The Best Movies To Help Appreciate Your New 5.1 Surround Sound System...

[rayzoredge 2]

So I'm working to justify the $2300 price tag of my new home theater set up, and aside from being blown away by the simple video quality of 720p as well as 1080p, I had to figure out if surround sound was as exciting as it's been toted to be. From what I've seen so far, I'm going to have to say that it's worth going for.

 

I know that it's hard to find movie titles that actually put your system to the test, so I'm compiling my own list here.

 

Below are movies that I've re-watched in 720p/1080p with 5.1 surround sound... and my recommendations as a normal viewer:

 

-

 

Outstanding for Sound:

 

Black Hawk Down - Gunfire is king when it comes to testing your surround sound. Hearing bullets whiz by your head, the dull roar of hovering helicopters, the buzzing sound of the Vulcan cannon, ricochets... Black Hawk Down definitely is a must-have title if you want to throw yourself into the midst of Somalia with the Rangers.

 

Cast Away - Most notably would be the ambient atmosphere of the island that Tom Hanks finds himself deserted on, which is a nice touch when you inadvertently find yourself on the beach. You can hear the quiet splashes of the water as the ocean licks at the sand, hear the driving rain fall when the storm hits the island, and feel yourself on that plane when it goes down into the ocean, din and drowning sounds alike to give you the disorienting feeling of falling from the sky. [Not exactly a spoiler there... hence the name of the movie.] Very nicely done.

 

Gladiator - Obviously, the first battlefield scene was outstanding. Arrows piercing the sky, the roar of the fiery catapults, the din of war with the Germanian natives... then to the dull roar of the Colosseum. This movie was great to begin with, and the sounds of war make it greater still.

 

Heat - Yeah, it's an older movie, but they still did the city heist gunfight pretty well. You can hear the echo of gunshots from the buildings around you as Val Kilmer and Robert deNiro make their way through the streets.

 

Iron Man - "Yes, it's very cool." Explosions, gunfire, and just flying with Robert Downey Jr. makes Iron Man a pretty darn good movie to watch and experience with a surround sound system.

 

Swordfish - To be honest, I've only seen the first 8 minutes or so of the movie... and it will be an eager wait to see this movie in its entirety. In the very beginning where

the girl explodes as a "human claymore" and the movie goes into a Matrix-like moment with ball bearings whipping around, you can hear them whizzing by your head along with everything else drawn down with a slow-motion effect.

 

 

The Dark Knight - Probably one of my favorite movies, thanks to Heath Ledger's excellent performance as a darker, much more psychotic Joker. You will hear the roar of the Batmobile as clear as day and feel the impact of every hit and strike by the Dark Knight as he goes toe-to-toe with the mob's cronies in the beginning of the movie. The chase scenes are done very well, and you can almost "feel" the

truck flip right after the Joker chuckles with: "He missed!"

. I recommend you snag the IMAX version as well if you have a larger HDTV... the visual quality of being able to see Gotham City in its glory makes it worth whatever extra you pay over the regular theatrical version.

 

The Taking of Pelham 123 - We actually just watched this last night and if The Taking of Pelham 123 didn't utilize your sound system at all, you've got it set up incorrectly. It was almost to the point of abuse of my sound system with the ambient sounds of the subway, the roaring of the trains and the screeches of them stopping. Good movie too, to boot.

 

Transformers and Transformers 2: Return of the Fallen: The sequel to the first may have been a ruined movie thanks to the robot twins and some retarded characters, but the surround sound is nothing to balk at. Something as simple as transformation makes for a sweet treat for the ears as Autobots and Decepticons battle it out with typical J.J. Abrams galore. The IMAX version of ROTF is a nice visual treat too with the forest scene, as you can see with

the texture on Optimus Prime's face after being stabbed from behind by Megatron

. C'mon... its giant robots, battling for the fate of the Earth. What's not to like?

 

Not as Great for Sound:

 

Eraser - Definitely NOT the movie you want to show off your surround sound with. Most of the sound came out of the front channels... the only time I noticed anything from my surrounds was when Arnold Schwartzenegger was with James Caan to "rescue" his client and I heard a dog bark out of the rear left and hearing some of the terrorists walking upstairs (during the same scene). Other than that, nada.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - During Aki's dreams of the battlefield, the roar of engines in space [yes, I know... scientifically-incorrect], and some things here and there, it makes good use of your system, but not as much as one would hope. Maybe I just couldn't hear it, or maybe the movie is actually a bit weaker in the sound department than what I would have liked. Still a good movie, though... and wonderful CG.

