Attention Blu-ray Newbies: Post Your Observations Here

I finally went Blu after I convinced myself early on that DVD was enough for me. I was one of those non-believers with a massive DVD library but I wasn't in complete denial - I knew Blu-ray offered better PQ (for the most part) and that someday I would buy a player. I got my first Plasma TV (720p) in August and just picked up a Panasonic Blu-ray player and four discs (Road Warrior, Unforgiven, Night of the Creeps and Hardware). I wish I hadn't waited this long to join the club. Even on a 720p set the picture is incredible. Now I find myself looking up reviews for movies I plan on upgrading to BR on an almost feverish level - it feels just like it felt when DVD first arrived. I want to share a few thoughts with everyone on this subject and I'm hoping all you newbies (or recent converts) will post your observations as well.


1. It looks like the best Blu-rays on the market today are from Sony and Universal, based on reviews. No surprise since Sony practically invented the format. I'm looking forward to picking up some of the movies Sony neglected on DVD, like Starman and The Deep since those have gotten great reviews. I'm a horror fanatic first and foremost so I can't wait to get my hands on The Thing (1982) which has also gotten rave reviews, except in the extras department. Now, I used to bitch and moan whenever a studio would release a no-frills package (remember when scene selections and interactive menus were considered extras?). Today I'm like, forget the stupid EPKs and trivia games and just give me the best possible transfer. Nobody produces top-notch feature-length docs anymore so its pointless to hold out for an "Ultimate Edition" . Its the movie I want. Extras are nice but not necessary for every release.

2. Fox's 80's output have been poorly represented on Blu (based on reviews) and some MGM titles haven't been all they can be, PQ-wise. This is one scenario where waiting for a better release makes sense. It's foolish to assume that because its Blu-ray, the quality will be automatically high. The disc will only be as good as the source material so if the studio lacks the funds (or desire) to clean up the masters you'll end up with a disc that you'll have to double-dip for later. Predator and The Fly will have to wait. Thankfully I already have excellent DVDs of those movies to tide me over until these guys get their act together. MGM is in financial trouble so I don't expect them to prioritize quailty over profits.

3. Blu-rays are more expensive than DVDs which was always a problem for me until I discovered that I can buy some of them really cheap online. Amazon has 2001: A Space Odyssey for $10 whereas I've seen it in stores for up to double that. One of my biggest concerns was thinking how expensive it was going to be converting everything in my collection to Blu but it has become apparent to me that it won't be a problem. I'll take everything on a case-by-case basis and only upgrade those titles I consider to be of extreme entertainment value to me (like James Bond, most of Spielberg's output and some horror flicks) 

4. Whenever possible I'm going to dump those ugly blue boxes the discs come in and store them in the old DVD cases. I really dislike that packaging choice; I'm guess I could shelve them separately but space is limited. They just don't look good lumped together with the DVDs. Criterion is the only studio using regular (albeit smaller-sized) boxes for Blu-rays.

 
Edited by Luisito34 - 10/28/09 at 5:18am

Hehheh...  Like many others, been there, done that... so guess I can no longer be considered "newbie",  but I'll offer a comment on this particular matter anyhow.

Don't kid yourself.  Since by your own admission this is feeling a lot like your jump into DVD way back when, you just might find yourself upgrading and buying many more BDs than you currently expect -- I know I have so far, especially w/ all the sales that can be found (as you've noted).   Like many, you just might find yourself becoming less and less satisfied w/ the old DVD collection -- you *might* actually end up w/ a smaller overall collection (by becoming more selective), but you're also quite likely to upgrade (and/or simply buy new) more than just those titles that offer "extreme entertainment value" to you.

Regardless, have a blast!

_Man_

welcome to the club luisito!!!

i took a completely different route =). i've been waiting for hi-def (either HD DVD or BD) since it was hinted at in the early 90s. it's taken nearly 20 years... but it's finally here!!!! i skipped collecting VHS, LD, DVDs and just wanted hi-def =).

back when both formats were still around there was a lot of buy 1 get 1 free sales =). i built most of my collection from there. nowadays i wait for a disc to be $10-13delivered or less before buying. if you think there ain't deals, just you wait til black Friday sale!!!! you will see MANY deals on line! no need to wait in the store@all.

as for studio, it's a hit and miss, it's all dependent on film source (real film or digitally recorded masters). obviously, brand new films have the benefit of just being made, so brand new releases are no brainers... especially pixar blu-rays. they are great stories and reference blu-rays since it's digital =). for catalog releases, Criterion has been incredible =). WB is also very good w/older catalog movies when they dont use excessive DNR and lossy audio.

my fav. studio for AUDIO soundtrack portion is Fox by far. because no matter what movies, they basically just throw a DTS-HD MA track no matter what, lol. it's very awesome =).

Thank you Man-Fai Wong and JediFonger for your replies. I was shopping for Blu-rays at Best Buy and experienced what can only be described as sticker shock. I walked out with only two titles: Total Recall and Cast Away. They were both priced at $19.99 but were on sale (unadvertised, I guess) so I didn't feel too bad. I was, however, disappointed at the picture quality of both discs, especially Total Recall. I didn't feel like I was watching a Blu-ray - the graphics on the menus looked better than the movie! I also don't like the fact that I'm going to have to keep the old DVD for the extras. I'm hoping these anomalies are just the growing pains of a new format, sort of a "first-wave glitch" that will improve over time otherwise I'm not going to have to worry about upgrading my DVDs.

