Quote:
VIDEO:
Sony steps away from MPEG2 for the first time, delivering an AVC/MPEG4 encoded presentation that rivals, if not exceeds the best animation we've seen in high definition to date. I've seen, if not reviewed every animation title released to high definition from both formats, save one. And, despite being extremely impressed with several, even giving The Wild a perfect score, from memory, none have looked this amazing.
This is a virtually flawless video encoding. The CGI video has all the depth of Ice Age 2, but with a far finer resolve and none of the severe posterization that has plagued some animated titles. There was one fade that looked like it was about to break. But I can't see deducting even a half paw for what amounts to two seconds of the film and could be as much hardware related, and if not, in this case it's assuredly not related to a limitation of the bit budget, which from what I checked seemed substantial, potentially even accommodating of MPEG2. The feature is grain free, just as you'd expect from computer generated visuals as well.
Before Blu-ray, I couldn't imagine animation improving that much over DVD. The finite amount of detail seemed too limiting, leaving luma and chroma as the principle areas that could benefit from a high definition video encoding. Boy was I wrong. Some animations are a lot more intricately detailed than you'd ever expect based on DVD. BD has shown meticulousness in animated design I would have never thought justifying of the effort, if even possible in some cases. This disc is another that surpasses expectations in visual design. It's utterly stunning in depth and dimension - as close to 3D as 2D gets. Check out the tiny insects swarming around Boog sleeping in the twilight just after his release into the wild. It seems incredible to me they'd even bother.
Richly saturated with a wonderful sense of color and contrast, there's not one shot in the entire show that isn't capable of dropping your jaw.
