The Fifth Element: Blue Ray Review

shingdaz · 08-18-2007, 09:00 AM

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 · 08-18-2007, 10:20 AM

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 · 08-18-2007, 10:36 AM

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 · 08-18-2007, 01:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

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 · 08-18-2007, 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

**HTF Ads**

Adam Gregorich · 08-18-2007, 02:36 PM

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 · 08-18-2007, 07:33 PM

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 · 08-18-2007, 08:05 PM

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 · 08-18-2007, 08:44 PM

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

Adam