Watched it tonight. Quality is comparable to Saawariya. Very good. Minor banding a few times and some sharpening from DI visible. End credits not optimised for 1080p (that's also often the case on Hollywood BDs) meaning some flickering. Image 9/10.
Sound is extremely loud and sound effects in the surrounds very agressive. Probably the loudest disc I have heard so far. Had to take out 10db to avoid 'pain'.
No supplements instead high bit rate. Fine with me.
If you like the film, highly recommended purchase.

Can't say I didn't warn you. What is it with Indian sound engineeers that they feel the need to make the sound mixes so loud? Personally, I think it has to do with the same 'dumbing down, to the lowest common denominator' thinking that plagues so many other aspects of India today. Instead of mastering the sound to the standards of the best theaters, they do the mixes keeping the poorest quality theaters as reference, to insure the movie plays okay in theaters with 'ancient and crappy sound systems'. Isn't that the same logic Indian video distributors use in mastering their DVDs and now to some extent BDs?

I just purchased and watched the Ghajini BD and totally agree with everyone 's verdict on picture quality. However, w.r.t to quotes above, I cant tell how dissappointed I am with the above mentioned problem with the sound. I find it extremely irritating and saddening that the surrounds are this agrressively louder than the front channels. It is totally unacceptable authoring.

Sanjay, no offence to your pov's as you are a really great reviewer for BDs but this is just a suggestion from this layman that please dont recomend a BD just bec it has got the best Picture quality ever. You cannot and i repeat just cannot take audio issues 'lightly'. I always wonder what does the word 'Master' means in DTS HD MA. My general opinion is that any thing that is a 'master' should resemble the original source in the closest possible way. I very clearly remember the BHV DVD release of Ghajini came out while the film was still running in Mplexes. I happened to watch the film in theatres for the nth time after watching on DVD and felt proud to be the owner of the disc that resembled the theatre sound with such near perfection, that too in compresssed Audio.

I am refering now to Sanjay's explanation of the problem as a 'problem of the original surround mix' that I totally disagree upon having watched the film in thetares for times I lost count. Yes it is aggressive when compared to regular Bollywood flicks but nowhere as aggressive as the commercial South movies really are. Moreover, If that was the case, the dvd should have sounded inferior to the BD and surprisingly it doesnt and infact sounds perfectly balanced. Not to stretch it too far, a BD with DTS HD MA having this problem of un-balanced front-surround channels is a criminal offence from my POV.

Again adding to the coment of mhafner above that he 'Had to take out 10db to avoid 'pain' and Sanjay's comment that 'you might be well advised, to lower the surround left & right channels by approx. '4 db', before you start the movie'. I demand a reason why should you take out 10 DB or 4 DB? why not penalise the manufacturer by giving a severe negative rating on the BD sound for the problem?. Why cant we watch the movie in standard settings and without tweaking the system ? I understand just because they have perfected Picture quality like no other, one needs to be appreciative of the overall effort.

But then, where does this liberal behaviour in ratings go when for e.g. Veer Zaara which has everything perfect except the black levels gets serious bashing all over by everyone? It needs tweaking in picture quality but has got greatest encoded sound but nobody appreciates that and just judges the BD by picture quality. Infact VZ is one of the most honest reproduction of original source which is actually full of problems and Sanjay's comment that it is a 'problem of the original surround mix' applies here and mind you this was an out and out north Indian film and just because of experiments in 'sync sound' suffered that issue in source. Having said that , VZ is still an unacceptable BD for the blunder in Picture quality. I am only pointing at the various criteria that various reviewers consider 'significant' while rating BDs.

My apologies for being a little too hyper to both of you above But I am a serious believer of the fact that the most optimal 'Audio- Visual' balance in encoding is the only thing that makes a movie evergreen and worth treasuring at home and if manufacturers/authoring houses are not able to do this basic thing in HD, then we are simply encouraging R&D in the wrong direction. I see many people commenting on various BDs on forum that there is no difference in DTS HD and Dolby tracks, have they been simply reencoded in diff formats? I dont care for these issues at all. Does anyone care to ask is it the sound that we heard originally in theatres and got moved emotionally? no. All we worry is whether bass is more punchy in DTS or the surround is more aggressive in DTS? My suggestion to everyone, please dont skip the first question when judging a sound.

