benos Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 For those that have went down this road... I recently got a new flatscreen TV and Blu Ray player. And I'm putting together a Blu Ray disc list in amazon. (I haven't even watched a movie in Blu Ray yet, so I'm clueless as to the quality improvement.) What movies have you or would you buy on Blu Ray that you already have on DVD? My amazon cart so far (some movies I don't already have on DVD): Kung Fu Hustle The Bourne Trilogy Kill Bill - Volume One Terminator 2: Judgment Day Tropic Thunder Planet Earth - The Complete BBC Series Bullitt The Boondock Saints Donnie Darko Serenity be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritinUSA Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Blade Runner - Special Edition Lord of the Rings Lawrence of Arabia 2001 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
betterment Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 To add a few the list. Saving Private Ryan X-Men Series Charlie and the Chocalate Factory HEAT Harry Potter Series Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Shooter Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 All 3 of the original Star Wars, the ones with Mark Hamill & Harrison Ford. Blackhawk Down Saving Private Ryan Can't think of the name of it right now...the Vietnam War movie with Sam Elliot and Mel Gibson...We Were Soldiers?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Hefta Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Brave Heart Passion of the Christ Lord of the Rings Trilogy Star Wars 1-6 300 Sin City The Crow Excaliber Godfather 1-2 Open Range Unforgiven Transformers 1-2 Underworld 1-3 And a bunch more that I can't think of right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AR Gunner Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Forrest Gump Smokey and the Bandit Practical Shooting (Beyond Fundamentals) - The Movie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay870 Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Re-bought 2 movies and realized it wasn't worth it unless the movie is only a few years old. In my experience older stuff doesn't scale well to Blu-Ray, and you end up with picture quality that is really not much better than the DVD version. Anything new discs I buy will be on Blu-Ray, but I won't worry about replacing any of my DVD collection with Blu-Rays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larry cazes Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Re-bought 2 movies and realized it wasn't worth it unless the movie is only a few years old. In my experience older stuff doesn't scale well to Blu-Ray, and you end up with picture quality that is really not much better than the DVD version. Anything new discs I buy will be on Blu-Ray, but I won't worry about replacing any of my DVD collection with Blu-Rays. Yup. I would agree. Soundtracks can be pretty poor as well unless they have been remastered. I was gonna suggest Blade Runner as a natural for re-buying but held off for this reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritinUSA Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Depends what format they shot the movie in. Blade Runner and Lawrence of Arabia were both shot in 70mm. Even a regular 35mm print is considerably higher resolution than 1080p. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted July 22, 2009 Author Share Posted July 22, 2009 Re-bought 2 movies and realized it wasn't worth it unless the movie is only a few years old. In my experience older stuff doesn't scale well to Blu-Ray, and you end up with picture quality that is really not much better than the DVD version. Anything new discs I buy will be on Blu-Ray, but I won't worry about replacing any of my DVD collection with Blu-Rays. Yup. I would agree. Soundtracks can be pretty poor as well unless they have been remastered. I was gonna suggest Blade Runner as a natural for re-buying but held off for this reason. That's what I was wondering about. Depends what format they shot the movie in. Blade Runner and Lawrence of Arabia were both shot in 70mm. Even a regular 35mm print is considerably higher resolution than 1080p. Could you give me a little more on the Paul. What does it mean, as far as a Blu Ray disc today, that the movie was shot in 70mm, or 35mm? And 1080p? Thanks everyone! be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike cyrwus Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 the newer batman movies and iron man were really nice in blue-ray. -and Im not a comic book geek... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritinUSA Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 I found some useful info here --> Click This is a good quote from that site: Basically : At this point, the typical audience cannot see the difference between HD and 35mm. Even professionals have a hard time telling them apart. We go through this all the time at NYU ("Was this shot on film or video?"). Basically it's all down to the source. If they have a good master print of a 35mm film it's going to look as good on your TV as it did in the theater. If they use 70mm source then most likely they have more data than the TV can handle until you go to Ultra-HD which is over 4000 lines. A regular DVD will take 625 lines and increase to 720-1080 to make a better picture but it's not true HD. I think Blue-Ray is 1080 so there is no up-conversion. For most people/TVs they won't be able to discern much difference. The