Blu-ray Review HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Batman Begins (1 Viewer)

[TonyD]

the lenticualr is exactly the same as the one on the previous sd dvd special edition.

 

[Dave H]

Nice review, Michael.

I'd like to hear RAH's thoughts on whether this title has been DNR'd at all.

Either way I'm having it shipped out to me as it should be a clear improvement over the DVD I used to have.

 

[Tim Glover]

Nice review.

 

[JoshB]

Been waiting for this one.

 

[taco]

I'll pick up the deluxe version. Can the $7.50 ticket be used for Imax and pay the difference?

 

[Tim Glover]

I don't think the "special engagement" IMAX screenings will accept any voucher but you never know?

 

[DVDvision]

I don't get it 4.5 on the video ? I thought it was pretty well etablished that this transfert (same as the HD-DVD) is highly filtered with no more than 720p level detail. The encoding seems low also.

 

[Jari K]

Me too. " Limited Edition Blu-Ray Gift Set" for me, thank you very much.

 

[Sam Davatchi]

Are the 2 BD discs on the 2 sets identical?

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

As far as Robert Harris' view of the transfer, he assessed it very positively in this thread.

 

[Travis Brashear]

Ah, but--correct me if I'm wrong--the footage from this 2nd DVD is included on the Blu-ray disc proper.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Umm...you are wrong. The Blu-Ray has "The Dark Night Prologue" which is the six minute or so action sequence from the beginning of the film. The Sneak Peek on the bonus DVD of the SD Gift Set is essentially a two minute and sixteen second alternate trailer. It does give the first public glimpse of the Two-Face make-up, but it is fleeting - just a cheek and jaw from over the shoulder.

Regards,

 

[Ron Reda]

The prologue looked pretty sweet to me aside from the slight pillarbox presentation that I assume is from the IMAX format.

 

[Carlo_M]

I'm a little disappointed in the transfer. Maybe the softness I'm seeing is the way it was shot (only saw it in the theater twice, when it came out) but I don't think so. It's not any one scene, it's the whole movie, doesn't look as sharp as many contemporary films on BD (yes I know each movie is shot differently). But in comparison the Dark Knight prologue looks way better than Batman Begins. Is that because it was shot so differently? Or does it reveal the weakness of an early HD transfer (like early DVD transfers didn't look as good as current DVD transfers). I understand this was a port of the HD-DVD, right? It's VC-1 encoding and hovers under 20MBps for most of the movie.

Anyone else feel the same?

 

[Zack Gibbs]

I can't speak to to the softness of the movie (it looked ok to me), but all of the Prologue's scenes were taken from the portions filmed with the IMAX cameras, which are 70mm. So I would expect it to look better.

 

[Ron Reda]

It's been a while since I've checked out the BB HD DVD, but this looks pretty good to me from what I've seen skipping around the scenes.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

An IMAX frame is twice the size of a 70mm frame. I would expect it to look dramatically better than 35mm when projected at native resolution, but not expect to see a huge difference at 1080p on a 100" screen.

Regards,

 

[Ron Reda]

FWIW, High Def Digest didn't seem to have any issue with the transfer:

Blu-ray Review: Batman Begins | High-Def Digest

 

[Dave H]

My copy shipped out last Friday and will hopefully be here soon - I'm anxious to watch it. I had watched it previously on HD DVD, but that was on my older set-up and display (CRT RPTV). At the time I thought it looked slightly soft, but still decent. According to an old insider (cjplay) at AVS, he said to the effect the softness was in the actual master and not encode.

I'm curious how it will look on my BD30 and SXRD 60A3000 at 1080p/24. I'll post my thoughts after I see it (for what it's worth).

 

[Travis Brashear]

My mistake. I was apparently misinformed (but tickled pink that the DARK KNIGHT prologue isn't less than three minutes).