Captain America The First Avenger 3D (Blu-ray) Official AVSForum Review - Page 2

Great points in the review and discussion, but Hayley Atwell makes the 3D worth it for me.

Most defintely....great eye candy!

She looked stunning in that red dress at the bar

Ralph,

I apologize in advance for going off topic but hope you don't mind some hardware questions.

I see you're reviewing 3D with the JVC and a Panasonic player. Will the Play Station 3 provide good 3D to the projector as well?

If you were going to buy gear suited for 3D today would you still go with the JVC and the Panasonic? You have a way of finding the best stuff without spending the kids inheritance.

Thanks

The PS3 does 3D quite well, but you lose lossless audio and will only be able to play DTS or Dolby Digital (it can't do both 3D and lossless at the same time...it's a limitation of the HDMI 1.3 chip that it uses). Hopefully this helps.

Did not see this one in the theaters. It did not look that interesting to me but I watched it last night and it was really good. I was not that impressed with the audio on the DVD. There does seem to be a lack of really deep bass as compared to the other super hero films. Maybe I was just spoiled by the last Transformers movie.

This is one I decided to buy and watched it the other night--very enjoyable--one of the best super hero flicks and will be fun to see how it all comes together in Avengers.

Watched last night for the first time and thought the 3D was very good. However the LFE was lacking and overall the audio (SFX wise) was weak. In the first chase scene the gunshots sounded like cap guns. All the explosions lacked punch and depth. If you don't believe how lame the LFE was just watch the Avengers "trailer" (strangely window boxed) after the credits and you WILL hear a deference.

Also I was watching at reference level. Forgot to check but was DN at -31db (0)db or maybe set lower (like -26db)? If so this could explain. I will check tonight.

^^

I have to agree with you on the LFE--I felt a bit underwhelmed with this one--especially when compared to Thor, Transformers--or even Jurassic Park which I watched last night.

Excellent review, Ralph.

My wife and I watched this movie in 2D last night. I felt that is was a fun and quite enjoyable movie to watch. Complemented with it's very lively and bombastic soundtrack. The only aspect of your review that I disagree with is the audio rating of 88. My subjective rating would be 90 - 91.

I really like the seeing the scenes with Howard Stark and his work during that time period. And, of course, Stan Lee's obligatory cameo.

- Tim

Agreed, but I had low expectations for the AQ after reading Ralph's review so perhaps that's why they were exceeded.

Good point.

Yea, the sound seemed kinda funky on this movie. I had to turn it up a little bit louder than I usually do on other movies. Whenver I watch a BR, I always just set the dial to 29, but when I watched this last night, I had to crank it up a bit to 26. Even then the sound seemed kinda subdued. For a 7.1 track I didn't seem to be getting much surround sound going, and also the LFE was a bit weak as well.

Enjoyed watching it last night but must admit the lfe kind ofwas a let down

Has anyone watched this bluray on an HTPC? I watched it this morning and cpu usage is rather high (around 60%). I thought something was wrong but I put Thor in to compare and usage is only around 15%. I don't get it.

Fantastic review. Great film. Thank you Ralph.

I feel the same as you on both movies except I really did not like the picture in Captain America. It was too soft for me taste. Also, on both movies, I had to take off the 3D glasses and watch 2D to get through the movie.

I also have issues with the volume being low on this disk I have noticed that both on my PS3, desktop, and Dell Studio Laptop (1558) the audio level is very low..... almost half the volume that some movies can put out on the same machines

^^^No doubt. I was not initially impressed with the soundtrack without any adjustments from my norm. Rewatched with volume pumped way up, then found the track -- it's there, got to AMP to find it.

interestingly enough the DVD does NOT exhibit the same audio problem. It is nice and loud and full.

It has the "DRC" enabled on the disc...you need to disable it in your processor to get the full impact of the audio (similar to the "Iron Man" disc).

Are you saying that (as I have heard is the case with DOLBY TRU HD) it is automatic that "late night listening," or some sort of peak-dampening, is engaged without removing it via settings? How would one do that exactly?

In any case, I didn't mess with my settings, only the volume, and that led to a very satisfactory re-experiencing of the track.

It depends on what AVR or pre/pro you own. With Onkyo/Integra, something on the disc tells the AVR to engage Dynamic Range Control, which means you have to go into the setup menu and disable it (it is normally set at Auto). Another way to avoid this is to have your Blu-ray player decode the audio and output it at PCM, just make sure you have DRC disabled in the Blu-ray player.

the Iron man disk does not exhibit the issue when I play it in the above mentioned machines. It plays pretty loud....

Ralph,

I honestly don't remember if I ever got a replacement disc. Whenever I pop in Iron Man, I always go into the settings and disable DRC

I didn't know that as I got my disk on release day and it seems to be ok, did they catch it before release or can you trade your disk in for an updated one?