 

The Mask of Zorro - I have no idea when my sound system kicked in to give any indication that it was working during this movie. Maybe it was the part when

the mine blew up near the end

, but then again, maybe I wasn't paying attention. Or deaf. Or maybe this movie just doesn't have a lot of sound to give.

 

WALL-E - Strangely enough, as much as I love WALL-E, I didn't hear a lot. I expected to feel IN the dust storms, to hear robots whizzing by, to be in the general hustle-and-bustle of the Axiom, to listen to EVE's laser cannon shoot from the left side of the screen to the right when "she" shot at WALL-E, to be deafened by the roar of the engine of the spaceship carrying EVE to Earth... maybe I'm mistaken?

 

-

 

I intend to evaluate more movies in the future to help others identify flukes and diamonds in the rough. Some titles I'm going to be watching, hopefully sooner than later, include:

3:10 To Yuma

300

Batman Begins

Behind Enemy Lines

Cars

Eagle Eye

Ghost Rider

I Am Legend

Master and Commander

Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy

Pathfinder

Quantum of Solace

Spiderman trilogy

Terminator quadrilogy

The Mummy trilogy

The Perfect Storm

Underworld

X-Men trilogy

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I'll give more of a review as far as sound quality goes as I get to them.

[Zagubadu? 0]

Yea I recently bought a speaker system as well. ( 70$ ) And watched 2012 sounded very nice. Lots of different things going on. Buildings falling things exploding lots and lots of noise. Thanks for the list.

[rayzoredge 2]

I need to recall one of my quasi-reviews on WALL-E's sound performance.The reason why I said it wasn't that great as far as surround sound goes would most likely attribute to the fact that I probably wasn't sitting down and watching it. WALL-E deserves a spot in the Recommended list. Sitting down to watch the movie made me realize just how the surround sound was being used, and after being abused by titles like The Taking of Pelham 123, you tend to miss the nuances of sound that is the swirling of sand and dust in the beginning of WALL-E, or the fact that most of the music is played through the rear channels while the action is riding on the front speakers. There's a lot of ambience to be heard, and the funny thing is that you won't notice it... unless you disconnected your rear speakers. That's what surround sound is supposed to be: not knowing it's there until something actually happens "behind" you.

[rayzoredge 2]

The Terminator movies were, for the most part, great for sound. The first movie was a disappointment with no real use with the surround channels, although I can vouch for the 720p up-scaling. It felt like I was watching a DVD, but it wasn't bad.The rest of the Terminator quadrilogy was pretty darn good. Terminator 2 was a nice blast to the past, with booming gun fire, tinkles of broken glass, and whatnot. There was a lot of ambient sound during the chase scenes, but most of the action was really up front. Terminator 3 was surprisingly good, especially during

the chase scene with the wrecker near the beginning

.I liked bits and parts of 3:10 to Yuma too, but haven't fully watched it quite yet.What I'm starting to figure out with most movies is that although there might not be much with engaging action on-screen at any given moment in time, a lot of movies like to use the surrounds for theme or background music. Ambient sounds are rather soft too so sometimes it's hard to notice (especially with incorrect speaker placement), but that's how it's supposed to be. A lot of times, I forget that the surround sound is there and just watch the movie, but then I'm reminded with a well-placed sound effect from time to time to remind me that it's on and working.

[wonderfullygifted 0]

So I'm working to justify the $2300 price tag of my new home theater set up, and aside from being blown away by the simple video quality of 720p as well as 1080p, I had to figure out if surround sound was as exciting as it's been toted to be. From what I've seen so far, I'm going to have to say that it's worth going for.

 

I know that it's hard to find movie titles that actually put your system to the test, so I'm compiling my own list here.

 

Below are movies that I've re-watched in 720p/1080p with 5.1 surround sound... and my recommendations as a normal viewer:

 

-

 

Outstanding for Sound:

 

Black Hawk Down - Gunfire is king when it comes to testing your surround sound. Hearing bullets whiz by your head, the dull roar of hovering helicopters, the buzzing sound of the Vulcan cannon, ricochets... Black Hawk Down definitely is a must-have title if you want to throw yourself into the midst of Somalia with the Rangers.

 

Cast Away - Most notably would be the ambient atmosphere of the island that Tom Hanks finds himself deserted on, which is a nice touch when you inadvertently find yourself on the beach. You can hear the quiet splashes of the water as the ocean licks at the sand, hear the driving rain fall when the storm hits the island, and feel yourself on that plane when it goes down into the ocean, din and drowning sounds alike to give you the disorienting feeling of falling from the sky. [Not exactly a spoiler there... hence the name of the movie.] Very nicely done.

