The Fifth Element: Blue Ray Review (1 Viewer)

[shingdaz]

Just purchased it for Blue-Ray.

I played it back on my LG-BH-100 @ 480p.... And it was an enjoyable difference...in relation to the SD DVD. I firmly beleive that in order to enjoy Wide Screen movies I have to watch my movies with no borders on the top and bottom...thus having to zoom the image at 480p... some HD or SD content does not allow 720p zoom and requires you to watch the movie with top and bottom borders etc, regardless the clarity, image~dynamics and depth thorugh-out the movie captivated me...when comparing it to the Standard DVD version, I found I had to strain my eyes in order to capture the detail and realism of every scene...smugged by mosquito issues and some mpeg de-interlacing artifacts possibly due to poor mpeg compression processing...during motion scenes...the Blue-Ray version stayed very stable and had consistent and solid image fluidity throughout the entire movie, which is where I found myself not straining to capture every detail.

Although the colour content was not extra ordinary, it blended in well with the added detail and depth of the HD images. Although I don't beleive this is the best HD movie available, it was nice to watch the movie and absorb the richness of detail from the Directors-View, consistently...but some scenes did appear diluted, but only on certain camera shots.

The uncompressed PCM audio was also audibly clearer, without raspy ringing during special effects scenes, you felt the soundstage was wider and deeper, with acoustic anomolys such as background sounds reflecting audibly clearer.

 

[CRyan]

Interesting, an early adopter of Blu-ray that zooms to get rid of the black bars on 2.35:1 movies (there is an oxymoron in there somehwere I swear). It does not botther you to lose information on the sides? Or better yet, you would prefer to get 480p and a full screen over 720p and black bars?

Well either way, I am also very happy with the new Fifth Element as well. I just watched this a few nights ago. Sounds great and looks great.

 

[Harpozep]

I lent my original Fifth Element to the local HT store. They sent it in and just got the new transfer. Time to borrow it back. I gave them a BR Planet earth too. That stuff looks nice on their gear.

The new transfer gets decent reviews from all who buy it, so I should not be disappointed.

Back to the original poster, I'm confused, you ZOOM in so as to not get black bars? You are in the WS world of theatrical HD . A lot of movies have differing aspect ratios. I mean Jaws always looks like a band aid (SD , I Know, ) even zooming into an aspect ratio as wide as Jaws is would likely not eliminate the bars without getting rid of MOST other info on the sides.
I just don't get it?
The black bars represent the area outside the image area like the curtained off sections in a theater. Perhaps you could mask off the area if it bothers you because if you zoom, you lose-information that the director wanted you to see.
Anyway, Glad you enjoyed the Fifth element. I liked the Superbit version in SD. Never owned the regular SD.

 

[shingdaz]

Yes zoom defiantly improves the Home Theatre experience for me...if you don't mind the black bars glowing in the dark due to shading imperfections of your LCD or Plasma then good for you... for me the black bars glow too much for my like'ing when watching the movie in the dark...they tend to distract me from the movie , especially when there is a dark scene and your enjoying the dark contrast in the scene, but severly distracted by the glowing black bars at the top and bottom of the screen during the scene. As for botheriing me about the missing information, I don't get abnormal stretching issues and don't really see much information lost during play-back...the information is exactly the same as when watching it on 4:3 TV, and I still enjoyed the movie then> regardless of how much information was lost during that aspect ratio either. Watching it that way allows me to visually soak into the movie itself...whats darker than the dark shades of your watching room right? And it looks more like your in a real Theatre watching the movie .

My LCD is a 32" HD~HP TV. I watched it via HDMI...and regardless what aspect ratio or HD level 480p or 1080i... the movie still captivated me from the clear contrast and consistent linearality and deep contrast dyamics, blown up to a full 32"...which is another reason I use zoom....my tv is small...trying to watch the movie ( a real time 26" X 32" aspect) negates the purposes of a 32" T.V...you might as well throw out the T.V because your using only 60%-70% of the TV at all times?...whats the point in that...that's like having a porche and only being able to use 60-70% of it's horsepower ...and watching it @ 28"X 32" aspect ratio is way too small for my eyes I might as well watch it on a 26" TV.

