Million Dollar Baby

I spent the better part of a morning playing the standard-def disc in my old Sony 7700 player next to the HD-DVD in a Toshiba A1 player. I had adjusted the television's color and picture settings on the players' two respective inputs several days earlier (the two player's output color, hue, brightness, and such being slightly different) when I started comparing the previous two of WB's discs, so I was pretty sure that what I was seeing was a comparison of HD vs. SD, and not a comparison of input irregularities.

As much as I had liked and still like the picture quality on the SD disc, the new HD-DVD is plainly superior. Objects are even better defined, although they remain a touch glassy, which is my only quibble. I have to admit that in some scenes, however, a difference in clarity was not always as evident as it was in other scenes. So one of the things I did was put both machines in pause and go to the beginnings of each chapter. Comparing still pictures side-by-side revealed more differences than trying to compare moving images. There is one scene where Maggie is in a cafe. I zeroed in on the freckles on her arms, going back and forth between SD and HD. In SD, yes, she had freckles, but they were fuzzy, almost indistinct. In HD the freckles stood out, clearly, separately, distinctly. Same thing with a scene in which Maggie lies in the hospital with a tube in her throat and a gauze pad around it. In SD the gauze pad is a somewhat blurred affair, where in HD I could clearly see the texture of the material. I'm not suggesting "Million Dollar Baby" is the best HD disc ever produced (as of this writing there are only four or five), but it is quite good.

Is the difference in SD and HD on this disc enough to warrant buying the HD-DVD (or buying a HD-DVD player for that matter)? To the dedicated videophile, certainly. Even the smallest increase in video or audio quality is worthwhile. To the average viewer who still hasn't learned to work his standard-definition DVD player and doesn't care to? Probably not; the SD picture will be good enough. The fact is, a good, well-mastered, high-bit-rate, anamorphic transfer in standard (480) definition can look pretty nice and satisfy most people. HD takes it one step further, one increment of clarity beyond.

Note that my video rating below is a notch below the mark I assigned to the standard-definition disc. This is because we're evaluating apples and oranges here. Make no mistake, the HD disc looks better, but my ratings for SD and HD are on a relative basis, SD discs compared to other SD discs and HD discs compared to other HD discs. And also note that WB do not appear to have applied any copy-protection restraints on the disc, meaning it can be played through component video connections with no down-conversion.

Audio:
You will remember that the HD-DVD specifications do not allow for regular old Dolby Digital 5.1, only Dolby Digital Plus, and as an option, Dolby Digital TrueHD. "Million Dollar Baby" comes with Dolby Digital Plus. That's fine, except that my Toshiba A1 player recognizes Dolby Digital Plus as DTS and outputs it accordingly, but I don't have a DTS receiver. Therefore, I listened to the DD Plus signal in analogue 5.1 via six discrete outputs to my receiver. This is actually a pretty sweet arrangement as it handles each channel separately rather than having to decode a combined 5.1 signal at the player and again at the receiver.

Anyway, what I found with "Million Dollar Baby" is what I found with WB's previous two HD-DVD titles: The sound appeared to be transferred to the HD disc at a level about 10-11 db lower than on the SD disc. Again, I spent considerable time in comparisons, this time with a Radio Shack sound-level meter, comparing the output of the two discs and their dynamic range (the differences in softest and loudest passages). At higher volumes in order to get an equivalent sound level from the HD disc as that from the SD disc, I had to turn the HD sound up by another 10-11 db, introducing slightly more noise--hiss and hum--into the system.

After adjusting the two discs for equal output, I preferred the sound of the HD-DVD's DD Plus through the analogue outputs. It seemed clearer, more open, and more extended than the regular DD 5.1 track on the SD disc, which by comparison sounded a bit soft, flat, and flabby.

The HD sound generates a wonderfully vivid, encircling sound, subtly opening up the gym, the fight arena, wherever, in a most natural way. Despite the brutality of the sport the movie deals in, most of the soundtrack is made up of narration, dialogue, and music. And the audio conveys these sounds well. In addition, the soundtrack utilizes the surrounds for minor ambient effects and crowd noises. Nothing blows up and there are no helicopter flyovers, but for pure realism, the sound still can't be beat.

Extras:
The HD-DVD edition includes most of the same bonus features found on the standard-definition three-disc set, with the exception of the soundtrack music. The HD disc contains the same generous thirty-seven scene selections (but no chapter insert); a widescreen theatrical trailer; English and French spoken languages; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles.

The rest of items are curiously lean at only three bonus features, and they are presented in standard, 480i resolution. The first is an eighteen-minute featurette called "Born to Fight." In it, Ms. Swank, boxer-actor Lucia Rijker, and others of the cast explain things about real-life boxing and talk about the film and their reactions to it. I liked Eastwood's observation that Frankie has "retired in his mind," and Morgan's remark that Frankie is "angry," traits that aren't all that noticeable until they're pointed out and then seem so obvious. The second item is a thirteen-minute featurette called "Producers Round," in which co-producers Albert S. Ruddy, Paul Haggis, and Tom Rosenberg discuss the origins of the move and their negotiations with author F.X. Toole. I liked the prefacing quote from Eastwood best: "If you want to make a good movie, you always have to take a risk." And third is a roundtable discussion, "James Lipton Takes on Three," in which the moderator sits down to a casual chat with Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, and Morgan Freeman for about twenty-four minutes. They literally sit around a dining-room table, revealing a good deal about themselves and their background as well as talking about the movie. It's all very laid-back and relaxing, but it's also a bit too self-referential for more than a single run-through. So, that's about it for the extras, a little more than an hour's worth in all. While it seemed to me a bit lacking, it's probably more than we need to know.

The HD disc comes housed in a newly designed HD-DVD keep case, called an "Elite Red HD-DVD case" by WB and a "cute little case" by the Wife-O-Meter. The case is shorter and thinner than a SD keep case, so while it will fit in with the other discs in your collection, it will also stand out. And like WB's other HD-DVDs, there is a zoom option in the Settings menu.

Parting Thoughts:
"Million Dollar Baby" was nominated for seven Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director (Eastwood), Best Actor (Eastwood), Best Actress (Swank), Best Supporting Actor (Freeman), Best Editing (Joel Cox), and Best Writing (Paul Haggis). It won for Picture, Director, Actress, and Supporting Actor. I have no strong objections to the wins; it's a powerful film and deserved its accolades.

As director, Eastwood took a script fraught with problems and made it into a workable whole. Freeman's win is iffy because he's done this kind of thing so often before, and Swank's win is iffy because she was basically playing a bigger-than-life character in a difficult situation, something that always grabs the attention of Academy voters more than a delicate, restrained performance would. Haggis is to be congratulated for the melodramatic impact of his script if not for its clichés and plot inconsistencies. I enjoyed the clarity of the HD picture, but I think it's still Freeman's voice I'd like to hear a few more times.

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