The Final Countdown time travels onto Blu-ray, and at nearly 30 years old, it has never looked better. Framed at 2.35:1 and presented in 1080p, the film clearly benefits from the improved resolution of Blu-ray and the care and attention to detail the studio has provided to this much-anticipated release. The film retains a good amount of grain; some shots are substantially grainer than others, but this is, for the most part, a balanced and pleasing presentation with the film looking absolutely fabulous in places. Colors are natural, neither overly saturated and bright nor dull and lackluster. There are sometimes a multitude of colors to be seen, particularly on the Nimitz's flight deck. The uniforms worn by the flight deck crew, and the varied colors thereof, particularly reds, greens, and yellows, look marvelous. Detail ranges from average to exceptional; a few shots of the chopper that carries Warren Lasky to the Nimitz  at the beginning of the film reveal every seam, bolt, and the general wear and tear on the machine's hull. A subsequent scene where Lasky is off the helicopter and first steps foot on the deck is remarkably sharp and clear, with wonderful detail all around -- the foreground, background, and everything in between, with no hint of softness. Likewise, once the action penetrates the interior of the vessel, detail, depth, and texture remain solid. The bulkheads inside the carrier, for example, and all of the antiquated equipment look rich and true, boring yet functional, with all the small details coming to life. The image displays an odd smudgy look across the bottom of the image in chapter 3 as Lasky first arrives in his quarters, and a few other scenes appear awfully smooth and soft, almost like a a smudge of vaseline was smeared over the image, but these are few and far between and never much of a distraction. With mostly clear imagery, a retention of plenty of inherent grain, natural flesh tones, and solid blacks, The Final Countdown looks about as good as it's ever going to.

The Final Countdown arrives on Blu-ray with two lossless soundtracks, a DTS-HD MA 7.1 mix as well as a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 offering. Both hover around the same bitrate, generally settling in a range from the lower 4's to mid 5's. For the purpose of the review, the film was screened utilizing the DTS mix; several comparisons between the lossless mixes after the fact revealed virtually no audible difference in the soundtracks. The soundtrack shows its age, but its presented well enough here. The film's oftentimes heroic score spreads evenly and naturally across the front. The film features some dynamic sound, such as that of an F-14 Tomcat's touchdown atop the deck of the carrier in chapter two. Jet fighters take off with a roar that slightly rumbles the gut and does a fairly good job of placing listeners directly atop the flight deck. The front channels carry the bulk of the load, but the rear channels do manage to come into play and offer sometimes subtle, sometimes moderate activity in support. Particularly engaging are the sequences as the temporal storm becomes more active, the sound completely immersing the carrier, and as a result, the listening area. The high pitched frequency heard as the ship travels through the portal is reminiscent of the pulse attack on the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk, but not quite as loud and precise, or even annoying. Some effects are only moderately intense. A series of Japanese Zero flybys in chapter 10 are somewhat engaging, the sound flowing nicely around the soundstage, though not overly aggressive, loud, or intense. Likewise, gunfire from the plane's machine guns is strong but fails to offer the gut-pounding punch that one might expect from weapons of that sort. Dialogue is rendered accurately through the center channel from start to end. The Final Countdown offers a soundtrack that meets expectations, one that sounds fine but neither wows nor disappoints listeners.

The.Final.Countdown.1980.BluRay.DTSMA.x264.dxva-SuBoXoNe
I have used some pretty insanely high settings and it took a while to encode this
I plan on using these high of settings from now on.The source Blu-ray's video was
VC-1 with a bitrate of 33000 kbps and a frame rate of 24.00 fps the encode is h.264
with a bitrate of 15300 kbps and a frame rate of 24.00 fps. I also included English
and CHINESE subtitles.

General
Complete name: D:The.Final.Countdown.1980.BluRay.DTSMA.x264.dxva-SuBoXoNeThe.Final.Countdown.1980.BluRay.DTSMA.x264.dxva-SuBoXoNe.mkv
Format: Matroska
File size: 12.7 GiB
Duration: 1h 42mn
Overall bit rate: 17.7 Mbps
Encoded date: UTC 2010-05-10 18:59:36
Writing application: mkvmerge v3.3.0 ('Language') built on Mar 24 2010 14:59:24
Writing library: libebml v0.8.0 + libmatroska v0.9.0

Video
ID: 1
Format: AVC
Format/Info: Advanced Video Codec
Format profile: High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC: Yes
Format settings, ReFrames: 4 frames
Muxing mode: Container profile=Unknown@4.1
Codec ID: V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration: 1h 42mn
Nominal bit rate: 15.3 Mbps
Width: 1 920 pixels
Height: 816 pixels
Display aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Frame rate: 24.000 fps
Resolution: 8 bits
Colorimetry: 4:2:0
Scan type: Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame): 0.406
Title: x264
Writing library: x264 core 94 r1583 7608d73
Encoding settings: cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:-3:-3 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=10 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=64 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=6 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=8 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=15250 / ratetol=1.5 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=50000 / vbv_bufsize=50000 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00 / nal_hrd=none

Audio
ID: 2
Format: DTS
Format/Info: Digital Theater Systems
Format profile: MA
Codec ID: A_DTS
Duration: 1h 42mn
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 6 channels
Channel positions: Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate: 48.0 KHz
Resolution: 16 bits
Title: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Language: English

ID: 3
Format: UTF-8
Codec ID: S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info: UTF-8 Plain Text
Title: English subtitles
Language: English


ID: 4
Format: UTF-8
Codec ID: S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info: UTF-8 Plain Text
Title: Chinese subtitles
Language: Chinese


The Final Countdown 1980 BluRay DTSMA x264 dxva-SuBoXoNe