Air1
Jan 2003
In the Cockpit
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I don't know what everyone's smoking:
The video is simply amazing. Sure there's been better TC's but my god - this TC is hands down fabulous. The audio has some extremely minor issues but is still very, very good.
Don't believe what most people have typed people. The sample is misleading on this rls and anyone who says it's only an average TC has got to be smoking something other than cigarettes or maybe watching one of the other rls's - the xvid or svcd, etc.
People seriously need to quit moaning and groaning about this and that. It's ok to say "this rls has the following flaws" because hell that's what this forum is for. But when you say it has these flaws and either A) you're the only one experiencing it/overexaggerating it, and/or giving it a bad video/audio rating than you need to get with the picture (no pun intended) - We aren't rating a freakin' retail release, people. God.
----- VIDEO -----
WOW. VERY, very good. The video has FANTASTIC COLORING and SHARPNESS. Simply put it's incredible. OK so the things in the background aren't as sharp but THIS ISN'T A RETAIL FREAKING RLS, not to mention alot of retail movies have blurriness in the backgrounds. To top it all off, you're never going to have 100% satisfication in all video departments unless it's retail so quit complaining. If you want to say it has this error or that error than go ahead- But don't rate it a 6 or 7 or something lame like that because of it. Jesus. Were you under the impression that the studios put out this TC? *scratches head at most all of the comments about this release so far*
The only bad thing about the video is that it isn't 100% centered, but let's be honest - it's pretty damn close to perfect centering plus it's got better centering than 60%+ of any CAM/TS/TC release and same goes for the cropping.
"It's too bright here" or "It's too dark here" -- As I said before, you're NEVER going to have a non-retail release have even close to perfect or near perfect lighting in all scenes. In the future maybe but the scene has yet to see that day. Additionally, I think we can all agree that it's better to be too bright than too dark. First off too dark ruins a rls 100 times more than a rls that's "too bright". Secondly a movie that's "too bright" is 100 times easier to fix on a standalone, because since it's a bright encode it's encoded with more detail. Does it really take a brain surgeon to figure that one out?
Last but not least let me say this - It's not too bright. The encoders, ROYAL, got the brightness at the perfect level IMO. Maybe 1-2% darker would have been better but, once again, this is all but too easy to fix on your tv that a rls that one consider's "too dark". Let's also consider that Tim Burton's sets/scenes have a LOT of pale tones to them- Even the sky. Go see it in the theaters, too, then come back here and tell me they could have done a better job on the brightness/darkness of the rls/encode.
Picture Verdict ----- 9/10 for a TC and 8.5/10 for an overall rls.
----- AUDIO -----
So it's no secret that the audio has some weird things going on in this rls. They are minor flaws and in my -professional- A/V opinion is no big deal at all. I swear, if someone on these forums so much as has the audio cut-out for 5 words in a release but other than that is perfect, they drop the score by 1-3 points on a 10-point scale. Is that fair? NO. That's ludicrous.
But let's get to the real flaws of the audio. OK it was quite strange when the little girl was saying "chewing gum" or what have you to Willy Wonka both in the sample and in the rls when I watched it on my 50" top-of-the-line DLP with a $1,500 DTS/DD system. Is that a big deal? Nope.
So what else was flawed in the audio? Well personally on my own watching (and if someone else commented on this I certainly didn't see it- Then again I didn't look very hard at all) in the final 30 minutes of the ~100 minute movie there were periodic MS Windows ".wav" files from like Windows XP I'd hear. Like that "Exclamation Beep" - Obviously since my pc's sound system was off and I was watching it on my stand-alone there's no doubt it was coming from the burned disc of this rls from ROYAL. This happened 3-4 times; sometimes one beep/blip other times two. Once again is this a big deal? No.
Other than this, the audio was spot-on. DD 2.0 AC3 out of all 5 speakers and subwoofer was great. Was it the best DD 2.0 AC3 for a TC DVDR? No. Would DTS/DD5.1 like we sometimes get on a TC DVDR been better? Of course. Have I ever seen these Windows sounds appear on a burned dvd I've watched? Never. That was just really, really strange. Once again I don't know if I'm the only one on that, though.
Anyway all this is 100% tolerable. Audio flaws accounted for a total of about 15 seconds of the audio track. That's 1/400th of the total dvdr's audio. Does this honestly warrant a deduction in the audio score here on vcdquality? If you answer Yes than you are just waaaaaaay too picky my friend. If you deducted maybe .25 points out of 10 than or .5 (half a point) tops than I can understand it because it is a bonefied error but persaonlly 15 seconds of audio error doesn't warrant a deduction in rating to myself at all - unless it's a retail rls.
