Frequency (2000) |
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Frequency (2000) |
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| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Thriller | Main Menu Audio & Animation Dolby Digital Trailer-Canyon Scene Selection Anim & Audio Theatrical Trailer Deleted Scenes-4 Featurette-The Science & Technology Behind Frequency Multiple Angles-Conceptual and Solar Galleries Biographies-Cast & Crew Audio Commentary-Gregory Hoblit (Director) |
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| Rating |  |
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| Year Of Production | 2000 | ||
| Running Time | 113:44 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (35:28) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Gregory Hoblit |
| Studio Distributor |
 Roadshow Home Entertainment |
Starring | Dennis Quaid Jim Caviezel Andre Braugher Elizabeth Mitchell Noah Emmerich |
| Case | C-Button-Version 1 | ||
| RPI | $34.95 | Music | Michael Kamen |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None | English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 2.40:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles | English | Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
��� I played around with my own plot synopses for a while, but I found that I was either giving away too much or wasn't providing enough detail, so I finally settled on using the back cover blurb, so that I wouldn't unduly delay getting this review out.
��� From the back cover blurb: "On October 11, 1999, one day before the anniversary of his father's death, 36-year-old jaded cop, John Sullivan, comes across his father's old ham radio. It is a night of bizarre weather, with the aurora borealis dominating the night sky and, as John plays around with the radio, he finds himself talking to a man who sounds strangely familiar. When he discovers the man is in fact his father talking to him on the same day, but in 1969, John realizes he has the power to save his father from dying and create the future that might have been. It is a chance that no loving son could pass up, but one that ultimately plays with destiny, bringing with it another terror for John's family to endure-one that must be fought on both sides of the time barrier."
��� For those who liked the idea of Frequency, but like me didn't get to see it at the cinema, I recommend that you have a look at it on DVD.
��� The transfer is extremely clear and sharp at all times and the shadow detail never wavers from being perfect. No low-level noise, edge enhancement or edge bleeding was noticed. At 71:00, the picture starts out rather dark and then changes back to the correct brightness level, just like in Looking for Alibrandi. What I found interesting about this brightness correction was that it was within 151 seconds of the one in Looking for Alibrandi!
��� The colour was exemplary - beautifully saturated, rich and vibrant throughout.
��� There were several occasions where some extremely trivial grain could be seen but you had to be looking very closely to notice it, so it's hardly worth a mention. There is one exception to this, at 108:57, where the grain becomes much more noticeable, but it is still a long way away from what I would classify as bad.
��� I only spotted one possible MPEG artefact for the entire film, which was at 22:12. At this point, the picture appeared to suffer from motion blur, as all the objects in the background had three edges. Whether this is an MPEG compression artefact or inherent in the original film is unknown, but I would suspect that the former is the more likely culprit.
��� I wish I could say that aliasing was not a problem with this transfer, but unfortunately it is, and it is a reasonably serious problem at that. It strikes regularly and is quite distracting. Scenes that contain any sort of camera movement are almost always affected. Fine, strongly contrasted objects like radio antennas, Venetian blinds and car chrome are the worst offenders. I took a close look at the aliasing on this transfer and found that it was being induced by interlacing artefacts, so the good news is if you have a progressive scan DVD or TV, then this transfer will be almost perfect. A couple of the more noticeable examples of aliasing can be found at 7:23, 10:28-10:33, 14:27, 30:45, 34:14, 95:37 and 101:47 when watching on an interlaced device. At 82:28 there is a strong moir� artefact on the TV set, but I believe this has been deliberately added to the TV set for aesthetic reasons.
��� I only noticed half a dozen tiny film artefacts for the entire film.
��� This disc is an RSDL disc, with the layer change occurring at 35:28 in Chapter 8. There is a short pause, which is mostly noticeable because the music stops, but it is well placed so it does not disrupt the flow of the movie.
| Sharpness |  |
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| Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
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| Overall | |
��� I found the dialogue a little hard to make out on several occasions, so I found myself turning the volume up during dialogue-driven sequences and then down again for the action scenes.
��� There were a couple of scenes where the dialogue almost seemed like it was out of sync, but it would then come good again even before the sentence had been completed. This made me wonder if the dialogue had been looped for these scenes. Either way, this is very subtle and infrequent.
��� Michael Kamen's music score really ties this movie together, allowing you to seamlessly travel between 1969 and 1999.
��� The surround channels were aggressively used for ambience, music and many special effects. The sound mix put you in the midst of the movie at all times.
��� The subwoofer was quite active on many occasions and really added depth and punch to the soundtrack.
| Dialogue | |
| Audio Sync | |
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| Surround Channel Use | |
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| Overall | |
��� All menus are 16x9 enhanced and the Scene Selection menu has audio and visual enhancement. The presentation and layout of the menus are exemplary. This is one top-notch disc in the area of menu presentation.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
��� For those who have a progressive scan setup this is a fantastic transfer which truly shines, but for those who have a normal interlaced TV set, the frequent aliasing will and does detract from the picture quality somewhat.
��� The audio quality is excellent, but I found the dialogue to be a little on the quiet side.
��� There is a superb set of extras on this disc, but what is more impressive is the excellent quality of all the extras.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Sony DVP-725, using Component output |
| Display | Sony Projector VPH-G70 (No Line Doubler), Technics Da-Lite matt screen with gain of 1.0 (229cm). This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Onkyo TX-DS989 |
| Speakers | Fronts: Energy RVS-1 (3), Rears: Energy RVSS-1 (2), Subwoofer: Energy EPS-150 (1) |