Early DVD Titles that do not look good on High Def displays (1 Viewer)

[Greg_M]

I've been watching a lot of DVDs on my High Def SONY Bravia and Pioneer Plasma sets and many look great - some even better than many blu-ray discs.

Last night I put on "Mister Roberts" Hnery Fonda/James Cagney/Jack Lemmon/William Powell and it looked - really bad, this disc was beyond bad. It was one of the early WB titles to come out on DVD and was recently issued in a Snap case with new art - but the disc is still the old version. It looked very good on standard TV but not High Def.
A Blu-ray would definately be in order

While other titles look so good, I don't think I need to upgrade many. Some titles weren't mastered for 16:9 but even so they look good.


Anything else that looks pretty bad that the Studios should consider upgrading to Blu-ray

 

[MLamarre]

2 Connery titles... Outland and The Man Who Would Be King

 

[cineMANIAC]

Alice, Sweet Alice
The Journey of Natty Gann
Fright Night Part II
Runaway Train
Scanners
Motel Hell
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
Death Becomes Her
Iceman


Off the top of my head these are barely watchable on my 50" Plasma and desperately need new re-issues

 

[RickER]

Outland looked bad before i even had an HD display!

I thought Lifeforce looked pretty bad on my 52" Sony LCD. Most non anamorphic DVDs look bad on a bigger screen. The Abyss being a rare exception. My Blu-ray player, or TV, even zoom it in for me by it self, so its not window boxed, on all 4 sides! Not saying The Abyss is Blu-ray quality, just that for what it is, it looked better than i thought it would.

I cannot think of a Blu-ray that I own, that looks worse than the DVD. I know the old Gangs of New York is such a disc, or so i hear, but i do not own it.

 

[Dick]

EXODUS. I so hope Sony will revisit this.
VON RYAN'S EXPRESS. The first release was way too dark and lacking detail, the more recent 2-disc special edition is not sharp - practically blurry.
THE MAGIC SWORD. Way-y-y- soft, which is too bad, because color and contrast are good.
Almost any of the MGM United Artists titles that were released in their correct 1.66:1 ratio but without anamorphic enhancement.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Many, if not most, early releases used laserdisc transfers, so they wouldn't look great compared to today's standards.