Arctic Tale Blu-ray

Paramount Pictures | 2007 | 96 mins | Rated G | Apr 21, 2009

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Video Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video resolution: 1080p Aspect ratio: 1.85:1 Audio English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 French: Dolby Digital 5.1 Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 French: Dolby Digital 5.1 Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (less) Subtitles English SDH, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish English SDH, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish (less) Disc 25GB Blu-ray Disc

Price List price: $29.99  Amazon: $17.99 (Save 40%) Third party: $10.35 (Save 65%) Usually ships in 24 hours Blu-ray rating Users 0.0 Reviewer 2.5 Overall 2.5 Be the first to rate it! Playback Region A (B, C untested)

Arctic Tale

A stunning video presentation is often the saving grace of an otherwise tedious or monotonous documentary. The film itself may not be interesting, but even watching mediocrity unfold in gorgeous high definition can make it all worthwhile. Sadly, Arctic Tale's 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer is an inconsistent mess, suffering from poor fine detailing, rampant edge enhancement, and other technical issues like intermittent artifacting, frequent print damage, errant noise, and some of the most distracting, intrusive grain I've encountered in a Paramount release since Hustle & Flow. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the studio didn't slather the image with DNR (Digital Noise Reduction) to resolve the issue, but the grain that appears is often much sharper and refined than the animal fur and ice formations it disrupts. Thankfully, the majority of these problems seem to accompany the film's polar bear footage -- the walrus scenes look much better and have fewer pitfalls to overcome. The downside is that the impact of the overall presentation peaks and plummets on a regular basis, making it all too easy to overlook some of the transfer's positive qualities (attractive contrast leveling, the appearance of vibrant blues, and fairly well-resolved blacks). Ultimately, if you don't fall for Arctic Tale's particular charms, you aren't going to find anything else to redeem the release.

Arctic Tale Blu-ray, Audio Quality

Even with the proper expectations in place, Arctic Tale's Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround track is still a disappointment. Queen Latifah's narration sounds pinched at times, muffled at others. Part of the problem can probably be attributed to her breezy, lighthearted delivery, but the recording itself lacks the crispness and clarity necessary to bolster an impressive documentary mix. Considering her voice is the only notable element in the soundscape -- animal cries, splashing water, and sliding ice are quite underwhelming -- the result is a muddy, front-heavy affair that wasn't nearly as involving as the on-screen imagery. Granted, a few brief instances of LFE weight and rear speaker aggression do find their way into the presentation, but they're gone almost as quickly as they came. As such shortcomings are all-too-often par for the course, documentary regulars will probably shrug their shoulders. However, I expect a lossless surround track of this nature to at least attempt to convince me that a polar bear or a walrus has somehow stumbled into my home theater.

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