djbluemax1

Very little LFE in The Hobbit in general (I watched the 3D BD version). As far as ULF goes, I don't think there was any, or if there was, it was so low as to be inconsequential. Overall, the soundtrack was not a particularly loud one either. When I listen to some soundtracks at Reference, I usually get a pleasant surprise from the dynamics. Didn't really get that with this movie.

 

Whoever mixed it dropped the ball big time (maybe they mixed it at home while grandma was sleeping in the room upstairs?). The scene with the mountain giants could have been incredible if the proper audio had backed up the visuals, instead the scene was downgraded to merely so-so because of the disappointing audio.

 

 

Max

Wreck-it Ralph and End of Watch sounded like 30Hz with gentle roll offs to me, so no graphs unless requested.

 

Will post the others up tonite.

 

JSS

Yup, that matches my impression of WIR.

 

Rise Of The Guardians actually had more ULF. Anytime there was a magical 'poof'/Nightcrawler style 'bamf', there was a decent low end kick to it. Don't think it went really low, but there was certainly more LFE than WIR.

 

Oh, and the 3D was really well done.

 

 

Max

 

 

Max

About to watch it right now. Will give my impressions after.

 

 

Max

There were a couple of explosions, but nothing really stood out to me about the LFE. Definitely didn't have any real WOW! moments like WOTW or TIH. The movie overall was entertaining enough and the 3D was pretty good. Mostly depth with a few pop out moments.

 

As far as 3D goes, thus far, the most impressive 3D presentation I've seen is in Madagascar 3. The director really understands the concept of blurring the screen plane in that movie. Stuff goes in and out of the screen plane so often, and not just the cheesy in-your-face way that I found it to greatly increase the immersive aspect.

 

 

Max

Has anyone watched wreck it ralph?

About to watch it right now. Will give my impressions after.

 

 

Max

Well that's some good news since I'm waiting to watch this in my theater because it's one of the very very few releases in 11.2. Hated it that much huh Max? I figured the action made up for the complete lack of acting and predictable plot. Guess not haha.

For what it's worth, I hated the first one too. Story was blech and the editing made me nauseous. I was hyped about the first one and bought the BD blind and never watched it again.

 

Rented the 2nd one and actually found it somewhat enjoyable. Definitely thought it was better than the first, but I did NOT buy it and don't particularly have a great desire to see it again, unlike some of the movies in my collection that I've seen numerous times.

 

 

Max

Thanks for graphing HFUD. Thought it had some nice effects.

 

As for the poll, unless someone's a diehard Halo fan, I'd recommend only a rental.

As far as execution goes, there's not too much going on in the first 60-70% of the movie. It's the last 25-30% that brings the bass, and as I mentioned when I recommended checking it out, more audio mixers should consider bass like this (or more) for big objects walking around. I voted for 4-star because what's there is done decently, but the movie doesn't have much of it till you get nearer the end.

 

Even in the TF series, they had some scenes with nice bass for the big ass robots stomping around, but other scenes where the robots suddenly lost 'weight'. Same goes for WOTW, those gigantic tripods should be causing ground tremors at every step, but that only happens in a few scenes.

 

 

Max

I watched Looper the other day. I just switched over to BR with Netflix (nearest Family Video to me is over an hour away). The DVD is as anemic as the rest of the recent spate of comparos I've done, making it useless as a metric. Otherwise, I'd have posted the doc for it by now.

 

I guess they're looking to assure themselves that everyone will replace his current library with BR versions, but just don't know.

 

I may just buy the BR of Loopers, but really this is a crock of excrement that the 2 versions are so different. Oh well, Loopers doc delayed, so stand by...

Wow. We know from M&C that the DVD audio can definitely go low and loud, so this move is a deliberate marketing ploy by the studios to castrate the audio on DVDs. And I don't know how many rental BDs from Netflix and Blockbuster have the recent trend to exclude the lossless tracks from rentals but this is really some BS.

 

Especially with the DVDs, because the folks still stuck on DVDs probably are completely unaware that they're getting shafted on the audio too. I mean everyone's aware of the SD vs HD difference in video between DVD and BD, but no one really thought that studios were deliberately castrating the audio tracks specifically on the DVDs.

 

 

Max

2 more to add to the queue: Resident Evil Retribution and Halo Forward Until Dawn.

 

Both sounded like they go deep and decently loud. As far as watchability, RER was yet another in the RE chain. More of the same basically. No mindblowing writing here, but a decent popcorn action flick. HFUD starts slow. Real slow. And kind of looks like a made for TV movie, but with better SFX. The footsteps for big bipods though is pretty impressive. More movies need this. Some decent explosions and LFE FX too. Last 1/3 (1/4?) of the movie is decent. Not a great movie, but at least I didn't feel like it was a complete waste of time. Makes me hope they can make a big budget version/sequel (heard of, but never seen or played Halo).

 

With these 2, TR and WOTT, seems 2012 might not have been a total loss for movies with bass after all.

 

 

Max

Dave, just curious as to why you don't rent BD's? Not sure where in the country you are, but if you have a Family Video near you, that would be ideal. Their rental BD's are the retail versions, so unlike Netflix or BlockBuster with the neutered non-lossless tracks on rentals, the FV rentals have the lossless tracks plus all the extras.

 

 

Max

JSS, kudos. That was a great post.

 

 

Max

As always Marc, thanks for the industry insight. I can see major studios considering those concepts, i.e. to cater to the <1% vs all the theaters that can't play that low and the 99% of the populace that can't either.