Anurag, I totally agree with you audio is as important as video. As a matter of fact, my personal priorities, not that one is more important than the other, lean more towards audio, atleast in the case of certain type of movies. Therefore, I can totally empathize with your view point here and I am totally in agreement with you. But having stated that, let me explain my 'review'.

First of all, I have not spared this BD in my rating of it's audio. I have "penalised" the audio track by a full half a point out of five. Yes, I really would have given the audio a full '5.0' were it not for this issue of "The surround channel levels, vis a vis the front channels, are too loud". I docked the 'half' point, inspite of the fact, that I honestly feel that the 'DTS-HD MA' audio track on this BD is as good as it gets, if only were it not for the "loud surrounds" issue. I also honestly feel that other than the inconvenience of having to do some 'minor' tweaking to the surround channel levels, this issue does not in any way take away at all from the final, absolutely fantastic aural experience that this Blu-ray provides.

In regard to the issue, of your finding the DVD truer in replicating the theatrical experience and also that of you not finding the audio in the theaters as loud. I would like to try and clarify a few things, without casting any aspersions on your knowledge and or the audio quality of the theater that you viewed 'Ghajini' in, Firstly, 'Ghajini' is a product of the south even though it is in Hindi. It is not only a remake of a Tamil film, it is also produced by 'Geetha Arts' and is directed by 'A. R. Murugadoss' both being from the south. More importantly, almost all the technicians, including the sound mixing team, are from the South Indian movie industry. Secondly, the fact is, that a lot of Bollywood films are mastered with very loud audio and most South Indian films outdo even these Bollywood films, when it comes to being "loud". Thirdly, I have not come across more than a theater or two in India, that even knows how to set their audio levels. The audio is almost always invariably either very loud, or too soft, in most theaters that I have experienced in India. Actually, there is a trend that I have noticed. English movies almost always play at very low volume levels, while Hindi films are almost always, screechingly painfull to my ears, too loud. I have on numerous occasions requested the management of the theaters to turn down the volume to atleast a bearable level. Anyhow, what this trend indicates to me is that the theaters, pretty much keep their volume levels at a certain fixed level, which is too low for the better mixed & mastered English movies. Whereas the Hindi movies are so loudly mastered, that even at those low levels, the sound is WAY TOO HIGH. This would also explain, why the volume level was untolerabally too loud, inspite of my getting the volume reduced four times, while watching 'Kambakht IShk'. More specifically with Ghajini, I remember distinctly, that I and others who watched the movie with me at 'Satyam Cineplex, Nehru Place, Delhi', one of the best, if not the very best, theaters in the entire Delhi/Gurgaon/Noida/Faridabad/Ghaziabad/Sonepat region, complaining several times about how loud the movie was. Most importanly you must remember, that unlike Hollywood, which many a times, remixes the sound appropriately for a 'Home Theater environment, Bollywood does not. Since the Home Theater environment is much smaller than a commercial cinema, it is a given that the surrounds will be relatively louder than needed at home, since the surrounds are much closer to the viewer. In general with Indian films, I have experienced that the surrounds are either mostly inactive or inaudible or are dramatically much louder than needed. This being an issue with the mindset of most Indian sound mixing engineers.

The word 'Master' in DTS-HD Master Audio, means exactly that. Thus, this is the very core of the problem for a BD authorer. My understanding, from discussing this with a couple of authoring companies, is that the tools provided by DTS for 'DTS-HD MA' encoding, do not allow you to change much, if anything, at the encoding stage. Whatever is fed from the master to the encoding software, is what is encoded in the 'DTS-HD MA' audio track. Upon my bringing up this issue with the authoring company that authored the T-Series 'Ghajini' Blu-ray, they had expressed their helplessness to do anything since this is exactly how the master was. Please do understand, that this is information that I cannot guarantee, but I also have no reasons to believe them to be incorrect. As for your experience with the DVD, considering I have neither heard the DVD nor have I seen the movie in the same theater as yourself, it is hard for me to comment. I can only guess, that this may have something to do with the fact that the Dolby Digital encoding tools, do allow adjustments to various channel and general volume levels.

