Films (Almost Entirely Surround)

[seilerbird]

I should add this in.
Overall the surround mix and fidelity on the Blu-Ray disc of the James Bond film "Live and Let Die" is not good at all, mostly due to the poorly recorded dialogue.
However, there is one diamond in the rough on that release, and that is the title song (by Paul McCartney & Wings) is a fully discrete 5.1 surround mix that sounds absolutely incredible!

FYI…
(RIP George Martin)

I just got a copy of the Live and Let Die soundtrack on Q8 and the whole thing sounds incredible.

 

[timothyemerson]

Here's my 2 cents:

Not surprisingly, recent big budget blockbusters on BD tend to sound best. The movies themselves aren't always the best but at least the audio allows you to get something out of it. I seem to recall the second Transformers movie having a particularly dynamic soundtrack, particularly in the rear speakers. I watched Spectre last night and the audio was great, especially the percussion in the opening 5 minutes.

Apocalypse Now indeed has superb audio and is one of my favourites. The rotor blade sound effect in the opening, the attack on the village, the bass when Willard makes it to his destination, the snare on The End - all superb.

Here are some others that quickly spring to mind:
Heat (1995): Still the best gunfight ever. Lots going on in all channels. All that breaking glass - wow.
The Thin Red Line (1999): Solid all round from quiet rainforest sound effects to gunfire.
Baraka (1992) and Samsara (2014): Gems in all respects.
I remember the car chase (all engine; no music) in Jack Reacher sounding pretty good.
The gunfire and engine sounds in Sicario (2015) were awesome too.

seilerbird, I hope your movie-watching goes well. I got my first DVD player in 2003, and me and a friend started watching anything and everything from the last hundred years or so. There were still a lot of video stores around then (6 in my city; down to 1 now) and we mined them.

I'd recommend keeping a spreadsheet of all your movie-watching so you can keep track of everything you watch. Always good to review your summaries every few months. I'm surprised what I forget I've seen. Excel's also good for keeping track of stats (one of mine is 34 weeks solid spent watching movies since 2003 - crikey, what a waste of time).

Happy watching!

 

[onthewall2983]

I'd recommend keeping a spreadsheet of all your movie-watching so you can keep track of everything you watch. Always good to review your summaries every few months. I'm surprised what I forget I've seen. Excel's also good for keeping track of stats (one of mine is 34 weeks solid spent watching movies since 2003 - crikey, what a waste of time).

Better yet, get a Letterboxd account. You can keep a diary of what you're watching for all to see.

 

[leevitalone1]

Try the new James Bond film Spectre watch it last night what a Sonic treat that was Blu-ray of course

Sent from my VS425PP using Tapatalk

 

[seilerbird]

And there's so much more to discover!

Some more suggestions:

Prometheus (Ridley Scotts ALIEN Prequel) is also a fantastic 7.1 disc with massive amounts of nimble surround effects.

The Incredibles (a Pixar Movie) also has highly active surrounds and was one of the first Dolby Digital EX encoded DVDs back in the day.

BLACK HAWK DOWN (yet another Scott Movie) is also very immersive and crankable. A soundtrack to listen to in 0db.

GRAVITY is one of the newer discs (almost recent) that received stellar reviews all over the web – and I have to fully agree on them. Top notch!

Saving Private Ryan dare I say it? Used to be my reference disc to frighten everyone who came to my house and said: "Hey, I got Dolby Surround, too!"

The Lord Of The Rings – The Return Of The King is in DTS-ES on DVDs / DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 on Blu Rays and nothing short of fantastic.

300

Underworld was one of the Discs I never had in mind until my dad shoved it in my Player. Plain awesome from start to finish.

… and I could go on and on. But these are my top of the list Discs. Creme de la Creme, I might say. For now it does not get better than those in my humble opinion.

Thank you for your suggestions. Most of these discs are available on Blu ray from Amazon used at very cheap prices so I will be ordering all of them next payday.

 

[seilerbird]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren_Klyce

Anything he's worked on. Namely Fight Club and Se7en. Those surround tracks particularly stood out when I revisited them recently. The Se7en Blu-ray (and 2-DVD edition) has a commentary track focused solely on the sound elements, and Ren gives a pretty good breakdown of how he works.

Interstellar has an amazing 5.1 DTS-HD MA track just in it's loudness. I think I had to turn my system almost all the way down a few times. Same goes for a lot of Nolan's films it seems like.

Honestly I'm not too hung up on surround tracks for movies. Depending on what it is I can immerse myself in something with a mono track and be satisfied with that. Especially older movies. Some of the ones I'd watch on cable then buy the DVD, I felt a little disappointed that the audio sounded too clean if that makes sense. Even on ones with a mono track like the one for Once Upon a Time in the West, which I later read was essentially just a whittled down version of the surround track.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will order all three next payday.

I have been hung up on stereo since the mid sixties. Just recently I have become hung up on surround sound. I have watched a zillion movies in mono and stereo and now I want to collect the creme de la creme of the surround movies.

 

[seilerbird]

Here's my 2 cents:

Not surprisingly, recent big budget blockbusters on BD tend to sound best. The movies themselves aren't always the best but at least the audio allows you to get something out of it. I seem to recall the second Transformers movie having a particularly dynamic soundtrack, particularly in the rear speakers. I watched Spectre last night and the audio was great, especially the percussion in the opening 5 minutes.

Apocalypse Now indeed has superb audio and is one of my favourites. The rotor blade sound effect in the opening, the attack on the village, the bass when Willard makes it to his destination, the snare on The End - all superb.

