Dabaang BD Review - Blu-ray Forum

anibap · 11-22-2010, 01:04 PM

Dabaang BD Review

Movie:
Didn't like the film but couldn't help myself to review the BD for technical reasons. I am skipping the review of the film. Just to make it clear, I did not watch the whole movie for review but covered enough for doing a review...
PQ:

The very first thing I noticed is the filmic look of the image and it resembles what I saw in the theater. This is a great achievement. I think the credit here goes to both the source generation from film by the studio as well as DEI who authored a like to like copy for the BD
No apparent edge enhancement and this is something which should never appear on BD.
No contrast boost – This is one of the consistent things which I have seen so far from DEI’s offering and this one has maintained the track record. I like DEI's authoring w.r.t white level in BD.
Picture is quite clean and integrity is quite good.

Although the BD is very close to its theatrical look and feel it does have some issues

Black Crush – Although not severe. Bright daylight scenes do not suffer from this issue but with night, low light and dark scenes most of the detail in darker areas is lost. In many sequences, objects in the dark loses the shadow detail and gradation of colors. I upped my gamma setting on my PJ it helped a little but was no enough. Look for dark objects in the movie in low light or dark scenes and you will know what I mean. Example: in the song ‘Munni Badnaam hui’ you will notice that even the head of central characters at certain angles appear like a dark blob with no detail on their hair. Black trousers worn by dancers are just black blobs and no detail. The same can be seen in many scenes throughout the movie.
Color tone – The film resembles the very similar ‘strong warm color color temp as I saw in the theater. The only difference is the BD is slightly intensified in some scenes (more so in low light and dark scenes) and there is a strange greenish yellow tone in several scenes that doesn’t look good with skin tones. Some scenes are too much saturated as well and some de-saturated.
Now, if you combine 1 and 2 above what you get is color bleed and smearing effect. Since the dark areas are affected with black crush, the color gradation in such scenes is not distinguishable. This effect can be achieved with a good BD to understand what I mean. If you lower the gamma and reduce the black level you will see this effect.
Overall brightness and contrast is slightly on the lower side compared to other Bollywood BDs based on relative viewing. It does appear dim compared to other bolly BDs. I watched 3 Idiots before this and I had to increase the Iris of my Projector to compensate my relative viewing. It is not a serious issue as it looks great in a light controlled room howver, if the black level was right and and the contrast upped by another few notches, this might have looked great like WUS.
DNR : Unfortunately it is there but not as bad as some recent movies although inconsistent at times. The DNR is not applied by DEI as we know they do not use any DNR processing capability while authoring. That makes the source as the culprit and this is becoming a real pain with most movies at the source stage. The studios need to ensure that the natural grain and sharpness of the film is maintained while processing the digital source from original film negatives otherwise this issue is going be a norm rather than an exception.
Having said that, I watched this film in the theater recently and I don’t recall the movie to have razon sharp sharpness. It appeared bit softer. The BD in parts are softer than what I saw in cinema from what I could recollect.

AQ

The DTS MA track is excellent. It creates a nice soundstage. Dialogues are crisp and clear, surround stage is well balanced and active throughout the movie as and when required for effects. The songs sounded nice and full with an immersive effect.
The other good thing is the audio is not amplified wrongly as we see with most bollywood movies. I was happy to see that my preferred setting on my amp was perfect to start with. A balanced loudness allows you to drive the amp hard if you wish without impacting your equipment chain. This is a good achievement and I only hope that bollywood BDs will have a balanced loudness in upcoming releases.

During the fighting sequences and the song ‘Munni Badnaam Hui’, the rears produced some squeaking effect which sounded pretty loud from my seating position. It could be what the ‘other guy’ from the 'other site' mentioned that the rears are louder than normal. If it is intentional then it is not well designed for human hearing.

Note:

I did not check the DD track.
I do not watch extras as part of review and hence I am not rating them.

Summary:
I very much liked the filmic look of the BD and it reminded me of the Wake Up Sid BD which to me is one of the finest BDs from bollywood. However, the filmic look and overall PQ of Dabaang BD is slightly marred by black crush resulting in loss of shadow detail, color inconsistency in dark scenes. The contrast could have been a bit higher without sacrificing the filmic look.

The audio on the other hand is a refreshing change in terms of balance, depth and clarity. Well done to DEI on this one.

This BD is not for me and I won’t buy it but people who loved this movie might have to tweak their display a bit to get the best PQ and do listen to the DTS MA track with the right gear otherwise you will be missing something.