Regarding your equating this issue with that of the YRF Home Video 'Veer Zaara' blu-ray, I am sorry but I beg to differ. Both issues are poles apart for several reasons. For one, the 'Ghajini' volume level issue is not one that can be fixed during the BD authoring and is an accurate replication of the original master mix, done by the sound engineers of the movie and approved/preferred by the director himself. Thus based on all the information & evidence that I can conjure up, the BD audio is exactly what was intended for the theaters, although not neccesarily heard accurately by you or me, during the theatrical viewing. The same cannot be said regarding the absolutely abysmal video quality of the 'Veer Zaara' blu-ray, where the screw up is totally in the mastering & authoring of the BD. The picture quality of the 'Veer Zaara' BD is most definately not what was intended for by the cinematographer or director of the movie. Lastly, while in the case of the 'Ghajini' BD, all that is required is a simple lowering of the surround channel levels to get an absolutely fantastic aural experience, the 'Veer Zaara' BD requires jumping thru hoops and a major tweaking of video paramaters. Paramaters, that the vast majority of people, have absolutely no knowledge of, or have access to. All this, to finally get just reasonably, viewable picture quality. As for my recommendations of the 'Ghajini' blu-ray, I made it a point, to quite clearly articulate the issue and also mention the simple solution to it and thus I still think my recomendation of this BD is well in order, with the 'caveat' ofcourse, regarding the surround volume levels.

I hope I have been able to explain my views and get you to see the issue my way. If not, I suppose we can both leave this to a simple difference in opinion and or preferences. It pleases me that you attached enough value to my reviews, to make the time, to express your views about it, even if it is only to disagree with part of it.

Allright Sanjay, first of all Kudos to you for responding to each of my comments in such incredible detail. Second of all, I loved the closure that says "I suppose we can both leave this to a simple difference in opinion and or preferences" becasue thats what I exactly felt after reading everthing that u wrote. I cant disagree anyway with you from the kind of POV u look at things but can't agree either to any of your counter arguments provided on the BD audio. So please do not consider this an argument to prove myself right at all. I am only responding to your comments below to give my POVs on yours and will welcome yours for eternity.

For me, half point is not termed as penalising for someone who reads the review. It is interpreted in the same way like the ratings by those movie critics who cannot give 5 stars to any movie because then they would not be termed critics at all. If I were in your place, I would reduce 1.5 stars for this 'horrendous blunder' which for me atleast it is and I dont care if its not for the entire world. Secondly, it is not 'minor' tweaking. I never had to do tweaking at such a level for any South Indian DVD/BD in my life yet, forget about Hindi. And i say this without any exaggeration. It takes away everything from the final aural experience that the movie is supposed to provide. Imagine this - I finish the movie and the first thing I am gonna comment about is not the effort put in filmmaking but the effort put in making sure the listener comes out deaf from the living room.

I am based out of Bangalore and ...let me tell u first about myself. I am not at all a techie in Audio and Video terminologies but I am a kind of person who if likes the movie, will watch it atleast 5 times again in theatre just to relive and memorize the experience for eternity with the fear that the emotional experience that I felt in the Audi may not come alive on home video. When Ghajini released, the first time I watched was in PVR the largest multiplex in the country with 11 screens (a place I have been watching movies every weekend since the last 4 years). It was definitely the loudest Hindi movie I had seen till date but definitely not any louder than any mainstream south film that I had watched there. In subsequent weeks, I watched the film in all 6 multiplexes of Bangalore and 1 local theatre. (This was because I always tend to make sure which Mplex and within that which auditorium and within that which row is the best place to listen to my fav film .) - A total 7 times and for the final 8th time came back to PVR to prove myself all over again that 11 screens does not make it the greatest but the sheer aural experience that i felt in PVR is unbeatable in Bangalore if not in whole of India. And by this time, BHV DVD had already come and I had experienced it at home. FYI, my residence is at just 1 minute distance from PVR and so it does not allow me time to forget the criteria for comparison. So I believe my comment about replication on DVD is 100% accurate. I suggest you try the DVD once and listen to it. I disagree with the possibility that 'this may have something to do with Dolby Digital encoding tools, that allow adjustments to various channel and general volume levels.' Infact I feel it is the opposite way. even though it is compressed audio, here was no tweaking done to balance/unbalance the front vis a vis surround on the DVD.

