Warner Home Video

Region 1 - NTSC

2.40 Original Aspect Ratio

16X9 enhanced
Average Bitrate: 5.49 mb/s
NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s

Feature: 27.76 Gig, Dual-layered

Blu-ray 1080P, VC-1 encode,

2.4: 1 aspect ratio

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.

Warner Home Video (Single disc release)

Warner Home Video (The Ultimate Matrix Collection Disc 1)

Warner Home Blu-ray

NO BITRATE GRAPH FOR BLU-RAY YET!

English TrueHD 5.1, English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese (2.0)

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen anamorphic - 2.40

Edition Details:
• Audio commentary by editor Zach Staenberg, actress Carrie-Anne Moss and visual effects Supervisor John Gaeta (2.0, 192kbps)
• Isolated Score with commentary by composer Don Davis (2.0, 192 kbps)
• Follow the White Rabbit : 9 special effects featurettes viewable through playing the film
• Making the Matrix (25mn53s)
• Hidden in the Wachowski brothers bio-filmography: What is the Concept? (11mn26s)
• Hidden in The Dream World menu :What is Bullet-Time? (6mn15s)
• DVD-Rom Features
• Bio-filmographies

DVD Release Date: September 21, 1999
Snapcase

Chapters 38
 

Aspect Ratio: - 2.40

Edition Details:
• Audio commentary by Dr Cornel West & Ken Wilber
• Audio commentary by critics Todd McCarthy, John Powers & David Thomson

• Commentary by cast/crew - editor Zach Staenberg, actress Carrie-Anne Moss and visual effects Supervisor John Gaeta

• Commentary - composer Don Davis with music-only track
• Making of... (25:20)

• Matrix Revisited (2:02:50)

• Beyond the Matrix Documentary - 7 featurettes

• Take the Red Pill Documentary - 2 featurettes

• Follow the White Rabbit Documentary - 9 featurettes

• The Music Revisited 41 track audio selection of nearly 3 hours of music
• Marilyn Manson music video

• Theatrical trailers and TV spots

• In Movie Experience (Blu-ray)

2nd disc

• Digital Copy
 

Chapters 38

NOTE: We will assume like all other Warner Blu-rays that this is also Region FREE.

The feature takes up 27.7 Gig of the dual-layered disc. We'll assume this equals The Complete Matrix HD Trilogy that came out in May 2007 as the limit of that format was 30 Gig per dual-layered disc - so this is most probably the same encode.  It looks very good but the film is almost 10 years old now (if you can believe). The image improves in all the expected areas - tighter detail, truer colors, much better skin tones and it is marginally brighter. The green color scheme of the 'Ultimate' SD-DVD is supported. It looks quite strong and vastly superior to the SD-DVDs but perhaps a notch below modern film to 1080P standard. I'm positive its a function of how the film was shot, rather than any weakness of the transfer, - still though the special effects look exceptionally impressive. The image has substantial depth at times and I doubt it could look any better for digital home theater usage. It is a significant improvement. 

Audio gets a bump to TrueHD and it's a mind-blowing mix. The film is so adeptly suited to a demonstrative, aggressive track and this one pulls no punches. Very impressive. Fans will surely appreciate the superiority over the old, but still excellent, 5.1 that even my crusty ears could differentiate. Some will consider it reference quality. Absolutely thumbs up despite no PCM option!

It seems as though ALL the extras on both previous SD editions are present here on this Blu-ray. FOUR commentaries, a, over 2 hour, featurette and aside from the SD supplements, there is also an In-Movie experience and a digital copy 2nd disc. If you count the 4 commentaries as full length supplements there is over 15 hours of bonus material on this Blu-ray alone. Unbelievable!

Certainly this is looking like the most complete package ever assembled on Blu-ray. Its exhaustive extras, superior image and boisterous audio should make fans of the Wachowski's films truly ecstatic. The Matrix was one film that can truly benefit from the highest resolution possible and Warner have created a monster with this. More later in the full review...  

***

ON THE SD-DVDs: The differences between the 1999 and the 2004 versions are pretty obvious : sharpness and contrasts are much better on the 2004 DVD, probably thanks to a high definition transfer. The framing is also a little different, with the 2004 version sometimes offering a bit more image on top, bottom or corners of the frames. This improves the framing compositions quite a lot (see comparisons 1 and 4 in particular).

The other main difference are the colours : whereas the 1999 version offers green-brown tones in the Matrix and soft blue tones in the real world, the 2004 version delivers very crude green-white tones in the Matrix and stronger blue-white tones in the real world. That makes the original film look more like Reloaded and Revolutions than with the previous DVD. Of course, these changes are greatly emphasized by the higher contrast of the 2004 version. It’s difficult to call this one an improvement, since the colour style of the 1999 version wasn’t so bad (hell, this DVD was a reference for almost five years!) and the Matrix sequels have such a lousy reputation that making the original look like the sequels could be considered an insult. Anyway, that’s the way the Wachowski always intended The Matrix to look like on video, so whether it's a matter of taste or not, this should be considered as the true visual version of The Matrix.

As for the extras, all the 1999 release extras are one way or another included in the Ultimate Matrix Collection (UMC). All but the commentaries, but these are so pathetic it’s almost a good thing they were replaced by new commentaries, even though these ones are still not really satisfying. The addition of a French dub (which is definitely from France, not Quebec, contrary to what's specified on the boxset) and French subtitles on the UMC release is greatly appreciated!

 - Fabe Ashen