bigger the TV the more it will become apparent. Some companies may just be taking an existing DVD and storing it on Blue-Ray as a straight copy but in the new format. I would expect that to get the best image you would need to use the original source. The same applies to the Sound, they need to remaster the soundtrack to handle the new multi-channel that they may not have had when the movie was first shot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chefcs5 Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 I found some useful info here --> ClickThis is a good quote from that site: Basically : At this point, the typical audience cannot see the difference between HD and 35mm. Even professionals have a hard time telling them apart. We go through this all the time at NYU ("Was this shot on film or video?"). Basically it's all down to the source. If they have a good master print of a 35mm film it's going to look as good on your TV as it did in the theater. If they use 70mm source then most likely they have more data than the TV can handle until you go to Ultra-HD which is over 4000 lines. A regular DVD will take 625 lines and increase to 720-1080 to make a better picture but it's not true HD. I think Blue-Ray is 1080 so there is no up-conversion. For most people/TVs they won't be able to discern much difference. The bigger the TV the more it will become apparent. Some companies may just be taking an existing DVD and storing it on Blue-Ray as a straight copy but in the new format. I would expect that to get the best image you would need to use the original source. The same applies to the Sound, they need to remaster the soundtrack to handle the new multi-channel that they may not have had when the movie was first shot. +1 agreed its all about the source. but yes most of the movies over 5 years old are not that much better onblue ray than on dvd. and if you have a newer blueray player that upconverts then really those older movies are even less of a diffrence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Hefta Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Now you guys spoiled the fun, with all of your techno talk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritinUSA Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Getting back 'on thread', I'd add the 'Matrix' to my list, not the trilogy just the first one, which was the best of the bunch and they should have stopped there 'cos the other two just sucked so bad it was frightening.... so there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Hefta Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Getting back 'on thread', I'd add the 'Matrix' to my list, not the trilogy just the first one, which was the best of the bunch and they should have stopped there 'cos the other two just sucked so bad it was frightening.... so there. +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted July 22, 2009 Author Share Posted July 22, 2009 I found some useful info here --> ClickThis is a good quote from that site: Basically : At this point, the typical audience cannot see the difference between HD and 35mm. Even professionals have a hard time telling them apart. We go through this all the time at NYU ("Was this shot on film or video?"). Basically it's all down to the source. If they have a good master print of a 35mm film it's going to look as good on your TV as it did in the theater. If they use 70mm source then most likely they have more data than the TV can handle until you go to Ultra-HD which is over 4000 lines. A regular DVD will take 625 lines and increase to 720-1080 to make a better picture but it's not true HD. I think Blue-Ray is 1080 so there is no up-conversion. For most people/TVs they won't be able to discern much difference. The bigger the TV the more it will become apparent. Some companies may just be taking an existing DVD and storing it on Blue-Ray as a straight copy but in the new format. I would expect that to get the best image you would need to use the original source. The same applies to the Sound, they need to remaster the soundtrack to handle the new multi-channel that they may not have had when the movie was first shot. That link was great - thanks Paul. Your last paragraph is another thing I wondered about - is there any way to tell if the Blu Ray was remastered from the DVD, or just copied to the Blu Ray format. In Amazon, for the movie Winged Migration, under Product Details, for the DVD: Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC ... and for the Blu Ray: Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen Does that tell us anything? The Blu Ray does not have "DVD" or "NTSC" as parts of its format? Looking at the Format info for a just released movie on Blu Ray, also, there's nothing in the Format description that says anything about "Blu Ray" for video: Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Subtitled, Widescreen This is interesting, the format for Blu Ray, Blade Runner: Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, Dolby, Original recording remastered, Restored, Subtitled, Widescreen ... has the word "remastered" in it. But I'm not sure if "original recording" means video and audio, or just audio? I added the Matrix and Winged Migration on Blu Ray to my cart. I have them both on DVD, I'll let you know how they compare. