Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Special Collector’s Edition) (1986)

· Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Catherine Hicks

· Directed by: Leonard Nimoy

· Studio: Paramount Home Entertainment

· Video: 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen

· Audio: English DD 5.1, English DD 2.0, French DD 2.0 Surround

· Subtitles: English and English Closed Captions

· Extras: Audio Commentary by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, Text Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda, The Star Trek Universe featurettes (“Time Travel: The Art of the Possible”, “The Language of Whales”, “A Vulcan Primer, “Kirk’s Women”), Production featurettes (“Future’s Past: A Look Back”, “On Location”, “Dailies Deconstruction”, “Below-the-Line: Sound Design”), Visual Effects featurettes (“From Outer Space to the Ocean”, “The Bird of Prey”), Tributes (“Roddenberry Scrapbook”, “Featured Artist: Mark Lenard”), Archives (Storyboards, Production Gallery), Original Interviews (William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley), theatrical trailer

· Length: 118 minutes

· Rating: ****

It is the year 2286 and Earth’s existence is threatened by a space probe that is vaporizing the oceans and blocking out all essential sunlight. The probe is trying to communicate with humpback whales, which are now extinct. In order to find some humpback whales to answer the probe’s destructive transmission, Admiral Kirk and his crew attempt to travel back in time to San Francisco, 1986.

The video quality of this DVD is very good. Images are clean but tend to be a little on the softer side. Black levels are consistently deep throughout. Colors are dark and rich with fully saturated hues. While there are some speckles and dirt present on the transfer, picture defect mastering is solid with no major flaws or digital compression artifacts. The overall audio quality is also very good with the English Dolby Digital 5.1 track serving as the basis for this review. The soundtrack’s mix favors the forward channels. Dialogue is natural sounding and crisp. The surround channels are moderately active, used for both music and ambient sounds, and even include a couple of split rear effects. The low frequency effects channel is not dynamic but does contain a smattering of sequences with strong bass. Present in about one-quarter of the DVD’s chapters, tactile effects are in the form of light to moderate impacts and they originate primarily from the sound effects.

Reference equipment for review: [Video projector- Studio Experience Cinema 17SF; Projection screen- Da-Lite 106” Da-Snap; DVD player- Pioneer Elite DV-37; A/V Receiver- Sherwood Newcastle R-963T; Speakers- BIC DV62si mains, DV62CLR center, Adatto DV52si rears, D1210R subwoofer; Tactile Transducers- Clark Synthesis Gold; Cables and Wires- Bettercables.com]