Luis,

You should check out the current BB sale (visible online, but can arrange in-store pickup in most cases) -- don't try to shop strictly locally at BB as the B&M stores tend to be pretty bad w/ listing actual sale prices (as you found out).  Amazon has also been pretty busy pricematching BB's sale prices the last couple days.

You can get some recently released titles like Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, Misery, etc. for ~$14 -- and they also have preorders for Mask of Zorro and Leon The Professional for that price.  Quality on those should be very good.

Most BDs released in the last couple years, especially new day-and-date releases, are very good though it's generally good practice to check out some reviews first before buying -- Sony's own BD titles are very consistently good though, so you should be pretty safe w/out a review for them (unless you happen to buy their first/pre-remastered version of The Fifth Element or similar).  At least you didn't also pick up the old Stargate BD to go w/ Total Recall -- just as the new version came out w/ what sounds like very good PQ/AQ (and some issues fixed).

And look out for plenty of sales in the coming month or so as we hit the holiday shopping season.

Enjoy!

_Man_

I am about a year into my entry to BD. As you have discovered, Amazon is your best friend for lower prices on titles. I am up to approximately 150 BD titles, and almost all were purchased through Amazon.

I have been trying to be selective in which titles I upgrade, since I had about 1,100 SD-DVD titles when I started with BD. Since then, my overall collection number has not gone up much, as I have been weeding out some clunker SD-DVD titles when I've been selling or giving away my upgraded titles, too. I am being more selective in what I purchase, though, and have begun renting again (something I never did with SD-DVD). In some cases, I have decided that the SD-DVD I currently own is "good enough", since I cannot possibly afford to upgrade every title.

Personally, I prefer the BD cases over the SD-DVD cases, as they take up less shelf space. With 1,100 titles, anything that can reduce my storage space requirements is welcome.

I've been on the BD bandwagon for about 6 months now, but still pick up HD DVDs @ fire sale prices if and when I can. So far, I've only run into one bum disc (The Dark Knight) which I was easily able to exchange. Personally, I love the format and have been rebuying more titles that I had on DVD than I originally wanted to. I prefer the cases to DVD cases, since they do take up a lot less shelf space and are equally sturdy (eco-boxes notwithstanding). Animation in particular is a real revelation in this format and the sound is exceptional.

I have been collecting blurays for a while. over 2 years. I wanted to respond about the fly remake bluray. I own it.. it looks fine. I have a pretty nice little set up. the bluray includes all the extras from the 2 disc set and also a couple of other items. unlike some fox titles where they have no extras and only are the movie.

there was a bit of a problem with the fly disc in the beginnng with the DTS bomb. if you have a proper receiver that bitstreams you might need to look into it. its pretty simple to update.

Jacob

like we said... wait for black friday or just shop smart ;).

example: rocky 1-6 boxset is on amz for $9 per movie. star trek tos s3 BD is $55, etc. those are great deals =).

Scott Merryfield & Stephen JH - funny you should say you prefer the Blu-ray cases over the DVD because they take up less space. True, except that most Blu-rays don't port over all the extras so you're stuck with the same movie on two different formats if you want a definitive version, effectively DECREASING shelf space even further!  I'm going to go out on a limb by saying the cases should be bigger, for those of us who appreciate original artwork.

What I usualy do is get a two disc blu case and put both the blu and dvd in the same case. Fox has done that with tiles like Donnie Darko and The Graduate (the movie on blu and the extras on dvd).

In my case, I am not that concerned about extra features -- it's all about the films for me. I do not keep any SD-DVD that I upgrade to BD, regardless of the differences in special features. I rarely watch all the special features on "special editions", anyway. Heck, I've still never gone through all the features on the Lord of the Rings special edition DVD's, and I've owned those discs since they were first released and absolutely love the films.

I like blu cases because they are smaller, too. The smaller the case the better.  Shelf space is too valuable. 

In fact, HERE'S an entire thread in the SD Software subforum on slimmer cases.  There are a bunch of us on the forum who have downsized our collections into smaller cases.  If you look at the last dozen pages or so you'll see all kinds of pictures of different ideas.  Some people scan covers and print them with smaller spines, others (like me) actually trim the original art for it to fit into the smaller cases.

One thing that I think gets overlooked is that while, of course, the higher resolution makes for a more detailed picture, what's really as important is the higher bitrate, and thus less MPEG compression artifacts.  It has always perplexed me that people yell and scream about low bitrate audio when there is a marginal increase (if any, sorry) in quality as the bitrate goes beyond a certain point, but low bitrate video is horrible and obvious, especially on a big screen.  Honestly, if you threw the blu-ray bitrate at 480p resolution material, it would look WAY better than DVD, especially for discs that cram 3+ hours on a single disc (take, for example, the Star Trek TNG sets... MPEG artifacts galore).  So yes, even at "just" 720p, there is a gigantic improvement.

