Star Wars Ep. III CD Soundtrack + bonus DVD! (1 Viewer)

[KeithY]

What do you expect for a bonus disc from a $12CD?

 

[Brandon_S]

On my Denon 2200 (a fairly decent DVD machine...or so I think ) the bonus DVD drops from "Film" to "Video" mode all the way through the disc. Now I guess this could be my DVD player, but I am more inclined to think it is related to how the disc was mastered (improperly flagged?). On my 55 inch Mitsu I can definately see what looks like interlacing errors during fast paced scenes.

Other than this technical issue, the DVD is a great addition to an already great soundtrack. Really looking forward to this movie!

 

[Dave Mack]

The DVD is not encoded progressively. There are no flags. My player, (a flag reading JVC) tells you the mode the DVD is flagged for when in AUTO mode. This DVD is in VIDEO mode, NOT in FILM mode, meaning no 3/2 pulldown. This is not an issue of incorrect flagging like the early Buffy season DVD sets. This DVD just doesn't have the progressive (FILM) flag. I can force my player into FILM mode, but then there is severe combing. ALL the SW films on DVD are flagged for FILM, meaning encoded for progressive, or whatever terminology you want to use. This disc isn't. The PQ while hardly bad, does not look as good as the SW films. That's all Craig means I believe. Some Progressive scan DVD players have less than great VIDEO modes, so on these players, the disc won't look as good as the SW flicks.

Peace. d

 

[Eric F]

That's why some of us have Faroudja based DVD players.
Mine is a $50 Sharp and it seems to handle encoding problems pretty well.

 

[Vader]

No problems here on a Denon DVD-1600 in progressive.....

 

[GlennH]

I have a Panasonic RP-91 DVD player, set to progressive mode, and a Pioneer Elite 610 HDTV (58"). The Panny has a Genesis chip, not Faroudja. I noticed several instances of combing artifacts (little flashes of horizontal lines) while watching this DVD. This makes sense if it's encoded as video instead of film.

I may get better results if I set the player output to interlaced and let the Elite do the de-interlacing. That works better for me on certain animation (like The Simpsons) where I see combing in progressive mode.

It would have been nice if they used exactly the same video as on the movies, but I'm not really complaining. It's a very nice extra for a soundtrack CD.

 

[Vader]

I see combing on both The Simpsons and MacGyver in interlaced mode unless I tell my Mitsu the incoming signal is 'video' (I think it modulates the scan rate or something to account for the 30fpd/24fps difference)... obviously, YMMV.

As for "Star Wars: A Musical Journey", I was(am) extremely pleased with both the video (progressive) and audio. I have not listened to the soundtrack itself yet, but I would have had no problem buying this disc by itself.....

 

[Tim-H.]

Hey Ernest, that's airbrushed on my leisure van, so don't knock it! Actually that stood out to me too, didn't quite look like a Rodis-Jamero costume sketch.

 

[CraigL]

Dave,

Thanks for the explanation. That's exactly what I'm talking about. I just feel a bit like I'm watching one of my OT bootlegs sometimes. I watched a bit of it again last night. It still is great. The quality just isn't totally there on the picture side.

Glenn,

I tried it with my Panasonic DVD recorder and got the same results.

 

[Dave Mack]

With the Faroudja chip, the pic. will certainly look great, but it's NOT going to be displayed in FILM mode, it will be in VIDEO mode. Meaning no 3/2 pulldown, so it's not really progressive, I believe. The Faroudja has the HDMI adapting thingamabob which will make the pic. look good but if you lock your player into FILM mode, you will see combs. It makes sense since this was probably edited on 30fps video as opposed to the 24fps HD the last 2 flicks were shot in. Put simply, there is NO flag for progressive. My player is flag based and in AUTO mode, (meaning the disc supplies the information to the player re: what mode...) the DVD stays in VIDEO mode throughout. In AUTO mode all the other SW DVDs are automatically displayed in FILM mode.
Once again, I don't think this is a case of the disc being misflagged for FILM, it just appears that there are no flags. but what do I know......



d

 

[Sam Favate]

Many of those images in the videos come from Topps' Star Wars Galaxy collections from the '90s. I found their inclusion in the videos a little cheesy and not in keeping with the mood of the piece.

 

[CraigL]

Dave,

Awesome explanation! Thanks!

It's helping me to understand why my Malata reads some things as Interlaced and some as Progressive.

Unfortunately, it doesn't help the PQ on this disc. I'm beginning to think that with the 1 hour running time, plus the DD track plus the PCM track, they had to sacrifice PQ.

 

[Dave Mack]

Craig, the malata and the JVC share the same chip, I believe, (Mediamatics..?) with the same modes.

 

[greg_t]

Your player is still going to output a progressive signal, it just uses video mode deinterlacing instead of film mode deinterlacing. Film mode is preferrable as you maintain full resolution. Video mode you lose resolution. A good deinterlacer will have a motion adaptive video mode, and the Faroudja's have the DCDI which only works in video mode deinterlacing to smooth out jaggies that can occur due to loss of resolution in video mode. So regardless of if you're using film or video mode deinterlacing, the end result is still a progressive signal sent to the display.

 

[Dave Mack]

I understand that. I just mean that you're going to have 2 fields slapped together that are not 1 image. They are 2 distinct fields and the mediamatics chip uses vertical filtering to soften the image. I know it's progressive, but it's not the same as 3/2 pulldown and for those of us who don't have Faroudja based players, it won't look as good. That's all. From DVD Benchmark.....
Vertical Filtering

This is a technique used by most software PC DVD players, as well as many of the single-chip MPEG decoder/deinterlacer combos like Cirrus Logic, LSI, and Mediamatics. Because software decoders generally don’t have enough horsepower to do motion-adaptive deinterlacing and MPEG-2 decoding at the same time, the players use shortcut techniques to get reasonable-looking results. Most commonly, they weave together pairs of fields that are stored together as MPEG frames, and soften the image slightly in the vertical direction so any combs that result will look more like double images than combs. This causes loss of vertical resolution and bizarre-looking jitter on movement and pans. Once you notice it, it can become difficult to watch. Static areas of the image also look much softer than they need to, and the overall effect is watchable, but not great.

So That's what I'm trying to say, sort of...

d

 

[greg_t]

Correct.

 

[todd s]

Watching the music videos. It is amazing how well they aged Padme, Obi(Ewan) and even Anakin (from ATOC & ROTS) through the movies.

 

[Travis Hedger]

So how does one claim their 'bonus' track from Wal-Mart?

I have no info in the cd case, the liner or on the packing slip.

 

[Anthony R]

While I have never cared for Natalie's acting in the PT, she does do a good job adopting the demeanor of a younger naive girl in TPM, especially as Padme on Tatooine. It struck me in the video how there is a contrast when compared to AOTC, which I didn't really notice before.

 

[Harold Wazzu]

Honestly guys, I was listening to the cd last night and found myself enjoying the dvd more than the cd. Anyone else feel this way? Anyone else even listen to the cd yet???