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IGN Shows Remastered “The Matrix” DVD Images

Nightblade pointed us to this review on IGN:
The Matrix Remastered

Let’s start with what will probably be the primary selling point for the DVD: a new transfer and audio mix for The Matrix. When it shipped in 1999, The Matrix was a fine DVD with an exceptional audio mix. But times and standards change.

This new transfer is a long time in coming, and worth the wait. The new transfer was supervised by the Wachowskis and director of photography Bill Pope. While they didn’t engage in Lucas-level fiddling, but there’s no denying they did do a little color filtering to bring the first film more in line with the look of the second and third films.

Scenes inside The Matrix, for example, were filtered in green light, while real-world scenes had a blue tint to them. You will see this in the new transfer. The old transfer looks so dark and faded by comparison to this new one, which has much richer color timing. The transfer is considerably brighter in general and detail is much richer.

While there looked like a few instances of edge enhancement and halos on my home system, none of them showed up here at the office. So I will err on the side of the transfer and say this is every bit as good as the transfer in the second and third movie, and those were outstanding as well.

Video Score: 9 out of 10

The Audio

One thing about The Matrix that holds up well is the audio track. The two best workouts for your speakers were the scene where Neo awakens in his jello bath, and the rooftop confrontation with the Agent where Neo does the infamous backbend.

With the original DVD, it was a very impressive display of directional audio and dynamic range. For this new release, audio was sweetened just a little, which is all it needed. The end result is better separation between the channels, making the audio just that much more accurate and at the same time stronger.

This also does wonders for the subtle aspects, like crumbling or breaking solids. The gentle noises stand out more against a quiet background. Voices are overall much stronger than before and easy to make out. So all told, they took a good sound track and made it a step better.

Score: 10 out of 10
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