Polar Express (BD)

My daughter was so happy to get this

Grandkids love this movie.

Great DVD! A nice classic! No issues! Would buy again!

This movie is marvelous to watch for the holidays

Sin loves the movie and will watch it when it’s not Christmas

I have this movie on one of the streaming services in 4K, and I watched it just last week. My main problem with streaming is that the movies are highly compressed to increase the number of people who can watch at the same time. It's a cost savings measure. That's why I am buying movies on 4K Blu-ray. The first thing I noticed is the visual quality is vastly superior. The colors on an OLED TV are more vibrant, and the clarity is so good you can see the nuances in the characters' facial expressions. I have watched this movie every year since it came out in the theater, and I saw details I have never seen before. The audio is the really impressive improvement over streaming. Watching on AppleTV which has better Dolby Atmos support than my Roku 4k Ultra, I heard subtle background noises I never heard before. For example, when Hero Boy first shakes the silver bell, there is a recognizable "believe" (I think from the Ghost) which can be heard. Even though the audio is Dolby HD 5.1, Dolby Atmos does a nice job of extending the audio to the additional 4 channels so the sound is truly immersive. TL;DR I won't watch The Polar Express any other way until they come out with an 8K version. If you love this movie, the 4K version is highly recommended.

Oh, if only for ghosting..... It pains me to sit here knowing what I am about to write. Warner Bros. was extremely gracious to send me a handful of screeners to review knowing that I would be promoting the good word of 3D on this forum. However, when there seems to be a problem with their initial batch of Blu-ray releases I can't morally sit here and praise them to the membership. Their Imax release of Under The Sea looks terrific. However, their Imax release of Space Station 3D is lacking 3D in the first 3 minutes. Now, The Polar Express is exhibiting its own set of problems. I sort of wonder if anyone is doing some quality control here. I'll get into all this in a moment.... I had to chuckle when I decided I was going to review this title. It took me back a few years to our last Home Theater Forum meet. The studio sent us an advance copy of their initial 3D DVD release of The Polar Express and we were showing it off in our demo room at the hotel. Here we were, a ragtag group of enthusiasts with cardboard glasses on our faces admiring the cheesy 3D. Boy, we have come a long way in a few short years. Potentially, The Polar Express could have been a flagship animated feature release for the studio on the 3D format. Originally filmed for Imax with motion capture technology, The Polar Express translates beautifully to Blu-ray. This was my very first time watching the movie ever and I was completely mesmerized by the film's charming story and utterly stunning, realistic animation. Transfer quality is as good as it gets. I love the film's warm, natural color palette consisting primarily of blue and gold. Everything looks perfect here. The quality of the 3D separation is quite good and very effective. I have three favorite scenes where I found the 3D effect to be most effective. The first involves a floating train ticket. Then there's an exciting train descent into Glacier Gulch. Finally, the entire Christmas Town square sequence looks outstanding with all its brightly lit colors and 3D dimensionality. There really aren't any "In Yo' Face" 3D moments. Most of the material stays within the confines of the screen with the exception of some minor screen protruding from the fender of the train or the cap of the train's hobo. So here we have this immaculate, gorgeous holiday eye-fest that would have looked perfect on 3D if not for the fact that it is marred with ghosting problems. It doesn't take long to notice the problem. The first scene where the young boy is lying in bed you see double imaging within his face. When this same boy steps onto the Polar Express, takes his seat and meets the black girl, you can see double imaging going on within her facial features. Some behind-the-head shots reveal ghosting in the ears and along the hairline. Watch the scene where the kids are being pulled up inside Santa's sack and see how the ropes are double-imaged. In fact, there are moments that I actually experienced eye strain from the amount of ghosting and occasional blurriness. The DTS-HD audio lovingly conveys Alan Silvestri's score which is mostly prominent in the front channels. This is a very bass-heavy audio track. The oncoming sound of The Polar Express literally shook my floor. Like all of Warner's new 3D releases, The Polar Express arrives in beautiful lenticular packaging. CONCLUSION Ultimately, I am disappointed. This is such a beautiful film and as much as the 3D enhanced my initial experience with it, the ghosting issues became a big distraction. I am sitting here hoping that someone can prove me wrong on all the ghosting problems I see with this title. The last thing I want to do is slam the studio for a title like this. However, up until now I have been seeing some great 3D content with none of these problems. I even switched out my glasses for another pair just in case it was a hardware issue.

This is one of the best Christmas videos I have seen. I highly recommend it for all ages. I wish more Christmas videos was as good as this one. Try it. Enjoy your upcoming Christmas.