Here are some others that quickly spring to mind:
Heat (1995): Still the best gunfight ever. Lots going on in all channels. All that breaking glass - wow.
The Thin Red Line (1999): Solid all round from quiet rainforest sound effects to gunfire.
Baraka (1992) and Samsara (2014): Gems in all respects.
I remember the car chase (all engine; no music) in Jack Reacher sounding pretty good.
The gunfire and engine sounds in Sicario (2015) were awesome too.

seilerbird, I hope your movie-watching goes well. I got my first DVD player in 2003, and me and a friend started watching anything and everything from the last hundred years or so. There were still a lot of video stores around then (6 in my city; down to 1 now) and we mined them.

I'd recommend keeping a spreadsheet of all your movie-watching so you can keep track of everything you watch. Always good to review your summaries every few months. I'm surprised what I forget I've seen. Excel's also good for keeping track of stats (one of mine is 34 weeks solid spent watching movies since 2003 - crikey, what a waste of time).

Happy watching!

Thanks for the suggestions. I will be ordering all of them next payday. My movie watching always goes well. I got my first VHS in 1976, my first DVD in 1997, and my first Blu ray about ten years ago. I have been relying on my local libraries for movie selections. Most libraries have awesome selections of movies and renting is free. For the last year I have got a decent Internet connection, a 4k TV and an Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu subscriptions.

The spreadsheet idea is not going to happen with me. Too much work.

 

[seilerbird]

Try the new James Bond film Spectre watch it last night what a Sonic treat that was Blu-ray of course

Sent from my VS425PP using Tapatalk

Thanks for the suggestion. I have been a JB fan since the 60s so I will order it on payday.

 

[seilerbird]

The Life of Pi sounds and looks absolutely amazing and is a film I look forward to upgrading in true 4K.

I watched Life of Pi yesterday with my jaw on the ground. I had not watched it since I got my 4k TV last year and it is beyond stunning. The visuals, especially the opening credits is my new go to disc for blowing anyone's mind over 4k TV. Great story and great audio too but the visuals just blew my mind. I am so glad I upgraded to 4k. I realize it is only a 1080 disc but my TV upsamples 1080 to 4k with stunning results. It looks just as good as any native 4k movie I have watched. When I got my TV I was excited about getting a 4k disc player but after about two days I stopped caring. 1080 upsampled is good enough. Mouth watering.

 

[seilerbird]

Amazon sent me an email informing me that the ten discs I ordered from this thread this week are scheduled to arrive today. I will be very busy.

 

[seilerbird]

This morning I ordered eight more discs from this thread. Saving Private Ryan, Gravity, Black Hawk Down, 300, Fight Club, The Underworld Trilogy, The Incredibles, and Prometheus. I have only seen the first two. I started watching the first Lord of the Rings flick. It has great sound, great visuals and great special effects. But since I never read the book the movie makes no sense to me. Even reading about it doesn't help much. Does anyone actually understand the story?

 

[rtbluray]

This morning I ordered eight more discs from this thread. Saving Private Ryan, Gravity, Black Hawk Down, 300, Fight Club, The Underworld Trilogy, The Incredibles, and Prometheus. I have only seen the first two. I started watching the first Lord of the Rings flick. It has great sound, great visuals and great special effects. But since I never read the book the movie makes no sense to me. Even reading about it doesn't help much. Does anyone actually understand the story?

That prologue at the very beginning of "Fellowship of the Ring" is key to understanding a lot of what follows throughout those three films, so go back and watch the prologue again if you're having trouble following the story. That will at least explain the origins of the ring.

 

[seilerbird]

That prologue at the very beginning of "Fellowship of the Ring" is key to understanding a lot of what follows throughout those three films, so go back and watch the prologue again if you're having trouble following the story. That will at least explain the origins of the ring.

Thanks, will do.

 

[skherbeck]

Thanks, will do.

Read the book!!! "The Lord of the Rings" is to literature what the Alan Parsons Quad mix of "The Dark Side of the Moon" is to surround sound!

 

[seilerbird]

Read the book!!! "The Lord of the Rings" is to literature what the Alan Parsons Quad mix of "The Dark Side of the Moon" is to surround sound!

I don't think I should need to read a 2000 page book just to understand a movie. I don't care how many awards it wins or how many people praise the movie, that is just poor movie making in my book. I do not enjoy reading fiction anyway.

 

[seilerbird]

The pod race in Star Wars Episode I is pretty impressive.

Now that is what I am talking about. Very impressive.

 

[skherbeck]

I don't think I should need to read a 2000 page book just to understand a movie. I don't care how many awards it wins or how many people praise the movie, that is just poor movie making in my book. I do not enjoy reading fiction anyway.

No worries... I was just trying to say it's a really enjoyable read

 

[seilerbird]

No worries... I was just trying to say it's a really enjoyable read

Thanks for your opinion. I really love reading. I spend several hours reading every night before bedtime. For some unexplained reason I only read non-fiction.

 

[arnold_layne]

LOTR requires a lot of your attention. Fellowship is the easiest to follow You're basically following one group of characters. Once you get to the Two Towers, it gets complicated

 

[seilerbird]

LOTR requires a lot of your attention. Fellowship is the easiest to follow You're basically following one group of characters. Once you get to the Two Towers, it gets complicated

I am already giving it my full attention. I don't know how it can get anymore complicated. It seems like ever sentence uttered by one of the characters has no relationship to anything else being said or going on. I think if it was in Chinese it would be easier to comprehend.