For once you and me are in total agreement Sanjay. Yes they really do not know how to set audio levels. But to be fair, they alone are not responsible for that . Everyone in the chain of the process of desigining a Mplex stands responsible. A lot of it depends on the material used for constructing walls for proper sound reflex, wall to wall screens and the relative position of front speakers, Bass absorbers and reflexers especially for center channel, the kind of carpets used for minimising the echo, the elevation angle of seats, the height, size, brand and angle of Surround speakers above and to the side of your listening position. When all such minor details are imperfect, the dialogue stands unclear in english films and the operator increases the volume and fixes it permanently at a level that is unfortunately too high for Indian films. With this perspective in mind, I find PVR cinemas extremely satisfying. Till date I havent come accross one english film that is not clearly audible in dialogue or even a single Indian film that is, as you said 'screechingly painfull' to ears - something that is very obvious in other Mplexes of Blore. Trust me I would not have compared PVR to BD/DVD had i not experienced this satisfaction since last 4 years.

Yes the HT env is smaller but I do not accept that surrounds will be relatively louder than needed at home. It can be equally louder provided one has installed the sprekers at the accurate position for listening to all movies in general. The various surround sound caliberation discs from THX DTS AND Dolby available in market and not to mention the very high end HD receivers available today take care of the room size and enelope you at the most optimum level. I agree that the problem with indian sound mix engineers is someting that needs standardization but It is also definetly possible to get the same level of loudness in surround at home as it was in theatres.

No offence but this was very laughable for me. I certainly do not buy this crap from these people. I admit I have no reason to prove my point but there exists so many cases where compressed 5.1 audio sounded better than DTS HD MA and moreover some tracks which were not originally HD MA were encoded on BDs with DTS HD MA that I find it very hard to believe the statement. I believe with unfortunately no proof that tweaking at the time of encoding is possible at every stage of authoring of sound irrespective of the format. I may sound pessismistic here but the extreme variations on Indian BDs for DTS HD MA tells the story.

I agree for your comments on VZ - The PQ was definitely not as intended by Dir/DOP. But I gave a comparison to the 'poles apart' topic of VZ because this is EXACTLY where we are in disagreement for Ghajini for the same reasoning in its sound. When you agree that it requires lowering of surrounds volume, then equally you should agree that it was not intended by director/sound designer/score designer. Just because the lowering of surround is much easier and not as complicated as adjusting the PQ for VZ does not mean that one can be more liberal towards Audio. When in a standard video setup a wrong brightness/color/contrast can ruin the vieewer's mood, similarly in a standard audio set up, a deafening surround can not only ruin the mood but also affect the listening ability of listener especially with the loudness levels of Ghajini BD. To simplify, for VZ, even if we are tweaking, who knows for sure what should be the ideal levels for Brightness/color/contrast? We will only end up having a decent picture but not necesarily the one intended by director. Simiarly, when we are not aware what should be the ideal balance betwen Front and surround, we will never be sure what we optimised is intended to be heard or not. These are somethings that should have been corrected in authoring stage itself. Just imagine in the upcoming months everytime u put in Ghajini after watching 10 no-problemo BDs, u ll have to remember to tweak the surrounds. How irritating can it be!

In a nutshell, for me both VZ PQ and Ghajini BD Sound are blunders of equal weightage. I guess this is where your closure justifies it all - "difference in opinion and or preferences"

To sum up everyting I said above for better clarity ,

1) It is not possible for the audience to figure out what was intended by director/DOP or director/sound designer/scorer to be the Visual / Aural treatment that is ideal for BD.

2) Given a chance, even a Side by side comparison of Movie in multiplex and HTs may or may not be accurate because there is no way to find out whether a Mplex is delivering what the director intended.

3) The only way to judge Audio Video Quality of BDs is to diagnose them independently as per BD technical standards irrespective of judging whether they are delivering what was intended. Any available fact that 'the BD was supervised by the movie's Director' should be immaterial.

4) When an individual accomplishes 3) above successfully, then if the BD requires any kind of minute tweaking in any department for a standard HT set-up, it should NEVER be termed 'ideal' or 'recommended' at all.

5) On an extremely personal opinion, Tweaking in AV is possible at every stage of BD production and experience right from the time a film is sent for authoring on Blu Ray down to the last minute when customer is ready to hit 'Play' for final viewing. Only the BD that can achive minimum possible or zero tweaking throughout this process should be termed as clear WINNER.

I still stand by my score, for it is a reflection of my assessment and I don't speak for anyone else. To each his own.

Actually, it is pretty minor tweaking. Lower the surround channels approx 'four - five' decibels and you are all set.

Actually, this is very simply addressed by turning the volume down to suit your room and preference. Something, that I have been doing with almost all, or atleast the vast majority, of Indian DVDs and also most BDs.

