'Dreamgirls' - High-Def Digest Review

[jed]

Peter's review of 'Dreamgirls' is up. He says the movie itself may be imperfect, but this debut high-def release from DreamWorks looks smashing, and the extras are superior. His only complaint is that DreamWorks parent Paramount continues to eschew high-resolution audio on their high-def releases, and quite frankly 'Dreamgirls' screams out for such treatment.

Full review here:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/dreamgirls.html

[D3lta]

Wow, I was expecting a low score for this movie.

It's intreseting that Paramount uses MPEG-2 for Blu-ray and VC-1 for HD DVD. Doesn't it cost them more money to convert into two different codecs?

[Blu-News.com]

I will definately be picking up the HD DVD. The Blu-ray one has a better looking case match up imo, but I need the better sound i can get.

[LembasBread]

Impressive hi-def debut from Dreamworks. Though I think Paramount was more responsible for the quality of the transfer than they were. And on that note, I agree with Peter in that Paramount needs to start ramping up the audio on both formats. They are the only studio now to have not used lossless audio on any of their titles for either format. Guess they've never heard of "future-proofing."

Kudos, though, for the hi-def supplements on most of their day-and-date titles.

[LembasBread]

Originally Posted by Delta_FX

Wow, I was expecting a low score for this movie.

It's intreseting that Paramount uses MPEG-2 for Blu-ray and VC-1 for HD DVD. Doesn't it cost them more money to convert into two different codecs?

Isn't the "word on the street" that it's Sony Pictures Entertainment who does the video encoding for them?

[TheRescue]

May rent this, but I dunno. Was never really interested. Good to see Dreamworks start out well though, as I'm interested in Flags of our Fathers.

[pac]

Thanks for the review. I canceled my pre-order with Amazon when I saw the sound specs and no high rez. Regardless of what you may think of the film, Beemer/Winkler/Burton won Oscars for their sound work on this film. It's a shame more time wasn't spent getting this release right.

[LembasBread]

Trying not to get too far off the subject of Dreamgirls, but it's going to embarrasing to Paramount when they release the hi-def versions of Flags of Our Fathers without lossless audio while Warner releases its companion film, Letters From Iwo Jima, with TrueHD audio. The 640kbps Dolby on Flags is going to pale in comparison and I hope Paramount sees that they're companion release will be inferior to Warner's effort on Letters.

[Grey Torq]

Just to confirm having just watched this the sound is really disappointing, you can actually watch the additional video 'Listen' by Beyonce and the clarity and life comes back yet this still uses the same codec. I have no idea what they did but every musical number in the soundtrack is just OK with no sparkle or life, certainly no better than a DVD DD soundtrack.

Shame on you Paramount.