let's not forget about 48 hrs and commando: same music

Dawg: You plannin' to fight me with that little stick?
Morgan: No, Uncle. With this!
[Morgan reveals a loaded cannon and lights it, aiming it at Dawg]
Morgan: Bad Dawg!

Cutthoat Island (1995) now playing in Dolby Stereo Digital AC-3 THX Laserdisc Lucasfilm THX Sound System.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112760/

Picture is good for as to is the Dolby Digital AC-3. I have the region 2 DVD but its been Cutthoat by the BBFC with some ridiculous edit cuts and the THX Laserdisc is the only one I have that is the same as what I saw at the cinema.

Occasional dialouge pans are heard from left to right moving across to centre. Foley and effects work is neat on this ill-fated film that wasn't received well at the box-office.

Stereo surrounds are cool . LFE.1 since its late hours of the morning LFE.1 is turned down -15db so I'm only noticing little bits.

I like humour in it with (Patrick Malahide) Ainslee











I need to suss out the best camera setting as I'm using Zoom in No Flash iso 800. Its capturing it as if I was standing a 2 feet from the CRT. How it looks at 9 feet away is the opposite.

Okay now trying the LCD projector and finding a camera mode setting that works. Trail and Error.

Side 2 the cannons at the ready for ship to ship battle. John Debney score works tensely at chapter 20, 50m.00s

"I knew it"
Dwag.



Seems like the camera is adding in a little extra noise or is sensitive to the CRT video signal.
Cool seen as Dawg looks overhead as Steven Seagull flies over the surround right to half centre phantom then onto left surround.

The post-production work by Soundelux has lots going on in the mix. Some effects I can even spot from Oscar best sound winning Glory (1989) such mortars and the odd musket rifle firing as some grunt kick to it.

Sorry tomtastic, I respect your Laserdisc reviews enormously and I am grateful for all the help you have given me, but I couldn't disagree with you more about the Ultimate Hunter Edition Blu-Ray of Predator. It was a horrible contrast boosted DNR mess with waxy faces, far too much brightness, lacking in fine detail because of the DNR and overall not how the film is suppose to look. Its way too artificial and fake looking like a video game, quite frankly its the worst digitally manipulated Blu-Ray ever. The barebones 2008 Blu-Ray might have its fair share of problems as well like a MPEG-2 outdated encode, a lack of disc storage and uncleaned print damage, but its much much more faithful to how Predator SHOULD LOOK, and so the orignal 2008 Blu-Ray is the best way to watch Predator because it both looks better then the Ultimate Hunter Edition and as I said, is a closer representation to how Predator looked in theaters.

Watched the first Terminators for the first time in ages.

Terminator, The (1984) [ID2940NSB]
GREAT LD title. Forgot it was LD until side break. The original mono audio is essential and has breathing room in PCM. The THX mastering improves upon the poorly reviewed earlier disc, and for my money this is about as good as it gets for the theatrical presentation of the film.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day: Special Edition (1991) (Uncut) [LD 82997-2WS]
Played far better this time around for me, with a very punchy THX mastered audio mix. Great video, great audio. All in all a ballsy ride of a movie. The audio will bowl you over with its clarity and depth and is only matrixed surround and not even the discrete theatrical CDS!

2010 BD is a much higher bit rate than the '08 plus MPEG 4, I didn't notice any DNR on this one. Contrast and brightness were well adjusted. It looked perfect to me. As for how it should look in theater, is really a matter of opinion, I'm sure not every theater was the same. From what I've seen on Blu ray a lot of movies on HD now look better than they did in theater, which is fine with me.

Here is my most recent watch list (bolded titles are Blu-ray, others are laserdisc, The Hobbit was the theater):

Men In Black 3-Not too bad. I think I like the first one the best but considering this is a decade into the series it was pretty good.

Private Parts (1997) [LV 332513-WS]- An "ok" late 90's movie. If you are a Howard Stern fan, then a definitely must see but this was, "so so" in my opinion.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World- Interesting movie, a good movie if you want to see something on the "sad" side of things.

Life Less Ordinary, A (1997) [0277285]- An early Danny Boyle movie. A rather young Cameron Diaz and Ewan McGregor do a good job in this "unusual" tale.

Lawless- Good movie about moonshiners and early gangsters in the prohibition era.

Dark Shadows- Typical Depp/Burton film. If you like their movies then check it out. I thought it was pretty good.

Die Hard (1988) [8905-85]- I saw this during Christmas time. One of my favorite Christmas movies and definitely the best one of the series.

Total Recall (2012)- lots of CGI eye candy. Not much of a story. If you like the Schwarzenegger version you'll probably be disappointed as it's quite different, if you hated the Schwarzenegger version you'll probably like it.

Drive- One of the best movies of the last decade. If you haven't seen this one yet go and check it out immediately. Great story, visuals, music, etc.

Cool Runnings (1993) [2325 AS]- My mom was visiting and this is one of her favorite films. Unless your watching this with your mom I would stay away.

