# Night at the Museum on DVD and Blu-ray



## Sir Terrence (Jun 8, 2006)

Every now and then Hollywood comes up with a great original concept for a movie. I say every now and then because Hollywood is infamous for churning out vapid rehashes in mass, and it seems that all of the really great ideas have be used or overused already. Night at the Museum is one of those great concepts, but is uneven in many ways. The concept does borrow from other movies(I could see home alone, a bit of Jurassic Park, and some slap stick from Laurel and Hardy), but not to the point that it looks like they are stealing from them. 

I don't know about anyone else, but as a kid growing up in New York City, I always wondered what it would be like to be in a museum or a wax museum after the doors closed. I imagine I would be creeped out big time. But imagine being in a museum where all of the exibits come to life. Creeeeeepy. 

Robin Williams was pretty good in this movie, but Steve Coogin and Owen Wilson were the funniest. My favorite scene involved Ben Stiller and a monkey. Mickey Rooney and Dick Van **** were also great, but Mickey just kept me laughing over and over again. 

* On The Screen *

On DVD the video is presented in 1:85:1 anamorphic MPEG-2 at a average bit rate of about 4.5 to 6.5mbps. I watched it upconverted to 1080i since that is the upconversion resolution of the A1 which has become my reference DVD player. The picture was clean and clear without any noticeable defects on the print. Colors popped big time, nice blacks, and for SD DVD detail was nicely rendered. However the picture did have some problems. I found quite a bit of edge enhancement and halo's on objects with high contrast. There is occasionally a orange tint to flesh tones, but that could be a artistic choice of the DP. 

On Blu-ray the picture is presented in 1080p/MPEG-2. It is a definately improvement over the SD DVD release, but is dogged by the same problems as the SD DVD release. While the colors popped, black where deep, and detail was excellent, edge enhancement crops up alot, especially on sharply contrasted objects. In spite of these issues, the picture looked really clean and 3D like. I would not call this reference material, but I would not call this the worse I have seen on blu-ray either. 

*Through the Speakers*

The SD DVD comes with both Dts and DD soundtracks, with Dts at 754kbps, and the Dolby Digital at 448kbps. I chose the Dts soundtrack, but did give the Dolby Digital a listen. While I thought the soundtrack overall was pretty good, I do have some issues with it. The music is very well recorded, filling the room with a big and wide soundfield. Where I had some problems is the mixing of sound effects to the rear. While the front hemisphere had a big, wide well punctuated soundstage, sound effects panned to the rear seemed diffused and indistinct. Dialog was intelligibile even in the presence of heavy sound effects, bass was deep from both the LFE and the main L/R channels. There was even effects panned half left and half right within the front soundstage. The Dolby Digital mix sounded very good, but sounded like effects and music were coming directly from the speakers as opposed to in front, to the sides, and behind the speakers like the Dts mix did. 

The soundtrack on the Blu-ray played out in Dts Master Audio lossless at 24/48khz, and 6.9mbps. While I couldn't access this soundtrack because of hardware limitations, but I did listen to the core Dts soundtrack at 1.5mbps. Listening to it after listening to the SD DVD was like listening to a completely different soundtrack. Bass was deeper and more powerful, imaging was wide and VERY deep allowing you to listen deep into the mix. The surrounds while diffusive on the Dts mix of the SD DVD, sounded very clear, precise, and definately not diffused on this Dts mix. I could turn this soundtrack way up without it sounding strident. This soundtrack delivered in a way the SD DVD soundtrack could not. 

This is a family film, but I think kids will probably enjoy it more than adults will. If you have kids, this is a must buy. If not, I would recommend you rent it first before commiting to purchase.


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