Robert Harris on Saving Private Ryan...

[rsbeck]

If you're not familiar with Robert Harris, he's an industry insider who has worked on many film restorations remasters for DVD and now blu-ray. In my opinion, the on-line world is very lucky to have his "A Few Words About" column available on the internet.


Here is his column on Saving Private Ryan...

With Paramount's Sapphire Series getting off to a bit of a rocky start with digital cleansing problems in Gladiator, which may have been caused by Universal elements, it's nice to see quality back with their release of Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan.

I've a feeling that anything with Mr. Spielberg's name attached to it is going to go through a bit more serious QC path than some other productions, and if that's the case it shows here.

I screened the new Blu-ray last night for a friend, and he made an interesting comment. With the overall dynamism, layers of audio and pure volume, dialogue during the opening landing, as well as all other sequences that play high on the db scale, is all clear.

While I would believe that some of this is due to the decoding of one's receiver, speaker setup, etc., the audio must clearly be there in the uncompressed tracks before it can be delivered into one's home theater environment.

The audio on this disc, full, rich, loud and always crisp and clean is a testament to not only the sound effects, dialogue recording and mixing work performed on this huge production, but also of the fact that the DTS-HD Master Audio system delivers what it promises.

Image is perfect, with rich blacks, accurate color and densities.

Saving Private Ryan is a great, and important film, and has been delivered with perfection via Paramount on the Blu-ray format. As the winner of five Academy Awards inclusive of Best Director, (Shakespeare in Love took Best Picture), it deserves a place in any serious Blu-ray collection. As an aside, SPR also won Best Editing, Sound and Sound Effects Editing, so what you're hearing should come as no surprise. Anyone serious about cinema should stop for a moment and imagine what was entailed in creating these tracks. The job must have been immense.

A perfect Blu-ray.

Highly Recommended.

RAH

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/forum/thread/300012/a-few-words-about-saving-private-ryan-in-blu-ray

 

[rsbeck]

Watched Saving Private Ryan on blu-ray tonight. Have to echo Mr. Harris here -- excellent transfer -- can't imagine how it could look or sound any better on blu. Sound effects are some of the best I've heard -- here's another demo disc for surround sound and sub-woofers. The realism, the immersive quality, the spatial relationships, the clarity, resolution, and natural sounding detail as well as the variety of effects is just incredible.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Just so you're aware...

This from Blu-ray.com:

Saving Private Ryan Blu-ray Audio Issue Confirmed/Return Instructions (Update 3) Share87
Posted May 12, 2010 06:18 AM by Juan Calonge


When Saving Private Ryan came out on Blu-ray, some enthusiasts claimed that they noticed an audio issue with the movie and that, starting at chapter 15, the sound went out of sync with the picture. Now Paramount Home Entertainment has unofficially confirmed to The Digital Bits that "there IS a sound sync issue on current copies." The studio is reportedly working on fixed discs for retail, and is expected to announce a replacement plan soon.

This issue also affects releases of this title in other territories - actually, the first whistle-blowers were from the UK, as the film was released on Blu-ray a week earlier there.

In the meantime, Amazon.com has temporarily pulled the disc from sale (but its European branches haven't).

Site reviewer Martin Liebman had reported this issue as early as May 2 in his review of the Blu-ray, in the following words: "If there's a misstep in the track, there appears to be a slight lip synch issue before the battle of Ramelle, found around the 2:06 mark in the film as a character shares a story about one of his brothers' girlfriends and their encounter in a barn. The effect was blatantly obvious when viewing the film with a combination of a Panasonic DMP-BDT300 Blu-ray player and Denon AVR-3808 audio receiver connected via HDMI (with the audio stream sent through a separate HDMI cable from the video stream), but seemed to be less of an issue when the Denon was paired with a PlayStation 3, also connected via HDMI."

Update

Minutes ago Amazon UK has also stopped sales of the British release.

Update 2

We have received word from Paramount confirming that the error was due to quality control issues at Technicolor. As part of the Paramount's and Techicolor's continued dedication to providing consumers with the best possible Blu-ray experience, they have setup a replacement program for the defective discs. Those who have purchased the disc can either return the disc to the retailer or contact Technicolor directly at 888-370-8621 for the US or Canada and 08000-852-613 in the UK. Technicolor expects replacement discs to be at retailers by May 18th.

Update 3

Amazon UK has resumed sales of Saving Private Ryan, under a different identification number. The previous release was ASIN B0035ER236, whereas the new release appears under ASIN B003LVZYL0, and with the message "Usually dispatched within 1 to 3 weeks."

Similarly, Amazon USA is offering the new version under ASIN B003LL3N1I, without an availability date.

The German release has been pushed back one week, to May 21. The Spanish release, initially slated for May 26, has been delayed without a date. The French release hasn't changed its street date of June 3.

 

[rsbeck]

Interesting -- I didn't notice any issue with lip synch. I'm going to have to watch again and see if I missed it.

 

[rsbeck]

Just watched again, specifically the chapters and scenes cited above. No lip synch issues at all. Lip synch looked spot on. The only thing that looked out of synch was the obvious highlights in Matt Damon's hollywood movie star hair. Reminds me of the Mitch Hedberg joke, "I got my hair highlighted because I felt some strands were more important than others."

Purchased my copy from Amazon on May 4rth. I'm using an Oppo BDP-83 into an Integra 9.8 (Audio) into a Dolby Lake then to the amps and speakers.

Video goes Source Direct from the Oppo with no processing in the Integra -- all video processing is done in the Sim2.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Not everyone noticed it (is it player dependent?), but it's nice to see that there was enough rumbling about it to have Paramount investigate the situation and take action. Kudos to them!.

John

 

[rsbeck]

From reading around, it seems that some discs have the problem and others don't. I agree. Kudos to Paramount for taking action to get the bad discs out of circulation and make it right.