Title: Paa
Year: 2009
BD Release: 2010
IMDB Rating: 7.3
Category: Drama | Musical
Distributor: BIG Home Video
Authoring House: Digital Entertainment
Region Coding: A/B/C
MRP: Rs. 699/-
Media: Main Feature - 50GB BD
Running Time: 02:21:10 hrs
Chapters: 16
Video:
2.35:1, HD 1080p 16:9, AVC 24Hz
Peak Bitrate 44.9Mbps | Average Bitrate 39Mbps
Audio:
1/2 Hindi - DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (Peak 4.9 Mbps 48khz) <-- Default Track
2/2 Hindi - Dolby Digital 5.1 (640kbps 48khz)
Subtitles: <-- 2.35:1 Screen Friendly (Positioned at the bottom of the picture area)
1/3 English
2/3 Arabic
3/3 Dutch
Special Features:
NONE

Special Mention:
No Watermark Logo, during songs or otherwise.<-- All Bollywood Video companies, please take note.
No scrolling advertisements during songs or otherwise. <-- All Bollywood Video companies, please take note.
No advertisements, forced or otherwise, during the movie. <-- All Bollywood Video companies, please take note.
Separate 'Song Menu' to allow direct selection of song. <-- This should be a no brainer for all Bollywood films.

Authoring issues:
1. Pop-up Menus don't close on their own and stay up forever, until either you make a selection or use the button on the remote to close the menu. The 'pop-up' menu should automatically close after a specified time (10-15 seconds) of inactivity.
2. There is no chapter/title information displayed when played on a PS3. Even on the Oppo BDP-83 player, the title number of the title playing does not display. This seems to be a problem with all BDs authored by Digital Entertainment.
3. The left/right/enter keys on the PS3 'remote' do not function as rewind/forward/pause buttons, like they do with all other BDs/DVDs. This too is a problem with all BDs authored by Digital Entertainment.
4. No option to 'Play All' songs. This is not really a screw up, but nevertheless it is something that ought to be an option on all Indian Blu-rays.

Review:
From the promos, the movie seemed to be of a genre that I am particularly not very fond off, specially not a film from bollywood. Thus I watched the film expecting it to be a weepy and heavy drama. It turns out the film is rather light and the drama always well restrained. Although the script and it's treatment do get quite simplistic and rather amatuerish at times, all in all the movie is deftly handled and it does not slide into the melodramatic abyss that bollywood is so fond off. The blu-ray itself is above average and the picture quality is from amongst the best of the Indian blu-rays so far. The picture quality is not only overall quite good, but at times is very good and the only thing that keeps the picture quality from being truelly exceptional, is once again, what seems to me are hints of DNR. Although, the problem is not as bad as it is with the 'My Name Is Khan' BD, but nevertheless DNR has been used and thus the picture is not as sharp as one would expect from a blu-ray of a new movie. The audio is mostly front heavy and the surrounds very rarely used. Although one does not expect a very active surround field in a drama such as this, I still feel the sound field is far too front stage centric than it ought to be. Atleast during the songs one would expect a better usage of the surround channels. Overall the audio is acceptable and does not hinder the enjoyment of the film. All in all, once again BIG Home Video has delivered a rather fine blu-ray and with their no nonsense, read as: no ads, promos, logos etc. presentation of Blu-rays, BIG Home Video is certainly one of the best, if not the best Indian video company today. The authoring work by Digital Entertainment also seems to be consistently good and I wish more Indian video companies would use their services. Although 'Digital Entertainment' too needs to sort out some of their authoring issues related to menus and PS3 issues. The other thing that both BiG Home Video and Digital Entertainment need to do, is to reconsider their policy of not including any extras. For those who like this film, the Blu-ray is a must buy and for the rest too I would not hesitate in recommending it. Recommended

My ratings:
Movie: 3.75 out of 5.0
Video: 4.5 out of 5.0
Audio: 4.0 out of 5.0
Extras: 0 out of 5.0
Overall: 3.75 out of 5.0 (Lack of extras brings down the overall score)





Screenshots courtesy bwtorrents

Equipment used for testing:
Projector: Panasonic PT-AE2000U
Screen: Da-Lite 4:3 120" 'Model B' - White Matte
Viewing Distance: 11' 6"
A/V Receiver: Denon AVR5800
Speakers: 5.1
Front/Main: Paradigm Reference 100 v2
Center: Paradigm Reference Studio CC v2
Rear: Tannoy - Mercury M5
Subwoofer: Paradigm Reference Servo 15
BD Player:
Oppo BDP-83 (Hardware Modified 'Region Free' with 'BDP83-50-0424' firmware)
PS3 (80GB US 'Region A' with firmware v3.41)

[quote="Sanjay"]Title: Paa
Authoring screw ups:
1. Pop-up Menus don't close on their own and stay up forever.

