Nothing is more exciting for a full home theater build or even after the purchase of a new TV or 5.1 Surround Sound setup than popping in your favorite movie and queueing up your favorite scene. With the volume cranked up enough to force the wife out of the house and the dog out of the room, you can finally feel that your recent work or purchase was well worth it.
This will be a series of posts really so feel free to bookmark us to find updates as new discs and material are released and found. I’ll posts movies and possibly audio discs highlighting what aspect of your system (picture quality, surround sound, subwoofer/LFE) they show off as well as chapter number. If you like something I posted, please click the disc cover to purchase through my amazon store.
Title: Iron Man
Original Theatrical Release Date: 5/2/2008
Audio Format Dolby TrueHD 5.1
Great For: Picture Quality, Surround Sound
What to Demo: First scene of the Mark I suit in the caves, Ironman vs. US jets
My Take: It’s difficult to find a great movie that also is a great disc for demo material but Iron Man on Blu-Ray does both flawlessly. This is always a favorite disc of mine and I find myself sitting down and watching the whole movie every time it’s in the player.
Title: Transformers
Original Theatrical Release Date: 7/3/2007
Audio Format Dolby TrueHD 5.1
Great For: Surround Sound, Subwoofer/LFE
What to Demo: Attack on Air Force Base, Scorpian Desert Attack Scene
My Take: Oh Michael Bay, how I love to hate you but damn do you make great demo material. If you can get past the lens flair, poor writing, and Shia LaBouf this is a great disc to have in your collection. I think I’ve demo’d the Air Force Base scene a few dozen times already.
Title: Heat
Original Theatrical Release Date: 12/15/1995
Audio Format Dolby TrueHD 5.1
Great For: Surround Sound
What to Demo: Chapter 31 – Bank Escape & Shootout -
My Take: A journey through the streets of a downtown area from a heist gone bad thanks to Al Pacino showing up. Find out what a few dozen fully automatic weapons sounds like in your home theater. I’ve used this disc since it’s original release on DVD and the Blu-Ray sounds absolutely amazing.
Title: War of the Worlds
Original Theatrical Release Date: 6/9/2005
Audio Format DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Great For: Picture Quality, Subwoofer/LFE
What to Demo: Tripod Emergence Scene
My Take: Steven Spielberg really can’t do wrong in my book and his touch comes to life once again in H.G. Wells timeless story of “we’re screwed.” The picture quality is nice and bright in the scene mentioned beforehand but verges in some parts as almost being “washed out.” I’m sure it was intentional but it’s to be noted. My favorite scene is right before the tripod comes out… The street rotates along with the faces of nearby buildings. There is a great shot of a church’s facade that has the sun’s light flood the intersection where he’ll is about to break loose. This is subwoofer/LFE reference material. This will pummel both your subwoofer and your gut in ways you never thought possible. Weak systems need not apply.
Title: Avatar
Original Theatrical Release Date: 12/18/2009
Audio Format DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Great For: Picture Quality
What to Demo: Jake’s awakening scene in his avatar suit… in fact anything past that point works.
My Take: James Cameron’s Avatar really does show what 12 years of writing, imagining, and planning can do for a movie. It’s stunning visuals once Jake gets inside the Avatar world can really show off your system’s visual capabilities. Colors are bold, sometimes overly stated but they’re showcased beautifully in high defination. This blu-ray disc should a “go to” disc for your demo collection.
Did I forget something? Let me know in the comments and I’ll include your picks in the next volume of “Home Theater Demo Discs.”
Excellent list. I dont remember Heat. Gonna have to go get that one.
For LFE:
1. Toy Story 2 (The opening credit where the logo swoops in from space) The rest of the Buzz Lightyear part is pretty good too.
2. Fight Club – the plane crash scene
3. Apollo 13 – the takeoff scene
Honorable Mention: Underworld. Terrible movie, great LFE effects
For surround:
1. Empire of the Sun: When the Mustangs strafe the airfield it makes every hair on your body stand on end.
2. Saving Private Ryan – D Day landing
3. Master and Commander
Honorable Mention: Once Upon a Time in Mexico
My current favorite: JJ Abrams’ Star Trek. Great music, great effects. In five years we’re all going to hate the flashlight in the lens gag but until then it’s a great demo disc.
I love Dark Knight as a demo disc. The opening bank heist and chase scene during Act 2 are especially quality. With HD visuals, you want to show off your black levels since that’s where most detail is lost, and that chase scene fits the bill perfectly.
If you really want colors to pop, any Pixar movie (Up is particularly dazzling) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has some nice scenes blending bright colors with dark pastels.
I think Dark Knight’s sound mixing is top notch, too.
I couldn’t agree with you more Long & Scott. Great recomendations!
The Dark Knight came on and off this list a few times but will def be making an appearance on the Volume.
Scott… I never thought of Fight Club being a demo type movie but you’re absolutely right (just popped in the DVD). The audio in the airplane scene is pretty enveloping. I’ll have to pick that up on Blu-Ray to see how the high def lossless audio version sounds like.
This list could easily balloon like crazy, but I’ll add a few more
X-Men – the opening scene in the rain as (the future) Magneto and his parents are separated at the Nazi internment camp. What you’re listening for here is the realism of the rain. If you have your surround speaker positioned and calibrated correctly, there is an eerie sense of absolute realism. If your setup is less than perfect, it sounds like rain, but it isn’t eerily real
Where The Light Is: John Mayer Live in Los Angeles – excellent sound quality and a great way to compare 5.1 TrueHD to uncompressed 2-channel 96/24 PCM. In terms of the picture, this is a great disc to test whether you have any “motion blur” or “phosphor lag” in your LCD or plasma display respectively. The backdrop on stage is nearly always a deep black. When the camera angle changes instantly from a close up to a wide shot of the stage, you can clearly see if there is any lingering after-image. This is how I first spotted that my old Samsung plasma was developing image lag problems
Chris Botti in Boston – especially great sound quality and a great concert regardless. This is a true demo of what TrueHD audio can achieve in fidelity.
Baraka – Taken from a pristine 8K resolution (over 16x the resolution of Blu-ray! ) master, this is THE demo disc. Nothing is sharper or clearer. There is no story here. No dialogue or plot. Just shot after stunning shot of the amazing environment and unique human culture that planet Earth has to offer. The audio is also something to behold. One of the very few 96/24 sampling/bitrate DTS-HD Master Audio discs available. Everything on this disc is picture and sound perfect.
BBC Planet Earth – Perhaps the quintessential “store demo” series, Planet Earth is simply stunning. The material is deeply moving and the superior image and sound quality only enhance one’s appreciation for our fragile and amazing home. A special note: make sure you purchase the BBC version that is narrated by David Attenborough and not the inferior Discovery version that is narrated by Sigourney Weaver! Better writing and the full, unedited length of each episode make the BBC version the only real choice