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DVD Talk review of 'Tears of the Sun' (Blu-ray)

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DVD Talk review of 'Tears of the Sun' (Blu-ray)

Old 09-30-06, 05:46 AM
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DVD Talk review of 'Tears of the Sun'

I read John Sinnott's DVD review of Tears of the Sun at http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=24073 and was surprised to see his verdict on the picture quality. There seems to be widespread agreement that this is one of the best HD transfers out today, but this doesn't seem to have been Mr Sinnott's experience. Is it possible he has a fault in his set-up?

Here are the ratings for PQ from two other sites -

Home Theater Spot: 8.0
DVD Town: 9.0

and a discussion by early adoptors (mainly HD DVD supporters) of this disc and review
Old 09-30-06, 09:39 AM
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Thanks for bringing the other reviews to my attention Burnt. I make it a point of not reading other people's opinions of a disc before writing up mine so that I won't be swayed, so I had not scene these.

As I'm sure you know, a review is just an opinion and I guess I was bothered by the flaws in this disc more than other reviewers.

I read the two reviews that you mentioned. The video review at DVDTown was very brief with few details. He only has two sentances dealing with the actual picture quality:

There's still a fantastic amount of detail, and the black levels are very good. So is the level of color saturation, for that matter, though much of the film is green and khaki.
That's it.

The review at HTS is much more complete and basically says the same thing that I said, though he thought the strengths overcame the weaknesses.

HTS:

Still there are a lot of sequences that just don’t leave you fully fulfilled. And the more I examine the film, this time enlightened by such higher fidelity; I keep coming back to the photography or manipulation thereof. As color balance appears deliberately skewed.
My review:

There is a problem with the colors too. They are off in a few places. When Tom Skerritt is on the deck of an aircraft carrier at the beginning, his skin has an orange hue. It looks like he's jaundice or something. There are several time throughout the movie where the sky appears a bit purple-ish too.

HTS:

It isn’t until the end of the film that the sun starts to really barrel through the trees. So naturally, you wouldn’t expect detail to really pop in a clouded setting.
My review:

these low light scenes were very flat and lacked dimensionality.
HTS:

With my current pj’s auto iris, I instead opted to lower the gamma value for even better results. Considering the fluctuation in shadow delineation that in nighttime sequences appears underexposed, as if those scenes were actually shot at night; lowering gamma seemed to strike a very good balance between deep, black level solidity, yet still maintaining a reasonable amount of shadow detail in shots that accommodated more.
My review:

Much of the movie takes place in an African jungle with overhanging foliage making the picture a bit dark. This is what the director intended, no doubt, but these scenes weren't reproduced very well. Details weren't as strong in the shadows as I was hoping, and these low light scenes were very flat and lacked dimensionality.
He adjusted his set up to make just this film look as good as possible. That's fine, but I didn't do that.

I glanced at the thread you linked too, (now closed) and several people take me to task for the review. Just about all of them say that grain wasn't a problem in the dark scenes, and really hammer on that. The only problem is that I never said that grain was a problem, and I agree that there isn't any present in significant amounts.

On the other hand I was surprised that no one who read my review and watched the disc addressed my comments on the colors. I found that very strange.

Having read that thread, I can see where it would be natural to think that my set up might be incorrectly adjusted, but I don't think that's the case. I think that some of the things that bothered me (most notably the colors which got on my nerves) weren't as significant to the other reviewers.

The odd thing about this, is I was recently accused of being too easy on BDs. I guess you just can't win.
Old 10-21-07, 01:12 AM
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Here's a review over at High Def Digest that gives it 4.5 for PQ and 4.0 for audio.

I thought the movie looked and sounded great myself.
Old 11-28-08, 02:08 PM
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DVD talk reviewer John Sinott gives Tears of the Sun bluray a bad PQ score....

yet gives Terminator 2 bluray a high pq score...


mindblowing.

Just because of a few color issues??

I'm watching Tears of the Sun right now and the PQ is fantastic.

Amazing that this was one of the first bluray discs.

