The Two Towers - What Do You Think About the DVD Quality

Smurfin - you said
Definately NOT demo material? Completely disagree with you there, it's a sublime sound mix
so what would you suggest as a particular scene to use as a demo ? I find it hard to pick such a scene(s) from TTT but actually think TTT is a better film (?)
Paul ;)
 
Originally posted by PaulBoy
Smurfin - you said so what would you suggest as a particular scene to use as a demo ?
Paul ;)

Read this
 
Two Towers has great sound but just didnt do as much for me as Fellowship did, i dunno about anyone else but in a home environment i love discrete surround effects constantly doing things around my head some would say overcooked, In this regard Fellowship had the better sound mix.

A comparison would be Star Wars Phantom Menace and Star Wars Attack of The Clones, for me Phantom Menace had the better sound mix, Clones constantly had everything going on in the rear speakers but Phantom had more defined split surround moments that stay in the memory and were more enjoyable to listen to, i feel the same way about Fellowship and Two Towers.

I love huge overblown sound mixes, my favourite is the DTS version of The Haunting.

So in summing it all up, all of the above films have great sound and very good picture quality but i prefer Fellowships DTS track and i also thought Fellowship the better film.
 
Smurfin ... I have revisited your excellent review as you suggested and was pleased to read the following in respect of the sound on TTT ...
But for all the “demo” moments of ground-shaking bass and sweeping, dynamic effects, perhaps the most impressive element of this soundtrack is the subtle layering, for always there are new sounds to hear, many of which will likely go un-noticed as you’ll be swept up in the story. This is no bad thing, however, as many of the effects are really there to enhance the immersiveness and don’t draw your attention to them
... something along the lines of what I was "trying" to say I believe? ...
TTT audio-wise (& possibly video-wise - I doubt I can fully appreciate the video on a 32" CRT) is not as "in yer face" as FOTR nor does it IMO use the DTS-ES as well as FOTR ... FOTR is still No1 DVD for me with TTT a close second ... Paul ;)
 
StooMonster, thanks for this cool review!:).
He makes a very convincing point with his examples.
Look forward to his TTT review
Julia
 
Bear in mind Bjoern is using state of the art equipment and ur average viewer with their 28inch and 32 inch widescreen televisions will NOT see edge enhancement.

I find most reviewers who bring up edge enhancement have very large screens and for ur average viewer its never ever noticed.
 
Average standard definition crt televisions can't display the full resolution that's on a dvd, granted. But who says we're average, we're enthusiasts! There's quite a few people using high definition screens such as plasmas and projectors. It doesn't have to be really large to appreciate a good picture, even those watching dvd's on computer screens can see edge enhancement etc.
 
ur Average GOOD 28 or 32 inch television CAN display the full resolution offered by DVD, u still won't notice edge enhancement on those sizes of TV, its the large displays and projection systems where u begin to notice defects, bottom line is DVD is like a photo, blow it up too big and ur notice defects.
 
Have you ever seen DVD resolution test patterns on an average TV (i'm talking about resolution in the anologue sense of being able to display alternate black & white lines as fine as possible)? Most of the ones i've seen blur the lines much before the limit of dvd's resolution is reached. Try connecting a computer to a television to see what I mean.
 
Merry Xmas lets not argue (( id like a state of the art projection system for xmas and a 6.1 Amp and ohhhh one of those subwoofers where i can feeeel the bass and not just hear it ))
 
My point is that I want the dvd's I buy to look good even on the TV's of tomorrow - flat panels with HD resolution will be "the average tv" eventually, and I care about picture quality no matter what the size of the screen. Merry Xmas mate, I hope santa delivers!
 
Nowt wrong with my R3 Hong Kong version. Came with the same mighty packaging as the R1 and the sound/image quality is the same if not better, than the R1 of Fellowship that I have.
 
I actually prefer the DD mix on TTT EE over the DTS mix. I very rarely prefer DD over DTS but suprisingly this is one of the exceptions. I found the steering to be better, sharper effects and the bass was definately a notch above - not only louder but tighter with much more impact.

Obviously going nuts. :)
 
missed this thread..... when discussing with a friend, we concluded to being suspicious of the black levels of the R2 release (havent seen any others).

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Nowt wrong with the black levels AFAICS (as far as I can see!)
 
the black bars seem at higher IRE, we have (without really takgin time to measure) guessed that it has maybe gotten some ntsc black level on it..... no big deal i guess, given few are going to be calibrated for both formats, i guess it woud be masked to most people.

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Originally posted by cybersoga
Have you ever seen DVD resolution test patterns on an average TV (i'm talking about resolution in the anologue sense of being able to display alternate black & white lines as fine as possible)? Most of the ones i've seen blur the lines much before the limit of dvd's resolution is reached. Try connecting a computer to a television to see what I mean.
Definately, what FoxyMulder is saying is that he doesn't have sufficient quality of kit to tell which version has highest picture quality. ;)

I can see Edge Enhancement as clear as day on both my 50" plasma screen and my 17" LCD television; can even see Sky digital's EE on the 17" if I look closely. Can also see it with DVD playback on laptop or desktop's CRT. All these displays are progressive, perhaps it's less noticeable on interlaced displays?

