Tuesday, April 19, 2011

BD impressions: The Sound of Music

11:09 PM / BD Impressions / Comments10 Comments

BD Impressions
Blu-ray

The film: Supposedly, Christopher Plummer hated doing THE SOUND OF MUSIC. He called it "The Sound of Mucus", which I suspect many would agree is an apt description. And yet, in spite of its sickly sweetness, simplistic world view and blatant flouting of history - or more likely BECAUSE of those things - I'm an unabashed fan of this giddy, colourful musical, a remnant of a time when Hollywood still made giddy, colourful musicals. I don't really have anything to say about it that hasn't been said before by countless critics more eloquent than me, but I'll just add that, if a film can run for nearly three hours and STILL leave me disappointed when it finally fades to black, it has to be getting something resoundingly right. 10/10

Image quality: So good it's almost obscene.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC is a poster child for how to treat an older film properly on BD. OK, so it has the added advantage of having been shot in 65mm, but if all catalogue titles looked even a fraction as good as this, professional complainers like me would be out of an (unpaid) job. Detail is of the "OMGWOW!!!" variety, the fine but consistent grain is beautifully rendered, and the colours are as lush as one would expect. Optical shots show slightly less definition and there is some noticeable colour fringing in a handful of shots (see Example 5), but any flaws on display seem to be down to the source materials...

...with a single exception. At the beginning of the film, just before the opening titles, everything suddenly goes iTunes-tastic in a serious way, for a handful of frames. It's a noticeable gaffe that even an IMDB forum member managed to pick up on. Given how flawless the compression is elsewhere, it's bizarre that the encoder messed up so significantly on this one occasion. To put it bluntly, QC should have caught it...

But who am I kidding? It's a few frames in a movie that's damn near three hours long. I can hardly let less than a second of dodgy encoding pull down the final score. Otherwise, there'd be no such thing as a 10/10.

The Sound of Music
studio: 20th Century Fox; disc country: UK; region code: ABC;
codec: AVC; aspect ratio: 2.2:1

The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music The Sound of Music

 
10 Comments

1. Trond said:

Great BD, great film. A BD even my old mother can appreciate.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 12:45 AM)

2. ChuckZ said:

I bought this as a gift to my mother but I haven't had a chance to sit down and watch it all the way through. She loved it however.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 5:02 AM)

3. Phil Quail said:

You've tempted me to buy this now! I don't think I've ever actually watched the whole film, but I've probably seen most, if not all, of it in bite-sized chunks over countless Christmas/Easter afternoons.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 4:54 PM)

4. FoxyMulder said:

Did you try checking out the opening title music, switch between the French and English tracks and take a good listen.

Personally regarding historical accuracy and simplistic views of the world, well i'd much rather see a return to good old fashioned entertainment like this than watch yet another modern movie which feels the need to "educate" and gets too serious and forgets about the entertainment factor.

(Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 5:25 PM)

5. Kev said:

One of the best things about DVD & blu-ray, finally getting to see movies I've only ever seen in 4:3 P&S in their original aspect ratios.

(Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 1:50 PM)

6. gaylord patel said:

is this like school of rock? looks boring from the pics

(Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 7:12 PM)

7. Author Profile Page Michael said:

I'm trying to figure out whether comment #6 is a spambot or just a very stupid person.

(Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 7:21 PM)

8. FoxyMulder said:

I think Gaylord is a fan of Meet The Parents ( and Fockers ) either that or his mum and dad had a great sense of humour when naming him. ( or a bad sense of humour depending on your view )

(Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 8:56 PM)

9. Author Profile Page Michael said:

:D

Oh by the way, Foxy, in answer to your question, no I didn't get a chance to sample the differences in the opening title music between the different audio tracks, but will do so at the next possible opportunity.

(Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 8:57 PM)

10. FoxyMulder said:

Try to listen through speakers rather than headphones, it's also various musical tracks within the film, a good one to listen to is the one at the Gazebo when they sing I am sixteen going on seventeen, the higher frequencies seem intact to me while the new mix reduces this, i heard this was a result of damage limitation due to the state the tracks were in and that with Todd AO the higher frequencies of the magnetic soundtrack tend to deteriorate over time.

I believe the French track has problems of its own but it just struck me as being more airy and alive when played through the speakers, obviously the dubbing of the voices has to be dismissed but its the musical instruments that sound better to me on the French track.

(Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 11:28 PM)

 
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