Last edited by wd65733; 11-28-08 at 02:14 PM.
Old 11-28-08, 02:13 PM
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You mean the title he reviewed on Blu-ray over two years ago?
Old 11-28-08, 02:23 PM
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Terminator 2 looked great to me. One of the better hi-def titles I have. Increased the clarity of the image greatly, colors were sharp, etc....if there was some other issue, I didn't notice
Old 11-28-08, 02:42 PM
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Originally Posted by droidguy1119
Terminator 2 looked great to me. One of the better hi-def titles I have. Increased the clarity of the image greatly, colors were sharp, etc....if there was some other issue, I didn't notice

Terminator 2 doesn't look terrible or anything...it's just that it isn't the big leap over the DVD version that you would expect.

Tears of the Sun, to this day, is one of the most impressive movies to watch on bluray.
Old 11-28-08, 02:43 PM
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Originally Posted by GizmoDVD
You mean the title he reviewed on Blu-ray over two years ago?
Obviously.. That's why I made the comment about it being one of the first bluray discs.

It's mindblowing that in 2006, when there were very few impressive looking bluray movies, that Tears of the Sun, a movie that in 2008 still looks impressive, could get 2/5 stars.

What I find even more ridiculous is that this reviewer, John Sinnott, tends to be very lenient with his PQ scores....and the one movie that he decides to give a low score happens to be a title that, at the time it was released, was reference quality.
Old 11-28-08, 03:53 PM
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I usually go to at least two sites before making an informed purchasing decision. One is this site, and the other is HighDefDigest. If BOTH sites say the PQ is terrible, then the chances are the PQ is terrible. If the reviews conflict, then there's something else at play in the review.
Old 11-28-08, 04:01 PM
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^^^

I do the same.

In this case, John Sinnott is the ONLY reviewer I have come across who has given this movie anything close to a negative score.

He obviously has different standards for PQ than most normal people. I don't see how any sane person can watch this bluray and not think that the PQ is overall impressive, ESPECIALLY for a 2006 bluray.

It's the same for movie critics in general...if a movie critic normally disagrees with the general public, what is the point in reading his reviews?
Old 11-28-08, 04:07 PM
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Why do you care what he rated the PQ of the movie? I'm sure most people aren't even thinking about that particular title anymore.
Old 11-28-08, 04:08 PM
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IMO a reviewers hardware play's a bigger role than is often accounted for (I'm not refering to the above reviewers hardware or even these movies, but rather in general). Also IMO edge enhancement seems to appear more noticable with certain kinds of displays & (possibly even players) than others. Like was already mentioned, read a couple of reviews before buying, and even then don't expect your result to be necessarily the same as others. I personally found the HD DVD of "The Game" to be a vast improvement over SD DVD, and a worthwhile upgrade. Review's that I read didn't support my finding. I also wasn't nearly as impressed with the BD of "Cast Away" as most reviewers, it was OK, but it's never going to be one I grab to show off my HT.
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Old 11-28-08, 04:47 PM
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Originally Posted by Grain
IMO a reviewers hardware play's a bigger role than is often accounted for (I'm not refering to the above reviewers hardware or even these movies, but rather in general). Also IMO edge enhancement seems to appear more noticable with certain kinds of displays & (possibly even players) than others. Like was already mentioned, read a couple of reviews before buying, and even then don't expect your result to be necessarily the same as others. I personally found the HD DVD of "The Game" to be a vast improvement over SD DVD, and a worthwhile upgrade. Review's that I read didn't support my finding. I also wasn't nearly as impressed with the BD of "Cast Away" as most reviewers, it was OK, but it's never going to be one I grab to show off my HT.
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Considering the review date - he either had the Samsung 1000 or Panasonic 10a (maybe the Sony BDP1...forgot when that one hit).
Old 11-28-08, 04:52 PM
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Originally Posted by GizmoDVD
Considering the review date - he either had the Samsung 1000 or Panasonic 10a (maybe the Sony BDP1...forgot when that one hit).
BDP-S1 had terrific PQ, so that should not have affected a review negatively.
Old 11-28-08, 07:41 PM
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Originally Posted by dsa_shea
Why do you care what he rated the PQ of the movie? I'm sure most people aren't even thinking about that particular title anymore.
Uh...so you're basically saying that we shouldn't care about how dvdtalk reviews blurays.

Nice job...you just made DVDtalk feel worthless.

But in all seriousness, reviews from DVDtalk usually held a lot of weight in when I decide to rent or buy a bluray.

I normally read reviews from 3 sites: dvdtalk, highdefdigest, and blu-ray.com. Normally there is consistency between these sites, which makes it easy to determine if a bluray has good pq and aq.

This is the first time I have seen such a discrepancy between dvdtalk and the other 2 sites. Good thing I blind rented this before seeing that DVDtalk review.
Old 11-28-08, 09:08 PM
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Not sure why you're bringing this us now because, as someone else mentioned, this review is two years old. There was a discussion of this review at the time... do a search and I'm sure you'll find it. There I go into more detail about why I rated it the way I did.

If one of my reviews out of the 1400+ that I've written you disagree with makes me someone who "obviously has different standards for PQ than most normal people." and makes the nearly 25,000 reviews in the database "feel worthless" then I'll just have to live with that weight on my shoulders.
Old 11-29-08, 12:54 AM
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"Medicore" or "Poor" reviews given to video quality doesn't stop me from at least giving a movie I'm interested in a rental. If you were thinking about watching this then regardless of the review that you read you should have given it a spin. It just seems a bit odd that you bring up a review done a few years ago rather than just simply disregarding what John posted in his review and moving on. As I said before most people probably don't even think about that movie now considering the onslaught of new titles we've seen since then and those coming in the next few months. I'm sure that John will do everything in his power to make sure that each and every review meets your standards from this point on.
Old 11-29-08, 02:42 AM
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I think in the future, if people are ready to go apeshit over a review, they should stop, read this review first: http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/28311...lypto/?___rd=1

If the review they have problems with isn't even half as controversial as this one, don't waste your time making a topic.
Old 11-29-08, 10:17 AM
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Originally Posted by Boba Fett
I think in the future, if people are ready to go apeshit over a review, they should stop, read this review first: http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/28311...lypto/?___rd=1

If the review they have problems with isn't even half as controversial as this one, don't waste your time making a topic.
It's amazing how long people will hold grudges over the dumbest things.

OMG, somebody didn't like a movie that you liked?! WTF has happened to the world? Aren't there laws against that?
Old 11-29-08, 01:26 PM
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ANY-way...

Trying to review Blu-ray a couple of years ago was a little more difficult than it is now... and even now there's still very large controversies over DNR and EE and macroblocking and so-on an so-forth. It's to the point where macroblocking is being seen when in motion it's really not, and DNR is being called out when it's not even there (not that there aren't plenty of guilty titles that use this horrible filter).

But, you know, judging something that was 'reference quality at the time' doesn't say a whole lot either, because hey, weren't non-anamorphic titles that were horribly encoded back at the beginning of DVD's lifespan considered 'reference quality' for the time?

I haven't seen the Tears of the Sun Blu-ray, but by reading the video review John gave this disc based on the thread here, it seems like a fair assessment. Oh it looks great he acknowledges, sure, but he says that there tends to be some crushed blacks that wipe away some of the detail in darker areas, and color tones are off occasionally, as well as the skin tones. Although the transfer may look wonderful and pretty, that's due to the pitfalls that have been created by HDTV's factory settings that people are used to watching stuff on.

TV's are shipped with a blown out contrast and crushed blacks, and intensified colors that aren't accurate. They're shipped that way because any TV could potentially be a showroom TV, and not only that, it looks pretty overall. Pretty, yes, accurate, lord no, and because of this method of salesmanship, people don't care for 'accurate'.

Crushing detail with black levels and off-skin tones makes for a not a very good transfer to me, and for being an early Blu-ray title to review, it seems John made a good judgment call in finding those flaws.
Old 11-29-08, 06:56 PM
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Originally Posted by Josh Z
It's amazing how long people will hold grudges over the dumbest things.

OMG, somebody didn't like a movie that you liked?! WTF has happened to the world? Aren't there laws against that?
That wasn't the point I was trying to make. I had a minor issue with the review myself, but not in anyway at the level some people did, when they demanded it be pulled from the site.
Old 11-29-08, 07:17 PM
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Originally Posted by wd65733
It's the same for movie critics in general...if a movie critic normally disagrees with the general public, what is the point in reading his reviews?
A movie critic's job isn't to pander to the opinions of the general public; it's to provide an informed, independent opinion on the merits of the movie. I don't read reviews to find out what might appeal to the mass audience; I read reviews to find out which films are actually worth my time, even if it means that I'm alone in the theater.

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