1971s adaptation of Michael Criterion’s novel, The Andromeda Strain is a rare combination of intelligent science fiction, 1960s politics and nerve jangling tension. The film is not available on Blu-ray yet, so I decided to do a quick review of the iTunes 1080p HD edition.
The film has been analyzed in-depth elsewhere. Suffice to say I like this film, it has many plot holes, but there is something about its texture that keeps bringing me back. While gathering screenshots for the review I kept catching myself re-watching little bits of it.
Subtle split focus, brings both the phone and the two men into razor sharp focus, despite the limitations of anamorphic lenses.
Director Robert Wise must be an enormous fan of split focus camera tricks as I noticed dozens of them through the film, and he used many in ‘Star Trek: the Motion Picture’.
Excellent performances by Arthur Hill, David Wayne, James Olson and Kate Reid keep us interested in the characters and certainly kept me from paying too much attention to the more glaring holes.
The Andromeda Strain iTunes 1080p Review
The iTunes 1080p download is 3.70 GB with an average bitrate of 4 Mbps, and a peak bitrate of 12.1 Mbps. Audio is handled by an Stereo AAC track with an average bit-rate of 120 kbps.
Andromeda Strain, iTunes (top) vs PAL DVD (bottom) comparison, note the identical film blemishes. These two came from the same master.
Picture quality varies from fair to good, comparing with a PAL DVD version I had, picture quality is sharper, though with slightly more artifacts. By comparison the PAL DVD has some edge-enhancement and noticeably lower resolution when viewed on a suitably large screen.
By comparing individual frames between the DVD and the iTunes version, it’s apparent that they are from exactly the same master, having identical coloring and blemishes.
Conclusions
Overall 4 out of 5 – Good: The Andromeda Strain looks pretty good on iTunes in HD. I would have preferred a higher bit-rate that would have eliminated some of the minor artifacting in some shots. Ultimately a Blu-ray would probably look better: but the iTunes version is still recommendable.
iTunes 1080p Screenshots
The A-team enter level one of the Wildfire Complex.
Virtually every shot in the film is nicely composed. In contrast to the scenes at the Wildfire complex, the military seem to be in the dark…
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