Can't Whip up enthusiam for Blu Ray - Page 7

I just watched The Longest Day on BD with my teenage son over the weekend and, though I've read a few technical complaints about the BD, I thought it looked fantastic. It just really enhanced my experience of seeing the film again after the ... longest time. (But Richard Burton's skin is definitely not suited for BD.)

I've been hemming and hawing on upgrading that movie -- I hate the overprocessing but my old (non-anamorphic) DVD of it is literally unwatchable.  When I find a copy for under $10 I'll probably bite the bullet.

I upgraded to the BD version so I could replace the old DVD version.  This has always been one of my favorite WW II movies, so I was very happy when it became available on BD.  I finally purchased a BD player over the Christmas holidays when the prices of the players dropped so severely.

I bought a few BD's of recent films I like; King Kong, I Am Legend, & Serenity. They all seemed to get 10/10 for image everywhere, & they all looked great (on my 42" plasma), but....the DVD's looked pretty damn good as well. I certanly don't think I'm looking at a second class product when I view a DVD. So I'm thinking I'll buy BD of any new film I want (not many of those). I'll buy The Wolfman as the BD, packed with all those extras looks good (but when it comes down in price a bit) & old favorite movies as they're released (& not many of those coming out). I just don't find the difference that vast. I'm sure it would be different if I was projecting the image on a large screen.

Serenity

a great Blu-Ray experience, especially the big battle between the Alliance and Serentity / the Reavers


today, I picked up a Blu-Ray steelbook copy of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", in A1 condition, from an exchange store in London (UK) for only GBP £8

bargain!

Not necessarily. I sit 14' back from a 92" projected screen and I agree with your sentiments. When the movie starts I am generally impressed with both video and sound improvements. However, once I get engaged into a good film the content takes over.

So like you, I buy new movie content on BR and have replaced a few older titles, but for the most part I can enjoy my existing DVD content just fine. For TV shows, I am generally stick with DVD.

I agree, but I have gained appreciation to some movies when I got to watch them on Blu-ray. Sleeping Beauty, for example. Although, to be fair, I only saw that before in a panned and scanned version, and that simply hurts the movie. So, I think you can compare it to pan & scan. A great movie will still be great, but seeing it how it's intended adds so much it, that it almost makes it better.

A few quotes from James Finn one of our Fox insiders about how BD is doing.  The first is BD in general, the second is specific to Avatar.




I was also talking to someone at Paramount, and approx 20% of the African Queen sales were on BD.  They were very pleased with that number. 

Although I agree that the quality of the film itself is by far the most important thing (short of PQ that's truly unwatchable), I don't think your choice of screen-size-to-viewing-distance ratio is quite *THAT* big though.  Indeed, it's actually a very slight bit smaller than the ratio of my own setup at ~9ft from 61" -- and neither one actually pushes the limits of 1080p resolution for someone w/ 20/20 vision (or worse).  At that size (of 92"), I probably would've gone for ~12ft distance (both for the more immersive viewing angle w/out going overboard for my own pref and the full use of 1080p res).

Also, I don't think one can really divorce the image itself from the so called "content" although all films do not make the same use of cinematography, et al. to be impacted equally by the final PQ as presented.

But yeah, YMMV to a wide degree depending on one's prefs, inclinations, circumstance, etc.

_Man_

Point taken. My setup does not push the limits ratio wise but I was responding to a post from someone that watches a 42" screen. Now I probably should have asked whether they watched closer then 6' away. My point being that I believe most watch from probably a ratio of 2.0 or higher, in which case my experience is that while BR is nice I can understand why many may not be overly wow'ed by the experience. At least not enough to ditch DVD or feel compelled to replace very much of what they already own on DVD.

Now when I built my setup in 2003 I was taking many things into consideration to end up at that seating distance. Would I have changed it to be closer if I built it with BR in mind, possibly. Especially, since back then I had a higher priority for video quality. But my viewing habits have changed much since then. I've developed a much greater appreciation for older movies and TV titles that don't get the max treatment. As a result, I have a greater mix of video quality output in my collection then I ever would have forecast back then.