Legend- Early 80's fantasy classic. I really enjoyed this movie when I was a kid and still do. Some people say it's cheesy, but the set design is incredible. I also find that the cinematography is great. If you liked the theatrical version, watch the directors cut as it's a completely different movie.

The Dark Knight Rises- If I have to review this, it means you live in a cave, in which case you probably don't have Internet and are not reading this.

Iron Man 2- One of the movies under the Christmas tree. Not so great a story but a good demo disk to test out your speakers for explosions! Mindless fun,... it has it's place.

Rock of Ages- I enjoyed the 80's as it brought back good memories. I think Tom Cruise actually did a pretty good job. However, this was a terrible movie. The two leads were just terrible and the story was not so great. I would skip this unless you want to hear some mediocre renditions of 80's rock.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey- So this I saw at the movies. I really enjoyed The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It's not as good as that, but it is an entertaining movie. I should comment that I saw the 2D version so I can't comment on the 3D version.

LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring- Got this for Christmas. Great movie, enough said. If you haven't seen the trilogy run out to the store and buy it. I highly recommend the Enhanced Editions as they put in about 40 minutes extra into each movie (the theatrical cuts are about 3 hours each themselves) and are well worth it. If you watch all three films, it's not just entertainment but an experience.

Looper- Good Bruce Willis movie. I recommend it.

LOTR: The Two Towers- Same as above.

Warning on the 2012 Total Recall, there's a bug in the TrueHD which causes it cut out and freeze up. You have to downconvert your BD player to PCM. Only way I could get Dolby Digital to work was on Plex with the core track. Hopefully there will be a patch for it soon for BD players.

Watching Resident Evil series today: Resident Evil on HD DVD with DTS HD HI RES audio, Apocalypse (LPCM uncompressed 5.1), Extinction (TrueHD) on Blu ray and Afterlife and Retribution on Blu ray 3D.

Total Recall, seemed like they copied most of the scenes from the first movie and a lot of the dialogue. Loaded with special effects and chase scenes, mostly.

"2 weeks" better on 1990 version.

MGM/UA Home Video Laserdisc Sampler (1990) [ML102475]

which is interesting but some movies kinda seem boring or at least the trailers for them seem that way

I didn't have that problem with the BD of the new Total Recall - it played fine in True HD all the way through. I wonder if only some of the discs are affected?

The 2010 Blu-Ray had many technical advantages over the 2008 Blu-Ray like a better encode, more disc space and a remastered print which is what makes it so disappointing because for whatever reason they digitally molested it with contrast boosting, DNR and then tried to make up for it with artificial sharpening. I'm sorry but this is a fact and if you look around online for reviews and discussions on this disc, you will see just how many people are outraged by it. It even effects the cinematography to when what were suppose to be scenes taking place at night look like they take place during the day. Your right about projection being different across multiple theater with small variations, but none of them look waxy or like cartoon characters or bright and vibrate like the UHE 2010 Blu-Ray does. It was suppose to be a gritty jungle and the 2008 Blu-Ray at least reflects that.

Bellow are some comparsen pictures between the 2 Blu-Ray releases. Neither are perfect, but the 2008 release is clearly the lesser of 2 evils with grain tact.

Original 2008 Blu-Ray:



UHE 2010 Blu-Ray:




Original 2008 Blu-Ray:



UHE 2010 Blu-Ray:




Original 2008 Blu-Ray:



UHE 2010 Blu-Ray:



and here's another: http://www.caps-a-holic.com/hd_vergleiche/index.php?art=full&image=2&vergleich=predator_b1&action=1&lossless=0#vergleich

All power to you if you still prefer the 2010 UHE Blu-Ray, but the facts are its a extremely insulting unfaithful transfer with digital tinkering that isn't what McTiernan envisioned nor was what shot back in 1987. It looks horrible on my 55" HD TV, the 2008 release looks much better.

Thoroughly enjoying my Lawrence of Arabia Blu Ray boxset. Would like to acquire the Criterion CAV set someday, if only because it will look nice alongside the Laserdisc-sized Blu Ray set

According to your pics the 2010 looks just like mine and they look WAYYY better. Much sharper, clearer image. I was thinking about getting the
2008 to compare but I don't need to now. I'd take the 2010 version any day.

The 2010 has less grain so I guess at first glance it appears to be clearer but this is because it's had heavy DNR applied to it so you actually lose a lot of detail because of it. Parts of it are so bad the actors look like they're made out of wax instead of people! In fact in that third picture posted above it looks more like a painting of Arnie rather than a film frame of the man himself.

I'm watching Saving Pvt Ryan in AC-3 and boy, what a dynamic soundtrack it has - going from dead silence to full out gunfire and explosions in an instant. It could be a system killer if
You're not careful with the volume settings or don't have speakers and subs that can handle it - and amps that don't clip. I've played disc 1 on my EAD TheaterVision and Disc 2 on my
Panasonic LX-900, with both having the AC-3 RF fed into the B&K demodulator. It has an extra set of RCA jacks that have caps over them, but they are fully functional, allowing you
to connect two AC-3 RF streams and two coax streams plus have two coax PCM outputs, plus its Toslink input. The manual makes no mention of this wonderful extra feature.
The B&K switches automatically between all the active sources - it looks for Toslink first, then Coax and AC-3 overrides both of those. . It's nice not having to switch digital inputs
for AC-3 and PCM.

