What Blu-ray discs do you consider as "Reference Video Quality" (1 Viewer)

[rwbest]

"Cars" looks fantastic.
Good call on Tremors HD-DVD!

 

[rwbest]

I hope that the North-by-Northwest blu-ray will be reference quality.
The DVD is one of the cleanest DVD's I've ever seen.

 

[rwbest]

I know this thread is about the best looking BD's but I have to comment on Donnie Darko,
the BD image quality is awful on the extended version. My old DVD may have looked better.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Maybe it'd be more useful to run a thread to point out the BDs w/ awful PQ to avoid -- and hopefully, get the studios to redo them properly sooner rather than later.

_Man_

 

[FoxyMulder]

While The Searchers generally looks film like and generally is good it does have one aspect to it that stops it being a reference transfer in my opinion and that is edge enhancement. Look at the gorgeous backgrounds in that film and it's clearly there. There is ringing in a number of scenes which do detract from the overall viewing experience.

I should say my display is 103 inches ( i lost 3 inches after redoing things this week ) and it's calibrated and i use the Oppo Blu Ray player and a Playstation 3 and results are the same. Some edge enhancement which stops this from being the very finest release and stops it being reference.

Now could that ringing be a result of some photochemical restoration or part of the opticals in the original photography ? Could be in which case it will always likely be there but it's still slightly annoying on a large screen.

I always tend to dislike edge enhancement or ringing. For the real fussy out there you should know even transfers like Kung Fu Panda and Shrek have some mild ringing applied. You can see it clearly on large screens around some objects but i don't actually think thats bad at all and it didn't pull me out of the film. In fact i note a number of Dreamworks titles seem to have some mild ringing applied. Not sure if it's in their masters or not but i suspect it is. You don;t find this ringing on Disney/Pixar animated titles so it's probably a Dreamworks issue which i am seeing.

The size of your screen though plays a part in whether you personally think a transfer is reference. I know from personal experience that on a smaller screen you don't think things are bad and you think wow that looks great as i once did when i viewed on a smaller television set with for example Star Wars - The Phantom Menace or Tombstone Vista series release on DVD. I then upgraded to a projection system and suddenly i saw how bad those releases were. I mean i had defended them as being quite good to me but then i upgraded to 100+ inches and suddenly i saw what everyone was complaining about. So screen size does matter for some disc/transfer issues.

I love viewing on a big screen and it's like being at the cinema in your own home but it does have it's drawbacks and that is that you do spot imperfect transfers or issues such as edge enhancement or DNR more easily. Especially edge enhancement/ringing issues.

So whats reference to someone with a 40inch set might not be reference to those of us with 100+ inch projection systems.