Man on the Moon Blu-ray

Man on the Moon

Documentary | History



This program reflects on the Apollo missions. Comprised of newscasts which allow the viewer to experience and relive man's most spectacular achievement through the eyes of Walter Cronkite, Wally Schirra and others. Narrated by Walter Cronkite.

For more details about Man on the Moon on Blu-ray, see the Man on the Moon Blu-ray Review

Man on the Moon Blu-ray, Video Quality

 


When We Left Earth this ain’t. Though presented in 1080p, with an MPEG-2 transfer, the cobbled footage from CBS’s Man on the Moon and the following documentaries appears upscaled from once, perhaps twice copied source material. Whereas When We Left Earth sports beautifully cleaned up recordings, Man on the Moon shows its age with constant wear ‘n tear lines, soupy grey black levels, aliasing, ghosting, poor color depth, bland contrast, specks, flecks, super-soft images, and no hints of a true high definition transfer. The disc opens ominously with this warning: “TMG and CBS have made every effort to preserve and present this historic footage of the Apollo Moon Mission on Blu-ray disc. Imperfections in visual quality are due to the original live source material.” Some of the episodes look slightly better than others—particularly The Eagle Has Landed and Time of Apollo—but none of them are actually in high definition. Here, it appears that Blu-ray is just a chance to cram four hours of material onto a single disc. I usually rate discs by how true they are to their source material, but I’m going to give Man on the Moon a low score, just because it seems somewhat misleading to have such obviously upscaled material on Blu-ray.

Man on the Moon Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 


Likewise, Man on the Moon makes no attempt to clean up its audio source material, which is presented via an unimpressive Dolby Digital 2.0 track. There’s really not much to say here. The as-is approach means that the footage sounds exactly as you’d expect it to sound—old, compressed, and thin, with plenty of analog tape hiss and fuzzy vocals. The liftoff of a powerful Saturn rocket sounds more like a flag whipping in the wind, and the music in some of the later episodes has little presence and feels warbly, reminding me of the sound of the Super-8 videos we used to watch in science class back in the day. Once again, nostalgia is about the only objective enjoyment you’ll get out of the presentation.

Man on the Moon Blu-ray, Forum Discussions

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