The LX-900 is sharper with lower overall noise than the EAD, but the lack of the 3D comb filter shows up on some shots. I wish I had AC-3 on the Runco.

The bass is incredible - the room is shaking from the on-screen explosions. I have the DTS DVD and honestly, the AC-3 LaserDisc sounds better - the DVD was the first half-rate DTS
title and DTS didn't have the coder fully 'tweaked' yet. I really do think AC-3 at 384kbps on LaserDisc sounds better than DTS at 768kbps on DVD - AC-3 is a more efficient encoder
and preserves more of the subtle details that the lower DTS rate can't encode since it has more overhead due to its forward oriented bit allocation. DTS at the 1.2 Kbps LD/CD rate and the
1.5kbps DVD rate are basically transparent, like Dolby AC-3 at 640 Kbps.

I might try making DTS encoded CD's of AC-3 LaserDisc soundtracks - the DTS rate is high enough it shouldn't unmask any audible errors and would allow syncing with DVD's that have
remixed Dolby soundtracks.

I guess I don't see what you're seeing. I see a clearer picture. The DNR is just showing you what is really there. The grain looks horrible
and obscures the clear, detailed image that should be there.

Upon its cinema release it had a good playback at the local MGM screen 1, while sat at the front and centre row the stage bass was good and sub bass subwoofer track when it kicked in added extra extended bottom end on the beach landing.

The R2 DVD is still damn loud. I have to try the THX Laserdisc when I get around to buying it someday? The lows seem to stop around 30Hz for stage LCR I can't recall where the surrounds stop at? I think LFE.1 extended down to 25Hz? Its been a while since I monitored the frequency response on Spectrum Lab, but its sheer level of the sound effects being pushed so high that would have most reaching for the remote. Or set in Night Mode compression to make softer sounds clear and the louder, dear ear deafening ones -10db calmer and turn the volume up a bit more and it should play without any Risk to hearing or damaging the loudspeakers.

Again, Predator is NOT SUPPOSE to be sharp or clear or colorful or bright. It was shot with high speed cameras with grainy film stock and was over layered with many optical effects. This was a intended effect by the director for the cinematography of the film that the 2008 Blu-Ray and even the DVD versions to an extent captured faithfully. The 2010 Blu-Ray is scrubbed to death, brightened up and artificially sharpened to give the fake illusion of a better looking image when what your really seeing is a disrespectful digitally manipulated mess that removes the grain pattern and fine detail. Those pictures I posted are clear as day (no pun intended) on just how bad the DNR was. Look again at the pics of General Phillips and Dutch. They look like glowing pieces of WAX DUMMIES which is a result of DNR and EE. The 2008 versions of those pictures are not perfect (due to some of the technical limitations of the 2008 Blu-Ray), but they look a hell of a lot more like actual FILM with more detail then the 2010 disgrace. Then look at the last pic of Arnie in the mud hiding from the Predator. The scene was suppose to take place at night which is the 2008 Blu-Ray reflects with a lot of fine detail and natural film grain in tact. The 2010 Blu-Ray is so contrast boosted with again unhealthy amounts of DNR that not only is it far too bright to the point that the scene no longers look like its taking place at night (as it should) but it looks blurry and out of focus due to the DNR like an oil painting. Here is another example of just how much the contrast boosting and digtal manipulation of the 2010 Blu-Ray effects the cinematography of the film.

2008 Blu-Ray - http://www.avpgalaxy.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/predatorold33.jpg

2010 Blu-Ray - http://www.avpgalaxy.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/predatornew33.jpg

Once again, this scene is suppose to be taking place during the night yet the 2010 Blu-Ray makes it look like a day time shot which is wrong on so many levels.

very interesting, thanks for posting the pictures.
i always wondered why films like predator on LD were so grainy, now i know.
it never bothered me to want to upgrade but it's nice to see.
thanks also for posting those pictures, the one with arnold in the red shirt you can see his hairs in the 2008
grainy pictures but the 2010 looks too blurry, yes the rest of the face is clearer but do you want crystal clear
or do you want to see details? that's how i see those images

You're welcome, rein-o. Exactly right, more detail/resolution is what Blu-Ray is all about in the first place which by default makes the 2008 Blu-Ray superior. Trying to cheaply enhance something with digital tricky by removing the film grain is eliminating detail and trying to rectify that with sharpening creates ugly edge enhancement halos which is what those glowing white lines are around the General and Arnie in those pictures. Give me natural grain which preserves detail over a phony manipulated product that makes everything look artificial like a video game. Crystal clear images is not what Blu-Ray or film preservation is about especially when it comes to older films. Thankfully the 2010 Blu-Ray of Predator is seemingly the last of its kind. Transfers like The Godfather, Jaws, the new remaster of The Terminator, The Exorcist, Ben Hur, the new remaster of Casablanca, To Kill A Mocking Bird, Alien, Alien and many more look fantastic on Blu-Ray because they are done faithfully.