I'm a relative newbie myself, and 10 out of the 15 titles I've purchased so far are upgrades to titles I already owned (something I didn't think I would do much of until I started getting used to Blu Ray).

You might want to get the UK edition of The Thing, which includes the extras missing from the American version (on a BD-50 disc).

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I used to care more about the extras too, but yeah, I too have gradually adopted a similar mindset as Scott.  I mean I'd want the extras, if all else is equal, but most of the time, the extras aren't really dealbreakers -- and I too have never sat thru all the LotR extras either on my EE DVDs (and I also rarely ever listen to an entire feature-length commentary track although I may choose to listen to small sections here and there, if I'm curious about some particular scene, etc.).

Of course, the quality (and rewatchability) of extras can vary a lot, so there may be some I'd still really want, but most aren't really that big a deal.  I mean some folks seem to feel strongly about stuff like trailers, but I personally don't miss them myself -- and of course, plenty of folks also hate to actually see trailers being started automatically (even if they usually can be skipped w/ a few button presses).

_Man_

that's not always true. if you take a DVD that is already 5Mbps or 8+ and make it 20Mbps it won't "make it look better" because you are still stuck w/480p resolution. ofc, if you bitrate STARVE it that's another story, that is why Superbit was there. and while that is good notion, the MPEG-2 compression technology has gotten so good it essentially renders that entire argument ineffective because you can get great compression w/MPEG-2 using VBR encoding (without entirely starving the content).

re: Blu-Rays, it depends on material. if it's CG, they are encoding it directly from computer files, so you don't need a lot of bitrate to achieve a great look. Happy Feet for example is roughly 16GB@close to DVD bitrates 10-20Mbps. it looks dazzling! for regular live action films,  it's all about the original film negative, a pristine source like King Kong extended is almost 3 hrs i think and fits snugly on BD50, though even the HD DVD's 30GB was enough =). but if you have a crappy video source (like face/off), it won't matter what you do w/it on BD. thus, video PQ is heavily dependent on source material and how it is stored and filtered(or not) like DNR/edge enhancement. Criterion is really setting the standard for how films should look =).

for audio on the other hand, when you increase bitrate to lossless realms, you can definitely hear a huge diff.

w/star trek TNG sets there is no extras (yes i know about those bonus features, but practically speaking, they don't take up a lot of space, it's mostly still the TV content), the problem is the the ORIGINAL masters (including visual fx) were intended for NTSC TV broadcast (before ATSC HDTV's) and it was BEFORE DVDs, thus they didn't concern themselves w/mastering it for any better quality. they just needed to lock down the final edit of all the episodes just in time for broadcast. paramount didn't want to spend $ on remastering it, they just "dumped it" on consumers essentially. for them, it's instant profit.

i have roughly 300+ BDs now. most of it is disappointing because the original film source wasn't maintained properly and that is why the BD suffers. it has nothing to do w/the technology of either DVD or Blu-Ray, it has to do w/how the masters of the tv/movie content is stored and how studios wishes to treat them. you can go from really high quality ROYAL treatment like the James Bond series (both DVD and Blu-Rays) using Lowry Digitial (DTS LDI now) or for TV: star trek TOS s1-3 (complete film negative remaster and EVEN CG upgrade! by CBS).

I'm a huge James Bond fan but am a bit on the fence about buying any of the recent Blu's. I know they recently underwent an extensive restoration but I think I'll hold off on the Blu-rays until MGM is in better financial shape. There has to be an eventual box set with all the films - I just don't like the three-movies-per box thing, especially since one of them contains the abominable Die Another Day. I'm very happy with the current DVDs and they'll do for now. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I'm NOT a huge Star Trek buff but I do enjoy the films and I've got all of them on DVD. Paramount did a great job with the DVDs but upon inspecting the Blu versions it seems they didn't port over all the extras. This is a scenario where I won't be inclined to upgrade all the Trek films to Blu primarily because I would feel cheated if they don't port everything over. To me, PQ isn't everything. You have to give me a good reason why I should re-buy the same movie. Higher resolution alone just won't cut it.

This is an HD sub-forum, which kind of implies "higher resolution" in both audio and video, and is why we're here. If you expect more extras on BDs of movies you already have on DVD, for the most part you'll be disappointed. Often we get less extras, which annoys some of us because then we "have" to keep the DVD too.

That said, I did re-buy the Bonds on BD when they were clearing them out locally for $10 each. They do look pretty good. I don't know if it's surprising or not, but I might say it's the older Bonds that benefited most from the HD transfer on BD, the last DVDs were quite decent-looking for the newer stuff and had plenty of extras.

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While all true, I know MPEG artifacts when I see them and the TNG sets are full of them.  So while they may not gain resolution from a BD release, they could crank up the bitrate with the new codecs and there would be a giant leap in quality, I am sure of it.

Not that I would buy them again, I paid through the nose for the original DVD's and there's no way I'm rebuying the series.  Movies?  Sure... 7 seasons of TV?  Meh.  Heck, I still have the original 40 volume version of TOS and don't plan on upgrading, ever.