Shooter
Paramount Home Entertainment
Released 7/31/07
Review By: Joshua Noyes
Picture Quality - 4/5
Audio Quality - 3.5/5
Special Features - 4/5
Overall - 4/5
Comments: I felt this was another solid transfer from Paramount on the Blu-ray disc format. I was however a bit surprised to see that Paramount went with an MPEG-2 encode. I was more surprised to see how nice this transfer came out. This transfer averages in the high 20's and low 30's Mbps bitrate and is presented in a Dolby Digital 640k sound format. There were moments where the image was inconsistent (sharp to soft) but all in all it is quite a sharp movie, especially in the outdoor/mountain scenes. The colors were also spot-on and vibrant. The greens of the trees and the white of the snow-covered mountains REALLY pop in this release. Although I would not say this is as strong of an MPEG-2 transfer as Crank, it is quite close. In terms of AQ as mentioned before I listened using the DD 640k option and it sounds quite good. I was especially surprised by the amount of LFE. Also the Surrounds get a nice workout with all the gunfire and the Center Channel shines as dialog is heard clearly and balanced. I heard no difference whatsoever in terms of AQ from both the Blu-ray and HD-DVD (DD+ 1.5Mbps) version of this film. This release also includes some great HD Special Features. If you are a fan of this film or similar films (Commando, Rambo, etc.) I highly recommend this purchase.