EE is usually applied (sometimes heavily) to NTSC DVDs because of the lower vertical resolution; it can be a factor in a purchase decision for me.

Buns: I have my plasma ISF Calibrated for all inputs/formats and it looks fine to me; easy way to check IRE of horizontal black bars is switch your screen into 4:3 format and see if they are at the same intensity as the screen's pillar box vertical bars. :)

StooMonster
 
No what i'm saying is i KNOW my television can resolve the full PAL bandwith of 560+ lines and i think some people throw edge enhancement up far too often, same thing happens on the american forum sites, for ur average person edge enhancement isnt a major concern, bigger the screen more concerned u will be, don't presume my television can't resolve great detail and put words in my mouth... thks
 
Originally posted by StooMonster
Buns: I have my plasma ISF Calibrated for all inputs/formats and it looks fine to me; easy way to check IRE of horizontal black bars is switch your screen into 4:3 format and see if they are at the same intensity as the screen's pillar box vertical bars. :)

StooMonster

thats what im saying.... it looks high..... actually it measures high :D Of course my detector is inaccurate down here, but still looks a tag more grey than it should be. Now worries if no one else agrees!

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Julia asked about image quality in R1 tFotR versus tTT, specifically...

Originally posted by Julia
It seems to me that the image is clearer and sharper in the Fellowship extended edition DVD ...
I suggested that the reason tTT is not as "sharp" is that it has less Edge Enhancement than R1 tFotR, on which there is notoriously a great deal.

Originally posted by StooMonster
Perhaps there is less Edge Enhancement on the R1 tTT than there is on tFotR?

The only person making any kind of presumption here is FoxyMulder, how do you know that Julia's equipment does not show edge enhancement?

Originally posted by FoxyMulder
Bear in mind Bjoern is using state of the art equipment ...
I find most reviewers who bring up edge enhancement have very large screens and for ur average viewer its never ever noticed.
Bjoern Roy is just screen dumping from PC output, hardly state of the art equipment. If you read my post above, you would've seen the part where I said I can see EE on my 17" (seventeen inch) LCD television, also on my laptop's 15" (fifteen inch) screen neither of which I would describe as "large screens".

Originally posted by FoxyMulder
No what i'm saying is i KNOW my television can resolve the full PAL bandwith of 560+ lines ...
and ur average viewer with their 28inch and 32 inch widescreen televisions will NOT see edge enhancement ...
for ur average person edge enhancement isnt a major concern, bigger the screen more concerned u will be,
Your "average person" doesn't buy region 1 DVDs for use on their 28" widescreen television.

However, to see if you were right and it's not so visible on the kind of display you describe, I got out R1 "Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition" and went to the eight-year-old 28" Sony CRT widescreen and six-year-old Marantz DVD player in StooMonster Jnr's playroom and fired up the disk -- also bearing in mind that I know that this screen resolves the entire PAL bandwidth, I know because in the past I've counted the rasters and the pixels. :rolleyes:

Bjoern Roy demonstrates R1 "Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition" too, and no wonder! I chose "Theatrical version" and randomly skipped to scene 10 where a police car pulls up, check out the police logo because it's got a halo, skipped to scene 12 and Sarah Conner is looking at a monitor on the left hand side of the screen that has a bigger halo than the Arch Angel Gabriel.

Didn't bother checking anymore because randomly skipping and viewing EE was everywhere, as Bjoern Roys says "Another striking example of how a transfer should not look like". If I took digital photos of the 28" CRT interlaced 50Hz television they would look not dissimilar to the T2:UE screenshots on Bjoern pages.

Originally posted by FoxyMulder
and i think some people throw edge enhancement up far too often, same thing happens on the american forum sites ...
don't presume my television can't resolve great detail and put words in my mouth... thks
Well there's either something wrong with your eyes, or your television; have you considered that this may be why so many people complain about EE on R1 discs both in reviews and on American forums sites but you don't see it?

Did put as ;) to be friendly and show I was joshing last time.

StooMonster
EDIT: added 28" test
 
Originally posted by buns
thats what im saying.... it looks high..... actually it measures high :D Of course my detector is inaccurate down here, but still looks a tag more grey than it should be. Now worries if no one else agrees!

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Where did you get the detector from?

StooMonster (eyes new bit of kit)
 
Perhaps edge enhancement doesnt bother me the way it bothers u as u probably are the type who pops a disc in and LOOKS for it, anyone who looks for faults will find them, hey wheres my smiley face i musta misplaced it oh well never mind, ur up on a pedestal above us mere mortals and there u can stay.
 
detector is a colorfacts detector, actually it is a tristimulus detector primarily for measuring RGB to calibrate greyscale, but it does do measurements like this. However, once you factor in the cost of the software its not cheap. If you just want to measure light output you can buy stadalone detectors (which will be more accurate at measuring low light levels i believe, but not do the RGB thing)

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