Bottom line...What is true 720p if your using 30% less pixels? and how hard is it to say to the consumer " here yah go!...a full 720p HD resolution that will perfectly fit your wide screen tv?...if they converted it for 4:3...then why not for HD?...other-wise they might as well admit that it's not 720p or even 1080i content...sure thats the way the movie was filmed...but don't sell us expensive LCD and plasma TV's where we are told to accept the balck bars?...do you like watching regular TV with black bars on the top and bottom just for the sake of calling it HD?...seriously...this is an argument I am willing to voice to DVD movie execs and ask the...what's going on?

 

[shingdaz]

Yah I really enjoyed the movie even at 480p...it didn't blow me away...but it had the dynamics of what the director would be watching in the editing room. Most movie's I've run through do not have any abnormal stretching issues...thats what HD is for millions of pixels you'd never spot even during a zoom...evtually I plan on buying a scaler...and use it as a souce to zoom the image while using a 1080i signal during 1080i play-back since I can't use zoom for 1080i on my TV. This should definatly improve the clarity of the full screen image if not dramatically...since it will be output as 720p.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

Rather than investing in a scaler, I would invest in a professional calibration (try http://www.lionav.com) which will help with your glowing black bars.

 

[Cees Alons]

This isn't a Blu-ray review! It's a review of a downgraded Blu-ray product.

Let me see. First you let the player "average" the pixels to 480/1080 = 0.444 of the original pixel content (assuming that at 480p your player doesn't reduce the horizontal resolution as well).

Then you throw away approx. 25% of the rest, by zooming the sides out of your image. That leaves you with no more than 0.75 x 0.444 = 0.333 of the original image picture content.

So you pay for a full Blu-ray movie, and choose to watch no more than a processed (blurred averaged) one third of it.

When paying for a full movie, I myself would have preferred to see ALL of the film, whether I was using all pixels of my TV-set in the process or not.


Cees

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Reagrdless of how the OP watches his movies, this forum is for the replication of the theater experience in the home. Zooming in order to get rid of the black bars is anathema to the forum Mission Statement and should be discouraged at all costs. No offense, shingdaz, but I believe there are other forums that would find more use for your review.

 

[Adam Barratt]

Is this for real or some sort of late April Fools' Day joke?

Adam

 

[shingdaz]

No this is for real.

I clearly stated that this film surpasses the SD version of the original film even at 480p...1080i is even more spectacullar...my choice to use the zoom function is more a matter of personal taste, regardles of how much image is cut. I still strongly feel that Sony should consider re-work their aspect ratio algorythm in order to better satisfy customers like me.

ATTN: administrator, if you decide to delete my post I will report you to who your supperiors are. And explain to them you did not inform me of a technical nature that is required in discussions on this forum. The forums statment clearly states no format staments that invite comparisons on both formats...my stament is simply stating my personal opinion on that specific movie, and am not bashing HD owners of Blue-Ray owners since I own both formats.

I wanted to test my players ability to handle the Blue-ray formar=t and chose t he Fifth-Element Blue ray disk to see the general quality of HD content through blue-ray.

 

[Adam Barratt]

This isn't an HD-related issue as such, and certainly not an evaluation of one format's capabilities, but one relating to aspect ratios and the deliberate destruction of a film's artistic integrity. Suggesting that this kind of butchery should be made the defacto practice for future HD media is even harder to swallow. You will be very hard pressed to find anyone here who agrees with your point of view, as we are a 'home theater' forum, not a 'video' forum.

Peter, if an administrator feels that any of your posts warrant deletion you will be free to report your objections to anyone you like. However, making threats doesn't do you any favours. I suggest you drop this subject and move on.

Adam

 

[Cees Alons]

You should read our official Rules and our Mission Statement. We're an OAR forum.

Be glad I didn't close, or even remove your post.
We're here to educate you. If your personal taste is kinky, that still doesn't mean we'll endorse it. Or have to do that.

You bought The Fifth Element for - how much? $20? - and decided to watch only $7 worth of it. Not all of what the makers intended you to see. It's your own choice, but we like to point out to you that it's a waste, somehow.

