So How Does This Transfer Hold Up?

VIDEO
Well this will be a short piece as this is nothing short of spectacular; I am yet to see DVD footage that is this clear and sharp, continually amazing you with every new shot. I have only one criticism of the video transfer or more likely the original collation of the film. There are a lot of scenes where you have a beautiful crystal sharp image in the background of some fantastic snow covered mountain forest and then slap bang in the middle is a big square with another image in the middle of the screen. The centre image being of a terribly inferior quality, awfully grainy and riddled with dust flecks. It would be my assumption that they’ve done this because the image would have been too inferior to blow up to a full screen size. It a shame because this spoils an almost flawless transfer.

There is some very minor shimmering in parts but nothing to distract the novice viewer. Colour saturation was impeccable and always gave a very natural feel to the transfer.

The only other thing which might be a player fault, [ED. to be determined] is that you don’t get the option of the menu when the film starts and it’s almost impossible to get to it at all. I found that if I selected the menu before the beginning of the film, the player locked up and had to be reloaded; if I selected it in the course of the film I was presented with the chapter menu, and had to keep going back till I got to the main menu.

AUDIO
This was also an impressive 5.1 Dolby digital mix. The surrounds and the bass channel were used widely and effectively. There is a great native feel to the audio with a spectacular aray of native American percussion instruments. The narration is not at all boring and was actually very much an attention holding feature of the film. All aspects of the surrounds, the front sound stage and .1 channel were used continually and effectively.

EXTRAS
Here we have quite a good amount of features on this disc. Standard DVD Rom functions, and another bad colour selection on the menus is a sad beginning but then there is the making of documentary and the feature program which is included.

The making of documentary shows the filming area and the difficult locations in which the film was shot. There is also some great info on the creation of the musical score which shows someof the deep drums made from gourds and the other native instruments that were used. This about the most interesting parts of the "making of" segment. I was alittle annoyed that it seemed to concentrate on pushing politcal standpoints of the wolf supporters.

The bonus program "Survival of the Yellowstone Wolves" is another purely political viewpoint. Hosted by Matthew Fox (Charlie from TV's Party of Five), this is the tale of the reintroduction of native wolves to yellowstone park after they were wiped out many years ago by hunting. It praises the efforts of the naturalists who introduce the wolves back into the park and downgrades the viewpoints of the ranchers who are losing their stock to wolves. I found this a little off putting. I was also annoyed at the intended add breaks in this program, for an almost hour long bonus feature I would expect them to take out the little logos and "when we come back " shots that were obviously intended for commercial breaks.

All the extras however have the same superior video and audio transfer quality which was nothing short of impressive.

Review Equipment
TV: GE 68cm (16:9 selectable)
DVD: Samsung DVD907 (via S-Video)
Receiver/Proc: Sansui A505/Sony Amp & Yamaha DSP-E390
Speakers:-
Fronts: Wharfdale Diamond R6 (on a pair of custom made stands you'd KILL for)
Centre: Venturi
Rears: Sony bookshelf

- Reviewed 24th February 2000