Blu-ray discs

[Donkmeister]

I've been a very good boy this year so Santa is bringing me a bluray player for Christmas.

I was just looking at Play to buy a few blurays to start me off, and I noticed that there's a lot of films on there that are a bit old and a bit naff. It got me wondering...

On the HD TV channels, they show a lot of upscaled stuff. Which is annoying, when there is so much HD content they COULD be showing.

But, how do we KNOW that our bluray discs aren't just upscaled versions of standard def content?

Presumably new blockbuster films are quite safe, but if I buy something a bit cheesy on bluray, am I getting any benefit over buying the DVD and upscaling it myself?

 

[DarrenThomas]

Your best bet is to check out somewhere like www.blu-ray.com

A whole bunch of anoraks review the Blu's and essentially tell you if the transfer had any effort put into it or not.

For example, Zulu looks WTFOMG incredible because it was made on decent 70mm stock and had a decent amount of time spent on the transfer even though its an old film. Gladiator on the other hand looks like its been done just to get it out on the shelves.

There are so many films yet to grace Blu that will really make it shine if they are given the right treatment (Jurassic Park, Lord of the Rings, Saving Private Ryan) and there are already plenty of stunning blu's out but there are also some duds (The original Fifth Element transfer for example was appalling, the new one is great).

The important thing to remember is that you cannot realistically compare broadcast HD with Blu-Ray. A blu ray film will usually take up around 35gb at 1080p compared to a broadcasters MUCH lower quality transmission. An example, working for SciFi I used to receive films to ingest for playout. A film would be brought in on DigiBeta which is 90mb/s. We ingested it at 25mb/s and by the time it gets to your sky box it was at most about 4mb/s depending on how Sky were playing with the bandwidth that day. For HD channels this is bumped up a little but no where near the 40mb/s that you'll get on a Blu-Ray.

Take your time, abuse Amazons good 3 for 2 deals and stuff and enjoy glorious High Definition. Like L'oreal, its worth it.

My immediate suggestions for you: Casino Royale, All Pixars, Band of Brothers, Planet Earth, The Prestige, Zulu, Star Trek 11, Sin City, Dark Knight, any of the disney vault (Snow White, Sleeping Beauty,Pinocchio etc), Pirates 1, BattleStar Galactica Complete Series, Rambo, Pans Labryinth, Iron Man. TBH i tihnk its best i stop there before i reach some kind of charachter limit There are a TON of great Blu's out there and if the missus says "it doesnt look any different" try one of the disney or pixar animated ones. Amazing how they notice the difference when its sometihng they actually like lol.

 

[gblades]

Also adding to the excelent previous post broadcast is 1080i maximum. blu-ray is 1080p

 

[chapeau]

Try a 6 month pay as you go subscription to lovefilm.com and you will get to play with them at a relatively low price.

Best blurays I've got, quality wise, are the BBC natural history/David Attenborough type ones. Quite stunning, have bought those outright.

 

[DarrenThomas]

Also in case you dont know, if you dont already have an HDMI lead don't buy an expensive one! On the assumtion that your tv is located within 5ft of your player a cheap £6 HDMI lead will be EXACTLY THE SAME as a £40 one.

Also you should turn off any and all added features of the blu ray player or that input on your TV (most TVs allow you to have different features turned on/off and different settings for each input). The Blu Ray will look as good as it is going to get as it is already, adding further processing to it in the player or the TV will generally start to make the image look worse.

You might also want to try and look at a config pattern which comes on some blus (i'm sure pixars have them) that will help you set up your colour/contract/brightness properly. If yours is quite a way out it'll look REALLY odd when you first change it but it'll grow on you. So many people watch TV with orange actors when David Dickinson isn't even on screen!

 

[Donkmeister]

Thanks for all the recommendations guys.

I was planning to get Zulu, Star Trek XI, all three of the Pirates of the Caribbean and some Pixar animations... so I should be getting a few good 'uns!

I've found that Thunderbirds is one to avoid... I was thinking it would be safe as they would have transferred off original film... but then I found out it had been cropped to 16:9, resulting in several scenes where something is happening but it's off the screen!

WRT expensive HDMI leads, I agree. Either a lead is 1.3 compliant or it isn't. I've spent a bit more than I usually would, as these cables are going in-wall. Using the same connectors and cable as the ones I bought, they were selling 1.3a compliant leads up to 20m, so I figured I should be safe with my 10m and 5m ones. I've done plenty of testing to be safe, and witnessed no "sparklies".

In the next month or two I'll be installing the lot in my bedroom, I will be sure to include pictures of the build.

 

[ChrisJ78]

Band of Brothers is amazing on Blu-Ray. Just wish I had a 1080p TV instead of a 1080i.

Iron Man certainly worth a watch, and the Harry Potters are good quality. I thought 300 was good too. There will be a lot of your films on DVD not worth replacing, as they won't look too bad upscaled by your player.

 

[leewill]

The dark knight was the most awesome blu-ray i`ve seen, don`t get caught out like i did, bought one of the first blu-rays out it was a bush, and it doesn`t play certain blu-rays