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he titles listed below, in order of excellence, were chosen on the basis of transfer quality—and not because of inherently good or interesting content. Though some of these top DVDs are also good movies (those that are are marked with an asterisk before the film title), some of them aren’t. They just look great and sound fabulous. Choosing the best of anything is always a judgment call, and in this case it was JV doing the calling. Although he’s seen a lot of DVDs this year, he hasn’t seen them all, and among the ones he’s missed are probably a few that could have, and should have, made the Big Dance. What he can assure you is that the films that did make it belong there.
      He can also assure you that all of these DVDs were “tested” on a home-theater reference system that is nearly as accurate and artifact-free as they come. JV wishes to thank Bill Parish of GTT Audio/Video for the loan of his Golden Eye Award-winning nine-inch CRT projector, the HT Reference 9, and ISF guru Bob Turgeon for designing and expertly calibrating this remarkable display device. Thanks also to Dan D’Agostino and Irv Gross of Krell Industries for the use of Krell’s Golden Eye Award-winning LAT surround-sound system (the LAT-1s, LAT-2s, LAT-C, and Master Reference subwoofer) and its excellent and versatile Home Theater Standard 7.1 controller and Home Theater Standard amplifier. And thanks, as well, to Warren Gehl and the folks at Audio Research for their superb 150M five-channel amplifier, to Faroudja for its Golden Eye Award-winning DVP-1500 Digital Cinema Source, and to Stewart Filmscreen for its Golden Eye Award-winning Studiotek 130 screen.
 
*Finding Nemo (2003). Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich, directors. Disney.

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Finding Nemo’s palette of colors is extraordinary, with delicate hues of indigo (take a close look at “Mr. Ray”), sea green, cherry pink, and sunflower yellow—and textural details within these hues—that we simply haven’t seen before, even on the best discs. Add phenomenal depth of field and focus, a three-dimensionality that is mind-boggling, and the total absence of edge enhancement, and you have what may well be the best-looking DVD yet released by any studio. To top it off, Finding Nemo also has what may be the best sound effects of any DVD of 2003, with deep bass that is truly deep (the undersea minefield explosions and whale sounds are astounding).
 
The Matrix Reloaded (2003). Andy and Larry Wachowski, directors. Warner.

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The movie’s a mess, but the transfer is tremendous. Colors look desaturated, as they did in the theater (probably as a result of the beach-bypass or ENR silver-retention process), but that doesn’t keep this DVD from being sensationally sharp and clear, with superb detail from near-white right down to near-black, at virtually all focal lengths. Edge enhancement has been held to a minimum, as well. The Matrix Reloaded is also among the best-sounding transfers of the year—the freeway chase is thrillingly and thunderously effective.
 
X2: X-Men United (2002). Bryan Singer, director. Fox.

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They’re baaack—and this time they’re buddies. Wolverine, Rogue, Professor Xavier, Magneto, Princess Summer-fall Winterset (or whatever the hell her name is) get together to foil the nefarious schemes of a mutant-intolerant general. Or at least I think that’s what they were up to. (I didn’t stay to the finish.) Like the first X-Men, the transfer is great, visually and sonically, and the DTS sound is as good as it gets—right up there with Nemo, Matrix, and Blue Crush.
 
2 Fast 2 Furious (2002). John Singleton, director. Universal.

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If you’re into blue jeans lasered onto teenage booty, tube tops a couple sizes too small for what’s inside, girls who say things like “Smack that ass,” tricked-out supercharged Subarus with triple-bottle nitrous oxide injection, one-hundred-and-sixty-mile-per-hour street racing, and really bad acting, writing, and direction, then this sequel to the Fast and Furious will be your tankful of premium. If not, there’s always the transfer, which is as sensationally good, visually and sonically, as the film itself is sensationally awful. When it comes to color timing, near-black detail, sharpness in close-ups and long shots, the absence of artifacts, flawless blue-screen work, and room-shaking LFEs, they just don’t make ’em much better than Bowser here.
 
*Lilo & Stitch (2002). Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, directors. Disney.

