Contact: Special Edition (1997) [15041]There are three NTSC releases available for this title. The US release of
Contact: Special Edition (1997) [15041] is labeled as Special Edition however the Japanese release of
Contact (1997) [PILF-2548] and the Hong Kong release of
Contact (1997) [ERA-65-97] also have the same contents, matter of fact, I believe they are from the same master. There was a DTS release announced for the US market but never realized which is unfortunate.
I viewed the US release last night. My copy came from a Sony pressing factory DACD and as you can already guess, it's a rotter. It was mild but the speckles were annoying nevertheless. Fortunately no color bleeding, excessive crosstalk/noise and multicolor snow. I watched two sides of the film before I gave up. Below I will mention my opinion on various aspects of the transfer ignoring the rot artifacts.
The video is pristine, absolutely gorgeous. Edge enhancement? Noise reduction? Artificial contrast boost? NOT EVEN ONCE!!! This isn't a THX mastered release so it makes sense. I could finally experiment with Darbee Darblet video enhancements with this release. Up to %20 in Pop mode or HD mode is doable but it looks very sharp without Darbee as well anyway. I kept mine set at %20 pop mode. Lack of edge enhancement was welcomed with absence of halos(ringing). Checking with imdb technical specs backs it up that this film was shot with various different film elements. Generally the video is very sharp but every now and then its even sharper or smoother. You have to watch with a very careful eye to notice this phenomena, it's not in any way annoying. Video noise is almost always completely absent. Even in dark scenes, and this film has a lot of scenes where it shows you the stars in the sky at night, there is absolutely no noise. Technicolor coloring process was well accomplished here. I loved the colors. LD gets most colors alright except the green. NTSC employs REC.601 color scheme on the CIE chart. REC.601 doesn't have much penetration in the green field, REC.709 for HDTV improves this but the future REC.2020, proposed for 4K UHD BD covers it almost entirely. There were a few scenes though which were absolute comb filter torturers. The tartan jacket that Jodie Foster wore in one scene had rain bowing every time she moved for instance. My best 3D adaptive filter couldn't keep up with it. But I guess it is acceptable for an LD to have several seconds of artifacting on a two and a half hour film. There were also a few instances, especially during day shots, minor banding was noticeable on the background sky. I believe this digital transfer was made on 8 bit which explains this issue. There wasn't a single trace of aliasing. My de-interlacer which was locked in forced 3:2 inverse telecine mode never failed once during the entire viewing. Note: Lumagen uses an FPGA in the their processors to use their own algorithm for forced film mode de-interlacing. Along with genlock function, it is possible to accomplish 23.976 fps tearless inversed telecined video from 59.94 fields of LD.
The audio is very good. I only auditioned AC-3 tracks. They weren't always engaging but the first scene in the movie is absolutely demo grade. Text book discrete surround effects and pans for minutes, it was a joy. The bass was also staggering on those few instances you listen to the signal coming from deep space. Overall the film is dialog heavy but when action calls for great dynamics, this AC-3 track doesn't disappoint. When there is too much information(music and effects) coming from all directions at you, you can hear the shortcomings of the lossy AC-3 track in terms of fidelity. Each sound is very well audible but narrow. You can easily notice a sharp roll of on the highs. Dolby Digital dynamically allocates its limited 384kbps stream into 6 channels. So if what you hear is only dialog coming from the center speaker, that center channel gets the majority of that 384kbps which gives it more natural sound. However when you have effects and music on all 6 channels, you can imagine each gets 1/6th of 384 at best. DTS is superior in this as it has 1.2mbps bandwidth to begin with. Nevertheless if someone told me this is a theatrical mix, I would believe it. It was very loud when it needed to be. Blu-ray release with lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack definitely has better fidelity but not as loud as the AC-3 on this LD.
I didn't experiment with any of the extras. Apparently there is a trailer and a commentary track available on all 3 releases (Japanese release has it dubbed in Japanese). I like the cover art on the Japanese release, my wife likes the one on the US release. The Japanese jacket is a gatefold and very thick. The US jacket is standard and thin. If you own this LD or can get it for, say, less than $5, it is worth it for the opening scene alone but you have got to be rocking an AC-3 capable setup to hear that magnificent mix.
Edit: I reviewed the Japanese version
here and compared both versions to the US Blu-ray release.
Equipment:
Pioneer Elite Kuro Pro-141FD - 60" Plasma Monitor
McIntosh Mx-121 AV Preamp/Processor
McIntosh Mc207 7ch Power Amp
Pass Labs XVR1 Active Crossover
Meridian 519 RF Demodulator
Martin Logan Theos L/R Speakers
Martin Logan Stage X Center
Martin Logan Descent I - two subwoofers
Martin Logan Motion 4 Side and Rears
Lumagen Radiance 2144 Video Processor
Pioneer HLD-X0 Reference Laserdisc Player
Thanks list
