First impressions with Blu-ray.

tkboxer · Resident Artist Joined: 15 May 2005 Posts: 1610

Early evaluation of Blu-ray video.

I received a Sony BDP-S350 Blu-ray player for Christmas. I have bought a little over a half dozen disc so far and rented another half dozen or so.

This is my first impressions of Blu-ray video, the disc format and the Sony player.
First off, the Sony player is superb. It is reasonably fast to load the disc to the point of access. It plays the Blu-ray format flawlessly thus far, by that I mean no glitches, video drop outs or lockups. It upconverts even a little better than my Oppo 980 which is excellent in its own right.

The format or menu system in Blu-ray I have noticed is not quite uniform. You will notice from disc to disc that the menus systems vary. I think this has more to do with the age of the film being converted to Blu-ray than anything else but thats just a guess on my part.

As for the quality of the video in Blu-ray it also varies from disc to disc. I am sure than are all 1080p resolution, thats not in question. But what I can say is the actual on screen viewing will vary from disc to disc. I can tell you that recently produced animated movies look the best, probably because they created in a direct to digital format, (again a guess). Movies like Ice Age will just flat out rock your eyeballs out. Yes they look THAT good. Also recent made filmed movies like Iron Man and Shooter look very good, you will notice a little bit of grainyness in dark scenes but that is just a limitation of low-light photography and will always be there. It is however vastly reduced in Blu-ray over standard DVD. The last category of movie is the older film that is converted to Blu-ray. The example I can use is Bullit with Steve McQueen, the film, shot in 1968 has probably deteriorated somewhat over time even when properly stored. The Blu-ray conversion therefore is less than stellar. There are a lot of scenes in this movie that have a lot of grainyness and lack crisp detail. In my opinion it is this type movie that, if you are going to invest in Blu-ray you would want to rent this one first to actually view the video quality before buying. If Bullit is a example of the best a studio can do at reproducing a older film in Blu-ray then for these types of films I would have to recommend staying with a standard non-compressed DVD and a good upconverting player.

Hopefully if you are thinking of jumping into the Blu-ray video arena this information will be of benefit.
Cheers,
tkboxer
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ComputerDog · Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 9:27 pm Post subject:

Thanks TKB,

I've been looking at Blu-ray and haven't made up my mind if I want to go that route. You indicated that the Sony player up-converts well, this is important as I have a fair sized collection of DVDs. Of course nothing like some of the other members.

Thanks again,

- CD

SG1_Fan · Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 6:43 am Post subject:

I ran into the same problem with Bullit on HD-DVD so most older films I just buy standard dvd's.However it looks like when they want to restore an older movie like the original Star Trek series it turns out fantastic.I agree rent first then buy it.

terryk · Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 6:28 pm Post subject:

If you want to see what CAN be done with older films watch "The Searchers" (John Wayne) or "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (Errol Flynn) on HD-DVD (I assume Blu-ray is the same encode). These are fantastic transfers. If you want to see the worst of Blu-ray watch Robo Cop.

blackhawkdown · Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2010 10:58 am Post subject: what about sound quality

a friend of mine has gotten so bad, he will only watch bluray because of it's improved sound quality (that's his reasoning). do any of you who have watched bluray notice a big difference? my buddy has a very top of the line home theater system; so, that might be why he hears a difference. what say you?

BHD Twisted Evil

tkboxer · Resident Artist Joined: 15 May 2005 Posts: 1610

sawtooth · Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 3:55 pm Post subject:

I haven't taken the bluray plunge yet. I still can't afford it.

lostpr0ph3t · Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 8:19 pm Post subject:

Well, I finally came around to buying a Blu-ray player(still a lil ticked 'cause I bought an HD-dvd player during the HD war) but after I saw walmart.com was selling the "Pioneer BDP-120FD BD-Live Blu-ray Disc Player" for $108($117 now, price went up since I bought mine) I figured now was as good a time as any. Bestbuy has the same one for $170. Any way, the load up time from Power on to starting the movie isn't bad, it has BD-Live(haven't really played with that yet though) and it did come with a 1GB usb drive for BD live. I did watch a few Blu-ray movies "Glory" was good but it did look a lil grainy, "King Arthur" looked a lot better than the dvd, and also watched "Apocalypto" which just blew me away, the colors in it just looked absolutely beautiful. I think if you have the money than Blu-ray is a nice lil purchase and I know at least in my opinion, it does make the movie watching experience more enjoyable. Though I still believe(please don't throw any sharp stones) that HD-dvd was a better product. Ok that's my 2 cents.

oh and just in case here's the link to the walmart.com page for the player
walmart.com/ip/Pioneer-BDP-120FD-BD-Live-Blu-ray-Disc-Player/11070373

and the bestbuy link
bestbuy.com/site/Pioneer+-+Blu-ray+Disc+Player+with+1080p+Output/9235179.p?id=1218064393888&skuId=9235179

tkboxer · Resident Artist Joined: 15 May 2005 Posts: 1610

sawtooth · Posted: Sat Feb 13, 2010 5:06 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the update. Another problem I have is that my husband is convinced our eyes are not good enough for HD at our age, and refuses to buy a proper display. I have tried to reason with him to no effect.

tkboxer · Resident Artist Joined: 15 May 2005 Posts: 1610

blackhawkdown · Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 5:26 pm Post subject:

GEORGIEBOY26 · Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 4:04 pm Post subject:

just treated myself to an LG blu-ray player, quite pleased with it, all I need now is a bagload of blu-ray movies Laughing

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I USED TO BE INDECISIVE, BUT NOW I,M NOT TO SURE....

tkboxer · Resident Artist Joined: 15 May 2005 Posts: 1610

GEORGIEBOY26 · Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 4:15 am Post subject:

cheers boxer. by the way, regarding sound, I have a 5-1 sorround sound system, quite old now tho' by todays models, and I cant say I can tell a difference in quality............may be my old ears tho' lol
_________________
I USED TO BE INDECISIVE, BUT NOW I,M NOT TO SURE....

Passkes · Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 11:41 am Post subject:

@GEORGIEBOY26
Been a while Wink

I can say from experience that there is a slight difference in sound regarding to 5.1 vs 7.2 Smile

Ofcourse depending on the movie which you are watching. (I`m not talking about quality, but the experience / effects)

I have bought a 7.2 Elac set lately with a Denon 4308A receiver.
7.2 -> 2 subs, 1center, 2 front, 2 back, 2 side speakers.

In combination with a blu ray player and Master 7.1 DTS HD Sound you really get blown away and really notice the difference when comparing with 5.1.

Maybe interesting a list with blu-raymovies which have 7.1 onboard:
http://www.blu-raystats.com/Stats/Stats.php?OrderBy=Title&Audio=7.1

Sound is realy coming from everywhere now, front, back and side. People and vehicles can now walk around you. you have 360 degrees sound Smile

But the sound director has to use the features ofcourse otherwise 5.1 is ofcourse just as good.

ComputerDog · Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 6:09 pm Post subject:

Good Gosh! I can't believe it's been a year since I started "thinking" about going Blu-ray - and I still haven't got one!!!! Talk about getting old...... I wonder if I just put it off or simply forgot about it?

What I would do if I had to decide on something a tad more important? Sigh... I probably forget what it was.

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