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Digitally animated features like this one from Disney (and Finding Nemo, above, and The Lion King, below) have a big leg up on live action features when it comes to being transferred to DVD. You see, they’re already digitized, so an entire A-to-D stage can be skipped in the telecine process, and with it an entire layer of telecine artifacts. Moreover, because each frame is a drawing that has been photographed, every single “shot” in these films (whether close-up, medium, or long) is perfectly lit and focused, with ideal color balance and contrast. Add to this, the film stock used for digitally animated features is inherently slow-speed and fine grain, making for a smoother, more detailed-looking picture. Finally, because they are cartoons, with unlimited-by-reality story possibilities, animated features tend to have spectacular soundtracks to match their spectacular “action.” L&S illustrates all of these virtues (though not quite as well as Nemo). The sweetest part is that it not only looks and sounds great, it is a funny and endearing little movie (better than Nemo).
 
*Casablanca (1942). Michael Curtiz, director. Warner.

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The most famous romantic film of World War II, ranked the second-best American film of all time on the American Film Institute’s Top 100 list, has been brilliantly restored—a simply phenomenal job by Warner of making a classic of a classic. After years of viewing this film in muddy telecine transfers or worn-out revival-house prints, you may not believe how clear and beautiful the great Arthur Edeson’s cinematography and lighting actually look. Having wrought a miracle on this forties masterpiece (and on the other classics listed below), Warner, how ’bout working another one on Bogart’s best film, The Maltese Falcon?
 
Seabiscuit (2003). Gary Ross, director. Universal.

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Though this feel-good movie about a “second chance” racehorse that raised the nation’s spirits during the Great Depression very nearly succumbs to its own sanctimoniousness, Universal’s transfer is a beaut: gorgeous color, excellent blacks and near-black-level detail, and unusually well-textured highlights. (Unlike so many DVDs, this one does not seem to exceed the 100 IRE limit, so bright whites aren’t turned into the usual blank, eye-searing, black-level-degrading balls of fire). Edge-enhancement has also been kept to a minimum, though (perhaps as a result) long shots are occasionally a bit soft. Despite a sappy Randy Newman score, the sound is excellent, spectacular in the hoof-pounding horserace sequences.
 
*About A Boy (2002). Chris and Paul Weitz, directors. Universal.

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The second movie made from a Nick Hornby novel, About A Boy is more contrived, less authentic, and not nearly as funny as the first, High Fidelity, but it’s still entertaining, and it’s a helluva transfer. With the exceptions of a couple of outdoor scenes at the start where the film stock looks oddly washed out, this DVD is gorgeous—exceptionally good and subtle in color timing (take a look at the witty off-color pastels in the sweaters and shirts of the miserable women at that single-moms’ meeting near the start), no blown highlights (I’m beginning to think that keeping whites at or below 100 IRE is as important to a great-looking DVD as deep blacks, which this film also has), a grainfree smoothness that doesn’t soften details, and a genuine three-dimensionality in medium and long shots. This isn’t the sort of movie with floor-shaking LFEs, but the soundtrack is good (dig that Fender bass!) and the dialogue clear.
 
*The Pianist (2002). Roman Polanski, director. Universal.

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A multiple Academy Award-winner and arguably the best film of 2002, The Pianist was given the deluxe treatment by Universal, and it shows. Razor-sharp in close-ups and medium shots and far better than average in long ones, it has also been color-balanced with care. (Skin tones, which in this film are keys to the deteriorating condition of the protagonist, are rendered with great subtlety.) The sound is terrific, too. And in The Pianist, sound isn’t just a matter of LFEs. The various Chopin pieces—many of them played all the way through, to fine dramatic effect—are reproduced superbly well on the DTS tracks. (Note: With this film, and the others that follow it on the list, edge enhancement becomes more noticeable and a bit more softness creeps into long shots.)
 
*Chicago (2002). Rob Marshall, director. Miramax.

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In general Miramax has not done a particularly good job with its DVD transfers (see Gangs of New York, for example—if you can sit through it). Chicago is an exception. Tack-sharp, with sensational color and terrific shadow and highlight detail—important since many of the musical numbers are lit like stage performances with spotlights against black backdrops—Chicago looks as gaudy and glossy as it plays. The DTS sound is wonderful, blessed with remarkable “stage” width, depth, and layering on the musical numbers (several of which are delicious fun).
 
*Catch Me If You Can (2002). Steven Spielberg, director. Dreamworks.