My Authoring software company is discussing with PS3 team for solving this issue.This is a PS3 specific problem not an authoring screw up

2. There is no option to go to the 'Main' menu from the 'pop-up' menu.

Are you sure Sanjay Ji. Can you please recheck.

3. There is an option to 'Play movie' in the 'pop-up' menu. What is the purpose of this? For, if you are accessing the 'pop-up' menu, that means the movie is already playing.

Are you sure Sanjay Ji. Can you please recheck.

4. There is no chapter/title information visible when played on a PS3. This is a problem with all BDs authored by Digital Entertainment.

My Authoring software company is discussing with PS3 team for solving this issue.This is a PS3 specific problem not an authoring screw up

5. The left/right/enter keys on the PS3 'remote' do not function as rewind/forward/pause buttons, as they do with all other BDs/DVDs. This too is a problem with all BDs authored by Digital Entertainment.

My Authoring software company is discussing with PS3 team for solving this issue.This is a PS3 specific problem not an authoring screw up

1) If all the selections in the MAIN menu are included in the POP UP menu, then you don't need an option to go the MAIN menu, however, if all selections in MAIN MENU are not included then Sanjay is absolutely right, as the TOP MENU doesn't work in some of the BDs during movie playback.

2) Play Movie in the POP UP menu: Not needed. All you need is SCENE SELECTION, EXTRAS & SET UP as Sanjay had suggested. POP UP menu is used only during movie playback.

Sanjay Says
2. There is no option to go to the 'Main' menu from the 'pop-up' menu.

3. There is an option to 'Play movie' in the 'pop-up' menu. What is the purpose of this? For, if you are accessing the 'pop-up' menu, that means the movie is already playing.

You Say
1) If all the selections in the MAIN menu are included in the POP UP menu, then you don't need an option to go the MAIN menu, however, if all selections in MAIN MENU are not included then Sanjay is absolutely right, as the TOP MENU doesn't work in some of the BDs during movie playback.

2) Play Movie in the POP UP menu: Not needed. All you need is SCENE SELECTION, EXTRAS & SET UP as Sanjay had suggested. POP UP menu is used only during movie playback


Please you both are requested to watch the Paa Disc once again and let me know if there is really no Main Menu and Play Movie function is displaying on pop up menu please

Thanks
Regards
Chandna

Although these issues are present in 'My Name Is Khan' and all other blu-rays released prior to it, they have been resolved now and are not present in the 'Paa' blu-ray. Please accept my apologies for mentioning them in this review. The reason the issues got listed in this review, is because I checked the 'My Name Is Khan' blu-ray which had the issue and since all titles before it too had the issue and also since both these titles were released together, I presumed incorrectly that the issues were present in the 'Paa' blu-ray too. I am mentioning how this oversight happened not as an excuse but simply to explain how it happened. I should have double checked before listing the issues in this review and once again I would like to apologize to you and to other members for this oversight. Although as a matter of fact, I had even posted in response to 'anibap' in the 'My Name Is Khan' review thread, that you are aware of these issues and that they have been resolved in future releases. --> viewtopic.php?p=98452#p98452

Actually this is an issue which is there irrespective of player, atleast it is there in both players I have, ie. PS3 and the Oppo BDP-83. Thus I seriously doubt it is a PS3 issue.
Actually even on the Oppo BDP-83 the title number of the title playing is not displayed. Thus it seems that the problem may not be PS3 related or atleast not limited to just the PS3.

This one is obviously an issue specific only to the PS3. But, might I suggest that you look into it being a problem with the authoring software too. It would not hurt to check with the software company. My reason for suggesting this is simply because, I have yet to come accross this problem while playing any other blu-ray disc with the PS3, this includes BDs from Hollywood and also Indian blu-rays authored by other companies.

Thanks Sanjay Ji
I always give full regards to your suggestions and try to implement the same.\
Regards
Chandna

You are welcome. It is this willingness to listen to consumers and take valid feedback and then also implement the changes, that we Hindi blu-ray fans respect about you and your company. Wish the distribution companies and other authoring companies were as consumer friendly and receptive to consumer needs and wants as Digital Entertainment is. Please keep up the good work. Looking forward to many more good blu-rays from your company.