 

Gladiator - Obviously, the first battlefield scene was outstanding. Arrows piercing the sky, the roar of the fiery catapults, the din of war with the Germanian natives... then to the dull roar of the Colosseum. This movie was great to begin with, and the sounds of war make it greater still.

 

Heat - Yeah, it's an older movie, but they still did the city heist gunfight pretty well. You can hear the echo of gunshots from the buildings around you as Val Kilmer and Robert deNiro make their way through the streets.

 

Iron Man - "Yes, it's very cool." Explosions, gunfire, and just flying with Robert Downey Jr. makes Iron Man a pretty darn good movie to watch and experience with a surround sound system.

 

Swordfish - To be honest, I've only seen the first 8 minutes or so of the movie... and it will be an eager wait to see this movie in its entirety. In the very beginning where

the girl explodes as a "human claymore" and the movie goes into a Matrix-like moment with ball bearings whipping around, you can hear them whizzing by your head along with everything else drawn down with a slow-motion effect.

 

 

The Dark Knight - Probably one of my favorite movies, thanks to Heath Ledger's excellent performance as a darker, much more psychotic Joker. You will hear the roar of the Batmobile as clear as day and feel the impact of every hit and strike by the Dark Knight as he goes toe-to-toe with the mob's cronies in the beginning of the movie. The chase scenes are done very well, and you can almost "feel" the

truck flip right after the Joker chuckles with: "He missed!"

. I recommend you snag the IMAX version as well if you have a larger HDTV... the visual quality of being able to see Gotham City in its glory makes it worth whatever extra you pay over the regular theatrical version.

 

The Taking of Pelham 123 - We actually just watched this last night and if The Taking of Pelham 123 didn't utilize your sound system at all, you've got it set up incorrectly. It was almost to the point of abuse of my sound system with the ambient sounds of the subway, the roaring of the trains and the screeches of them stopping. Good movie too, to boot.

 

Transformers and Transformers 2: Return of the Fallen: The sequel to the first may have been a ruined movie thanks to the robot twins and some retarded characters, but the surround sound is nothing to balk at. Something as simple as transformation makes for a sweet treat for the ears as Autobots and Decepticons battle it out with typical J.J. Abrams galore. The IMAX version of ROTF is a nice visual treat too with the forest scene, as you can see with

the texture on Optimus Prime's face after being stabbed from behind by Megatron

. C'mon... its giant robots, battling for the fate of the Earth. What's not to like?

 

Not as Great for Sound:

 

Eraser - Definitely NOT the movie you want to show off your surround sound with. Most of the sound came out of the front channels... the only time I noticed anything from my surrounds was when Arnold Schwartzenegger was with James Caan to "rescue" his client and I heard a dog bark out of the rear left and hearing some of the terrorists walking upstairs (during the same scene). Other than that, nada.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - During Aki's dreams of the battlefield, the roar of engines in space [yes, I know... scientifically-incorrect], and some things here and there, it makes good use of your system, but not as much as one would hope. Maybe I just couldn't hear it, or maybe the movie is actually a bit weaker in the sound department than what I would have liked. Still a good movie, though... and wonderful CG.

 

The Mask of Zorro - I have no idea when my sound system kicked in to give any indication that it was working during this movie. Maybe it was the part when

the mine blew up near the end

, but then again, maybe I wasn't paying attention. Or deaf. Or maybe this movie just doesn't have a lot of sound to give.

 

WALL-E - Strangely enough, as much as I love WALL-E, I didn't hear a lot. I expected to feel IN the dust storms, to hear robots whizzing by, to be in the general hustle-and-bustle of the Axiom, to listen to EVE's laser cannon shoot from the left side of the screen to the right when "she" shot at WALL-E, to be deafened by the roar of the engine of the spaceship carrying EVE to Earth... maybe I'm mistaken?

 

-

 

I intend to evaluate more movies in the future to help others identify flukes and diamonds in the rough. Some titles I'm going to be watching, hopefully sooner than later, include:

 

3:10 To Yuma

300

Batman Begins

Behind Enemy Lines

Cars

Eagle Eye

Ghost Rider

I Am Legend

Master and Commander

Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy

Pathfinder

Quantum of Solace

Spiderman trilogy

Terminator quadrilogy

The Mummy trilogy

The Perfect Storm

Underworld

X-Men trilogy

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

 

I'll give more of a review as far as sound quality goes as I get to them.

I was thinking, with the pixels... is there really a difference? and with blueray?

I wish I had a nice surround sound system, but I'm not so into movies, and things.

I'm hoping someday they start inventing holographic pictures, so they pop out

 

Which surround system do you think is good?

 

Anyway, to reply to your movie choices/reviews..

