Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels Blu-ray (a brief review)

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Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels Blu-ray (a brief review)

(This documentary contains scientific evidence about evolution being impossible)

This Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels Blu-ray was a very interesting science documentary from Creation Ministries International (released on October 17th 2014). 15 Ph.D. scientist share information about evolutions fatal flaws. Topics include Natural Selection, Genetics, The Origin of Life, The Fossil Record, The Geologic Column, Radiometric Dating, Cosmology, and Ethical Implications. This Blu-ray contains scientific evidence for a young Universe. Also toward the end of the science video a few scripture versus are shared. A free PDF Study Guide can be downloaded at this link. This is a region all Blu-ray disc.

“If we could award Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels more than five Doves, our best rating, we would” – Dove Foundation

Video quality

This AACS encrypted Blu-ray disc has been professionally stamped in a factory. This Blu-ray documentary uses a total of 13.9GB out of 25GB on the single layer Blu-ray disc. 100% of the menus and videos use 1080i HD instead of 1080P HD. Overall the 1080i resolution detail looked good with good color quality. Maybe the reason why this video is in 1080i instead of 1080P might be because a native 1080i HD camera could have been used instead of a 1080P HD camera when recording the program. The other possibility is that the video might have been recorded at 1080P at 30fps, however the Blu-ray format only supports 1080P at 24fps and not 30fps. If the program was recorded at 1080P at 30fps, then when the program is placed on the Blu-ray format it would need to be reduced in quality to 1080i at 30fps.

The main program and bonus footage uses the MPEG-4/AVC codec at 1080i quality. The Scientist Bios section use the MPEG-2 codec at 1080i quality. The main menu uses the MPEG-4/AVC codec while the sub menus all using the MPEG-2 codec. The main video appears to use an average MPEG-4/AVC video bit rate of around 15Mbps for some scenes. Video bit rate ranged from around the low 9Mbps to the upper 19Mbps for some scenes. With only 13.9GB used out of 25GB on the single layer disc, this would explain the below average bit rate. In addition, 1080i does not need as much bit rate when compared to 1080P, however I wish the MPEG-4/AVC bit rate would have been higher for this video instead of below average. Overall, most the 1080i images were high quality with some soft looking scenes from time to time. At times, there were some excellent high quality nature images of animals, etc. The quality of this Blu-ray is better then what one experiences from a lower bit rate 1080i HD cable presentation.

This Blu-ray is region free according to the jacket information (An error on the jacket mentions NTSC, however there is no NTSC video on this Blu-ray, that information was imported over from the DVD jacket by mistake).

This Blu-ray’s main program is encoded with 16 different language subtitles. Afrikaans,Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Dutch, English, French, German,Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian,Spanish

Audio quality

This Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels Blu-ray only contains a lossy English 2.0 Dolby Digital (192kbps) soundtrack.This is very disappointing since the Blu-ray should have been released with either a 2.0 PCM, 2.0 DTS-HD Master audio, or 2.0 Dolby TrueHD soundtrack. Many modern secular Blu-ray documentaries either contain a 5.1 lossless audio or 2.0 lossless soundtrack that is bit for bit the same as the studio master.

Therefore, the sound quality of this Blu-ray will sound exactly the same as the DVD release. The lossy English 2.0 Dolby Digital (192kbps) soundtrack on the Blu-ray was easy to understand and appeared to be a good stereo mix for this low budget documentary.

Bonus features

The bonus footage is 1080i quality using the MPEG-4/AVC codec with lossy English 2.0 Dolby Digital (192kbps) audio. It contains two separate trailers for the main program and one trailer about CMI. In addition the bonus footage contains extended interviews from 10 scientist. I found the extended interviews very interesting since it explains how the scientists became young earth Christian Scientists after making Jesus Christ their Lord and Savior. Some atheists after examining the historical Genesis record and science, decided to become young earth Christians since the evidence was pointing in that direction.

The Scientist BIOS contains 1080i MPEG-2 still images about 15 of the scientists. This is Interesting information about their life work.

Conclusion

Evolution’s Achilles’s Heels is a unique Blu-ray disc that was released by Creation Ministries International. Most Creationist videos look at the historical Genesis record as evidence for a Universe that was created by God and offers very little scientific information. This Blu-ray touches on that historical evidence a little, but it mainly uses the knowledge of 15 Ph.D. Scientists to explain the major flaws in the evolutionary theory and the large amount of scientific evidence for a young Universe created by the God of the Bible. I found the science in this video to be very interesting.

This 1080i MPEG-4/AVC Blu-ray looks very good, however there was plenty of unused space on the Blu-ray disc that could have been used to increase the video bit rate quality. The worse complaint I have about this Blu-ray disc is that the audio quality is exactly the same as the DVD version since lossy 2.0 Dolby Digital was used. It’s the year 2015 and Christian ministries and studios should be using lossless audio. The 2.0 PCM studio master was not ported over to this Blu-ray release.

Creation Ministries International USA website

Creation Ministries International Australia website

Creation Ministries International Canada website

Creation Ministries International Europe/UK website

Creation Ministries International New Zealand website

Creation Ministries International Singapore website

Creation Ministries International South Africa website

Official Trailer for Evolution's Achilles' Heels" target="_blank">Official Trailer for Evolution's Achilles' Heels