PVR is not a theater that I would by any standards consider a reference level theater. They are very mediocre and that too, only at their very best. More often than not, their audio actually sucks big time. But that's just my assessment of PVR. By the way I base this opinion after having experienced almost every single theater of PVR in and around Delhi and quite a few other PVRs in other towns too. I also happen to live 10 minutes away from their HQ and their flagship theater.

Therein lies the root cause to the problem.

You and I, seem to be afflicted by the same addiction and disease. I don't know about you, but I have been suffering with this ailment for as far back as I can remember.

You are right, number of screens does not a good theater make. In fact having '11 screens' is to me, just a hint that most of the '11 screens' are most probably very small. Hardly a recipe for a good theater.

You may laugh all you want, but the fact is that 'DTS-HD MA' encoding tools do not have the provision to change volume levels of different channels. This is something you can verify yourself by going to DTS.com and downloading the manual for their DTS-HD MA encoding tools. Although, it does allow changes to the 'overall' volume level, the authorer is not at liberty to use that feature, without the explicit permission of the producers.[/quote]
You, my friend, I think do not totally understand what DTS-HD MA is. Let me try and explain as best as I can.
1. First of all, 'DTS-HD MA' too, is a 'compressed' codec, just like Dolby Digital. The difference is that 'DTS-HD MA' is a 'lossless' compressed codec, whereas Dolby Digital is a 'lossy' compressed codec. The difference being that one is lossless, while the other is lossy, but both are compressed.
2. The final audio track, be it 'DTS-HD MA' or 'Dolby Digital' can only be as good, but never better than the source.
3. In the case of 'DTS-HD MA', the original audio is encoded using the tools provided by DTS, to get a final product that is identical, although compressed, to the original source.
4. Dolby Digital encoding on the other hand drops data while compressing, thus ending up with a final product that is inferior to the original source.
5. It is quite possible and I suspect it to be the case with atleast some Indian Blu-rays, that instead of using the original lossless audio master, the compressed & lossy Dolby Digital audio is used as the source for the 'DTS-HD MA' encoding. Thus the final product can only be as good as the source and obviously not better. This would explain why the 'DTS-HD MA' audio sounds uncannily similiar or even inferior to the DD audio on some Indian Blu-ray discs.

I suggest you read your own argument and you shall realize that the two are actually poles apart. The 'Veer Zaara' BD picture quality is not the director's vision, whereas the loud volume levels on the 'Ghajini' BD, whether you and I like it or not, are the director's vision. Thus, the Ghajini BD represents truelly the director's vision, whereas the Veer Zaara BD does not. Also, most importantly, everybody not only knows how to lower the volume level, but their system, even if just a TV, has the provision to do so. Whereas, the tweaking the the Veer Zaara BD requires, is not only beyond the knowledge and abilities of the vast majority of customers, but also, their displays do not have the provision to make the required tweaks. The two situations are just not equatable.

This is where I totally agree with you, it is a pain and very, very irritating. Which would explain my docking the half point.
I must also state, that this volume level difference between channels, is not something that can be addressed at the 'encoding' stage.

Totally agree. Specially considering, that most Indian director's would not know their ass from their face, when it comes to technology. The BD of 'Rock On' comes to mind.

Everyone has their own set of standards and preferences. Thus, making a 'recommendation' accompanied by the appropriate caveat, is totally acceptable to me.

Okie dokie. Your review your assessment. This was only a reader's opinion. Stay there ... for there are zillions out there who infact do not have a problem with it. infact I feel i am the only one making a big issue out of the surrrounds issue ...but just like you, even I wont budge.


This is where I beg to differ- I have never felt the need of doing that level of tweaking with any Indian DVD/BD yet (which includes south Indian Films as well) because 99% of the time, I found the loudness levels of surrounds perfectly balanced with the front channels. and thats exactly why I do not consider it minor. Well... may be the only tweaking I did till date for any other film is for the central channel when dialogue was not suffciently audible and I had to increase it by 1 or 2 DB. This not the case with Ghajini -Dialogue is perfectly clear at all levels but Surround is incredibly higher than the highest levels I ever heard for any DVD/BD.