Black Hawk Down - Sounds good, I feel like I want to watch it, with bullets whizing through your head like you said, i'd love to experience the thrill like i'm actually in the movie, and I kind of really want that awesome feature

 

Cast Away - LOVED cast away, didn't like it at first, to be honest.. but after I got into it, I was really amused with it Tom hanks was a good actor, he pulled off a great performance as usual! I strongly recommend anyone to watch this, we actually had to learn about this in school.. like it has a great moral story behind it with how you can't be alone from the human race and sometimes love can drift apart.. it's also kind of sad too in my opinion.

 

Dark Knight - it sounds good, I watched it but didn't really like it. Heath ledger was EXCELLENT in playing the joker bit.

 

 

Thanks for the movies, and what you added, I'm really going to try to get into movies now.

I'm really loving the effort you put into your reviews it's really kind of you to aware us of the movies.. some of them I want to watch as well!

[rayzoredge 2]

dfddf

I was thinking, with the pixels... is there really a difference? and with blueray?

I wish I had a nice surround sound system, but I'm not so into movies, and things.

I'm hoping someday they start inventing holographic pictures, so they pop out

 

Which surround system do you think is good?

 

Anyway, to reply to your movie choices/reviews..

Black Hawk Down - Sounds good, I feel like I want to watch it, with bullets whizing through your head like you said, i'd love to experience the thrill like i'm actually in the movie, and I kind of really want that awesome feature

 

Cast Away - LOVED cast away, didn't like it at first, to be honest.. but after I got into it, I was really amused with it Tom hanks was a good actor, he pulled off a great performance as usual! I strongly recommend anyone to watch this, we actually had to learn about this in school.. like it has a great moral story behind it with how you can't be alone from the human race and sometimes love can drift apart.. it's also kind of sad too in my opinion.

 

Dark Knight - it sounds good, I watched it but didn't really like it. Heath ledger was EXCELLENT in playing the joker bit.

 

 

Thanks for the movies, and what you added, I'm really going to try to get into movies now.

I'm really loving the effort you put into your reviews it's really kind of you to aware us of the movies.. some of them I want to watch as well!

I try to be in-depth when I can... it can only help others who are looking for the same answers I was looking for.

 

There is a difference with Blu-Ray vs. DVD. BR titles have a higher pixel count and are finer (720p, 1080p) than what DVD has to offer with 480p and 576p (correct me if I'm wrong?). It basically is less fuzzy with finer details and more vibrant colors. I can't understand how some people say that they can't tell a difference between the two, but it's only understandable if you're standing very far away. As you get closer to the television screen, especially at a normal viewing distance, you'll be able to discern the finer quality of high-definition video. Most people would benefit from upgrading to 720p since you would have to sit rather closely to your HDTV to notice the differences between 720p and 1080p, but videophiles will obviously be happier knowing they spent more money to get the best quality available.

 

Also, keep in mind that if you blow up a DVD image to fit a finer resolution, it will look bad... kind of like resizing a 100x100 image to 400x400 and wrongfully expecting that it retains the same image quality. However, most DVD players nowadays can upscale DVD quality to fit a resolution larger than what would be optimal for 480p, so this statement is applicable up to an extent.

 

Upgrading to HD in the financial perspective is probably what would be keeping people from taking that plunge. With the newer LCD LED HDTVs, a complete home theater system can run you around $2000 or more. However, with the drops in prices for LCD and plasma HDTVs, you can have a pretty decent (and complete) set up for sub-$1000 prices.

 

I don't really know from experience what the difference is between 5.1 and 7.1 sound systems or if it's even worth the extra 2 channels. There aren't a heck of a lot of source materials that even support 7.1 surround sound, although most movie titles carry DTS sound tracks (in addition to Dolby Digital) to help you appreciate the extra two channels. There are arguments for the superior quality of DTS and how it is less compressed, giving you more sound quality, but it's arguable that you won't realize the difference in real-time for sound quality OR the extra two channels of sound. Then again, it's up for debate... unless you're an audiophile.

 

Here we will demonstrate it with I, Robot.

 

 

First sample is XviD, the 1 CD version of the film; second, DVD is the vanilla 576p DVD video from store; third and fourth are HD 780p and 1080p the HD DVD versions. (Here is the list of HD DVD releases.) Click on the image above to get the full frame version.

Note that all these images are of different resolutions too, so try stretching the already-fuzzy XviD and DVD and 720p source images to fit a larger HDTV with finer resolution... while you compare it with the 1080p source image that fits right at home with a finer resolution to begin with, no resizing necessary.

Edited January 26, 2010 by rayzoredge (see edit history)

[ahmed_mmahmoud 0]

i like the martial arts movies with a drama storywhat about ip man