'Kingdom of Heaven' -- High-Def Digest review

[PeterB]

Fox finally got around to sending out 'Kingdom of Heaven,' so I took a look:

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/kingdomofheavendc.html

No extras at all, but the transfer and soundtrack are quite terrific. As far as I'm concerned, the best looking and sounding Blu-ray release yet from Fox.

[zzap64]

Kingdom of heaven uses a bitrate of 29.5mbps (Compared to DVD movies which use a bitrate of about 5mbps) and the total movie size is 42GB. Very high quality, it must look amazing. I guess those 50GB discs are going to be very useful.

[hmurchison]

Looking forward to seeing this version. No special extras to fill that 50GB of potential space?????? That's interesting.

[sage]

very good review! Btw, it was 24mbps and that mpeg2-codec really does take up some space..!

[Konrad]

I watched it a week ago and I was absolutely smitten. This is reference quality in video and audio!

[petethebaker]

Originally Posted by PeterB

Fox finally got around to sending out 'Kingdom of Heaven,' so I took a look:

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/kingdomofheavendc.html

No extras at all, but the transfer and soundtrack are quite terrific. As far as I'm concerned, the best looking and sounding Blu-ray release yet from Fox.

Has anyone got to hear the dtshd soundtrack if so how and on which player. I am thinking of buying a a blueray player as i want hddts right out of the box. Any help on this would be appreciated.

[Konrad]

Originally Posted by petethebaker

Has anyone got to hear the dtshd soundtrack if so how and on which player. I am thinking of buying a a blueray player as i want hddts right out of the box. Any help on this would be appreciated.

I watched the movie with the dts lossless master audio and it was an awe inspiring experience. It is superior to dts hd 98/24 and of course to "regular" dts. You can see the equipment I used in my signature. I bought the Samsung as I didn't want to wait. I will replace it by spring or middle of next year with either the Panasonic or the Pioneer Elite second generation players.

[Tejstar]

Looks like this will be a must-have for me when I get a BD player. I have never seen the film at all so will probably go straight for the DC. Good to hear that the audio and visuals are top notch.

[txfilmguy]

Originally Posted by Konrad

I watched the movie with the dts lossless master audio and it was an awe inspiring experience. It is superior to dts hd 98/24 and of course to "regular" dts. You can see the equipment I used in my signature. I bought the Samsung as I didn't want to wait. I will replace it by spring or middle of next year with either the Panasonic or the Pioneer Elite second generation players.

Since you were using the Samsung, the best audio you can get out of the movie is "regular DTS" which is extracted from the DTS HD Ma track on the disc. That said, it packs a powerful punch.

[Konrad]

Originally Posted by txfilmguy

Since you were using the Samsung, the best audio you can get out of the movie is "regular DTS" which is extracted from the DTS HD Ma track on the disc. That said, it packs a powerful punch.

I didn't know that, thank you for the info. The audio was still better then "regular" dts as I experienced it until now, including dts 96/24 from DVD. I guess even if converted to regular dts it still comes with a higher bitrate. Could my audio processor decode this kind of signal if the player was able to deliver it or would I have to use the analog 6 channel interface?

[petethebaker]

Originally Posted by txfilmguy

Since you were using the Samsung, the best audio you can get out of the movie is "regular DTS" which is extracted from the DTS HD Ma track on the disc. That said, it packs a powerful punch.

Has the dtshd been enabled in any of the blue ray players yet including the new sony bdp-s1

[petethebaker]

Originally Posted by txfilmguy

Since you were using the Samsung, the best audio you can get out of the movie is "regular DTS" which is extracted from the DTS HD Ma track on the disc. That said, it packs a powerful punch.

How close is it to truehd and how much better than the normal disc with dts.

[Gotchaa]

Originally Posted by petethebaker

How close is it to truehd and how much better than the normal disc with dts.

Don't know how the reviewer would evaluate the DTS HD MA 5.1 track, there is not a player that can decode it yet.

As far as how it compares to Dolby TrueHD, nobody can answer that just yet. I did hear the Pioneer BD Player at CES which had DTS HD MA running through the firewire port and it sounded amazing. Obviously, that was not a final product, and is not officially approved, so we will not see it on the Pioneer player, at least not through firewire.

As far as what is on paper. Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio should be exactly the same as MLP (DVD Audio) Lossless, so you should not here any difference at all.

Right now the best audio to hear is Dolby TrueHD (decoded by Toshiba Players) or uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray players "."

[Tejstar]

Originally Posted by txfilmguy

Since you were using the Samsung, the best audio you can get out of the movie is "regular DTS" which is extracted from the DTS HD Ma track on the disc. That said, it packs a powerful punch.

It is a bit more than just "regular DTS". The core stream from DTS-HD MA has a bit rate of 1.5 Mbps, compared to normal DTS at 768kbps.

[Gotchaa]

Originally Posted by Tejstar

It is a bit more than just "regular DTS". The core stream from DTS-HD MA has a bit rate of 1.5 Mbps, compared to normal DTS at 768kbps.

The bitrate for DTS-HD 5.1 is 1.5 Mbps, DTS HD is just another name for what DTS was many years ago at full bitrate. DTS HD MA is what we all want to hear, lossless audio.

The nirvana I think is uncompressed PCM "." But that takes up too much space, and it cuts out some major audio supporters, Dolby and DTS. Frankly I prefer uncompressed PCM from what I've heard with Dolby TrueHD thus far. Can't say I've done a fair soundtrack to soundtrack comparison as I don't know one that exists yet in PCM and TrueHD format for the same title.

At any rate, if TrueHD and DTS HD MA, lossless formats, save bits for video then I am all for it, makes sense over uncompressed PCM.