Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
I have now had my Blu Ray player for two months (its actually a PS3 because Alison wanted to stream music and photos to the living room) and finally got to compare the same movie as Standard Def DVD and Blu Ray.
My 37" LCD TV is a 'Hi Def ready' set with 1080i instead of the full 1080p but I reasoned that for this screen size you cannot really tell the difference between 1080i and p and I still believe I am right in that.
I have now got the best part of a dozen Blu Ray films and I have been impressed with the sheer clarity and sharpeness of the image. One film did disappoint, Bram Stoker's Dracula just did not seem to benefit from the Hi Def treatment. This led me to wonder:
Is it worth buying older films that were not originally filmed in Hi Def on Blu Ray, would there really be a noticable difference by laying out the extra dosh to make it worthwhile? Should I upgrade my older favourite films?
I found a 3 for 2 offer on Amazon with the Blu Ray movies many costing less than £13 each, some under £10. Among them was my all time favourite film, Zulu, one I already have on DVD. I recently watched this DVD again and was impressed by the quality of the DVD and really did not think a Blu Ray could do any better. The Blu Ray Zulu had some great reviews for filmic quality so I decided to give it a try and ordered it to do a comparison.
Last night I watched sections of the DVD and then the same sections of the Blu Ray.
Wow, what a difference. For the first time on Blu Ray I noticed that the facings on the uniforms of the Welsh regiment were dark green while Stanley Baker's Engineers uniform had blue facings. On the DVD they all looked black (though knowing what to look for you could just make out a greeny tinge around the edges, but Baker's facings still looked black). The clarity and sharpness of the Blu Ray was just stunning and a completely new experience. I then put the DVD back in a second time and after seeing the Blu Ray, what I thought was a great picture previously, just looked soft and dull.
I concluded that a good Blu Ray transfer of older films is certainly worth the extra wedge to upgrade.
Clearly though some films will benefit more from Blu Ray than others so it is best to be choosy about what films to upgrade. And it is certainly true that a lot depends on the quality of the Blu Ray transfer as the Dracula film demonstrates. Best advice, check out reviews on Amazon first. Those films that offer a real spectacle are certainly worth the upgrade but if, for instance, chick flicks are your poison I would not bother, you are just as well served by a DVD.
If you are one of the many who love Zulu, upgrading to Blu Ray is a must, you will not regret shelling out.
PS - so as to show no favouritism, play.com is another good source of Blu Rays worth checking out. There is only one shop in Dover, Blockbusters, where I have found Blu Rays, with a limited range of movies available, typically £2-3 each more than on-line. I have bought from there when I have wanted a film straight away.
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
Interesting post BarryW and you also mentioned one of my all time great movies...Zulu.
Thanks
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 665- Registered: 24 Mar 2008
- Posts: 345
I've just told Rick about this Barry, I am sure he will be on later to give you his view on the questions you ask, this is one of his pet subjects!
Barry, you raise an interesting point and there is an answer. Sort of. Film never used to be filmed in "high def" any more than it is these days. Celluloid film stock is photographic rather than digital - in other words, it is not made of pixels but has an image developed onto it using photosensitive chemicals. The result is that every frame is a true photograph which can be blown-up to large size without much loss of definition. Too big and the image will start to soften, but the development of larger frame sizes (ie from 16mm to 35mm) helped this. These days the new IMAX cameras film onto 75mm frames, massive by any photographic standard and capable of holding a pin-sharp image at almost 28m high! IMAX also has super-fast frame rates which can be as high as 48fps (frames per second) which is twice as fast as the standard cinematic 24fps for smoother motion.
So how does this all fit in with Blu-Ray? Well, because the source material is all "high def" anyway, being stored on photographic celluloid masters, the quality of the transfer is usually down to how good the technology and skill is of the individuals performing the transfers. For example, the old 1978 Superman looks utterly stunning on Blu-Ray, and yet the far more recent Terminator 2 from 1992 looks utterly terrible. Another good example is Escape from New York (1981) which looks awful on Blu-Ray and does the new medium no justice whatsoever.
Over time celluloid prints can deteriorate which is why they tend to be digitally remastered. This remastering is a very expensive time-consuming process in which individual frames are repaired digitally, blemishes removed, images sharpened through digital image filters and so on. It can cost as much as the entire budget of a small movie and take many months of painstaking work but the end result is a fresh, lovely print of the film which will never deteriorate because it is no longer stored only on celluloid but also as high-resolution digital data on hard drives (each frame is scanned at high resolution which is where the "high definition" comes from).
The original print of Escape from New York is probably old and tired by now and without a suitable budget to remaster it properly, it was transferred to Blu-Ray using a special "edge detect" filter which attempted to pick-out and highlight the edges of things. The result is that the movie looks like it is acted by cardboard cut-out people and is possibly one of the worst high-def transfers so far. it looks utterly artificial and crap. Viewing it on DVD is far better.
