So far, I'm not a Blu Ray/HD fan

It's not just the picture anymore.

The features are getting imported on Blu-Ray and the DVD's are getting the bare bones now.

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Suspect's Reviews

I usually only watch the special features once (if at all) anyway.
It's still not worth it to me.

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It depends on the release though. If it's a blockbuster of a movie they'll put out a DVD stacked with extras. Otherwise they'll put one out with just at least a making of, a commentary and a trailer. Or maybe nothing. TV series on DVD these days though are always stacked with stuff.

I still think Blu-ray is the best way to go. I'm now looking at standard DVDs in disgust. They almost feel like VHS tapes to me.

I'm sorry that standard DVDs are coming out in craptacular editions now and that Blu-rays are getting the better deal. You can't even watch the Jonas Brothers movie in 3-D unless you have the Blu-ray (I know how upsetting that must sound to you all....)

I picked up The Silence of the Lambs and Patton yesterday on Blu-ray. Silence was, I'm sorry to say, disappointing on Blu-ray. Pissed me off cause I paid full price for it.

But Patton was like getting Brad Pitt to be your male prostitute. I felt like General Patton was in my room on the 47" TV. It was THAT GOOD. A pat on the back for the Patton Blu-ray!

I was going to make a thread about this, but thankfully I don't have to.

I just got a PS3 slim for Christmas 2009, and I got some Blu-ray's.

I've noticed that movies that have come out after 2006, at least to my eyes, look very good in HD. I don't know if it was their digital filming process that they could have used, but I was very pleased with them in 1080p.

However, I got some older films that were made in the 60s and the 80s - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, The Dirty Dozen and John Carpenter's The Thing, and while they are in 1080p, I had a hard time differentiating the films from their DVD edition to the Blu-ray edition. Even my friend pointed out to me that when I put on The Thing, she said it looks a lot like her DVD copy of it, and she doesn't have Blu-Ray. I mean, you can tell that it looks HD, and that some scenes prove it obviously, but it was still hard, again, for me, to be blown away by Blu-ray versions of older films.

I didn't read this whole thread, because I'm actually very tired, so someone may have already brought this up and discussed it. But still, I'm curious - does anyone else think the same way as me on this, or am I the only one?

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Depends how they're restored, I suppose. I've not seen the BD versions of any of those films but for, say, the first couple of Godfather films (I'm plucking those out of the air because I own them on DVD and BD) on Blu Ray look stunning.

When a modern movie is shot on digital cameras then it's usually not much more than slapping the original print on Blu Ray. Analogue stuff needs a bit more care - If you're old enough to have transferred an LP to a cassette and still heard the needle (or VHS to DVD yourself) you'll know what I'm talking about. Even if I don't.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

I haven't seen The Thing on Blu-Ray, but I do own it and think it looks fantastic on HD-DVD (it probably looks the same on Blu).

Oh, and for good looking old tranfsers...pick up Sleeping Beauty. Without question, the best Disney release to date.

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I'm building up my Blu Ray collection at the moment.

Check out http://www.highdefdigest.com/ for news on new releases and for reviews.

I ALWAYS check the blu ray reviews before I buy.

*Die Hard 1& 2 look poor on Blu ray (Still have my DVD copies of course..and the VHS)
*Die Hard 3 has great sound quality but image isn't improved much.
*However Die Hard 4 looks and sounds....AMAZING!!! (Easily the weakest film, but its the best looking)

The prices aren't really a huge problem any more, ever since HD-DVD's stopped being produced the prices have been falling. I live in the UK and their not much more than the dvd version, I also import a lot of early releases and the prices in the US, Europe, Asia, Japan etc are in a similar state. Oh yeah that's another thing multi-region blu rays are fantastic!

The biggest cost is the player and a decent TV set-up to run it on, if you can afford that you should definitely move to blu ray.

I usually agree with the reviewers at highdefdigest and they say the image quality is pretty much identical but the Blu Rays audio is slightly superior. However the HD-DVD ends up with a higher review score because the extras on the blu ray are terrible compared to the HD-DVD release.

Luckily for me I have all the extras on my standard dvd version so I'll be picking up the Blu Ray (just for image and sound quality) this week.

I must admit that I check out Highdefdigest before deciding on replacing any DVDs I already own with BDs. The reviewers there seem pretty solid for the technical aspects.

So I finally decided to ascend (in my way) into the new millenia and replace one of my monstrous 36" tube televisions with an LCD HD TV.

Conclusion: Regular TV still sucks, DVD viewing is slightly improved, Blu Ray CAN be pretty cool (watched a few in this format) and HD television is a vast improvement.

After being disappointed for a bit, I realized that regular television channels also sucked on my tube TV... they just sucked in a slightly different way. The LCD tends to soften edges (which to me looks weird) and the old tube TV is just grainy. I'm starting to get used to the edge softening thing but it still bugs me. It's like watching TV under water.

I'm pretty excited about my Blu Ray player though... soon i'll be able to hook it up to my netflix account and watch the In Demand stuff there through the player. That's definitely a plus.

Have you got analogue or digital TV signals? I've found analogue to be horrible on LCD sets and digital passable. Don't have HD free-to-air signals yet but apparently they're coming on line this year. My PS3 (with the PlayTV app) upscales digital signals and does a pretty good job, though it's only available in Europe and Australia, I think.

Have you got an edge-enhancement setting on your TV? Mine's turned off through choice but it might help you with your Jacques Cousteau-style viewing.

If you got regular cable coming into your LCD...it's gunna suck. Digital boxes do a pretty good job of making it look better. Thankfully, the big TV is a LCoS (LCD's have a native resolution, but the LCoS doesn't...hence everything looks good).

GO, TOOSE, GO!

Swim through the Blu waters! Tease the 1080p sharks with your splish-splashy devil legs and your true high definition red Speedos.

It is usually the settings on the display as opposed to the actual Disc. I find that in store displays are often set to rather harsh and extreme settings.

I can do that on my 360

Yea, but you can't do it without paying Microsoft.

i don't like blu ray. Everything just looks too sharp and bright.

Ok, this post probably belongs best here.

I'd been surviving with an old Digital Video Essentials DVD for calibrating my TV and had been mulling over whether to buy the Blu Ray version. It struck me that these things are essentially just a collection of calibration pictures which can be found freely available on the internet.

Wouldn't it be great if some kind souls had compiled some sort of disc that everyone could use, costing them no more than a blank DVD?

Fear not!

The guys on the AVS forums have such a thing - A selection of downloads for not only those lucky/rich enough to have a BD burner on their PC but AVCHD (which PS3s and loads of Blu Ray players can handle) and HD DVD forms too. They've got accompanying PDF files as instructions but you'll need to register to download them - if you know what you're doing, the disc images can be downloaded without registering.

Link

They've even got a selection of MP4 files if you've not got any spare discs and the finished products are very professional looking.

I only had to adjust my TV a couple of clicks in a few sections (and the standard settings were remarkably good on my Samsung to begin with) from what I'd come up with on the old calibration DVD but it's nice to have for future reference. My little 19" TV in the bedroom was way off.

Where people might fall down is the colour calibration. My TV has a built-in blue filter so it was ok but even if yours doesn't (or you can't get your hands on an external one) it's great for brightness, contrast, sharpness etc.

This is for HD DVD and Blu Ray players only, by the way. Even though they can be burned to DVD (I use Imgburn, which is freeware and the best around) they won't work in a standard DVD player, even if it can upscale.