Another 5/5: Pearl Harbor

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Chad's Pearl Harbor review

Like most I was sold on the benefits, if not the need for the new advanced codecs like AVC and VC1 for high definition. And while both have produced great results, it's releases like this that make me hope the lesser compressed codec, MPEG 2 hangs around a bit longer. I'm no longer sold that heavier compression from VC1 and AVC is the ideal. But that's still too early to qualify. Regardless, I saw no problems with compression, no artificial video noise, no posterization/banding of color transitions or fades. Pearl Harbor looks like 35mm film is supposed to and never hints at being processed.

The ability to move carefully to new codecs, while maintaining high release rates AND excellent quality, was always what I have pressed.

We all know that VC-1 and AVC must be potentially better. The specs are better (oh, the irony!). They have to realize that potential. And BD gives you the bandwidth flexibility to move to high quality VC-1/AVC while still maintaining work-flow productivity, since extra bandwidth can be used to hide the problems, rather than expensive compressionist tuning.

Gary