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nemo Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Last of the Mohicans Crimson Tide Glory Lonesome Dove and many of the ones already mentioned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritinUSA Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 (edited) I was searching around to try and find out if there is some way to determine the source of Blue-Ray Discs, whether some companies are just writing up-converted DVD to Blue-Ray or using the original source; I found the following at Blue-Ray.com with regard to Blade Runner, some interesting snippets are shown below. It mentions a 4K master in the text below. A 4K master means the feed was taken from a source with 4000 lines instead of 1080, I mentioned earlier that 35mm movies are about 1000 lines. FYI: A HDTV is 1920 x 1080 resolution, that's about 2Mp x 3 for the base colours which works out at 6Mp resolution. Vision Blade Runner has found its way to the Blu-ray format in pristine 1080P transferred from a newly minted 4K master. It’s clear that a huge effort was made in cleaning up the film as the source looks as though it was created recently as opposed to twenty-five years ago. The complex optical composites of the film have also been given a major scrubbing and none of the matte lines and optical cut outs that were so prevalent in previous versions are present here. It is worth noting that the new “Final” cut of the film is easily the best in terms of picture quality with each successively older version looking slightly more aged and worse for wear. Sound In keeping with the high video standards employed on this Blu-ray release, Warner has opted to include a full 5.1 Dolby TrueHD track on this release of Blade Runner. Quite frankly, I’ve never heard Blade Runner sound quite this remarkable. The film has always been well ahead of its time in sound design, but the Blu-ray production team has really gone above and beyond. Directional effects are scattered throughout the film and there is a wonderful sense of realism and ambience to the many crowded street scenes. Dialogue is crisp and always intelligible and never recedes into breaking up, even in the most quietly whispered scenes. Vangelis’ amazing score is crystal clear as well and this TrueHD presentation reveals even more layers of synthesized bass and atmosphere in this revolutionary soundtrack. Another thing to check with your HD is the Picture Setup, to get the most out of a detailed screen image, you need to dial down the contrast, too much contrast can cost you the fine detail. Edited July 22, 2009 by BritinUSA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritinUSA Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Your last paragraph is another thing I wondered about - is there any way to tell if the Blu Ray was remastered from the DVD, or just copied to the Blu Ray format.This is interesting, the format for Blu Ray, Blade Runner: Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, Dolby, Original recording remastered, Restored, Subtitled, Widescreen ... has the word "remastered" in it. But I'm not sure if "original recording" means video and audio, or just audio? Blue-Ray would not mention NTSC as it's a totally different format. I guess what we need to find is some way to identify the 'source' of the Blue-Ray movie, but unless someone puts that information out there I'm not sure if there's a way to find out. Remastered could mean anything as it doesn't indicate what is was remastered from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badchad Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 For me Netflix is so easy I don't plan on buying any Blu Ray discs, at least not until they are $5.00 a pop at Walmart. As it is now, if I want to see a movie again I just cue in up and have in about 48 hours. I'm pretty tired of storing all them DVDs and cases, but for some reason can't bring myself to tossing them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted July 23, 2009 Author Share Posted July 23, 2009 Great stuff - thanks Paul! I can't wait to watch Blade Runner again. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritinUSA Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 Here's another thing I found. Most THX DVDs have a THX Optimizer chapter in the Options/Setup part of the DVD. For instance on Star Wars Episode IV select Options on the Main Menu then click THX Optimizer on the bottom right of the screen. It will tell you how to setup your audio/video settings to get the best results... More details are at this link CLICK I just finished doing mine, it was a huge difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted July 23, 2009 Author Share Posted July 23, 2009 Here's another thing I found. Most THX DVDs have a THX Optimizer chapter in the Options/Setup part of the DVD. For instance on Star Wars Episode IV select Options on the Main Menu then click THX Optimizer on the bottom right of the screen. It will tell you how to setup your audio/video settings to get the best results...More details are at this link CLICK I just finished doing mine, it was a huge difference. Awesome - thanks again! Just printed it. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anubis Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 Can't think of the name of it right now...the Vietnam War movie with Sam Elliot and Mel Gibson...We Were Soldiers?? Yeah thats We Were Soldiers, awesome movie 300 looks exceptionally nice on blu-ray, Transformers well worth getting on blu-ray as well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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