Tru Calling-Season 1: Part 2 (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Introduction Menu Audio Audio Commentary-Filmmakers' And Actors - Daddy's Girl, Two Pair Audio Commentary-Filmmakers' And Actors - Two Weddings And A Funeral Deleted Scenes-With Optional Commentary Featurette-Finding The Calling: The Pilot Featurette-The Tru Path: Season One Featurette-Evil Comes Calling: A Late Season Twist Music Video-"Somebody Help Me" By Full Blown Rose Trailer-Arrested Development Promo Easter Egg-Zach Galifianakis' Audition Web Links
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	339:39
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Multi Disc Set (3)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Bryan Spicer David Barrett Guy Norman Bee Sanford Bookstaver
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Eliza Dushku Shawn Reaves Zach Galifianakis A.J. Cook Jessica Collins Benjamín Benítez Matthew Bomer Jason Priestley Liz Vassey Cotter Smith Eric Christian Olsen Lizzy Caplan Parry Shen
Case	?
RPI	$49.95	Music	Robert Duncan Jon Ehrlich Avril Lavigne

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired Swedish English Audio Commentary	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Picking up from the first half of season 1, here we have the remaining 8 episodes of the first season. The following is a breakdown of how each episode is presented in this set. My full review of the series can be found here

Season 1: Part Two

Disc 4

    13. Drop Dead Gorgeous (42:00)     14. Daddy’s Girl (42:29)

    15. The Getaway (42:01)

Disc 5

    16. Two Pair (42:29)     17. Death Becomes Her (42:29)

    18. Rear Window (42:15)

Disc 6

    19. D.O.A. (42:30)     20. Two Weddings And A Funeral (42:28)

Video

    The transfer quality of this, the second half of the first season is the same as the first. The transfer preserves the original aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The graininess of the first half of the season is still present here. Colour is still very well saturated, and nicely balanced, but lacking the gloss of more recent cinema transfers.

    Again, there is only minimal background aliasing here. There are no MPEG artefacts, or any other film-to-video transfer artefacts.

    There are still a few film artefacts.

    Subtitles are available in English for the Hearing Impaired and Swedish. They appear as white with a grey border and are easy to read. The English for the Hearing Impaired track follows the dialogue pretty closely.

    The dual-layer pause is in between the episodes, even where there are only 3 episodes per disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio is limited to a fairly stock-standard English 2.0 Dolby Surround track encoded at 192Kb/s, and is (unsurprisingly) identical in quality to the audio for part one of season one.

    Dialogue is excellent, with great clarity and no detectable sync faults.

    Given its 2.0 Surround nature, the sound is almost entirely front driven, with minimal noise from the rears, and no real enveloping surround presence.

    The range, however, is very good, and the front driven field has plenty of fidelity – enough to upset my neighbours on several occasions, particularly the music which has a very engrossing rhythm.

    There is some redirection here to the subwoofer, but that is largely due to my set up. There is no independent signal going to the sub.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menus

    All menus are 16x9 enhanced. They are static shots of a character in a pose. The main menus have the theme playing in 2.0 Dolby Stereo.

Episode Audio Commentaries

    There are audio commentaries on the following episodes. Each commentary is presented in English 2.0 Dolby Surround, encoded at 192Kb/s.

• Daddy’s Girl (Disc 4)
• Two Pair (Disc 5)

Deleted Scenes

    There are deleted scenes for the following episodes. Each deleted scene is presented in 1.78:1, non-16x9 enhanced, English 2.0 Dolby Stereo with optional commentary.

• Drop Dead Gorgeous (Disc 4) – deleted scene “Super Hero” (0:44)
• Putting Out Fires (Disc 4) – deleted scenes “Just Like Your Dad” (0:56), “Jack Harper” (0:28), “Look Who’s Here” (1:42), “Two Questions” (1:38) and “Quit Saving People” (3:22)
• Two Pair (Disc 5) – deleted scenes “To Do List” (0:42) and “Owner Of The Boat” (0:53)
• Death Becomes Her (Disc 5) – deleted scene “If You’re Ever In California” (0:34)

Disc 6

    The following special features are available on Disc 6:

• Featurettes – presented in 1.33:1, non-16x9 enhanced, 2.0 Dolby Surround, “Finding The Calling: The Pilot” (10:53), “The Tru Path: Season One” (8:02), and “Evil Comes Calling: A Late Season Twist” (7:25)
• Hidden Feature – presented in 1.33:1, non-16x9 enhanced, 2.0 Stereo, this is the screen test for Zach Galifianakas who plays Davis. Access this by highlighting the timeline on the Features menu (2:40)
• Music Video: “Save Me” by Blown Rose presented in 1.78:1, letterbox, non-16x9 enhanced, 2.0 Stereo (2:52)
• Arrested Development Promo: “Blind” presented in 1.33:1, Full Screen, 2.0 Stereo (0:30)
• www.foxinternaitonal.com - weblink with access to other features
• www.fox.co.uk - weblink with access to other features

    From what I can tell, the R1 and R4 releases are identical in context (barring the region coding and the picture format) except that the R1 release is a 6 disc set encompassing the whole first season in one go, rather than splitting it down the middle.

    As for picture quality, without a direct comparison it is hard to tell. Certainly, a lot of R1 transfers have been trumping R4 transfers in picture quality as of late (at least in my experience). But if someone out there knows more than I do about the audio/visual quality of the R1 release, and has comparable equipment, please let me know your thoughts.

    The second half of the first season really does pick the show up a notch with the introduction of Jason Priestley’s character.

    Video is pretty good, though a little grainy.

    The sound is a decent 2.0 Dolby Surround mix.

    The extras are pretty good for a series that got cancelled so early on in its run.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall