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Kaleidescape

Demo Scenes: Baby Driver

Baby Driver

demo scenes | Baby Driver

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The Edgar Wright heist flick provides demo fodder both aggressive and subdued

by John Sciacca
updated November 2, 2023

Chapter 13, 1:08:44–1:12:42

Using R-rated content for demo material is a slippery slope since it can easily be off-putting to many viewers and obviously isn’t suitable for families. And the most demo-worthy scenes from R-rated films usually contain gratuitous violence, profanity-laced dialogue, and nudity that can quickly turn your demo from engaging to a turnoff. But these two scenes from Baby Driver are terrific exceptions you can show to any audience without fear of offending.

“The Bellbottoms Bank Job”

This scene checks off nearly every box for “What makes a great demo?” It’s literally the opening of the film so you not only don’t spoil anything for people who haven’t seen it before, you’ll likely hook them to want to see more. It’s a complete story in itself, with a clear beginning, middle, and finale. And, it’s action-packed, with some of the best driving you’ll see on screen, with a fantastic accompanying audio track.

One of the brilliant and innovative things about Baby Driver is how director Edgar Wright used music to propel and choreograph each scene. This opening plays loud and proud from the overhead speakers, with vocals that swirl around the room, and features a sub-heavy bass line that drives the tempo.

Notice how Jon Hamm’s shotgun blasts fire in time with the music. A potent and well-calibrated sub will have you feeling the Suburu’s engine revs in your chest as Baby pushes the WRX to its limits. As he drifts around the city, you’ll clearly hear tires squealing and protesting the physics-defying maneuvers, with the audio tracking every siren, horn honk, and car that whizzes by. While video isn’t the focus of this demo, notice the stoplight colors, with vibrant yellows and reds that push the color-space boundaries.

Opening Credits/“Harlem Shuffle”

This scene couldn’t be easier to find since it begins right after the previous demo ends. While the first scene is all about excitement and bombast, this one is just Baby walking to grab some coffee before heading to meet his crew. Notice how amazingly the audio tracks the off-camera action. You’ll hear an infant cry far off camera left and then see a mother with a stroller pass by. Throughout, the audio swirls relative to Baby’s perspective and position, with the sounds of traffic, conversations, and jack hammers announcing their arrival long before they appear on screen and long after they’re no longer in view.

Also notice how the audio changes when Baby walks into the coffeeshop. When he pulls out an earbud to hear the barista, the music volume drops and the sounds of the coffeeshop fill the room, with the music taking over as he replaces the earbud. This entire scene displays how a terrific audio mix along with properly placed speakers can transform a media room into an entirely different environment.

Both scenes show off the strengths of Dolby Atmos object placement and tracking capabilities—so make sure you have the HDR or UHD version of the film so you can enjoy the Atmos audio.

Probably the most experienced writer on custom installation in the industry, John Sciacca is co-owner of Custom Theater & Audio in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, & is known for his writing for such publications as Residential Systems and Sound & Vision. Follow him on Twitter at @SciaccaTweets and at johnsciacca.com.

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Demo Scenes: The Wizard of Oz

Demo Scenes: The Wizard of Oz

demo scenes | The Wizard of Oz

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The subtle use of HDR helps restore the original charm of this beloved classic

by Dennis Burger
updated November 2, 2023

Chapter 13, 1:08:44–1:12:42

I keep making the claim in my reviews and elsewhere on Cineluxe that older movies—those shot on 35mm or larger film stock—are the ones that stand to benefit most from the latest Ultra HD and HDR home video standards. And I’ve yet to see a better example of this than the 4K/HDR release of The Wizard of Oz.

Granted, this 80-year-old classic isn’t perfectly consistent from beginning to end in its visual presentation. It’s a little soft in places and a little too grainy in others. But the new restoration simply reveals a level of depth and detail in the image that most people have never seen.

Check out the pivotal scene in which Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion meet the Wizard for the first time in his gloomy and imposing throne room. If you go back to the Blu-ray release (and indeed, many previous home video efforts), the long hallway leading to this meeting looks obviously fake, hilariously flat, undeniably a matte painting. But given more dynamic range to work with, this transfer doesn’t need to boost the brightness of the entire scene to illuminate our heroes. As such, the backgrounds have a much more natural depth and more convincing shadows, so that long hallway actually seems to recede into the distance.

Fast-forward to the face-to-face meeting, specifically when the Wizard says, “I am Oz, the great and powerful! Who are you?” In the very best Blu-ray release, Dorothy’s dress when those lines are uttered is an indistinctly textured wash of blue, not the gingham we all know her to be wearing. In the 4K HDR release, the gingham is restored, and undeniably so. That’s not all, though. In previous home releases, the Tin Man simply lacks a little luster, despite the polish he just received a few scenes back. In the 4K HDR, he positively glistens, as he should.

But it’s not merely little details like this that make the new restoration work. This scene overall benefits from more nuanced dynamic range. Shadows aren’t a mass of crushed blacks—they contain detail and depth. Highlights don’t have to be overblown to be seen. The shift in brightness of the background as the Wizard’s showy flames rise from his throne are subtler, and indeed more effective for it. Overall, the atmosphere of the entire throne room and the occupants within simply seem more convincing—less a stage and more of a genuine space.

The effect overall isn’t merely about eye candy; it’s not about more pixels or more colors or deeper shadows or what have you. It’s about the subliminal effects of all those little visual improvements, which combine to draw you deeper into the illusion of this magical film, in a way we’ve never quite been able to achieve at home before now.

Dennis Burger is an avid Star Wars scholar, Tolkien fanatic, and Corvette enthusiast who somehow also manages to find time for technological passions including high-end audio, home automation, and video gaming. He lives in the armpit of Alabama with his wife Bethany and their four-legged child Bruno, a 75-pound American Staffordshire Terrier who thinks he’s a Pomeranian.

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Review: Blue Planet II

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review | Blue Planet II

This David Attenborough series has been available on many platforms but truly shines on Kaleidescape

by Dennis Burger
December 12, 2018

My wife and I watch a lot of documentaries. No, seriously, a lot of documentaries. Air a special about dinosaur dung, the restoration of a 1967 barn-find VW Beetle, or how a famous actress invented frequency-hopping encryption during World War II, and we’re pretty much guaranteed to boost your Nielsen numbers for the night. Here’s the thing, though: We watch a lot of documentaries exactly once. That seems pretty normal to me. After all, do I really need to re-learn how Lego bricks are made?

The one exception to this rule is David Attenborough’s captivating nature docs because there’s nothing normal about the treasures this wonderful man has bestowed upon the world. If you’ve never seen one of his series, I’m envious that you have the opportunity to discover him for the first time. His infectious, childlike sense of wonder about nature, combined with the wisdom you’d expect of a natural historian with 92 years under his belt, makes each of his series seem like a sci-fi/fantasy exploration of a planet in a galaxy far away. There’s a weird and wonderful sense of cognitive dissonance that comes from realizing, somewhere in the middle of one of his shows, that we actually live on this weird and wonderful world.

A scant 11 months after the incredible Blue Planet II first aired here in the Colonies, my wife and I have already devoured the series from start to finish three times. And as we were sitting down for our fourth feast this weekend, we finally decided to retire the 4K broadcast recordings clogging our DVR and move on to a proper home video release.

Netflix seemed the logical place to turn to, since the series just made its way to the service this month. And it took no more than a few seconds of viewing to note that their version was a huge step up from the original 4K satellite broadcast. Kudos to their engineers for compressing such a visually complex image as well as they have. Simply put, Blue Planet II looks brilliant streaming in 4K, as long as you’ve got a good ‘net connection.

But shows come and go on Netflix. I can’t count the number of times that utterly re-watchable favorites have been yanked at pretty much exactly the same time I had a hankering to watch them. So, when I noticed that Blue Planet II is also now available on Kaleidescape—along with a whole host of other programming from BBC America—downloading it was a no-brainer. At a hefty 193 GB, the seven-episode mini-series is not an impulse download, but as I said above, this is a show that’s already in heavy rotation in the Burger casa. I knew it was worth the wait.

I just didn’t realize how wait-worthy it would turn out to be. As lovely as these alien undersea vistas are via Netflix, they’re positively stupefying in Kaleidescape’s full-bandwidth presentation. The tiniest of details simply fly off the screen. And thanks to the HDR presentation—something Blue Planet II lacks via Netflix, for whatever reason—you can’t help but be sucked right into the image, eyelids peeled, jaw agape, breath bated, mind blown. If the Broca area of your brain can crank out much more than the occasional “whoa” while watching a technicolor cuttlefish hypnotizing its cancrine prey in Episode Three, you’re made of sterner stuff than I. Switch over to the Netflix stream, and that scene almost seems monochromatic by comparison.

Even if you’re not a biology nerd or a connoisseur of great documentaries, Blue Planet II is an absolute must-own on Kaleidescape (or on UHD Blu-ray, if you haven’t made the leap into the discless future just yet). It’s perhaps the most torturous AV demo material I’ve lain eyes on in ages. It’s the title you’ll pull up when skeptical guests ask, “Do I really need this HDR business?” because Blue Planet II’s answer to that isn’t a mere “yes.” It’s a yes with an exclamation point, delivered in a charming British accent, with a wink and an unforgettable lesson about the kooky unexplored corners of our own globe.

Dennis Burger is an avid Star Wars scholar, Tolkien fanatic, and Corvette enthusiast who somehow also manages to find time for technological passions including high-end audio, home automation, and video gaming. He lives in the armpit of Alabama with his wife Bethany and their four-legged child Bruno, a 75-pound American Staffordshire Terrier who thinks he’s a Pomeranian.

PICTURE | As lovely as the alien undersea vistas are via Netflix, they’re positively stupefying in Kaleidescape’s full-bandwidth presentation

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The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption

review | The Shawshank Redemption

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The Stephen King movie for people who don’t like Stephen King movies shines brightly in this 4K HDR release

by John Sciacca
updated October 6, 2023

The Shawshank Redemption is the ultimate Stephen King movie for people that don’t think they like King, or who only associate him with supernatural tales like IT and The Shining. What writer and director Frank Darabont did right was truly understand and respect King’s source material. He trimmed where needed, tweaked where it worked better for film, but ultimately stayed incredibly true to the original story. Of course, this is easier to do when the source material is 125-pages instead of 800-plus, which is why many of King’s books just don’t adapt well to the big screen.

King has always been known for having an ear for realistic dialogue, and with much of Shawshank being character driven, with all of the important story information relayed through conversations or from Morgan Freeman’s voiceover, you needed actors who could deliver these lines convincingly. It’s impossible to imaging Red being played by anyone other than Freeman or Andy Dufresne by anyone other than Tim Robbins. Even the smaller roles are handled with aplomb, as if everyone knew this film was going to be something special and they needed to bring their A-game. 

For the rest, the 4K HDR transfer will be the definitive way to own and view this movie, with the film looking its very best. Originally shot on 35mm film, this new transfer is taken from a 4K digital intermediate. Of course, even the best film-to-4K transfers never have the ultra-sharpness of modern digitally filmed titles, but even still the image quality is mostly fantastic throughout.

Where you can most appreciate the added resolution is in closeups, where edge sharpness and facial detail is outstanding. You can see the contrast between the smoothness, fine lines, and small pores in Robbins’ face against Freeman’s more weathered skin. You can also appreciate the texture and weight of the stones, concrete, and cement throughout the prison. Clothing also really enjoys the added detail, such as the texture and fabric on the numbered patches all prisoners wear, the fine pinstripes on the prisoners’ shirts, and on Red’s hat.

As is fairly common in film-to-4K transfers, longer-range shots don’t seem to retain the sharpness and detail and look a bit softer, such as the initial scene where we fly over the prison and see the inmates scattered down below. Fortunately, much of Shawshank is filmed in close to medium shots that benefit from the 4K transfer.

There are a lot of shots in dimly lit areas such as inside the prison or even a cell, the laundry, or solitary where the lighting is often harsh, naked bulbs, and the new HDR grading helps these to have more depth and pop. The flourishes of gold on the guards’ uniforms and hats and the Warden’s cross also get a nice bit of sparkle. We can also really appreciate the many varied shades of blue in the prison uniforms.

A couple of scenes that really stood out to me were the shot outside when Andy and crew are tarring the room. Here you see the sleek, gleaming black of the tar, with the emerald green grass, and the red brick of the building with the blue-grey skies. When Hadley and Andy have their “conversation,” notice the razor-sharp edges of them as they stand over the edge of the building. Another scene was when Red and Andy were sitting outside in the yard chatting, and you could really see the sharp lines in the mortar of the walls, with tons of image depth.

This release features a new 5.1-channel DTS HD-Master mix which I would call serviceable of the material. There were certainly some scenes with ambience, such as in the laundry, or in the prison yard, or the chow hall, but for the most part audio is across the front three channels. You get a bit of expansiveness upmixed into the height speakers, expanding the soundstage of the score, as well as some of the prison PA announcements, and also making outdoor scenes sonically feel bigger and more open. There was a scene where they were unlocking inmates from their cells, and you got a nice sense of people moving around and doors opening above you. The finale’s big thunder and lightning storm also gets some nice weight in the sub channel as well as filling the room with the downpour. Ultimately, the most important audio is the dialogue, and that is well and clearly presented in the front channel.

I’m hesitant to call any movie perfect, but Shawshank is timeless and holds up every bit as well today as it when it was released in 1994. The casting, the acting, the dialogue, the pacing, and the story . . if this isn’t perfect, well, it’s damn close. Watching it again, I can’t think of anything I would change or wish they had done differently. This is highly recommended and sure to please for years to come.

Probably the most experienced writer on custom installation in the industry, John Sciacca is co-owner of Custom Theater & Audio in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, & is known for his writing for such publications as Residential Systems and Sound & Vision. Follow him on Twitter at @SciaccaTweets and at johnsciacca.com.

PICTURE | The 4K HDR transfer will be the definitive way to own and view this movie, with the film looking its very best

SOUND | The 5.1-channel DTS HD-Master is serviceable of the material

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Review: The Rise of Skywalker

The Rise of Skywalker

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The Star Wars saga wraps up with a J.J. Abrams epic that looks spectacular in 4K HDR

by John Sciacca
update October 1, 2023

Officially carrying the weighty title Star Wars: Episode IX—The Rise of Skywalker, this film brings to a conclusion the space opera created by George Lucas back in 1977, and wraps the final trilogy of films that began in 2015 with The Force Awakens and continued in 2017 with The Last Jedi.

So let’s get down to it: How does the 4K HDR release of Rise of Skywalker look and sound? The answer is simple: This presentation is top-notch! Shot on a combination of Kodak film stocks, Skywalkers transfer is taken from a 4K digital intermediate and uses HDR throughout to really pump colors and highlights, with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack that surrounds and immerses you in the action.

From the opening scenes, Kylo Rens (Adam Driver) unstable lightsaber sizzles on screen, glowing and seething with bright reds. The final battle on Exegol is like an HDR demo reel, with dark skies dotted with glowing engines of ships, and illuminating the room with frequent bright blue-white bursts of pupil-searing lightning strikes and laser bolts.

While space is never pitch black” in Star Wars films, images remain clean and noise-free, and we get some true blacks in interiors. The scenes aboard Rens Star Destroyer look fantastic, with gleaming, glistening black decks, bright lighting illuminating hallways, and laser blasts and sparks.

The underground sand worms lair on Pasaana is another scene that could be a recipe for producing a video and compression nightmare, with dimly lit passageways illuminated by BB8s glowing lights along with a couple of flashlights and the searing blue of Reys (Daisy Ridley) lightsaber. Blacks remain deep, with lots of shadow detail without any distracting banding or other artifacts.

Closeups reveal a terrific level of detail, showing every pore, strand of hair, stitch, texture, and bit of wear. Part of owning the film—and watching it repeatedly—is the you can revel in the attention to detail in nearly every shot, such as the creature design, and the large interiors. The only scenes that appear soft” are the ones with Leia.

Disney has received flack over the soundtracks on many of its top-level releases but the Atmos audio included here is beyond reproach, with lots of dynamics and activity. Whether it’s the snap and hum of lightsabers, the effects of Force energy, the waves crashing on the moon in the Endor system, the thrum of various engines, or explosions, bass is deep, powerful, and room energizing when appropriate.

Surround and height speakers are used frequently to immerse you in the scenes and action. The speeder chase on Pasaana has laser blasts that shoot around the room and troopers launching and flying overhead. The scenes on Kijimi are filled with expansive street sounds to place you on location, with wind blowing, snow falling, distant shouts and voices. The height speakers are also used to good effect during Rey and Rens Force chats, Emperor Palpatines (Ian McDiarmid) booming voice, and the voices of Jedi past that echo in Reys mind.

Sonically, my favorite scenes are aboard the remnants of the second Death Star. These are among the most interesting from an audio standpoint, with loads of drips, creaks, and groans of wires twisting and metal straining as the giant ship constantly settles while Rey moves about in the cavernous interiors. The exterior shots are filled with the roar of wind and crash of waves and water splattering—all of it an ambient feast for the audio senses!

Beyond dialogue being clear and easily intelligible, the soundtrack also does a wonderful job presenting Williamsscore, what he says will be his final time working with Star Wars.

Even if Rise of Skywalker isnt your favorite film in the Star Wars saga, it’s worth purchasing just for the extras, including the feature-length documentary The Skywalker Legacy, along with five other featurettes. Included with the Kaleidescape release as a digital exclusive is The Maestros Finale,” which has John Williams looking back on his 40-plus-year career working with Star Wars.

Probably the most experienced writer on custom installation in the industry, John Sciacca is co-owner of Custom Theater & Audio in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, & is known for his writing for such publications as Residential Systems and Sound & Vision. Follow him on Twitter at @SciaccaTweets and at johnsciacca.com.

PICTURE | The top-notch transfer uses HDR throughout to really pump colors and highlights

SOUND | The Atmos mix is beyond reproach, with lots of dynamics and activity.

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Demo Scenes: Batman Returns

Batman Returns

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Quiet and subtle instead of action-packed and bombastic, this scene offers a nice alternative to the usual home theater demo

by Dennis Burger
June 3, 2021

Chapter 7 | 40:24–43:01

There seems to be some sort of weird consensus that a compelling AV demo scene must be action-packed, or at the very least loud. One of my favorite things about the new UHD/HDR release of Tim Burton’s Batman Returns is that it handily dispels this notion. In fact, it flips it right on its head.

Sure, the movie has its rousing battles and feats of impossible athletics, especially in the tête-à-tête throwdown between Batman and Catwoman. But the film’s most compelling sequences, at least from the perspective of audio and visual spectacle, are its quieter moments. Indeed, its weirder moments.

One of my favorites comes at the start of Chapter 7 in the Kaleidescape download or UHD Blu-ray, from 40:24 to 43:01. The Penguin—aka Oswald Cobblepot, played so spectacularly by Danny DeVito—visits the grave of the parents who abandoned him in his infancy. Plot-wise, it’s such a simple scene: The Penguin waddles through the graveyard, places a pair of black roses on the ground, waddles back to the gate, and monologues in front of the gathered press.

The way the scene is photographed, though, and especially the way it’s presented in UHD with HDR, makes it a bona fide feast for the eyes. It’s easy to forget that even in its initial theatrical release, audiences never saw Batman Returns presented this pristinely. The limitations of film prints, combined with the shortcomings of commercial projection, mean that we’ve never—until now—experienced the film with its blacks this black, nor its highlights this spectacular.

The interplay of dark and light makes each frame look like a chiaroscuro painting. Your eye can’t help but to be drawn to the finest of details—the individual hairs on the Penguin’s head, the little glint of piercing light in the middle of his coal-black eyes. Simply put, it’s a little discombobulating to see such razor sharpness and startling contrasts from a film shot in the analog era.

It’s worth comparing this scene to other nighttime shots in shows like Game of Thrones. Rather than pointing the camera into darkness and hoping you get the picture, cinematographer Stefan Czapsky used stark blue lighting, not to repel the shadows, but to give them something to work against. The laser-focused beams of illumination make the darkness look that much darker, the blacks that much blacker, the textures that much more tactile.

Not to be outdone by the spectacular imagery, the new Atmos mix also positively shines in this scene. Danny Elfman’s iconic score is delivered with deep, rich, bombastic bass, and sparkling detail. And when the music falls away, the howling, haunting whirl of wind that fills the void whips and wanders from wall to wall and floor to ceiling in a way that’s downright spooky, but utterly engrossing.

Dennis Burger is an avid Star Wars scholar, Tolkien fanatic, and Corvette enthusiast who somehow also manages to find time for technological passions including high-end audio, home automation, and video gaming. He lives in the armpit of Alabama with his wife Bethany and their four-legged child Bruno, a 75-pound American Staffordshire Terrier who thinks he’s a Pomeranian.

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Demo Scenes: It (2017)

It (2017)

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The opening of this latest take on the Stephen King classic makes for a perfect home theater demo

by Dennis Burger
June 3, 2021

“The S.S. Georgie & the Sewer”

(Chapter 1, 5:06–9:11)

A great home theater demo scene should accomplish a handful of things, aside from merely looking and sounding great. It should be compelling in its own right, even if you’re not familiar with the movie from which it’s pulled. It shouldn’t spoil anything major about the story. And in terms of imagery and sound, it should engage the viewers in a way that wouldn’t be nearly as effective on a lesser AV system.

The opening chapter of It—the first of two movies to adapt Stephen King’s 1,138-page horror opus—does all that and more, especially the 4K/HDR release with Dolby Atmos sound. If you own the film on Kaleidescape, you can access the best parts of this opening sequence by navigating to the Scenes collection and picking the first option: “The S.S. Georgie & the Sewer.” If you own the film on disc or via another digital retailer like Vudu or iTunes, just press play and let the opening of the film run. You’ll have to sit through the opening credits and a few establishing shots, but it doesn’t add a lot of unnecessary length to the demo.

The real show starts at around the 5-minute mark, as little Georgie Denbrough—the younger brother of one of the movie’s main protagonists—ventures out into a storm to test his new and freshly waxed paper boat in the suburban streets of Derry, Maine.

Though the weather may be frightful, the imagery here is absolutely delightful, thanks largely to the blend of inky shadows and striking highlights caused by projectiles of rain bombarding the slick neighborhood blacktop. The visual are matched by an equally engrossing Dolby Atmos sound mix, which fills the room not only with the sound of falling rain and splashing puddles, but also the fantastical score by Benjamin Wallfisch. The music starts playfully, perhaps even innocently, but takes a turn for the sinister as little Georgie’s waxed paper boat slips away from him and rockets down the gutters toward the open maw of a storm sewer nearby.

The shadows in this storm drain are so stygian that it’s honestly a shock when the visage of Pennywise the Dancing Clown appears therein, first as a pair of creepy eyes floating in utter darkness, then as a murderous grin hovering in a stray beam of almost-but-not-quite-complete blackness. From here on out, the scene would strain the confines of creepiness even if it were just Pennywise and Georgie talking across the lip of the storm sewer. But the movie cranks the tension to even higher levels by filling the overhead channels with a haunting mix of thunder, wind chimes, and strings that sound more like they’re being tortured than played.

You don’t have to be a spooky-movie expert to know that things aren’t building toward a happy ending for little Georgie here. Heck, you don’t even have to look at the screen to know that Pennywise is up to no good. But the audiovisual experience here is just so enthralling that you won’t be able to cover your eyes (or your ears) even if you want to.

Dennis Burger is an avid Star Wars scholar, Tolkien fanatic, and Corvette enthusiast who somehow also manages to find time for technological passions including high-end audio, home automation, and video gaming. He lives in the armpit of Alabama with his wife Bethany and their four-legged child Bruno, a 75-pound American Staffordshire Terrier who thinks he’s a Pomeranian.

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Demo Scenes: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

demo scenes | Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade

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The 4K HDR / Atmos releases of the Indiana Jones trilogy are so consistently excellent that they’re brimming with demo scenes—but here’s the best one

by Dennis Burger
June 24, 2021

Chapter 16, 0:00–14:12

If you’re a fan of old movies, you’ve probably figured out by now that 4K HDR can be a hit-or-miss affair for films actually shot on, you know, film. Without access to the original camera negatives, HDR remasters of these old flicks can look dodgy and inconsistent—often worse than the old HD releases. Thankfully, though, the new Indiana Jones trilogy (yes, trilogy! I said what I said) is an example of older films being brought into the modern home video era with stunning success.

All of the films have been fully restored from the original negatives, with subtle applications of computer wizardry just to clean up things like bad compositing and wires and errant reflections. And each successive film looks better than the one before it.

Here’s the thing, though: If you’re looking to pop in some archeological action-adventure as a home cinema demo scene, finding a self-contained clip within the movies isn’t easy. Once the ball starts rolling (literally and figuratively), the action just keeps cranking along until the closing credits.

But one of the most spectacular demo scenes comes right at the beginning of the third movie, The Last Crusade. It’s basically a self-contained short film with an inviting beginning, rousing climax, and rip-roaring conclusion, all within a span of 14 minutes. It’s also some of the consistently best-looking and -sounding material in the entire franchise.

The scene opens in 1912, with a young Indiana Jones (played by River Phoenix) riding through the Utah desert with his Boy Scout troop, when he stumbles upon graverobbers and manages to abscond with the precious artifact they’ve stolen. There’s a thrilling chase on a circus train. There’s a pit of snakes. There’s a lion. Then there’s a flash-forward to 1938, where a grown Indiana (Harrison Ford) is yet again trying to get his paws on the same crucifix.

You’ve seen the movie. You know how it goes. But here’s the thing: I don’t think you’ve ever seen it look (or sound) like this. Compared to the old Blu-ray release and digital HD version, this new 4K HDR remaster of The Last Crusade doesn’t look like an oversaturated cartoon. The color palette is more subdued, but also richer, more nuanced, more natural. Still, it’s punctuated by splashes of color far beyond the capabilities of Blu-ray. Indy’s scarf, the rich saturated colors of the illumination his father is studying—these hyper-color elements give the imagery the punctation it needs to look vibrant and dimensional without looking like a toddler got ahold of the Hue and Saturation knobs of your projector.

The new Atmos mix is also simply fantastic, especially in the 1938 sequences, where Indy has been captured on a vessel at sea in the midst of a raging storm. The crashing waves, the whooshing wind—all of it is given extra dimension by the new mix. It feels like you’re in the movie. Hell, it kind of feels like you’re in a theme-park ride, but that works for this franchise. The fact that they managed to add a third dimension to this aging mix without adding new sound effects is astounding. It doesn’t sound like a modern film—that would be stupid. But it does kind of sound like Atmos would have sounded like if it had been around in the 1980s. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Dennis Burger is an avid Star Wars scholar, Tolkien fanatic, and Corvette enthusiast who somehow also manages to find time for technological passions including high-end audio, home automation, and video gaming. He lives in the armpit of Alabama with his wife Bethany and their four-legged child Bruno, a 75-pound American Staffordshire Terrier who thinks he’s a Pomeranian.

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Kaleidescape Reviews

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Review: Super 8

Super 8

Review | Super 8

J.J. Abrams channels his inner Spielberg in his kid-driven director/producer/writer debut

by John Sciacca
updated August 29, 2023

Super 8 isn’t J.J. Abrams’ big-screen directorial debut (he had previously directed Mission: Impossible III in 2006 and the Star Trek reboot in 2009) but it is the first film where he took on the hat-trick of directing, writing, and producing. It also finds him teamed with Steven Spielberg, who served as a co-producer.

This seems the perfect storytelling partnership for this project, with both filmmakers having similar philosophies on maintaining suspense and holding back the big reveal, as well as working with the supernatural. In a way, this felt to me a bit like Spielberg if not maybe passing the torch, at least acknowledging Abrams as the next big up-and-comer.

There are so many elements here that seem to ring similar to Spielberg-associated films like The Goonies (kids on an adventure), Jaws (the mostly unseen monster that terrorizes the small town), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (the government trying to cover up the aliens’ visit), ET (the misunderstood alien visitor), and Jurassic Park (the attacking monsters). It’s also clear how much later shows like Stranger Things borrowed from Super 8, as well as The Loser’s Club and how they interact and relate to each other from It (2017).

The other thing this film does smartly is cast actual kids who were mostly unknowns. It’s far easier to immerse yourself in the story when you aren’t associating someone with another role, and the leads all do a solid job. But the other young actors are all outclassed by a young Elle Fanning, who just outperforms them in every scene. It reminded me of the time I got to watch Jason Kidd play basketball while at Cal Berkeley, where he just looked like a man-among-boys, showcasing talents unmatched on the court.

Not too surprising considering the Abrams-Spielberg connection, Super 8 was filmed on film, including 35-, 16-, and 8mm using a variety of cameras. The press release lists this as being “newly remastered for this 4K Ultra HD release,” but the technical specs show it as being a 2K digital intermediate. While images look clean and mostly sharp throughout, it doesn’t have that reference quality of true 4K film transfers. While I’m sure there are instances where the uptick in resolution makes a difference, for the most part this looked like a really good Blu-ray transfer.

Images have a more film-like softness compared to modern digital productions, though closeups reveal the most detail, allowing you to see the texture of the zombie makeup, or detail in clothing, or the details in the arm patches worn by the sheriff’s deputies. There are some occasionally grainy moments depending on the sky lighting.

The greatest benefit here is the HDR grading, which helps boost a lot of bright highlights and keep really clean, deep, and inky black levels. There are quite a few scenes shot at night where bright lights are also in the scene, or bright red-orange fire/explosions, or the white-hot of sparklers or welding sparks, or just the specular highlights glinting off metal. During one fireworks explosion in a dark underground cave, I felt my eyes clamp down in response to the bright output from my OLED. The additional bitrate also helps eliminate banding, such as one scene where white smoke, haze, and dust is wafting up through various shades of bring lighting, which can be a real video nightmare.

Mildly disappointing is that we don’t get a new Dolby TrueHD Atmos sound mix. Even more of a bummer is that Paramount only delivered a DTS HD-Master 5.1-channel mix to digital retailers like Kaleidescape for the 4K HDR version, instead of the 7.1-channel Dolby TrueHD mix featured on the physical version.

Even still, this was a mostly reference audio experience, and the 5.1-channel mix benefits from your processor’s upmixer to provide a more immersive audio experience. The soundtrack has intense dynamics throughout, with glass shattering, doors kicked open, things crashing, explosions, etc. There is also a lot of directionality, with sounds of the creature moving around the room and overhead, glass shattering into the room, and things being slammed or thrown by the alien. You also get smaller audio moments, like the electrical buzzes, hums, and mechanical noises in the creature’s lair, or the air raid sirens and helicopters buzzing about.

The train crash remains an audio tour de force, with powerful output that will put your speaker system to the test, and makes for a fantastic demo scene. There is deep, tactile bass from the subs you’ll feel in your chest, along with explosions that rocket debris and objects up overhead and all around the room, along with the ear-piercing scream of shrieking and twisting metal. The bus escape is another fantastic demo that makes good use of all the speakers to add to the scene’s intensity.

Super 8 is incredibly fun and entertaining, and even though there’s probably an even better version of this film in store (true 4K DI, new Atmos mix) for its 15th or 20th anniversary, it’s a welcome addition to any movie collection, especially if you have a younger viewer in your home who has yet to experience it.

Probably the most experienced writer on custom installation in the industry, John Sciacca is co-owner of Custom Theater & Audio in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, & is known for his writing for such publications as Residential Systems and Sound & Vision. Follow him on Twitter at @SciaccaTweets and at johnsciacca.com.

PICTURE | The HDR grading helps boost a lot of bright highlights and keep really clean, deep, and inky black levels

SOUND | The DTS HD-Master 5.1-channel mix is a mostly reference audio experience that benefits from your processor’s upmixer to provide an even more immersive experience

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