Note that this is about information: we're not forcing you to watch your films one way or another!


Cees

 

[shingdaz]

I appologize for not understanding that this forum holds topics only for individuals with expensive Home Theatre equipment. Since you clearly categorized my purchase of a Blue-Ray movie and undervalued it's value purposly in order to critisize my affordable taste in a movie stating I watched a $7 Blue-ray movie?...which is really more along the llines of $30.

Since the forum also states Blue-Ray DVD owners, I felt responsible in posting a topic concerning Blue-Ray. But I will search for a forum that proper suites the forums topic requirements.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Good choice. There must be a "Screen Fillers Forum" out there someplace.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

No one mentioned your equipment, just your taste in watching a HD film downconverted and streched. We have a lot of members who have gear that is not as good as you, they just maximize the potential of the gear they have, unlike you.

 

[shingdaz]

As strange as my opinion may seem, it is more practial to watch HD movies in that way, attempting to watch it as a 1:25:1 aspect ratio would require me to purchase a larger set 42"-50"...where I can then say I would enjoy watching it at that aspect ratio somewhat...my TV. is too small to comfortably view any movie at that aspect raio regardless of lost information...which is not to significant.

Although my tiny LCD will not allow me to fully visually capture the original film content in its original format without straining my eyes...I can still say I enjoyed the movie @ 480p zoomed.

I also have to mention that the uncomrpessed PCM audio was also impressive...and I found that when switching between Bit-Rate and PCM output from my player...the bit-rate audio made the vocal / speech louder thorugh the center channel severly requiring you to lower the overall volume of the center channel, it was too localized with tons of peaky mid-band frequency projection...when switching over to PCM~(uncompressed for that matter), the vocals had a larger sound to them and disappeared in the fore-ground blending in more coherently with the rest of the sound.

 

[Cees Alons]

Peter,

In my post #7, I explained why you are effectively only enjoying 1/3rd of the Blu-ray video. That's why I said later that you "use" only a $7 worth of a $20 release.

Nothing about your equipment (or ours).


Cees

 

[Douglas Monce]

It really has nothing to do with the equipment that you have, but rather trying to reproduce the theatrical experience as closely as possible with in the limitations of that equipment. If your monitor is properly calibrated, the black bars should not glow no matter how dark your room is. By the way your room should not be completely dark unless you are viewing a front projection screen.

I used to have a little 13inch RGB monitor and would frequently watch 2.35:1 aspect ratio films on. The composition of people and objects with in the frame is so important to the story telling that, in my opinion, seeing the whole frame is much preferable in spite of any detail that might be lost.

Even now I watch 2.35:1 films on my portable DVD player with an 8 inch screen.

Doug

 

[shingdaz]

It's funny because when zooming for a DVD from my TV it doesn't cut much of the picture out...but when I use zoom for SD cable etc...it can occassionlly cut heads off on some camera shots of live TV and a whole bunch of other stuff...it's really really bad...but I don't enjoy watching SD with the images flattened either since my TV might not have the hardware to properly convert it properly so it's not as squished...then again I havn't seen another HD tv to make comparisons.

I'm very picky when watching movies, just because I'm watching it on HD doesn't mean I'm sitting there more enthused about the picture quality than the story line...since the original image distracts me from enjoying the story dialogue and everything else I zoom it so my entire focus is the general movie itself... since switching to LCD I get 1 or 2 DVD movies from my collection I own that can look very poorly played back on it...Fifth Element was an attempt to test the Blue-Ray visual quality of my player...and also help improve the play-back of the movie itself since the SD DVD version had some issues in it during some scenes...I don't know if it's me but its seems that some scene's on the SD DVD copy played back near perfectly on my LCD and other scenes lacked the consistent depth you sorta need when watching it through an LCD or plasma etc...it's almost as if the DVD editors increased the bandwidth of the signal for some scene's and cut it for others in order to save memory or somthing, but I dunno how they go about doing that sort of stuff...but again I did get some interlacing issues and ghosting / motion blur during fast moving scene's.

 

[Alf S]

It's a shame there is so much in-fighting over what is basically IMO an incredibly shitty/lame "Z" grade sci fi movie....