Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure (Dts) [DVD] [2000] [US Import] [NTSC]

I am writting in response to the discussion regarding the bad batch of disks that went out at the beginning of this release. Much to our shock and horror, an out of synch Dolby Digital 5.1 track appeared on the first run of disks. At the time we took all measures available to us to pull back and quarantine as many of the bad copies as possible. No further bad copies have left our plant since September, 2003. Unfortunately DVDs circulate among a lot of different stores and sub-distributors over a a long period of time. Unsold copies can be returned into the system and go back out without being noticed. We do try and catch them but there are literally thousands of DVDs flowing through the system on any given week.

As stated by the editor, any bad copy will be cheerfully replaced by the vendor who sold it to you. Be assured that we are doing are best to rectify this problem. If it has a blue dot on the back cover over the Image Logo it is a proper copy.

My apologies to anyone who has been inconvenienced by this mistake.

Sincerely,

Ryan.

Having seen this film in its original IMAX presentation very recently, I can truthfully say that the images and sound of the DVD edition are splendid, given the smaller TV size that most people will view this video on. However....

The DVD release contains four soundtracks. They are:

1) A DTS digital surround track - English
2) A Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track - English
3) A French language soundtrack
4) A Spanish language soundtrack

I can't comment on the DTS track -- I don't have DTS capable playback equipment. However, it is absolutely clear that the Dolby Digital 5.1 English track is OUT OF SYNC with the picture (by approx. 3.5 seconds). If you don't believe me, a simple comparison of the 5.1 English track with the French or Spanish soundtracks will confirm this. It is especially evident in the first shot of the film, which depicts a photographer taking still shots of the scene. The flash of the bulbs and their accompanying sound are wildly out of sync on the 5.1 English track, but are fine on the French and Spanish tracks.

At least, this was the case on my DVD copy, purchased in January 2002. If the releasing company has corrected the error (which, of course, they should) then future releases of this DVD may sound fine. It is hard to understand how a DVD with this kind of error could have been released without anyone at the releasing company noticing it.

Hopefully, to anyone who has already purchased a copy of the initial DVD, the company will offer a free replacement once the problem has been fixed.