Ask Engadget HD: What's the best demo material to show off my new home theater?
By Richard Lawler 
posted May 13th 2009 12:00PM
posted May 13th 2009 12:00PM
"I've finally finished piecing together the best home theater (my) money can buy. Plasma display, Denon receiver, brand new 5.1 speaker setup and even some new furniture. My friends want to come by and see the new setup, but even with my satellite DVR, a large DVD library and a few Blu-ray discs I don't know what to show 'em to put my system to the test properly."
We've got you Thomas, one of the greatest pleasures of getting new equipment is blowing the minds of friends / neighbors / random people off the street. We're sure you have a disc, favorite channel or one DVR program stored away just for that purpose - let us in on the secret.
Got a burning question that you'd love to toss out for Engadget HD (or its readers) to take a look at? Tired of Google's blank stares when you ask for real-world experiences? Hit us up at ask at engadgethd dawt com and keep an eye on this space -- your inquiry could be next.
Ratatoullie
Blu-ray:
The Dark Knight
Any Pixar film
Both Daniel Craig Bond films
etc...etc...etc...
Just check here and try any of the Tier 0 titles:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=858316#anchor0
TV broadcasts:
NASA shuttle launches on HDNet
Transformers, hands down. Best picture clarity and the visible decepticon/autobot logos show off the detail.
Transformers and Iron Man. Those are the two best movies to show off all your gear!
I love showing poeple Iron Man on blu-ray for picture quality.. Swordfish on Blu-ray is great for sound when the hostage runs out and blows up... Dark Knight on Blu is great all around
Agreed.......Iron Man looks awesome
The audio of the opening helicopter scene in Cliffhanger always blows me away. I watch the movie just for that. I understand that the blu ray version is issued with DTS 5.1. Not sure though, don't have it yet.
My favorite demo scene is the airplane rescue when Superman makes his first appearence in Superman Returns. Im interested to see what everyone else puts, Its always cool to have demo material!
Master & Commander the soundtrack will blow you away
I am legend looks awesome
there are many more I could name but the boss is coming
I have to agree. Oddly enough, when I first set up my home theater the first movie I ever played on it was Master and Commander. The surround sound setup on that movie is amazing.
I definitely agree. The begining battle scene in Master and Commander gives your sub a good work out and excellent channel mixing.
The Matrix movies are still one of the best demo flicks, any Pixar film, Ironman, Hulk, Kill Bill 1 & 2, Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Taken, Band of Brothers, Chicago, I Am Legend, any Pirates of the Caribbean movie, Sin City, X-Men III, U-571.
We show off the highway chase scene from the Transformers movie, and the desert scene from the beginning is also very good! The reason I personally like these scenes are for the great combination of audio and video, although we do have an anamorphic wide-screen set-up with Bowers & Wilkins 802D's. Dark night makes great 16:9 demo material because of the IMAX shots at the start of most chapters.
Sorry, Kyle - didn't see your post before writing mine. I totally agree!
I use the first race of cars. the sound and picture are both amazing, the sub is used and it is't for an explosion which is nice. The best part is there is a story involved, a car race.
The Batman and Joker truck chase in the Dark Knight. I love that scene and it looks and sounds amazing.
Totally agree here. The automatic gunfire really sets the surround channels off - and the impacts work the bass!
The opening scene of Terminator 2 where one of the machines stomps on the human skull.
The Fall is one of the best looking Blu Ray discs I've seen yet. Then of course any Pixar, Iron Man, Dark Knight, etc...
I second The Fall. Probably the most visually stunning film I've ever seen. More people should see it. It's one of the more underrated films of the last few years.
http://movies.apple.com/movies/independent/the_fall/the_fall_720p.mov
The Fall Blu-Ray is one of three things I use to show off my system-- talk about visually stunning.
I use The Host HD-DVD to show off sound-- specifically, the scene where the monster first emerges from the water-- its footsteps really show off the transducers I put in my sectional.
The third thing I use is streaming music via my PS3 with the earth visualization-- Dark Side of the Moon in a dark room with the earth spinning below on a 98" screen = wow.
The scene in Spiderman 3 where the convict guy falls into the sand pit and the machine comes up and starts roatating is also a really good one to show what your system can do.
have to agree with you here, most of the sony pictures blu-rays do look better than the rest especially spider-man 3, the clarity is amazing and thats only at 720p!
The Dark Knight
Planet Earth
Ratatoullie
Wall-E (Most new animated feature films look quite amazing)
Sin City
Blade Runner (Excellent example of classic films after restoration)
NIN: Beside You (Sounds and looks amazing with good setup)
Band of Brothers
Casino Royale
No Country for Old Men
Kill Bill's
Just to name a few :)
I would never subject any living being to Casino Royale - that is just too cruel!