This may be becoming a slightly Off-topic subject. Anyway, I gotta admit I am at loss here cause I have yet to experience a non-bangalore Mplex. But there are two things I wanna say on this - First , that even with the same brand of Mplex, they do not sound the same even within different locations of the same city and I say this out of considerable experience. So I guess there is a possibility that the Bangalore PVR is an exception. Secondly, on the negative side, Bangalore is very poor in no. of Mplexes for we have only 4 brands at present - Fame,Fun,Inox and PVR. Hence out of the available options, there is a possibility that even the 'worst' acording to you i.e. PVR is the only 'relatively best' in Bangalore. On a personal level, as I said, till date I feel very strongly positive about PVR Cinemas Audio Quality.

Bang On. You are right !! I don't.... and thanks a ton for putting in that marvelous effort to 'enlighten me'. But... as you also said below,
... You see.... thats exactly why I do not care to understand...just to spend my time on understanding a process which is not being strictly followed by Indian Blu-ray authors. Your 'suspicion' is actually my belief.

if you had said this about the BHV DVD, I would have completely agreed. But the unacceptable surround volume level of BD...It is not director's vision... unless you mean by this statement that the director's vision was to prompt the customer and every multiplex to reduce surround audio volume, in which case, 'YES I agree with you' and CONGRATS- the entire discussion ends there. Having said that, this revelation will be something I cannot live with and will have to label Ghajini as one of the most hateable movies of my life. Period.

agree with anurag,Gajhini DVD's audio quality much Pleasant than the Blu-ray.

Hmmm..quite an interesting discussion on the audio quality of the Ghajini BD. I am adding some thoughts to the mix not to flame it but to contribute my opinion in this healthy discussion.

Ghajini Audio in Theatre and Directors vision (?? or Sound Engineers)
I have seen this movie in two theatres. A brand new Fame multiplex in Kolkata (they claim it is one of the best) and Inox in Kolkata. In both theatres the sound (including surround channels) was too loud and almost distracted me from the movie. It was quite painful to my ears. We complained during interval and was told the movie is played at reference level with the audio system calibrated to standards. The manager told us the soundtrack is loud in this movie.

After that, I also watched other movies like 3 Idiots in the same screen and they didn't sound as loud as Ghajini. This is someway proves the original sound mix intended for the movie by the director or sound engineer. I think it will be safe to assume that the audio was intended to be loud. (this point is important for BD lossless audio encoding)

BD Audio Quality - DTS HD MA vs DTS / Dolby Digital in DVD
After reading Sanjay's post on the limitation of tools to adjust audio encode for any lossless track , I can think of two things

1. If I have to blv people who told Sanjay that there are no ways to tweak the audio for the lossless track, then there is nothing that can be done to the encoding including adjusting levels for channels.

2. If 1 is false, I would still like to think that no adjustments should be done for the lossless track - why? The entire purpose of lossless track is to reproduce the same quality as in the source. If the source as per director/engineers vision is loud it has to be loud - this is called faithful reproduction of source. This is lossless BD track standard.
The only way I would accept a tweaking is - if the director or sound engineer at a later date realises the sound mix was not right in the original soundtrack and they decide on a tweaking to the lossless sound track.

I don't recall the DVD soundtrack but if it is adjusted by the DVD authoring engineer to make it balanced - what you get is an adjusted nice to listen track which is nice on your ears. But, the DVD audio will not represent the original soundtrack in its 'as is' form. We should not be confusing with what we prefer and what was intended. Rock audio tracks are way too loud for many people and if they listen to it toned down, you are not listening to true rock music but your preference. This difference is important to understand in BD. The format allows a lossless track which is supposed to be a faithful reproduction of the source.

If the source is loud, you could in some way blame the director and sound engineer.

Adjusting channel levels while watching BDs
Well, I hate that too just like others - but we assume that all BDs are authored to the same standard and they would sound reference quality in our own calibrated AV setup. It is an expectation but things are quite different in reality. Why?

1.Most Bollywood BDs are loud compared to Hollywood and this is a strange tradition followed in India. In my setup, I listen to most Hollywood Bds at -10 to -25 and Bollywood BDs at -25 to -35
2. Sound mixing is an art and needs precision to create an immersive field of supreme aural experience and all technicians do not get it right. If the original source have such limitation like channel level imbalance, the lossless track on BD will have that as wel l unless the director approves a remastering. So the BD lossless track should not be blamed if it is true to the source.