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Steven Spielberg’s previous films have looked good (and sounded great) on DVD, but almost all of them were a notch below the very best in visual quality, beset by the devils of excess edge enhancement, mosquito noise, and blown highlights. Not so (or not as much so) for this lighthearted and light-fingered chase comedy, which, serendipitously, also happens to be the best film Spielberg has made since Saving Private Ryan. In theaters, the film had the ripe, supersaturated look of sixties color films—a deliberate choice on Spielberg’s part—and the DVD conveys that look faithfully. Outside of a touch of excess edge enhancement and some occasionally too brilliant whites, it is a visual delight and the DTS sound is excellent, too. John Williams’ brilliant vintage-1960s score is well served.
 
Blue Crush (2002). John Stockwell, director. Universal.

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This trite but likeable surfer-girl-overcomes-all-odds-to-triumph-in-the-end flick has been given a first-rate transfer by Universal. And it’s a film that can use it, since so much of the action consists of spectacular surfing sequences, shot (amazingly) amid the huge waves of Maui. There is a bit of excess edge enhancement in certain places, but for the most part the film looks gorgeous. As breathtaking as the surfing sequences are, the sound is even more so. Outside of Nemo, I’ve not heard LFEs like this before. Blue Crush actually brings the tremendous power of the ocean to life in your home.
 
*Lawrence of Arabia (1962). David Lean, director. Columbia Superbit.

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After several misfires, Columbia has finally come out with the Lawrence that all of us have been waiting for—a superb transfer from restoration guru Robert A. Harris and the Sony Superbit team. Though edge enhancement has been greatly reduced overall, there are still occasional unwelcome haloes around figures in long shots and a few irreparable flaws in the forty-two-year-old negative. However, these defects sink to unimportance given the vast improvements in registration, focus, and color balance. The sound, remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1, is just fair, but who’s going to complain when you get that wonderful Maurice Jarre score?
 
*The Thing From Another World (1951). Howard Hawks, director. Warner.

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The wittiest, scariest, and most influential sci-fi film of the 50s has been given a new lease on life by Warner. Like Casablanca, this is such a spectacular remastering of a film that most of us have only seen on TV in blurry telecine transfers that it cracked the Top Transfer list despite being a decades-old, Academy-ratio, black-and-white feature with unremarkable mono sound. When a film classic is transformed this dramatically, attention must be paid.
 
*The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, directors. Warner.

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Speaking of which…using its computer-based Ultra-Resolution process to remove years of wear and tear from the separation negatives, Warner has scored yet again on a film classic—this one from the thirties (but in glorious Technicolor!). I’m getting a little tired of saying this, but you will not believe how rich, textured, and three-dimensional this sixty-six-year-old film looks. I wish I could report that Warner did equal justice to the soundtrack, especially since Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s score is widely considered one of the finest ever written for an adventure film, but it has not (though the dialogue track is quite clear). Still and despite the crackly sound, this is one for the ages. (I ran across an odd bit of trivia on the invaluable Internet Movie Database Web site [www.imdb.com] in connection with this film. After Robin Hood was completed, Golden Cloud, the palomino that Maid Marian [Olivia de Havilland] rides, was bought by none other than Roy Rogers and renamed…Trigger!)
 
The Lion King (1994). Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, directors. Disney.
See Lilo & Stitch, above.

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*The Hired Hand (1971). Peter Fonda, director. Universal.

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I remember seeing this arty Western when it was first released, and being wowed by Vilmos Zsigmond’s drop-dead-gorgeous cinematography and long, George Stevens-like dissolves. (This was the same year that Zsigmond shot the equally beautiful McCabe & Mrs. Miller for Robert Altman.) The time director Peter Fonda and editor Frank Mazzola have put into re-editing and restoring The Hired Hand has made it look as beautiful as it did thirty-two years ago. The Dolby surround sound is also wonderful, which is a good thing, because Bruce Langhorne’s—yes, the same Bruce Langhorne who is the sideman on all those great folk discs from Dylan to Odetta to Baez to Richard and Mimi Farina, et al.—spare, delicate score (which he also performs) deserves first-rate sound.

 
*The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). John Huston, director. Warner.

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Another Warner triumph. See Casablanca, The Thing From Another World, and The Adventures of Robin Hood, above—or, for that matter, Yankee Doodle Dandy, below.
 
*Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). Michael Curtiz, director. Warner.

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*Heaven (2002). Tom Tykwer, director. Warner.

I talked about this fascinating parable of a film in our last issue, comparing it favorably to Tykwer’s masterful Run, Lola, Run and to Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Decalogue, with which it belongs, in spirit and in fact, as Kieslowski wrote the screenplay, but passed away before he could film it. What I didn’t talk about was the transfer, which is gorgeous. DVDs from Warner and Universal are the most reliably excellent in quality, and here’s further proof—yet another Warner title that is beautiful to look at, and there is much to look at, thanks to the great Frank Griebe’s celestial cinematography.
 
 
DVD vs. Film
Though it’s nice to imagine (as I’ve done myself—in print) that the best DVDs give you an image that is equal to or superior to what you would see in a properly maintained, properly calibrated movie theater, the truth is that it just ain’t so. When a film looks better on DVD than it did in the theater, it is because the theater stinks—period. At its best, film is superior to video—even HD video—in every regard, and markedly superior in three critical areas: dynamic range, resolution, and freedom from artifacts.
 
Dynamic Range The dynamic range of film or video refers to the range of tones (shades of gray, hues of color) that each can reproduce between featureless black and featureless white. Though film is considerably less sensitive to differences in brightness than the human eye, it still has a dynamic range from light to dark that is much greater than that of video.
      What this means is that film will hold tone and color in very bright whites and very dark blacks, where video simply clips this information, “crushing” detail at either end of the brightness spectrum and compressing it in between. The result is an unmistakable flatness—a lack of snap, detail, and dimensionality—in comparison to motion picture images. No matter how artfully a scene is lit by a cinematographer (with an eye to future digital transfer) or an image doctored by the colorist on a telecine machine, with video you are stuck with a maximum dynamic range of about 8 f-stops (eight logarithmic brightness steps between featureless black and featureless white), and that is not enough contrast to achieve the broad gamut of colors and tones that the 12–13 f-stop dynamic range of film offers.
 
Resolution Though films are not made up of pixels, when a motion picture is digitally scanned on a state-of-the-art telecine machine, the telecinist can extract as many as 4096 pixels of information across the horizontal axis. Widescreen anamorphic DVD gives you 720 pixels in the horizontal axis; HD has a potential 1920 pixels. In other words, video records and preserves around 53–83% less information than film does.
      These differences in resolution are further reasons why DVDs (and to a lesser extent HD tapes) cannot achieve film-like sharpness, color detail, and dimensionality, especially in medium-to-long shots. We’ve all had the “pasty-faced blob” experience on DVDs. The director cuts from a big close-up of an actor, looking so sharp you can see the pores in his face, to a long shot of the same actor, and suddenly you can’t even make out his face, much less the pores. Obviously, nearly all of the available pixels on the DVD were being used to reproduce the actor’s face in the close-up, and in the long shot maybe one-twentieth as many. When you have a mere 720 pixels to start with (compared to film’s 4000), one-twentieth the resolution represents a considerable falling-off. There just aren’t enough pixels “there” to hold fine detail.
      Though HD tapes and broadcasts are considerably better than DVDs in this regard, they still do not match the detail, range of tone and color, and dimensionality of motion pictures. HD tapes can look wonderful, all right. But they look like wonderful video. There is nothing wrong with this; it’s just a fact we have to face, if we’re gonna be honest about the differences between film and video.
 
Artifacts Because of video’s limitations in dynamic range and resolution, the colorists who run the telecine machine which scan films, turning them into HD mastertapes or data files, have to “compensate” for the huge losses in contrast, color, and detail. They do this, primarily, in three ways: by doctoring dynamic range through adjustments to gamma to increase apparent contrast (i.e., trading off some shadow detail for a bit more midrange or highlight detail, or vice versa), by “correcting” colors to bring them “out” in the more limited colorspace of video, and by adding “edge enhancement” (the artificial sharpening of image outlines) to give the impression of greater detail. None of these band-aids really works, in the sense of producing a truly “film-like” image. The tricks that are played with brightness show up as murky blacks or “blown” whites—and, in any case, the “flatter” dynamic range of video still shows through. Though we have adjusted to it because of years of watching TV, video colorspace is not nearly as subtle or as extended as that of film. And video’s “sharper” edge-enhanced images don’t look sharper, just more edge-enhanced.
      These HD masters or data files are then compressed in an inherently lossy process that generates its own set of artifacts: macro-blocking, mosquito noise (a twittering on the surface of or around the outlines of people and small very detailed objects), aliasing, quantization noise (false contouring), overload, haloing, grain-pulsing (an exaggeration of the grain structure of the film, particularly in midtones), etc. While it is true that film has its own artifacts—like flicker, sparkle, and motion-related aliasing—they are usually not as distracting as video artifacts. It is tough to overlook stair-step artifacts on parallel horizontal lines, or moiré patterns, or mosquito noise and haloes on or around persons and objects.
 
