TERMINATOR SALVATION (Blu-ray; Warner Bros.)

Mike LoManaco

mutelight wrote: »

Briefly checked out the image quality on the bedroom system and it looks fantastic. I will have to check out the audio on the living room system later but I remember the audio being excellent when I saw the movie in the theater. I thought the movie itself was decent enough but the VisFX and sound design were superb.

There are rare times when Hollywood theatrical releases -- when the audio mix theatrically on multitrack mags, etc. is outrageously aggressive and stellar -- just don't match the home video releases for whatever reason(s) and vice-versa; I didn't see this in theaters, so I'll take your word for it, but it was an aggressive experience in DTS core extraction (from the MA stream).

As for the video, I found your assesment accurate once some of the opening frames passed and the film began picking up steam -- there was detail and clarity galore. The beginning of the transfer, though, exhibited excessive film grain and some noisy dithering that was clearly visible.

Mike LoManaco

leroyjr1 wrote: »

+1 had my subs dancing

I agree, although I don't have two subs in my system -- hope to some day (or multiple subs) -- this was a heavy, aggressive track especially in the LFE department.

Oddly enough, this was from Warner Brothers, a studio that wasn't really behind DTS even in all their DVD releases -- their Blu-ray releases have been traditionally adorned with TrueHD tracks, and it was surprising to find a Master Audio track on Terminator Salvation.

mutelight

Mike LoManaco wrote: »

There are rare times when Hollywood theatrical releases -- when the audio mix theatrically on multitrack mags, etc. is outrageously aggressive and stellar -- just don't match the home video releases for whatever reason(s) and vice-versa; I didn't see this in theaters, so I'll take your word for it, but it was an aggressive experience in DTS core extraction (from the MA stream).

As for the video, I found your assesment accurate once some of the opening frames passed and the film began picking up steam -- there was detail and clarity galore. The beginning of the transfer, though, exhibited excessive film grain and some noisy dithering that was clearly visible.

Audio in theaters will either be on a AC3 optical track, SDDS, on the 35mm stock or in a double system DTS on an optical disc since the 90s. Magnetic track audio started to fade out in the 90s unfortunately. This was due to cost and longevity of the media as they were prone to damage.

With these new lossless encodes such as MLP (or Dolby TrueHD now) and DTS-HD MA we are finally getting perfect 1:1 representations of the layback by the audio engineers which is currently superior to theater sound.

In regards to the video quality, I found it remained consistent in film grain throughout. Had any noise reduction been applied the phenomenal detail in the transfer would be lost. Obviously in darker scenes film granularity is more prevalent so perhaps that is where you were perceiving the deviance in quality?

Mike LoManaco

mutelight wrote: »

Audio in theaters will either be on a AC3 optical track, SDDS, on the 35mm stock or in a double system DTS on an optical disc since the 90s. Magnetic track audio started to fade out in the 90s unfortunately. This was due to cost and longevity of the media as they were prone to damage.

With these new lossless encodes such as MLP (or Dolby TrueHD now) and DTS-HD MA we are finally getting perfect 1:1 representations of the layback by the audio engineers which is currently superior to theater sound.

Correct -- but I was merely saying that there are times when the home experience simply doesn't match what one may have experienced in the theater, or vice-versa. I didn't see Salvation theatrically, so I can't comment about its audio or video presentation when on the big screen.

In regards to the video quality, I found it remained consistent in film noise throughout. Had any noise reduction been applied the phenomenal detail in the transfer would be lost.

I'm not suggesting noise reduction should have been applied -- as a reviewer, I merely point out exactly what I experienced and viewed/heard. The very beginning of the transfer seemed to be a bit more grain ridden and "rough" compared to the remainder which tended to come alive with bursts of detail and clarity. Of course, the color timing for this film was on the bleak, industrial side given the subject matter, and I believe Warner did a good job with this overall translating it to Blu-ray's 1080p encode scheme.

EDIT: I noticed your additional question after I posted; yes, indeed darker sequences are much more difficult to pick up in the 1080p encode, and I always give room for that -- I will have to go back and rewatch the disc again to confirm if those opening sequences were during black shots or very dark stretches. I'll do that as soon as I conclude viewing another title that I had on deck along with Salvation. In general, I just thought the opening shots didn't fare as well as the remainder of the transfer -- but this could have very well been an intentional style issue by the filmmakers, something that is difficult to discern when balancing it with a transfer/studio "problem" or decision.

wutadumsn23

Saw it this weekend, while I didn't care much for the movie itself the sound was amazing!! Probably one of if not the best workouts my system has had so far. Turned my sub up to almost full volume and it had the pictures on my walls shaking. I agree with that CGI of Arnold, probably one of the best I have ever seen. All in all the audio gets a 10/10 from me.

-Jeff

Mike LoManaco

wutadumsn23 wrote: »

Saw it this weekend, while I didn't care much for the movie itself the sound was amazing!! Probably one of if not the best workouts my system has had so far. Turned my sub up to almost full volume and it had the pictures on my walls shaking. I agree with that CGI of Arnold, probably one of the best I have ever seen. All in all the audio gets a 10/10 from me.

-Jeff

Thanks, Jeff! I agree with everything you say about the audio on this disc.

And I didn't really want to give away the little "cameo" by Arnold's T-shell in the review, but it was indeed cool...