So while I could move closer to get what some would consider a more immersive experience or to better take advantage of BR 1080p output, I actually prefer not to because it would deter my enjoyment of many other titles that do not share the same benefits. My setup provides me with a happy middle ground (still close enough to be immersive for me but not too close to limit what I can watch).

I do think each has their own perspective on how much video and audio quality improves or deters one's ability to enjoy the content. And I believe this perspective can vary greater within individuals. I've seen plenty of posts where someone with a much greater viewing ratio then my own will state that they can't watch DVD's at all anymore ever since watching BR. That the lower quality of SD now ruins the experience. While I enjoy the BR titles I have, I also enjoy many Mill Creek TV sets that are a far cry from BR in quality. I very much enjoyed watching the new BR of the African Queen the other night (they did an excellent job restoring it), but then again I always enjoyed watching my old R2 version of the African Queen as well.

I sit about 6' away from my 42" plasma. I live in a small cottage & I thought the telly was too big when I first bought it, but it doesn't take long to get used to it, & a week later I wished I'd got a 50"! I'm very fussy, I was a colour grader (or as you call it a timer) in a film lab for 21 years, & for the past 20 years have been a telecine colourist. VHS to DVD was a vast improvement, DVD to BD much less so. I can view a BD film followed by a DVD film & enjoy both, which I'm very happy about, as I'm first & formost a film fan, & 1/ I just can't afford to double dip every title I have as they come out on BD & 2/ I fear most of the movies I have will never make it to Blu-ray. This really is a fantastic time to be a tired old film fan!

Same here. That 42" plasma actually looked too big when I saw it for the first time in my room, but you get used to it frighteningly fast.

 I sit 7.5 feet from my 64 inch screen and the only reason I don't sit closer is because I have 720p projector for it.  When I get to 1080p, I'll be at least a foot closer.

I wonder what level of HD market penetration the UK has? does anyone know?

in my circle of friends and work colleagues, I only know 1 other person with a HD setup, and he is running a PS3 primarily because he likes gaming, but has recently developed an appreciation for Blu-Ray movie viewing, I've lent him some titles and bought him "ghostbusters" on Blu for Christmas

no one else I know of, has seen any need or desire to invest in HD, is this limited to my social circle, or is this a common *problem*?

do you have to be a movie *buff* to even care about HD?

I hoped and I'm sure many other did also that with studios having 10 years of experience with encoding DVDs that HD would not go through the same initial growing pains DVD did with studios using very substandard source material and also badly encoding them so they were well below the 350K pixel DVD resolution.  Unfortunately that is not the case.  Now overall there are not nearly as many terrible HD transfers as there were bad DVD transfers in the beginning but there are still plenty of movies on Blu-ray that used an old master that while technically better than DVD is simply are not up to what Blu-ray can handle.

Like it or not, Blu-ray is a 2M pixel format and that is the gold standard.  Sure recent movies have the full 2M resolution, assuming the original film was shot at that level of detail. However many catalog titles do not and it is clear that the source was not mastered at the level of what was on the original film and end up on Blu-ray as effectively 600p-700p.  If HD simply means "better than DVD", just how much enthusiasm can be whipped up when the Blu-ray only has double the DVD's resolution and it should have been legitimately six times?  You combine that with a typical HD TV of 42" to 58" and seating at 10' back and Blu-ray doesn't look that much better than DVD and people normally watch the movie for its story and entertainment value, not pixel count.

We just rented the original Clash of the Titans DVD.  During the effects shots the quality dropped significantly and when it went back to normal live action with no special effects the quality jumped so much it suddenly seemed like HD.  I haven't seen the Blu-ray version of the movie but how much better can it be when many of the shots are clearly not up to even DVD resolution?