 

It's a pity that it isn't more common though. When done well, it adds such a visceral dimension. As has been mentioned in these types of threads, the sensation produced from the ULFs when a gigantic robot onscreen takes a step makes an impact that adds to the realism and immersion. It's what we feel in real life around large objects and its absence is disappointingly apparent, but as you pointed out, it's not something the majority are aware of or capable of replicating.

 

 

Max

 

 

Just one observation before dropping it: J P Crass's stolen images of Bosso's graphs and charts have been removed now from AVS.

Yup, I reported it and PM'd Mark Rubin about it.

 

 

 

Max

Heh, I received an infraction because one of those whiney morons reported my post calling JPC a moron and inferring that he's a d****bag (the last line of my post was, "BTW, what's the name of that feminine hygiene product that begins with a 'd' and ends with 'bag'?"), for stealing Dave's graphs without even acknowledging that they are his, and for deliberately posting the link to this thread while quoting a post requesting that any folks knowing about this thread NOT post a link to it on that thread.

 

Bet it it was JPC himself whining. Anyway, I've already reported JPC's post for intellectual property theft AND sent Mark Rubin a PM about it. I'd urge other avs'ers to do the same seeing as how that moron has potentially cost us Dave's contributions of his time and graphs. In fact, I wonder if we can sue?

 

 

Max

 

P.S. to avoid cluttering up the thread with more off-topic content, we can continue this discussion via PM's or elsewhere.

I should have the SW Saga finished by the weekend. I read this 3 years ago, and it is a damned funny critique of the prequels and special editions:

 

http://www.chefelf.com/starwars/index.php

 

Coming soon also FOTP and Assassin's Bullet.

 

JSS

Amusing link. If you have some free time and need some chuckles, here's a good one

http://northisup.com/blog/a-new-sith-or-revenge-of-the-hope-mirror/

 

 

Max

 

 

The moron nicked my graphs and posted them at AVS right after he said you and I are doing a lot of work for nothing because no one cares what the graphs say. That's a problem for me. I'm not doing all that work for some shitwipe to lift it and post it elsewhere with the same BS critique that caused my exit from AVS.

 

I wiped TDKR from my photobucket account to verify that he lifted the graphs and didn't just take the links. I need a solution to this problem. I prefer to just let AVS do it's thing and not be any part of it, especially not through some mental patient without my direct input.

 

This project just isn't that important to me that I should feel any discomfort over it at anyone's expense. I've had enough of that nonsense over the past 10 years. It just holds no interest for me.

 

Any way you can get him in trouble for stealing/using your images without consent? They are, after all, products of your hard work, and your specific combo of settings in SL, derived from years of experimentation and consideration. Doesn't that fall under intellectual property or something? Linking to the site or posts is one thing, stealing graphs and charts is another.

 

 

Max

 

 

JPC was the one who posted the url. Gary J has been in my Ignore list at AVS for longer than I can even recall. Seriously, this is a great thread so I hope the guys who ruined the last one stay where they are and leave you guys to get on with the great work you are doing here. I have little to contribute here but I enjoy what you do and it adds an extra dimension to my hobby, for which I thank you.

I see that he quoted your post requesting folks in the know to NOT identify this thread publically while posting the link. What a douchebag.

 

That's OK, the mods here can wield a banstick easily enough for any idiots who might try mucking things up.

 

And I'll add my thanks again to maxmercy/JSS and Bossobass/Dave for providing this invaluable resource. Those numbnuts over there don't even get it. Someone actually scoffed at how few discussion posts there are here. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT GENIUSES; objective data, not mindless blather.

 

 

Max

If they can have one scene that's unfiltered, why oh why would they filter the rest of the movie? So frustrating.

 

 

Max

JSS,

Ah, got it. Thanks for the clarification.

 

 

Max

Hey Marc, welcome to the thread. As always, appreciate the industry insider info.

 

JSS,

One of the things I was wondering about was not just the difference between your measurements of the Thor BD and DVD tracks, but the difference between the DVD tracks with and without dialnorm compensation. I was wondering why a 4db compensation for dialnorm resulted in an 8db difference in the measurements?

 

 

Max

The whole dialnorm business confuses me.

 

The general impression that I had was that dialnorm is there to 'normalize' the 'dialogue', i.e. DIALogue NORMalization. As I understood it, there's supposedly a flag from checking the average dialogue levels, and if it's softer than normal, or louder than normal, dialnorm is applied with say, a +4 dialnorm altering the main volume by 4db.

 

If this IS what happens, then why would a 4db dialnorm difference show an 8db difference in level when the dialnorm is compensated for?

 

 

Max

LOL! WOTW was THAT good that it needed to be posted 4 times in a row huh?

JSS,

Actually rented The Fourth Kind to check it out. Not as much LFE as I thought aside from a few scenes. Nicely used to add atmosphere to it though. It appears that horror movie directors understand the concept of using LFE for mood/atmosphere. I've heard that The Woman In Black has decent LFE. I'll have to check that one out.

 

 

Max

 

P.S. Looking forward to the WOTW and WOTT graphs!

Anyone charted 'Fourth Kind'? Caught the tail end of it on cable and was surprised by the LFE in the little bit I saw of it. There were some scenes where there wasn't much audible but stuff was shaking.

 

 

Max

Finally rented Assassins Bullet. Wasn't a fan of the movie. Had some LFE but on tge whole, the movie felt like a made for TV movie, or a straight to video deal.

 

 

Max

Ratings seem pretty good to me, with a ratings system like this, we know right away that something scoring 4's and 5's across the board is going to be GOOD (at least in the bass department).

 

Hmm... I wonder if it's possible to sue them for false advertising for printing the lossless audio on the disc without including it?

 

 

Max