yukichigai
Mar 2005
Video Tech Geek
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Right, so, now a proper rating
Video - 9: The high resolution is obviously warranted by the source, as it's wonderfully sharp. (save for the out-of-focus paramount logo at the beginning) Unfortunately it does have problems with dark areas; while the bright stuff is nice and bright, the dark stuff is too dark. The color gradient isn't even, basically. Some really, really expert contrast tweaking could fix this, but it's hardly something I'd expect out of your average video editor, much less a release group. Still gotta deduct points for it though. No uneven frame transitions fortunately, so they had the shutter speed set right.
EDIT: After watching the movie all the way through I'm bumping my rating up to a 9. I'm not sure if it's the film's content or that the cammer (mostly) corrected the problem partway through, but the "too dark" issue is only a problem near the beginning of the movie. It's not pefect, but you won't be squinting and wondering what the hell is going on, even in the high-motion stuff that happens in the dark. Were it not for the motion blur this could easily be mistaken for a true Telecine. As to the missing footage, there are three segments missing; two are less than 3 seconds, and the biggest one (3:19 on the second disc) is maybe 30 seconds. All of it is stuff you can easily fill in based on what's being said before and after.
Audio - 8: Mixed bag on this one. The first ~30 minutes of the film use a tinny "fake stereo" source. (i.e. one channel is inverted compared to the other) This means that for the first ~30 minutes of the film, any speaker output that combines the two channels (e.g. a mono TV or your center channel speaker) will be almost completely silent because the two channels cancel each other out. 20th should have taken just one channel of this audio (doesn't matter which) and encoded it mono. (or joint stereo anyway) The rest of the audio is better quality, and more importantly is absent that "fake stereo" crap.
Movie - 9: Good lord, that was awesome. I mean, it helps that I grew up watching the animated series, but it's still a really good movie all the same. You've got action interspersed with interesting characters, human and Cybertronian. Optimus Prime is, well, Optimus Prime, to a T... except he's funny too. Megatron is an awesome villain as well, but not nearly as two-dimensional as he was in the cartoons. The only gripe I have is that Starscream has like two lines in the entire film. (He blows a lot of stuff up though) Oh, and they confused Brawl (Decepticon Tank) with Devastator. (Decepticon Voltron, basically) The plot is a wee bit nonsensical at times, but given that the movie is about robots that turn into cars it's well within the "suspension of disbelief" threshold. I'm legitimately surprised that Michael Bay, a guy who wasn't a fan of the Transformers at all, was able to put together such a good film about them.
Bottom line: With the excellent video quality and (mostly) good audio, this is the release to get. Screw the nuke; the nuke is for a retarded reason anyway. ("Bad res" = resolution is too high; see my previous post) There are some minor things I wish had been fixed, but they are still minor things. This might still be the release to get even after the R5 inevitably comes out, as I've seen plenty of R5s with worse quality than this. Download it. Download it now!
Last edited by yukichigai on 07-14-2007 at 03:10 AM
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07-13-2007 04:06 AM
GReaT MoViE!!! PReTTy NiCE QuaLiTY
What a great movie. just watched this for the first time with the wife and we both enjoyed the heck out of it. the video was pretty clear throughout entire film. however, there are a couple of hickups 
that drop the video rating itself. there are a few glitches throughout the movie and also there is a couple seconds missing from the glitches. there is also a few bodies 
that walk by during the movie which is kinda distracting but not too bad at all. the audio is very hollow and tinny through the first 29 mins of the film. however, at 29:49 the audio fills out and gets much better. i dont know what happens but it is definately a major improvement and makes the movie that much better. as for the film itself, all i can really say is WOW again. like i said my wife and i thoroughly enjoyed watching this great movie
MADD PRoPS to 20th for a pretty quick and by far the best quality release of Transformers as of yet. Keep em comin!
the 1 to get.
