I've just finished watching over 2hours of something called Sahara that was a cross between Indiana Jones and James Bond???




Its about guy that was in the Matrix Reloaded that likes dumping toxic waste in the waters wells of Africa and guy that was in U-571 that likes blowing sh"t up and girl that dated Tom Cruise once now meets boy and do amazing things together!

It didn't make one bit of sense but it was entertaining.

Wonderful HD-DVD picture quality that was presented on the CRT I couldn't be asked to run it on the video projector but it seems worthy of one showing.

Sound wise I was hearing effects that reminded me of Glory (1989) at the opening of the film with mortars being fired and cannon blasts. It had only one human dialouge panning moment that seemed dull. Most of the dialouge track was centred. Stereo surrounds was okay. LFE.1 was turned down as it was late at night as well as fader set at "4".

Whites and blues looked good in the film, dark shadow scenes was clear colours overall was juicy like summertime strawberry's with cream on top.

I liked the movie. I got it on DVD. I've only seen it once when it arrived on DVD, it's probably due for a second showing. Since I'm getting some HD DVD's again, I may get this one.

Have you planned to change the settings on the player for the aspect ratio? It looks like the picture is 1.33:1 and stretched to 1.85:1. Give The Big Lebowski a try in that format, the bowling balls will look like eggs.

No, no its set in JUST mode and I get more width with that mode 16:9 crops off more image so I keep it letterbox. Besides scope films don't look correct on 16:9 TV sets. As long as I can see the width even thou its still over-scanning even in JUST mode, I just keep it letterbox.

I know about the O vs 0 thanks anyway.

Actually it looks like the image is a 2.35 but it's flattened a bit. Should be a slightly taller image on that set. Post a pic with it set to 16x9.

I may only use 16:9 on the projector but not the CRT TV and it is 2.35:1 Super35.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318649/technical

Are you sure it's cropping the image in 16x9? That mode should display it correctly in 2.35 with black bars. No stretching, distorting or cropping. Should be the same for DVD, BD, HD DVD. SD sources like LD might not be correct, I know mine didn't work right until I ran it through HD PVR.

Sahara (2005) HD-DVD
Dolby Stereo Digital Plus (PLIIx) / Lucasfilm Ltd THX Sound System / JBL professional x73

Another viewing of Sahara in full HD1080p since last time I watched it a few years ago.

Looks better since your last review. Did you enjoy the movie this time around?

Yeah kinder of enjoyed more I played the end credits at least 20 times then played the film though for a second time.