Even the deep greens of the trees look very impressive. Blacks are absolutely perfect, plus the image displays excellent contrast and tremendous depth. Flawless authoring keeps digital compression artifacts from marring this supernaturally good video presentation. The Dolby Digital 5.1 channel soundtrack is first class all the way. There is aggressive sound effects usage during the film s climatic moments, which takes advantage of all the discrete channels.
Separations are as clear and wide in the split surrounds, as it is in the forward soundstage.
Dialogue reproduction is crisp and precise, with none of the actors voices ever seeming muffled by any of the other sounds in the mix. Fortunately here, the sound mixers recognized the power of Walker s score, so the sound is balanced to keep the music in the forefront, without it overwhelming any other aspect of the soundtrack. An English Dolby Surround soundtrack is also encoded onto the DVD, as are English subtitles. Through the menus, one has access to the standard scene selection and set up features, as well as a nice array of supplements. Between musical passages, Ms. Walker also has the opportunity to offer fans a bit of commentary featuring her own insights into the movie and musical scoring.