The Hunger Games - Page 3

Watched the BD tonite and, yes, the Rental is lossy.
However, the DD 5.1 is pretty good...the video is slightly inconsistent, but overall, very good.

When I started the movie, I had a terrible sense of foreboding; Shakey Cam....EVERYWHERE (and for no f*cking discernable artistic reason whatsoever ).

However...suddenly....it relents....

Anyway, soon I am being pulled into the story (what the heck?).
The movie completely seduces me...the wife and I are on the edge of our seats.

Yeah, sure...it is The Running Man for teens.
However, it is so well done, I overlooked this obvious rip-off.

Jennifer Lawrence carries the day; without her performance, this movie would have suffered.
Winter's Bone was no fluke...she has The Right Stuff.

Josh Hutcherson continues to show why he is an up and coming star.

Gary Ross really deserves some serious credit for this movie.

FWIW, I was so impressed by The HG, I will be buying the BD in the next couple of days.

And, in conclusion, all I can say is "more, please...."

Before you watched it Oink did you have very high expectatons for this film?

Actually, no....

The plot, that I read, didn't really light a fire under me.
Fortunately, plots are one thing...and realized screenplays are another.

Thanks for the reply oink. I think I got too excited over this release due to the hype. I will have to view again sometime
Edited by Franin - 8/19/12 at 2:13am

According to the Netflix site, not only is the rental DD 5.1 but the video is 1.85 aspect

Amazon lists the movie as DTS 7.1 and 2.40 aspect.

Is this true that the rental disc is 1.85 aspect and 5.1DD (but the purchase gets you DTS 7.1 AND 2.40 Aspect???

If so, what a load of crap!!

I know most watch on a flat screen so the 1.85 isn't too much of an issue but for us front projection guys, it is a major problem as my screen is only 10.5' wide in 1.85 mode and 14' wide @ 2.40 aspect!!!

Netflix is wrong, it is not 1.85. Watched it from them last night.

I agree with everything you posted but I'll wait until the price hits $9.99 or less, which I suspect will happen around black Friday or before Christmas.

As for DD 5.1, I just crank the volume 2db and it sounds fine.
I find that DD and PCM is lower than HD audio and usually requires a volume bump.

Not necessarily.

As it happens, you're in luck!

Fred Meyers is running a special where if you buy a package of 4 AAA batteries and a disposable(?) razor, THG BD is 10 bucks.
Offer good thru the 25th.

Correct but the level of HD PCM seems to be lower then the bitstream version of the same audio.

It was a lackluster movie that had no real bite and the shaky-cam was terrible. I guess they were trying to hit today's dullard, ADD inflicted teenagers over their heads and say WAKE THE F--K UP!!!! Unfortunately, cinematography savvy adult viewers had to pay the price for the DP's unprofessional choices. At least it wasn't at Bourne movie levels. I would have needed a barf bag.
Edited by Dan Hitchman - 8/20/12 at 2:57pm

My Review:

I enjoyed it up until the end. The ending seemed to be at an incorrect point - though my wide, who agreed with me, read the books and said that was in the book but, of course, better doen in the book. I was genuinely entertained and I liked the way the way it was filmed.

The 'shakey' cam was a big issue for me and only lasted a minute or two. The cinematographer did a great job with gorgeous pans in the forest as well as the stylized close ups. The picture was crisp and clear with good depth (though sometimes lacking, however) and well saturated colors showing off the lush greens in the forest and natural skin tones. This is the type of film (2.40) that really benefits from a Constant Height front projector set up. My screen expands to 14' wide and this film really benefited as the sheer size of the picture in this type of adventure film pulls you right into the action.

Sound in the DTS MA 7.1 soundtrack was excellent. The dialog was well integrated and the 7.1 effects were excellent and on a few occasions moved all about the room. Dynamic range was fantastically good in some areas (animal attack for one) and big, thunderous bass made a presence on a few occasions. This was a first rate soundtrack in my opinion!

All and all I found it a winner in a summer where great releases were few and far in between. Jennifer Lawrence was great!

Let me clarify for you.

When there is HD audio on the disc and the track is LPCM, it ALWAYS seems to be lower than a HD bitstream counterpart.
Example would be the POTC series. The first one only has LPCM. It sounds lower in volume in comparison to the ones with DTS-HD.
And I'm not the only that has noticed this difference between LPCM and HD bitstream. This has been discussed ad nauseum since 2007 in many threads.

People have even changed their players to output PCM for their discs that have HD bitstream audio and the PCM is always lower.

Could it be dialogue normalization?

I noticed that eac3to removes the dialogue normalization, when it is present, from the audio tracks.
Since I started using eac3to and tsmuxer for my movie only backups, all my movies have played at the same volume level regardless if it is True DD HD, DTS-MA HD, or PCM.

At least I am good to go when I need to ugrade to the new AVRs without volume control

I got the two disc BD at Best Buy. Popped in my PS3 and it played just fine. Watched the entire film. Today I went to watch Disc 2 with all the extras and the Disc would not play requiring a firmware update. Placed disc 1 with the movie that played just fine the other day got the same message. One I updated the firmware all was fine. Just curious why it played ther first time without updating.

Not sure where you're going with that first sentence but I already stated I have volume control & utilize it.
I don't ever recall stating in any post that louder was better quaility or PCM was lacking AQ.

I hope that Tom Stern and Gary Ross never make another movie again. The camera was shaking even when two people were sitting at a table having a conversation. Truly appalling.

P.S. They even had the nerve to shake the camera with a telephoto lens on.

Just watched it. Pretty good. The book is a little better of course, mostly because of the detail they don't have time for in the film. The end of the book (while mostly the same) is WAY better. As for the shaky cam, I didn't find it that much of an issue - a little shaky, but nothing compared to the Bourne Trilogy or the like.

Some of the fight scenes were annoying to watch because of the camera work - but aside from that, I didn't find myself even thinking about it. It's likely the case that some people are more sensitive to shakiness.

I just watched my BR from Target last night. My daughter got me to read the book and I think the movie did about as well as it could pretty great really. Reading always for me is more in depth and they left out some really interesting things but hey they have to fit into 142 mins. The real reason I am posting is this: This is the only BR disc that I have that had three really bad "cracks" loud and I feared for my speakers safety. These happened in relatively low sounding scenes. I am a bit nervous to play it again. Question is it common or not to have a defective disc? Could it be some LFE that my lowly Energy 8" sub could not handle even thought the mids were quiet at the time? Can a person exchange an opened BR disc at Target?

Not sure where else I could post this. Any comments are welcome. May the odds be ever in your favor.

Unfortunately, it is not the disk that is defective, it's your sub not being able to keep up. There were some very low, sustained low end pulses and blasts that were confined to certain low frequencies not reaching the mid region. As I posted in my mini-review above, there are some deep bass pulses and whatever frequencies excited your sub, that's what bombed it out. For an 8" sub, likely in the 30 Hz to 50 Hz range.

Though my subs are powered with 10,000W of power and are designed to play such at full reference level (and beyond), I found those bass pulses very pleasing! An 8" sub will likely bottom out (hence, the 'cracking' sound).

The good news for you is you know where your system is lacking and it can be easily addressed with a better subwoofer. Consider it a blessing that you found out you are missing a lot of low end action!

Any one having playback problem at the ~1:05 to 1:15 mark in the movie as being reported on Blu-Ray.com?

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=203453

I had the same issue yesterday on my BD-35. It had been a while (1+ years) since I last updated the firmware on the player so I figured it was worth a shot. After updating to the latest FW the disc played fine on my BD-35. Probably not a universal solution though, hope this helps.

Thanks for the reply. I am going to try out a Klipsh RW12D and maybe a HSU STF-1 later. No way I am getting into y