Think about this... You have more audio distractions/'errors' at the actual theater itself by people talking, chewing candy and popcorn making themselves fatter, and even talking on their cell phones.
Oh and one more thing -- What's with you ppl saying you have to turn up your speakers 200% and crap to hear this rls? What are you smoking, and when was the last time your ears were cleaned? There was NOTHING wrong with this. Not on my PC, not on my standalones (and yes I played it on more than one standalone). Even if you did have to go to 200% or up more than you would normally have to- Big deal. Oh no I can't hear it so my volume # is 50 instead of 25... Someone call an ambulence! Please... It's false anyway.
Audio Verdict ----- 9.25 out of 10. Why? The .75 deduction has NOTHING to do with the minor issues listed above. It has EVERYTHING to do with the fact I've heard many a better DD 2.0 AC3 on a TC DVDR. Plus it wasn't too long ago that DD 5.1 was almost a standard on TC DVDR rls's, so it definately could have been better but ROYAL still did a GREAT job, but still could have fixed the minor errors even though I won't deduct them for it since it's 15 seconds of errors.
----- MOVIE -----
Disappointment. Depp did a great job. Wonderful. I give the movie as a whole a low score of 5.5/10. I give Depp a 9/10 in his performance, though, and the Oompa Looma (who played all of them) an 8.5/10 as well. Not for their acting abilities so much but because of the songs and other random things.
Justification for the 5.5/10:
OK now this is the opinion part so as I'm not flaming anyone for their opinion on the movie itself I don't expect it for myself, either...
Good news first: The fact they used squirrells instead of Geese for the scene of the rich little girl was actually cool. Other good news: The script for Wonka's lines and character developement in general were great, especially this being a re-make. Only one other good thing to report and that's that the movie wasn't too long in runtime because I was really losing interest... Fast.
Bad news: There is so much bad about this remake I could write a novel about it. Obviously we all heard about alot of these things, even before the movie came out, but I'll go ahead and post my feelings anyway.
First, although the original didn't say or show all the visiting kids died it was assumed so in every sense of the word without any doubt. In this version, probably to keep the rating low as the MPAA is more restrictive now, they show them having 'lived'. Lame. Second: All of those scenes that were "taken out" or "not re-made" if you will. I.E. Wonka's office, the wallpaper, the bubbly soda that made you fly, etc. Thirdly, the Oopma Loompa scenes, although still funny were vastly under par in relation to the original movies' scenes involving them. Very much so. Some last comments about what I thought sucked about this re-make was how the 'boat ride' wasn't nearly as horrific or scary as it was in the original.... Once again probably due to the MPAA and keeping the movie's rating down. This was a huge upset. Lastly I can think of two final things: One is Wonka's ingenius dance to the front gate of the original movie. I enjoyed the re-make version of how the kids met Wonka but it didn't compare imo. And last but not least there was one more scene I really missed and that's the scene of that big vehicle the kids and parents get on that makes noises and shoots out bubbles.. Another (slightly) frightening scene that was not re-made (probably only slightly scary because I was so young when the original came out - I'm old school now).
Quite frankly had the original never existed but this one did in it's exact form it is in I would rate it VERY high. Unfortunately, in the end it was a really bad re-make and only received a score of 5.5 from me for two reasons: 75% because of Johnny Depp, and 25% because of Tim Burton's creepy way he used what powers he had in the production to make the movie what it was.
----- FINAL THOUGHTS -----
OK so many of you are probably thinking "is this person posting this huge post on some caffeine pills or wtf?" The answer is no. I have nothing better to do and type over 100 wpm; actually over 150 on most every occassion. This entire post didn't take long at all for me to type. So now that that's over let's move along as I've got some advice for everyone:
To those who haven't downloaded this rls (at least this DVDR rls by ROYAL) go for it -- it's a GREAT TC (above par but definately not the best).
To those who haven't seen it I hope you enjoyed it more than me and others. Had it not been for what I said just a few lines above about how Burton and Depp pulled off the 5.5 score for me, I would have rated it much lower- Unless the actor playing Wonka and/or Burton wasn't the director. It probably would have gotten around a 4 out of 10 movie-wise from me if it wasn't for them. But honestly, unless your a TC DVDR / DVDR collector like me - Wait until retail and/or a rainy day because if you loved this movie as a kid you will probably be disappointed. That is, unless you are obsessed with Depp and/or Burton. Personally I love them but even they couldn't pull this movie to a 6.0+ score from my standpoint.
OK that's it. I'm done. No, my fingers don't hurt and no I'm not tired of typing. I hope this true in-depth rating of this rls as a whole and movie, too, will help people who are trying to get the low-down on just how good this rls is.
Goodnight people. Have a great day. 
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08-28-2005 06:12 PM