Rating
Movie: 1.0
PQ : 3.5
AQ: 4.5
My Value score: 3.0 (with movie) and 4.0 (without movie only PQ AQ)

11-22-2010, 01:04 PM	#1
anibap Special Member Member since:Jan 2009 Location:London, UK Home Theater Gallery:30 Blu-ray collection:128 Blu-ray reviews:1	Dabaang BD Review Dabaang BD Review Movie: Didn't like the film but couldn't help myself to review the BD for technical reasons. I am skipping the review of the film. Just to make it clear, I did not watch the whole movie for review but covered enough for doing a review... PQ: The very first thing I noticed is the filmic look of the image and it resembles what I saw in the theater. This is a great achievement. I think the credit here goes to both the source generation from film by the studio as well as DEI who authored a like to like copy for the BD No apparent edge enhancement and this is something which should never appear on BD. No contrast boost – This is one of the consistent things which I have seen so far from DEI’s offering and this one has maintained the track record. I like DEI's authoring w.r.t white level in BD. Picture is quite clean and integrity is quite good. Although the BD is very close to its theatrical look and feel it does have some issues Black Crush – Although not severe. Bright daylight scenes do not suffer from this issue but with night, low light and dark scenes most of the detail in darker areas is lost. In many sequences, objects in the dark loses the shadow detail and gradation of colors. I upped my gamma setting on my PJ it helped a little but was no enough. Look for dark objects in the movie in low light or dark scenes and you will know what I mean. Example: in the song ‘Munni Badnaam hui’ you will notice that even the head of central characters at certain angles appear like a dark blob with no detail on their hair. Black trousers worn by dancers are just black blobs and no detail. The same can be seen in many scenes throughout the movie. Color tone – The film resembles the very similar ‘strong warm color color temp as I saw in the theater. The only difference is the BD is slightly intensified in some scenes (more so in low light and dark scenes) and there is a strange greenish yellow tone in several scenes that doesn’t look good with skin tones. Some scenes are too much saturated as well and some de-saturated. Now, if you combine 1 and 2 above what you get is color bleed and smearing effect. Since the dark areas are affected with black crush, the color gradation in such scenes is not distinguishable. This effect can be achieved with a good BD to understand what I mean. If you lower the gamma and reduce the black level you will see this effect. Overall brightness and contrast is slightly on the lower side compared to other Bollywood BDs based on relative viewing. It does appear dim compared to other bolly BDs. I watched 3 Idiots before this and I had to increase the Iris of my Projector to compensate my relative viewing. It is not a serious issue as it looks great in a light controlled room howver, if the black level was right and and the contrast upped by another few notches, this might have looked great like WUS. DNR : Unfortunately it is there but not as bad as some recent movies although inconsistent at times. The DNR is not applied by DEI as we know they do not use any DNR processing capability while authoring. That makes the source as the culprit and this is becoming a real pain with most movies at the source stage. The studios need to ensure that the natural grain and sharpness of the film is maintained while processing the digital source from original film negatives otherwise this issue is going be a norm rather than an exception. Having said that, I watched this film in the theater recently and I don’t recall the movie to have razon sharp sharpness. It appeared bit softer. The BD in parts are softer than what I saw in cinema from what I could recollect. AQ The DTS MA track is excellent. It creates a nice soundstage. Dialogues are crisp and clear, surround stage is well balanced and active throughout the movie as and when required for effects. The songs sounded nice and full with an immersive effect. The other good thing is the audio is not amplified wrongly as we see with most bollywood movies. I was happy to see that my preferred setting on my amp was perfect to start with. A balanced loudness allows you to drive the amp hard if you wish without impacting your equipment chain. This is a good achievement and I only hope that bollywood BDs will have a balanced loudness in upcoming releases. During the fighting sequences and the song ‘Munni Badnaam Hui’, the rears produced some squeaking effect which sounded pretty loud from my seating position. It could be what the ‘other guy’ from the 'other site' mentioned that the rears are louder than normal. If it is intentional then it is not well designed for human hearing. Note: I did not check the DD track. I do not watch extras as part of review and hence I am not rating them. Summary: I very much liked the filmic look of the BD and it reminded me of the Wake Up Sid BD which to me is one of the finest BDs from bollywood. However, the filmic look and overall PQ of Dabaang BD is slightly marred by black crush resulting in loss of shadow detail, color inconsistency in dark scenes. The contrast could have been a bit higher without sacrificing the filmic look. The audio on the other hand is a refreshing change in terms of balance, depth and clarity. Well done to DEI on this one. This BD is not for me and I won’t buy it but people who loved this movie might have to tweak their display a bit to get the best PQ and do listen to the DTS MA track with the right gear otherwise you will be missing something. Rating Movie: 1.0 PQ : 3.5 AQ: 4.5 My Value score: 3.0 (with movie) and 4.0 (without movie only PQ AQ)

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