The Ultimate DVD Platinum

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General		Extras
Category	Home Theatre Demo, Diagnostics & Setup	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	Dolby Digital (Water) DTS Digital Surround
Year Released	1999	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	Quite a while ...	Other Extras	Menu Audio & Animation
RSDL/Flipper	Dual Layer (Disc 1)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	1,2,3,4,5,6	Director
Studio Distributor	Unapix Entertainment Inc	Starring
RRP	$29.95	Music	Alan Parsons Tangerine Dream Mickey Hart Thomas Dolby Jan Hammer Paul Speer & Scot Rockenfield The Blue Angels et al

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	1.33:1	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	Dolby Digital 5.1
16x9 Enhancement		Soundtrack Languages	Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 5.1, 448Kb/s DTS 5.1 LPCM 2.0 48/16, 1536Kb/s LPCM 2.0 96/24, 4608Kb/s
Theatrical Aspect Ratio		Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?	Smoking	No
Subtitles	None	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Since this is a fairly complicated review, I will have to eschew the standard review format we all know and love, and go through the menu structure piece by piece, starting with the first disc. Before I do that, I will comment that the packaging of this dual DVD offering is excellent, using an ingenious internal mechanism to hold both discs in a standard-sized Amaray case, which is so much nicer than other methods that I have come across.

    Being a region-free disc, it is NTSC formatted, so only TV monitors equipped with NTSC playback facility can replay this disc in full colour.

    The  menu selections are as follows:

Screen Formats

Multi-Angle Viewing

Play & Watch

Parental Lock

Multi-Lingual

Digital Surround Demonstrations

Comparisons

    There are 6 different clips in this section, and all allow you to listen to DTS, Dolby Digital 5.1 or Dolby Pro-Logic (apart from the second, which does not have a Pro-Logic mix):
 

1. Chronos - this is a breathtaking look at the world sped up, or as I like to think of it, from the viewpoint of a very slow-moving entity. We run around in our daily lives like mad ants, and it is disturbing and beautiful to watch. The music is very nice, and like all the clips the surround channels are used aggressively. When comparing DTS with Dolby Digital 5.1, the inevitable conclusion is that DTS has better high-frequency extension, sounding not brighter but just fuller in the high frequencies, as if a veil has been lifted.
2. Indoscrub - with techno electronic music, this is a good demo. Again, the DTS sound has better bass and much better high frequencies. Also, the surround stage feels as if it collapses when switching back to Dolby Digital 5.1. Yet, if you listen to the Dolby Digital mix on its own for a while, it sounds very dynamic and open. Switching again to DTS, and the experience is quite different, seeming to open up once again. In fact, it is almost like going from Dolby Surround to 5.1, I kid you not.
3. Sharks
4. Monkey & Lions
5. Whales
6. Ice Sequence - this is an excellent look at Antarctica, witnessing great sky-scraper sized chunks of ice fall peel away into the frozen ocean. Whilst both Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks are great, the DTS soundtrack has much better bass, and you really feel those icebergs crash into the sea.

Music Demonstrations

Audio Option

Dolby Digital 5.1

1. Gate To The Mind's Eye - this is a trippy trek into space, with some excellent imagery and quite decent surround audio.
2. Televoid - this is exactly like a PC game, and is a bit ordinary really. The sound is also a bit cheesy.

DTS Digital Surround

1. Jungle Journey - at odds with the title, this is a segment showing building upon building being demolished, and is very interesting to watch. Why does this make a good DTS demonstration? I am not sure, but the explosions certainly sound good, showing off I suppose DTS' ability in the lower-end department.
2. Silver Screen - hmm. More of the same, however instead of being able to see clearly the buildings being blown to smithereens, you only see a kind of kaleidoscopic view, and it is screen-saverish and not at all interesting, at least to me.

PCM Stereo

    The animated menu has four entries:

Audio Enhancement Tools

    You then are presented with a choice of common calibration tools, each designed to specifically test a certain aspect of the sound chain within your system. Whilst there are no written notes with these tools, there is an excellent spoken description of each and every thing you can select, which I feel is better than written notes anyway, because I would tend to lose them.