Sanjay,

Thanks for the great review . Quite interesting to see your comment that Paa is amongst the best BDs from bollywood so far. Eagerly waiting to get it on my hands.

My friend who has seen the BD told me that he is very impressed with the PQ of the BD but he noticed two minor issues.
Assuming you still have the BD with you, could you please share your thoughts / check for the following for me?

1. Black crush in some low APL scenes - My friend says that some indoor scenes suffer from minor black crush where detail is lost.
2. Hints of CA of lens in some shots - rendered as pink/violet hallow or tint in some scenes with challenging contrast (inside/outsie).

I'll get my copy next weekend as the guy who was supposed to come to London last weekend had his visit postponed.

Cheers

Ani

I don't have the BD anymore, but I can confirm that your friend's observations are accurate and some of the indoor scenes do suffer from some "black crush" resulting in loss of details. This is quite apparent in some of the hospital scenes and also in a couple of scenes in Auro's house.
I can't say I remember noticing any hallow or tint problem. Although I do feel that the contrast and black levels are slightly off, which is what results in the 'black crush' and also extra bright scenes, specially noticeable in daylight, outdoor scenes.

I still haven't received the BD. I was just buttressing Sanjay's points.

Paa Review
After posting my preview thoughts on bluray.com, finally watched the full movie yesterday.

I completely agree with Sanjay on all points and hence would like to just list some of the things I liked and disliked plus some additional things...
Movie
Before talking about the BD just wanted to say a few words about the film. I am glad that this kind of movies are now attempted by Indian directors and it did achieve commercial success despite having some flaws. Quite an honest movie and it never crossed to the heavy melodramatic kind. AB, Vidya and AB Junior alll acted well and so did the supporting cast. Editing and parts of the script were bit weak otherwise it could have been a very good movie. But I still liked this movie better than the standard crap that come out of Bollywood.
BD PQ and AQ

1. PQ is really good and very film like. Well balanced contrast. I like this kind of presentation.
2. Clean and solid presentation - integrity and image consistency is really good
3. Detail is quite good in most of the scenes although saw some issues (see below on black crush)
4. Very good sharpness in most scenes and no objectionable moire or sharpening artefacts
5. Good color reproduction (although slightly suffering from CA). The movie was not intended for eye candy colors and good to see that it has maintaned what I saw in the theatre.
6. AQ is quite good and the front soundstage is adequate and filling.
7. Songs sounded nice (but sounded like a 2.1 presentation)

I did noticed the first two issues with the PQ which I didn't see in Sanjay's review but when I asked him, he concurred that he saw these issuses as well. Both are minor to most people but the first one is a major issue for me at least.

1. Black crush and loss of detail in certain dark scenes. I was quite surprised to see this. Some internal scenes in Auro's house and hospital looked quite dark and objects just disappeared into black. I had to change my gamma from Film to Video to bring out the detail. Good thing is that the detail is not lost in the transfer if you can play around with the gamma a little bit. But be careful with such changes as it may affect the well lit scenes which looked excellent. I think a few notch in the gamma adjustments while authoring should have sorted this out.
2. Chromatic Aberration (CA) - If you notice carefully, many scenes where a white object is involved (mostly portrait frames or closeups) - like white shirt you can see CA effects. This is more of a Lens problem than authoring. I would like to see Chandna 's comment on this and if the source had the same issue. This does look bad at times if you are picky.
3. Some hint of DNR in some scenes - If DNR is not applied during authoring, it could be the camera and focus as well.
4. One dissapointment on the AQ side- As Sanjay rightly mentioned, the rear channels are not given enough to play with. The songs instead of having a good surround treatment, are quite front heavy (although sounds nice). Paa being a new film, I will be quite surprised to learn if the source track was like this unless it was designed this way.

Overall, I liked the transfer and once again Digital Entertainment has given us a very good BD. The film on HD looks really nice. You will enjoy it for sure. It is is one of top BDs released so far albeit few issues.

Good work Mr Chandna and DEI. Look forward to more BDs from your company.
My Rating
Movie: 3.75
Video: 4.00 (would have given 4.5 without the issues)
Audio : 3.75 (good use of surrounds would have been nice to make it 4.25)
Overall : 3.75

Peace

Ani

Is the digital entertainment we're talking about the same as DEi? The DVD authoring company aka BEi??

Yes, it is.

That's excellent news! Hopefully they get to re-master our classics too. (only if they are that good with Blu Rays.)