List of most impressive audio demo material to open a movie on physical media? (1 Viewer)

[YANG]

one of the demo material during DVD prime period... Ridley Scott's GLADIATOR. who could forget that in many AudioVisual Consumer tech shows, the battle between the Romans and the Germanians soundtrack is chaotic with effects and bass in the beginning?
now available in 4K, though without Atmos track, you could try Auro3D virtualization with the DTS-X track if you own a Auro3D virtualization capable receiver.

 

[YANG]

in the beginning of Den of Thieves, the robbery on cash delivery truck, is a worthy homage to HEAT of sound design, in terms of street shootout that breaks the silence of the night, with resonance and echos. the movie begins with a shootout, ends with a traffic jam shootout as well with bass and directional effects due to chaos.

 

[YANG]

I've always a pretty big fan of the use of The Doors' The End in Apocalypse Now. While not as bombastic as some other scenes that come to mind from a demonstration standpoint, I like the layering of both the audio and visual elements of the opening scene. Great way to begin this feature.

- Walter.

back in LaserDisc time, the matrix surround track of Apocalypse Now almost blew off the woofer of my PolkAudio S6 fronts.
Demo-worthy material kicks in roughly 30minutes into the film.

 

[JohnRice]

How could I forget... I mean... REALLY!

The opening of The Greatest Showman.

And La La Land.

If you want some musicals.

 

[jim_falconer]

back in LaserDisc time, the matrix surround track of Apocalypse Now almost blew off the woofer of my PolkAudio S6 fronts.
Demo-worthy material kicks in roughly 30minutes into the film.

Agreed! I forgot about that LD being demo worthy. The helicopter attack while playing Ride of the Valkyries was audio nirvana!

 

[Stephen_J_H]

This list is incomplete without a mention of Dredd [2012]. The 7.1 DTS:HD MA track, which was optimised for Neo:X is a major barnstormer from the get go, especially in the sequences showing Slo-Mo intoxication, which come right out of the gate and throughout the film. When decoded with a current pre-pro or receiver, the bass is incredible and the soundstage is massively wide.

 

[Carlo_M]

Appreciate the most recent adds, but a few fall outside of the "to start the film" that I had asked for. There are no shortage of good demo materials that one can search and skip into a movie. The point of this list was in the first post.

The rules: I'm looking for the most impressive audio material to start a movie. No chapter skips. No searching.

Reasoning: I know sometimes we enjoy showing off our HTs to new acquaintances and friends. Often they come over and we're on our way out to somewhere (dinner, party, etc.) but they see the setup and want to see/hear it. With modern BDs and UHDs, long gone are the "just put the disc and the movie plays"...we are subjected to non-skippable trailers, warnings, menus, etc. After you get through the minute or so of that, I don't want to go hunting deep into a movie to get to the awesome action scene somewhere in the middle of the movie to show off the system. So I realized I have a few go-to movies where, within the first few minutes of the movie from it's start, it shows off the system to the uninitiated.

 

[YANG]

oooh... the game really gets toughen up on rules!
i like this!!! movies that starts with WHAM and BAM!!!

time to look thru my 200+ titles...

 

[Lord Dalek]

Ok besides Jurassic Park which I already listed (gotta love the LFE bang after the the Universal logo fades out)...

The Terminator (yes that remix the purists hate)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Independence Day
Fight Club
ANY Star Wars movie

 

[sbjork]

Jurassic Park.

The DTS laserdisc for that was my absolute go-to demo disc back in the day, both for the immersion of the crashing branches around the viewer, and the reverberations of the raptor's snorts inside the cage. Plus, when that low rhythmic thumping note from the John Williams score kicked in, it sounded thunderously deep. I've owned the movie on every other home video format since then, but it's never had the same kick to the bass in those moments. Something was boosted on the laserdisc, but I'm not complaining.

 

[YANG]

it probably got to do with DTS bitrate in laserdisc.
if you can recall... there isn't much DVDs with full bitrate of 1.5K available then. Jurrasic Park as well as the subsequent 2 sequels are those early releases.

 

[sbjork]

it probably got to do with DTS bitrate in laserdisc.
if you can recall... there isn't much DVDs with full bitrate of 1.5K available then. Jurrasic Park as well as the subsequent 2 sequels are those early releases.

It wasn't the bit rate. That affects the overall sound quality, but not the nature of the mix. There's long been a debate over whether the level of the subs and/or the surrounds were boosted on some DTS laserdiscs.

 

[Vincent_P]

I believe the DTS Laserdiscs (and AC3 LDs as well) were essentially just direct ports of the "far field" theatrical sound mixes optimized for large theatrical venues, whereas later DVD versions and beyond were possibly "near field" remixes optimized for smaller home theater rooms.

Vincent

 

[Lord Dalek]

Its possible the JP DTS Laserdisc was also including the Low Pass crossover from the original compact discs (ICYDK DTS discs were actually five track and used crossover to extract low frequency from the rear left and right channels) into the LFE channel instead of just a dedicated .1.

Either way the DTS-X on the UHD is still pretty deep when the Jurassic Park title card appears.

 

[YANG]

this review was made some years back in another forum, claimed that the DTS track across all formats... are the same.
"I'm happy to report that soundtracks on the new Blu-ray set of Jurassic Park and The Lost World are from the same masters that were used to make the theatrical DTS-6 discs and the original DTS encoded LaserDisc's......."

Jurassic Park Blu-ray & Original Audio

I thought I'd post this for those QQ Forum members who are into movie surround just as much as music surround. I'm happy to report that soundtracks on the new Blu-ray set of Jurassic Park and The Lost World are from the same masters that were used to make the theatrical DTS-6 discs and the...

www.quadraphonicquad.com

 

[Lord Dalek]

^What he probably means is its an upmix from the original six-track mag that the DTS was mastered from. Just a reminder, the greater majority of digital filmtracks in the 90s were mixed analog and only mastered to digital.

 

[Ashly Yeo]

Most impressive demo audio material to start a movie for me would have to be the opening bombing scene of  Unbroken in Dolby Atmos.

 

[Jeffrey D]

The opening of The Road Warrior- starts off with the shrunken video screen, and limited sound, then the screen opens up, along with the audio being fired up, while you see the asphalt come at you. Cool way to start off this post-apocalyptic nightmare.

 

[Vincent_P]

The opening of The Road Warrior- starts off with the shrunken video screen, and limited sound, then the screen opens up, along with the audio being fired up, while you see the asphalt come at you. Cool way to start off this post-apocalyptic nightmare.

Similar to how the original SUPERMAN opens, with the drawn curtains and the 1.33:1 black & white image, then the camera pans up and into the clouds and the titles "whoosh" over the audience with that stirring John William's music. In fact, I'll go ahead and put the opening scenes of SUPERMAN- especially as presented via the original 5.1 70mm track on the UHD- onto this list.

Vincent

 

[Lord Dalek]

Meh. Even though it sounds a lot better than the godawful 2.0 on the dvd and blu-rays of Superman, the vintage 5.1 is still a bit lacking in dynamics and clarity at least to my ears.