1. Channel I.D. - Each speaker in your system gets to announce itself to the world, allowing you to make sure that the left signal is indeed going to the left speaker, and so forth. This is ideal if you have just wired up (or rewired) a system.
2. Polarity Test - After you know that your speakers are at least connected to the right output, this test will let you know if you have wired the speakers correctly in terms of (+) and (-) signals. Each speaker must be wired with the correct polarity in order that all sound wavefronts arrive at the ear at the same time. The polarity of the Front L + Front R, Front R + Surround R, Surround L + Surround R, Surround L + Front L, Front L + Centre combinations are tested, and you will know immediately if something is wrong.
3. Level Adjustment - Now it is time to make sure the levels are set correctly, ensuring that the sonic picture is balanced. A band-limited pink-noise signal is sent through each speaker in turn (selectable), allowing you to calibrate using a SPL meter (Sound Pressure Level). This tool is really only useful with an SPL meter, because you just can't do it by ear. If you can't borrow one from someone, they can be found for around $90 with analogue displays, and around $130 for digital meters. I would suggest the latter, though either will do. If you are as anal as me, you will probably want to do this fairly regularly, so you will get good use from such a meter.
4. Subwoofer Level Adjustment
5. Noise Floor - This is designed to let you determine the level at which certain sounds will not be audible with your system at a certain volume level, and allows you to select 63Hz, 250Hz, 1kHz, 4kHz and 8kHz signals at levels between 25dB and 60dB in 5dB increments.
6. Rattle Test  - Now this is a cool feature. If parts of your furniture tend to rattle at certain frequencies, or indeed start to walk out of the room on their own when your subwoofer kicks in, then this handy tool will let you isolate exactly what rattles at what frequency. For each speaker, you can select a band of tones (250Hz to 500Hz for instance), which will catch different objects in the room depending on their mass/position etc, so that you can either fix them in place or remove them if possible. You can also just select a full sweep from 20Hz to 20kHz, although this is a bit like a torture test for your speakers and so care is advised. Very handy.

Audio Demonstration

    I must say that these are quite impressive, and also allow you to do some more comparisons between digital surround formats. There is a problem with the DTS versions of these sound effects which is a trifle annoying. The right surround channel is either dead or very quiet, giving a totally unbalanced surround effect. The error is in the recording, since when there is no sound there is at least a dim hiss. The Dolby Digital 5.1 version suffers no such problem, which is very strange.

Video Enhancement Tools

1. Brightness - This setting is most important for shadow detail to be visible, something we at this site are particularly concerned with, and for good reason. Visible shadow detail is imperative if the visual experience is to match film, and is something which is quite difficult to transfer from film to video. This feature uses what is called a "pluge" test, which consists of a very black bar, and a slightly brighter one, along with a grey gradient on the right. It is tricky, and you must do this in absolute darkness for best results, as indeed that is the best way to watch movies anyway. Ambient light is our enemy.
2. Contrast - This is a very strange way to set contrast, and is basically a cross-hatch pattern on the screen. The contrast is said to be set correctly when the cross-hatching does not blur. In truth, I could not use this on my set at all, so it was effectively useless for me.
3. Purity - This tests for signal purity across the screen, and presents a pure white signal followed by a pure red signal for standard televisions, and a set of red/green/blue signals for flat-panel displays such as LCD screens, which are pure by definition but might have the odd missing pixel. This tests for magnetic anomalies, and if there is a problem a good degaussing would seem to be in order.
4. Geometry - This makes sure that horizontal and vertical lines are just that, without bends or kinks. Geometry is vitally important, and if it is off things can look decidedly ugly, especially during pans where objects can change shape as they move. If you can control the geometry on your set, then this is ideal for doing that. You can choose either 4:3, Letterbox or Anamorphic 16:9 test screens, which are cross-hatched with a large central circle and smaller circles for each corner. It is worth noting that this, and indeed all of these tools, cannot be paused. This is both good and bad. Many DVD players cannot pause properly, instead showing only a half-resolution field instead of the full frame, which is not ideal for these calibration tools. Having a looping segment preserves the full resolution of the image, although the looping does get annoying. In the end though, it is a fair compromise.
5. Convergence - This is really useful for CRT projection devices, and presents a cross-hatch to enable the red, blue and green guns to all match up properly. I have yet to run into a direct-view set that allows individual guns to be controlled in this manner, so for most this won't be useful. For others, like myself, it is indispensable.
6. Chroma and Hue - These two both present the SMPTE colour-bar test pattern, and you are supposed to view it using the supplied blue strip of film and be able to set your colour. This baffled me somewhat, and I basically gave up on it. Also, the hue setting is only for NTSC displays, so is not particularly relevant to the Australian market, save for those with Region 1 DVDs. This is another reason to stick with PAL, since the chrominance phase is locked from the signal itself, and does not require calibrating.
7. Clamp - By using a looping black-to-white transition test, this tests for the set's ability to hold a black level steady during periods of stress. This is something which cannot be altered, and is supposed to be used as a tool before you buy the set.
8. Sharpness - Now, here is something which many people have a little problem with, not to mention some DVD producers. Sharpness is probably the most misunderstood control on TV sets, and is usually not set correctly. This is an excellent way to correctly set sharpness, and is far better than that supplied with Video Essentials. The test signal is a set of consecutively higher-frequency luminance burst signals, which looks like vertical bars going from thick to thin, left to right. Since sharpness affects high-frequency information, the right-hand side of this signal is the one to focus one. Setting the sharpness level at the point where the right hand part of the screen looks the same as the left in terms of contrast is a doddle, and is precisely the correct setting for the sharpness. Too easy, and the results speak for themselves.

Video Demonstration

1. Video Clips - a set of IMAX shot clips - Cheetah, Sharks and Ngorongara Crater, being excellent in terms of visual quality, or at least as good as NTSC can be.
2. Stills - three really impressive still images - Female Model, Aqua Beach Scene and Floral Arrangement, specifically geared towards colour rendition and sharpness. Very nice.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall