It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas Blu-ray

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas

 (TV) (2009)

Comedy



Ho, ho, heyooo! Christmas is upon us and the Paddy's gang has got the spirit. Well, not really. For them, the holidays have always been a time of trickery, backstabbing, and disappointment. But this year things are going to be different as they are determined to rediscover the joy in Christmas. Join Mac, Charlie, Dennis, Dee and Frank as they embark on a holiday adventure filled with stolen toys, childhood videos, naked elves, and a bloody run in with Santa Claus that is guaranteed to blast Christmas spirit all over you!

For more details about It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas on Blu-ray, see the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas Blu-ray Review

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas Blu-ray, Video Quality

 


It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia makes a truly disappointing first appearance on Blu-ray, with an AVC-encoded transfer that’s 1080p in name only. In reality, the standard definition video source material has been upscaled, and actually looks a lot worse than many of my DVDs when I allow my PS3 to do the up-converting for me. I wish I had the DVD of A Very Sunny Christmas on hand to do a side-by-side comparison, but I can’t imagine that this Blu-ray iteration looks much better. The image is incredibly soft. Lines are indistinct and unresolved, textures are muddled, and fine detail is non-existent. While there are a few bright, Christmas-y colors, the image is drab, lacks depth, and is prone to a bland haziness. Black levels are soupy and grayish, white highlights are frequently blown out, and contrast is flat and lifeless. Worse yet, artifacts and noise clutter the frame throughout, shadows are susceptible to macroblocking, and both aliasing and ringing are readily apparent. Even for DVD-quality material, this looks quite bad.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 


You would hope, then, that A Very Sunny Christmas would at least take advantage of Blu- ray’s extra storage space with a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track. While it does, this track is only marginally better than the shoddy video quality. Dialogue is clear and easily understood throughout the episode, but that’s as much of a compliment as I can muster. With the sole exception of when Frank rolls up in his Lamborghini—with a throaty roar—this track is thin and shrill. There’s not much low-end here at all, and the music comes off as much too harsh. And let’s face it, most Christmas music is pretty tiresome on its own. The music bleeds into the rear channels, but that’s as much engagement as you’re going to get from the surround speakers.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas Blu-ray, News and Updates

• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas BD - August 11, 2009

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