Blu-ray and HD-DVD set the bar at 1080p.  That is the level of quality I want from any movie on that format or to the limits of the original film elements if 1080p is higher resolution than originally recorded.  Anything less and I will wait for the next attempt at a remastered release unless I don't have the film on DVD already and the price is close to the DVD price.

thanks for the info! I always learn more technical stuff when I come onto this forum :)


I watched Mel Gibson's "We were soldiers" on Blu-Ray last night, and felt disappointed with the PQ compared to my DVD copy which my Blu-Ray will automatically up-scale

overall, the Blu-Ray felt limited in terms of resolution (textures and detail), brightness (it was quite murky) and lacked a "vivid" quality

perhaps a sub-standard transfer? or maybe I was just expecting too much?

 My HD DVD of We Were Soldiers… easily bests my SD DVD copy--perhaps it was a matter of expectations?  (viewed on my 64 inch screen with 720p projection from Sony AW15)

If I remember correctly We Were Soldiers came out when Paramount was doing different encodes for the two different formats so there might be differences between the BD and HD DVD.

Guess again:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/forum/thread/299809/criterion-releasing-malicks-the-thin-red-line

I dont agree at all with the comments about the difference between BR and SD DVD being minimal.

Of course not all Blurays have the same great PQ, but on my Sony CRT,some of my BRs flat out destroy the SD versions IMHO.

One difference is Im a bit more patient now. When a movie I wanted came out on DVD I usually would get it release day.

Money is a bit tighter right now and the releases are coming slowly, but I no longer feel the need to own that new release on the day it comes out. I pick it up whatI can whenever I can. And if I have to wait a bit, I simply wait.

Guess again:

thanks Michael, that has made my day!!

awesome news :)

even more relevant now I am watching "The Pacific" and the first two episodes are based on Guadancal, which "The Thin Red Line" is all about, in terms of the actual location for the fighting in the film



I dont agree at all with the comments about the difference between BR and SD DVD being minimal.

to clarify my comment:

some of my BR collection (114 movies to date) is "night and day" PQ different to my SD DVD copies of the same movies, when the double dip of buying the BR after already owning the SD DVD copy of the same film, has been more than justified

and other BR discs have not been so good in terms of PQ, making the expenditure of a double dip, an empty venture - Stallone's "First Blood" being one of the worst offenders in this regard, from my collection

Technically speaking, I could probably say that all the BR's I own (that I have watched so far) are very much superior to their DVD counterparts in video and audio quality. So in that regard I suppose I could agree that they (BR's) "flat out destroy" them (DVD's).

But, is that the best way to judge the differences? For example, say I could equate my enjoyment of watching the latest Star Trek movie for the very first time on DVD vs. BR. Not just one after the other comparing the technical differences but as if I only watched one or the other. Would my reactions after the movie be that different between the formats without a direct comparison? For myself, I think possible a little based on the extra detail and audio expereince, but not in "flat out destroys" terms. For the most part I would have either enjoyed (or not) the movie equally based on its content.

Now the latest Star Trek DVD and BR are closer in comparison. So take African Queen as an example that I have seen many times. The latest BR technically does blow away my old R2 DVD technically. So did watching the new BR release change anything? I would say it added a bit of new life to the experience, but all in all I've always enjoyed watching it, even with my questionable old R2 release.

So while I will agree that from a technical perspective I understand the use of terms like "blown away". However, from an overall enjoyment perspective I find that BR can add something to the experience but (for me at least) not in such dramatic terms. That is why I plan on buying new movie releases in BR but very few double dips of existing DVD's. I'd rather focus on new content.

Of course Blu-ray is better than DVD. Just how much better (& whether or not it's worth updating) should be judged on a title by title basis. I'd like to compare older titles, but they're being released at such a s-l-o-w rate that I'm in danger of losing interest. As I've stated I'll be buying BD of new movies, but I don't buy many of those, &.....HD or SD I don't much like the DI look of new movies, with their flat pictures & green where grays should be. Does anyone remember how movies used to look, with rounded images & rich colour.