'Sharkwater' - High-Def Digest Review - High-Def Digest Forums

Attebery · #1 04-16-2008, 01:01 PM

Kenneth's review of 'Sharkwater' has been posted. He says it's a subjective documentary, but he couldn't see any reasonable argument against the filmmakers' stance on the slaughter of sharks. As a Blu-ray release, this documentary fares well. It features a great video transfer (that only suffers from the unevenness of its HD and SD sources), excellent audio, and run of the mill supplements. Still, this release would make excellent addition to any documentary enthusiast's shelf.

Full review here:

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1359/sharkwater.html

SBrooks1 · #2 04-16-2008, 01:07 PM

What's going on in this picture here?

GamerGuyX · #3 04-16-2008, 01:23 PM

Did anybody else notice how this is a Warner title not encoded with VC-1? MPEG-2 is what they used on their first few Blu-ray releases. Are they switching back?

Moonraker · #4 04-16-2008, 01:25 PM

In that picture, they are trying to stop the engines of an illegal fishing boat by flooding it.

--

I completely agree with your review. As I was watching it I was kind of annoyed by the director getting his screen time. I think the most blatent example of this is the end credits.

I think the doc is important to watch despite those annoyances.

Patsfan123 · #5 04-16-2008, 01:28 PM

I doubt they are switching back, its probably just a fluke since its not a theatrical release. According to AVS:

Quote:

It's encoded MPEG-2 1080/60i at about 25mbps I think. With a normal Dolby 5.1 soundtrack at 448kbps.

It seems like they just threw this together really quickly. When was it even announced?

GamerGuyX · #6 04-16-2008, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patsfan123

When was it even announced?

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...r_Blu-ray/1423

Liqwid · #7 04-16-2008, 01:33 PM

Jeez, sounds like WB is going the FOX route. MPEG-2 and BD25s.

GamerGuyX · #8 04-16-2008, 01:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liqwid

Jeez, sounds like WB is going the FOX route. MPEG-2 and BD25s.

This could be different if the source is indeed MPEG-2. It doesn't make sense to re-encode something in that case.

bplewis24 · #9 04-16-2008, 01:48 PM

I have to completely agree with Kenneth's review of the film/documentary itself, but not the video portion of it.

The HD material (which was actually in 1080i according to my PS3 and most other sources, by the way), was not anywhere near the level of Galapagos or Planet Earth. It was much softer and appeared to suffer from post processing issues . Some of the HD material looked fine, but the SD material was nearly intrusive as obvious as it was. And it seemed to dominate the runtime. It felt as if half of the movie was using stock footage or SD cameras. I would rate the video more like 2 stars instead of 3. Maybe even 1.5.

Not only that, but there were authoring issues with the disc. The PS3 could not display any chapter or timestamp information, and others reported not being able to use the chapter skip buttons. I think the content on this BD documentary was worth the rental and time to watch it, as it was very informative (even if a bit skewed due to the agenda), but the problems with the video and authoring of the disc would lead me to never watch again or even recommend it to somebody.

Brandon

SBrooks1 · #10 04-16-2008, 01:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moonraker

In that picture, they are trying to stop the engines of an illegal fishing boat by flooding it.

Ah ok. I had a feeling it was something drama related.

Ken Brown · #11 04-16-2008, 03:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bplewis24

I have to completely agree with Kenneth's review of the film/documentary itself, but not the video portion of it.

The HD material (which was actually in 1080i according to my PS3 and most other sources, by the way), was not anywhere near the level of Galapagos or Planet Earth. It was much softer and appeared to suffer from post processing issues . Some of the HD material looked fine, but the SD material was nearly intrusive as obvious as it was. And it seemed to dominate the runtime. It felt as if half of the movie was using stock footage or SD cameras. I would rate the video more like 2 stars instead of 3. Maybe even 1.5.

Not only that, but there were authoring issues with the disc. The PS3 could not display any chapter or timestamp information, and others reported not being able to use the chapter skip buttons. I think the content on this BD documentary was worth the rental and time to watch it, as it was very informative (even if a bit skewed due to the agenda), but the problems with the video and authoring of the disc would lead me to never watch again or even recommend it to somebody.

Brandon

I just checked the disc on my PS3 and encountered the same authoring issues as you. However, these issues don't pop up on either my Sony or Panasonic standalone BD players. Don't you just love technology?

When it comes to the post-processing issues, I agree with your stance, but find that it's limited to the SD footage. I seriously considered awarding just two stars for PQ, but then thought about the nature of the on-the-fly camera work in the documentary. Honestly, I don't expect Stewart to lug around HD cams for an expose like 'Sharkwater.' Investigative-documentary fans should be used to this mish-mash of SD/HD video quality by now as it's generally par for the course.

I also just checked 'Galapagos' on my PS3 and encountered the same authoring issues (it also reads as 1080i on my PS3, but 1080p on my standalones). I'll do a bit of research and let you know what I find. Thanks as always for posting!