my Mits 65" widescreen HDTV and I noticed all kinds of very distracting blocks and other noisy artifacts on this DVD, not all the time, but they were definitely there. For instance, during "Part of Your World," the picture (on that TV) is quite clean and I didn't notice anything really distracting during that song (aside from the terrible sound quality, of course), but almost as soon as the song is over and the movie continues, I noticed horrible blocks and other anomolies in the animation for Sebastien. It was horrible and really took me out of the film.

Like I said though, I haven't watched the DVD projected, so I have no idea how it looks on the "big" screen, but at 65" (sitting 8 feet away), it looked horrible at times and "fine" during some scenes (like Part of Your World).

But if it looked that bad at 65 inches, I can just imagine how much worse it's going to look at 127 inches. I'm scared to even try it!

 

[Robert Crawford]

Wow, some disagreement about the quality of a dvd presentation which is kind of rare around here.





Crawdaddy

 

[DaViD Boulet]

And that's what makes these threads at HTF so colorful. I'm always impressed with the way folks manage to express their (different) opinions in these review threads while maintaining respect for everyone else's point of view.