While listening to Ghajini BD, I turned of my Audessey Multi EQ off and was quite impressed with the soundtrack with better midrange than overpowering loudness. Is this the best way to listen to Ghajini? I guess there are two answers

1. 'Yes' and that is my preference over what is actually encoded
2. 'No' I should listen to what is true to the source and turn down the volume a little bit.

My Rating on Ghajini BD DTS HD MA Audio
I would give it 4.5 not because it sounds perfectly balanced but since it sounds similar to what I listend in the theatres twice with its own share of issues and it is a very close faithful reproduction (my home AV sounds better than the theatre )

My two cents...

Peace

Ani

Agree! You are lucky to catch it consistently 5.1 otherwise most places new film projections default to dolby surround only! unfortunately for whatever reasons! Beats my logic by miles.

i didnt read those huge comments posted above but what my reply in nutshell to the part i understood is........that perticularly talking about ghajini.........i agree with anurag the dvd had honest representation of the sound while the blu ray is notch higher in volume.......i notice that when the movie begins(notice for those who have dvd as well as blu rays) when the name of the movie GHAJINI comes along with that huge orchestral score by mr rahman notice there is a crackling blasting sound in surround channels which i didnt noticed in thetres and dvd.......same is the issue or blasting crackling sound in scene the first murder by aamir when he enters his house and in song ae bachu when she breaks those CGI glasses by gun notice and compare the sound of dvd with bd in these scenes and notice the issue.........which i think we should discuss with the sound mixer (anup dev who recently won an iifa for 3 idiots weather the sound in dvd was his vision or the sound in bd is......this will tell that wheather it really is a issue or not)

2nd point for indian film mixes which i confesss iam a huge fan the indian movie mixes being aggresive doesnt mean they are for thetres with cheap equipment.......some english movies like gone in 60 sec fast and furious series also had was it for cheap thetres they made it aggressive.............??? firther what i notice is the genre wheter an indian movie(mainly talkin bollywood since i havnt watched any south indian movie) is an action flick or an love story all movies have amazing mixes take fanaa rnbdj race heyy babbyy and my fav housefull for example so what i feel is the indian music has scope for indian sound engineers to show thie potential and most movies use discrete effects which i dont notice in about 85% of hollywood movies in which surround speakers only whisper lightly no discrete effects at all in rom com movies like hitch awfull mix compare it with its copy partner such a faboulos mix full discrete use of surrounds notice the opening title sequence .........in a nutshell the indian movie mixes apparetly in most of the movies are at par with best hollywood movies and iam proud of these people.........

Hey there thanks a lot Divyansh....it is really heartwarming to see someone actually agreeing to my pov about DVD audio being better than BD for Ghajini.....of course I say this without any offence to Sanjay who is right in his own if we are to believe the 'un-tweak-able' way that DTS HD MA is encoded. All the three scenes that u mentioned Divyansh are spot on and were the first ones to make me uncomfortable. Just to add to the list, these scenes were still not the ones that made me a sworn enemy of the audio quality of BD. below are the two scenes that were most prominent for me:-

Just before the begining of the song Lattu, Aamir is writing the word 'Ghajini' on ghajini's photo. at this point the audience scream in that hall as he writes on the photo is so loud that my speakers go berserk. Now it could be my speakers I donno but that is where i hear the clearest possible distortion due to excessive volume in surround encoding. This does not go even if I reduce the surround volume by 5 DB.

Second, at the end of Behka song, Aamir is walking in his office in a subtle dancing mood while all employees keep staring at him. At this point, the rythmic bit that hits just after the word 'Behka Main <bang>' creates unremovable distortion in surrounds.

Now u made me curious Divyansh- is there a way we can 'discuss' with anup dev about this issue? casue If there is a way, am in for it all the way and would be really happy to get that opportunity if possible.

I just wish I could have the BD picture combined with DVD audio to watch the film as that is atleast for me I can say is the best way to experience and re-live the original experience of Ghajini.

@ Divyansh & Anurag,

Thanks for explaining in detail the scenes where you guys noticed distortion.

I'll listen to those scenes you guys mentioned with audessey multi EQ on and off. Did you notice the sound distortion on the DD track on the BD as well?

i think so...dolby track in the movie also has the same prob..........bt i havnt watched the whole movie in dd track of bd so i cant tell now......

i dont think there is any way to contact with mr anup dev and i also think that.......surely bhv wont re-author this masterpiece blu ray(reely it is a masterpiece best bd till date) for this issue..........

sanjay whats your take on all this????