Sound When it comes to Dolby Digital sound in theaters and on DVD, I’m tempted to say: “Don’t get me started!” The lossy data-reduction algorithms used to encode Dolby Digital discs compress 5.1-channel surround tracks to 448kbs—a substantial reduction in bit-rate compared to CD’s (insufficient) 1.4Mbs. Dolby Digital soundtracks are not high-fidelity; moreover, they are mastered on huge soundstages to be played back in huge theaters. The familiar boosts at the frequency extremes, which can often reach +110dB SPLs on sound-effects-heavy tracks, are intended to compensate for the size of the venue (and the number of sound-absorbing bodies in the theater). Meanwhile, dialogue tracks are recorded at much lower SPLs, often making them hard to hear over the roar of bass and shriek of treble.
      The sound in most motion-picture theaters is just as spotty as the visuals. Amplifiers and equalizers aren’t properly maintained or adjusted (they just set ’em and forget ’em); speakers aren’t sufficiently full-range or well-distributed. The results can be awful—and painful.
      Most home-theater surround-sound systems are better calibrated than motion-picture surround-sound systems. But…you’re still dealing with a severely compromised signal. Garbage in, garbage out. The dialogue on all too many Dolby Digital soundtracks is simply inarticulate, no matter what quality speakers, amps, and controllers you use. Directional cues are often totally illogical, distracting you from what is on the screen (e.g., the patter of rain coming from speakers behind you, when on screen it is raining outside a window behind actors in the foreground); the sound effects are overbearing and cliché, drowning out speech and everything else (I mean how many “fly-over” and “fly-arounds” can you take, without getting a little bored by a magician who is performing the same tricks every time?); highs are too bright; lows too muddy. I could go on and on.
      While DTS soundtracks are generally superior to Dolby Digital tracks (DTS encodes/decodes surround tracks at a much higher bit-rate), all of these same problems still crop up, though in less distracting ways.
      A soundtrack should, first and foremost, serve the story on screen. It should draw you in to what you’re seeing, not pull you away from it—as you jerk your head around in response to some totally gratuitous sound effect—or make the action confusing by swallowing up bits of crucial dialogue. When, in a truly awful soundtrack like that of Gosford Park, you lose intelligibility about 50% of the time, you simply lose interest in a story that becomes impossible to follow and in characters whose names you’re not even sure you’ve gotten straight.
      A great soundtrack, such as Memento’s, may not be the flashiest, the most thunderous, the most overwhelming. It is an act of imagination, comparable in style and function to what is being expressed visually on screen. When a phone in the left foreground rings in Memento, the sound comes from the left foreground—from between the left main speaker and the left surround. It is a lovely piece of sound design. When, in a superb action film like Black Hawk Down, an RPG explodes in the foreground and the sound of the dirt and debris tossed behind the actors sounds as if it is flying overhead and peppering the space in front of you, the viewer, you have an intelligent (and thrilling) use of spatial effects that reinforces the shock, terror, and bewilderment of the moment. Good sound effects are like good punctuation: they facilitate the expression of thought and feeling rather than confuse it.
 
My intention here hasn’t been to discourage anyone about home theater. The DVDs on this list are remarkable and, given the losses in resolution, color, and contrast inherent in film duplication and projection even under ideal circumstances (and the fact that most motion-picture theaters are far from ideal), your well-calibrated home theater is giving you superlative images and sounds. I just wanted to remind everyone that, even at their best, DVDs aren’t films—and can’t be. They are their own thing, and what makes them superior often has less to do with the similarities between them and films than the differences between them and other DVDs.
Jonathan Valin
 


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