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Star Wars The ISOMIX Trilogy - A New Hope
Okay, I got a chance tonight to sit down with the ISOMIX ANH DVD Transfer and while I only took the time to check out the menus, the easter egg and the isolated score I wanted to come here and post a quick review just to let everyone know what I think.
I plan on posting a more detailed review as soon as I have time to go through the entire ISOMIX Trilogy but here is a little something to get the ball rolling.
First, what is the ISOMIX Trilogy and who made it? I will say first that I do not know who "ISOMIX" is and Rik hasn't spilled the beans yet, but if "ISOMIX" wants to chime in, please do... take credit for your efforts
As for the "ISOMIX Trilogy", this project is actually kind of cool. The author of this set of DVDs has mastered the Definitive Laserdisc collection to DVD and while that has definitely been done several times before, the coolest part is that this set provides an "isolated music score". This means that during the movie you can flip to the second audio stream which is the music score only.... no special effects, no dialogue, just the music. Everything is synched up and edited perfectly to match the music that is playing in the movie.To listen to the "isolated music score" you have two options. You can (a) select the "isolated music score" from the Audio Options or (b) switch to the second autio track via your DVD Player's Remote Control.
As you may have guessed by the mention of the "Audio Options" part above, this set does have menus.... more on that later
The "isolated music score" is very nice but since it comes from what is most likely one of the newer digitally remastered CD sets it is much cleaner and louder than the music in the movie so you will definitely notice a difference when flipping between the audio tracks, however, I would say that this is fine because the idea behind the "isolated music score" is to listen to the music so it should be more in the foreground and louder than what you would expect in the movie behind all the special effects and dialogue.
With that said, on to the Menus
Like many of you out there, I love Menus
While the TR47 is really great, its biggest downfall is that it has no menus.
The ISOMIX Trilogy has some really cool menus. Let me start from the beginning to give you a good feel for what you get with this set.
First, you put the DVD in your DVD Player and click the button to close the tray and load the disc and then you are greeted with a message that says "Along time ago, on May 25, 1977".... something cool is coming up, I just know it.... then, we are treated to our most despised "altered" scene that introduces Han Solo as the "scoundrel" he is. Han shoots first and then we are taking through through the "Star Wars" intro we have seen on many of the VHS transfers where the words "Star Wars" appears with several video segments flying by as the music from our beloved movies plays on... this leads into the "main menu".
The "Main Menu" utilizes one of the famous poster drawings we all know and love:
ANH Poster
Main Menu
* Play Movie
* Chapters
* Options
There is also a somewhat "hidden" option to play the intro the Star Wars that was played on TV just before the very first airing of Star Wars on Cable TV. I guess we can call this an "easter egg". If you have never seen this little "intro" I would highly recommend watching it.
The "Chapters" Menus is pretty nice. A lot of the "bootleg" DVD transfers of the Star Wars Trilogy simply have snapshots of chapters or merely a text "caption" for a Chapter but the ISOMIX transfer has full motion video "samples" of each chapter much like what you would see in professional DVDs. To top it off, each "page" of the Chapters menu includes background music to match the musical score from the related scenes. This is definitely one of the best "Chapter" menus I have ever seen on a "bootleg" DVD.
Each of the menu options include audio/video snippets from the movies as entrance and exits for the new menu screen.
If I were to grade on Menus alone I would give this transfer an "A" but we have to look at the entire presentation first and take each "con" into consideration.
Okay, menus are really cool, the idea of being able to switch back and forth to an "isolated score" is tres cool but what about the movie itself? Sadly, this is where the set fizzles. This is a DVD that was screaming dual-layered DVD-9 but alas it is only DVD-5 at 4.7GB and with the animated intro, animated menus, animated chapter selection, a rather lengthly "easter egg" movie intro and two audio tracks, there wasn't much room left over for what is really important here... the movie.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, I did not watch the entire movie, I just flipped through and checked out all the features of the disc. However, I don't think I really needed to watch the entire movie to grade its audio/video presentation. Okay, what is so wrong with the transfer? Well, like most of the "letterboxed" (aka non-anamorphic) transfers, the ISOMIX version was encoded with the black bars. I really appreciate all the guys out there giving it their best to transfer these movies to DVD but for the love of god, please spend a few minutes on VideoHelp.com. The number one rule in encoding widescreen movies where the desire is to fill out a 4:3 display (rather than 16:9 anamorphic widescreen) is to crop out the black bars and let the encoder add them in digitally. This dramatically reduces the time for encoding and makes the resultant video look so much more professional. Much like all the other "letterboxed" transfers the ISOMIX transfer suffers from grayish/black bars at the top and bottom and flashes of little "silver" spots here and there as is always present in analog sources such as Laserdisc and VHS. Did this really detract from the movie? No, not really but its one of my pet peeves
The colors in the video actually don't look too bad but the fuzzy, grayish/black look of the darker scenes is a real distraction.
Its almost midnight on a Saturday night so I think I should probably go spend some time with my wife
....but tomorrow I hope to take some time to make some screenshots to give you all a better idea of what you will find on this transfer. If you saw the post I made in the "Bootleg DVDs" thread where I compared the "official" DVD, TR47, Dr Gonzo and MeBeJedi, then you will be prepared for the comparison I will show you later. I will use the same screen shots for simplicity sake and will take some more of the darker scenes to show those off as well.
While the video quality is less than spectacular, especially in the darker scenes, I can't say that this is a bad transfer. If anything, I would highly recommend this set to those people who enjoy listening to the music from the soundtrack. Whether you want to just sit down and enjoy the Star Wars Musical Score or you want to listen to the music only as you work around the house with the option of viewing the video as well, this set is pretty cool.
For all of you out there working on creating your own transfers of these great movies I would highly recommend getting this set just to take a look at the menus. The menus on this set definitely raise the bar.
However, I would also tell anyone contemplating transferring our beloved Star Wars to DVD to invest into a dual-layer DVD Burner so that you can add in motion menus, extras and multiple audio tracks without sacrificing video quality for the most important part.
Dual-layer DVD Burners typically sell for as little as $80 and media is coming down in price all the time. Even while the media is more expensive at the moment, the quality is well worth the price.
For those looking for Dual-layer DVD Burners, don't be fooled by high-priced burners with big names like SONY, a large percentace of the burners out there use the same guts as provided by the Lite-On corporation so do your homework and save money without sacrificing quality.
Until later..... may the force be with you