Blu-Ray as a medium is awesome, when it is done right the results are eye-poppingly fantastic. If you're into audio too then you may have also noticed the rich depth of the uncompressed surround sound is also magnificnet, far better than DVD's compressed audio tracks could ever dream of being. It is also an organic technology that develops as it goes (your PS3 is perfect for this as it downloads all the updates to take advantage of Blu-Ray Live and so on).
What's more, the PS3 and indeed many other digital disk players have pretty good upscaling technology now for DVD playback which has closed the gap between DVD and Blu-Ray. While DVD will never be as good, the upscaling is so good that (in my own humble opinion) it is hardly worth buying all your old faves on Blu-Ray. The DVD playback holds itself together very well even on our giant Bravia.
So to answer your question, no it probably isn't worth buying all your old favourites again provided you keep your PS3 firmware updated and use a good quality HDMI lead (this makes a big difference too - don't ever use a cheap one, use one around £20 - £30 mark for good output). I haven't bought all my old faves again apart from a very few special exceptions.
Blu-Ray does have a few drawbacks, especially on the maximum def of 1080p. The quality of the signal from player to TV is so amazingly good that it can actually affect what you watch. A good example is the slight "drag" you might see on high speed action scenes or the very slight "juddering" on wide shots (ie filmed from a helicopter). While these issues are minimal and hardly noticed, they are things that fussy nerds like me spot immediately. This really happens because of the high quality high frequency playback of the 1080p screen which refreshes at around 60hz/fps (frames per second). But a brand new technology now exists, which sadly is so new that I don't even have it on my telly but the PS3 is already supporting, which can align the refresh rate with that of a proper cinema project's 24 fps. Called "24p" only the very very latest sets have it, and even then only the better ones on the market.
Hi def is in its infancy still and will develop and grow over the next few years, making a lot of modern gear out-of-date at an alarmingly high rate. My TV is already out of date - shocking!! The good thing is that lots of new hardware will require firmware updates to keep it more futureproof and the PS3 is really a shining example of how ALL future hardware will work in this respect.
The other point of course is that cinema will always be a few steps ahead of home systems in order to keep people from staying in and waiting for the DVD releases. IMAX with its giant screens and 7.1 surround sound, the new wave of 3D movies, all things which will keep the home entertainment system firmly in its place as second best.
Phew - cuppa tea now I think! Got steam coming out my ears.
Guest 665- Registered: 24 Mar 2008
- Posts: 345
I think an interesting unintended consequence will be a huge rise in cosmetic surgery amongst actors and a reduction in the demand for ageing actors as high def on a huge tv screen shows up every blemish and wrinkle! Just look at Judi Dench in Casino Royal on Blu Ray!
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Thanks Rick - very interesting information.
I simply can't get over just how Zulu looks on BluRay. If only the give The Battle of Britain the same treatment I will be in seventh heaven!!! What else, The Alamo (John Wayne version naturally), A Bridge too Far and The Great Escape. I will be keeping an eye out for all these. But yes, its certainly is not worth upgrading your whole back catalogue.
Best quality Blu-Ray's I've seen to-date (pic and sound quality only, this isn't about how good the movies are)
The Dark Knight (this is a truly remarkable and exemplary achievement in home entertainment - amazing in every way)
300 (90% CGI effects and backgrounds look breathtakingly beautiful in HD)
King Kong (Stunning to look at and the soundtrack is mind-blowing)
Rocky Balboa (really nice image with some stunning HD shots of Philadelphia)
Pan's Labyrinth (like watching an oil painting in motion - gorgeous)
Superman (lovely restoration job with AMAZING soundtrack)
Both the new 007 films
Some of the really duff transfers which alone could put people off Blu-Ray because they are either no better than their DVD counterparts or just plain crap (even though many of the films are not bad):
Total Recall
Stargate
The Fifth Element
Terminator 2
Escape from New York
Gangs of New York
I really like BD Live too, this offers some very tasty extras and downloads to expand the disk's content.
Is anyone else out there into Blu-Ray?
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
Love the technology and it sounds really worth it, but I don't have the money to invest in it, nor the time to watch it.
Maybe things will change, have to wait and see.
Roger
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
You should take time to relax Roger, too much work and all that!
The technology is not massively expensive. BluRay players have dropped in price along with Hi Def tvs and you can even get a modest but still effective home cinema system for a couple of hundred quid. The BluRay disks themselves are coming down in price, unless you buy the latest films as soon as they come out that is...
A quick look on Amazon for a decent low cost set-up.
Toshiba 37" TV (1080p) £550
Sony Blu Ray Player £150
Sony Home Cinema System £200
That give you a reaonable entry set up for under £900
Ideally you should also get yourself a PVR to record TV as well and that can be obtained for around £100 or so though, instead you could get a PS3 rather than the dedicated BluRay Player along with the PlayTV add on to provide it with PVR facilities for a total of £350. With the lattter you would have an even better and more versatile set up for £1100. It would be well worth it....
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Rick - I would add Hancock to the list of recommended BluRay discs. Others:
The Golden Compass and
Erdragon
I'm looking forward to the Watchmen on Blu-Ray. July can't come quick enough!!! It's a potential Dark Knight beater and I am so excited I could pee