I second Sin City!
Serenity, when the ship first hits atmo around 10ish minutes in. Brings most subwoofers to their knees, mine blows it's grill off.
Challenge Accepted! Let's see what my baby can handle!
Yeah, here's some more subwoofer show offs:
http://www.hemagazine.com/Subwoofer_Demo_Material
Serenity is quite amazing and besides just blowing people away it has really nice audio subtleties that show off the fact that great Home Theaters not only blow you away with big boom but bring you in with all the details as well.
For years I have been showing off the awesome audio (DTS) from the DVD "U-571". Go to the depth charge scenes and your sub woofer will impress to the max and as the sub sinks below it's danger point the sound of the rivets popping and screeching over stressed metals is chilling.
Don't forget Apocalypto! Awesome on Blu-ray!
Seconded.
Personally, I love playing the final battle scene from Transformers. Say what you will about the movie, but its got some excellent booms and a pristine low bass sweep in there.
Fast and the Furious 2 opening race scene... NASTY...
Firstly - I hope you've calibrated your new TV and properly set up your surrouns sound system. If not, definitely consider paying an ISF certified calibrator to come to your house and do a full, professional calibration! Even though setup discs like Digital Video Essentials: HD Basic can help you a lot to set the basic user controls of your television and set up your audio correctly, the ultimate is to properly calibrate your greyscale and colour accuracy as well - and in order to do that, you have to use measurement equipment, which costs at least as much and easily WAY more than a single professional calibration.
So at a minimum, use a setup disc - DVE: HD Basic on Blu-ray being my personal favorite - but for that absolute best, hire an ISF Certified technician ;)
After that, I recommend Baraka on Blu-ray for some absolutely stunning visuals. And for audio, I highly recommend using a live concert recording on Blu-ray. The HD video footage plus the lossless audio makes for a really compelling experience that DVD cannot touch.
Image quality on the upcoming release of "A Bug's Life" is supposed to be the best ever.
Opening scene in swordfish, when the bomb goes off.
U571's depth charge scene is truely house shaking and is great if you want to show of your system. The creaking of the subs hull and the cataclysmic booming of the exploding depth charges runs everything from your sub to your surrounds though their paces.
Another great movie is X-Men 3. Pretty much any scene is good, but the best is from the Golden Gate Bridge scene to the end of the final battle.
The Bridge of Khazaa Dum from LOTR The Fellowship of the Rings is excellent also even though the highest quality you'll get is DVD.
The F22/Truck chase scene in Die Hard 4 is also pulverizing.
I concur that U571 has great audio. Also HEAT; the down town fire-fight with police using automatic weapons. Most movies don't do automatic weapons true justice in terms of volume. The audio track is very well mixed and makes full use of the digital dynamic range.
Only one mention of Sin City? Best BRD I've ever seen.
Second Band of Brothers
I second the second Band of Brothers.
man on fire, lost season 3, pirates of the caribbean, doomsday (truehd sounded amazing, movie is meh), dark knight (true hd great) and kill bill.
I will say Corpse Bride, it is the first High Def movie I watched so it may be nostalgic but it just WOWed me like nothing else has...
I think there are better 3d animated to choose from, nightmare before chrismas clearly surpass corpse bride both in pq and sq.
Transformers and Iron Man are my go-to display movies. Both have great action, sound, and are good movies to boot, so it's win-win
If you had those Dolby, DTS or Imax Blu-ray those will be your top choice.
But since not many has those and kinda hard to get beside on ebay, here is some choice.
Iron Man (Scene of when the he rescue the afghan village, has very strong bass effect and great pq) Ironman probably has the coolest looking menu.
Dark Knight (Opening Imax scene are heart breaking)
X-men Last Stand (for sound) scene when Xavier meet with Phoenix in the house.
Cars and Nightmare before chrismas for 3D animated.
Any Futurama or Simpson Movie BD for 2D animated
Baraka and Planet Earth for documentary
Matrix
Baraka... 70mm film digitized to 8k... then brought down to 1080p...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baraka_(film)
It all depends on what type of friends you have really. For the action fans I definitely recommended Iron Man or Dark Knight, for the animation fans anything by Pixar (most notably Wall-E) would be sweet. As for me and my crew we would be smokin' the kind herb watching Baraka!
I always demo 16X9 material for friends, to show off every single pixel of my set. dude, you gotta show your friends any of the imax scenes from dark knight. there's no better demo material available. Wall*E and the d day jump from band of brothers tie for second place.