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Blu-Ray and HD - is it really all that?

Started by Santa's Boyfriend, January 01, 2010, 10:32:02 PM

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Santa's Boyfriend

The HD movies on PS3 Network are overly compressed meaning you do get quite a few artefacts in the image.  Perversely, dodgy downloaded M2TS or AVC files ripped from a blu-ray source can go a lot smaller (4 gig as opposed to 6 gig) and actually look a lot better.  Not quite the standard of blu-ray, but not far off - about the same difference as a good AVI and a DVD.  Not that I've downloaded any myself, obviously.

Glebe

2001 doesn't have to right to look as good as it does, it's superb. Godfather I & II look super, as does The Shining, which I just watched today.

Sivead

Anyone have a Blu Ray drive? Is it worth it, do you loose much compared to a stand alone on a current system with a 1080p 24" monitor? Would Blu Ray movies look any good, or is it just for backing up decades worth of porn? Dont really have the room to squeeze in a player.

El Unicornio, mang

I really didn't think I'd be interested in Blu-Ray, until I downloaded a blu-ray rip last week (brrip and bdrip allow discs to be shrunk down to between 1.4GB and 3GB, depending on the size, while retaining most of the quality) and was blown away by how clear everything is. Since then I've been revisiting a load of favourite films in HD. Watching Braveheart last night, I could pick out every face in the battle scene crowd in detail, even on my relatively small computer monitor. The only downside is that it's actually quite distracting, everything is so clear that I find myself staring at some random background stuff during long talky scenes....

Santa's Boyfriend

The Sopranos - Series 1 has been released in full HD blu-ray.  Rented 'em all and it looks as nice as you'd expect.

I'm getting to the point where I'm used to watching stuff in HD.  It's great, but even now things occcasionally take my breath away.  Baraka was a case in point.  The first few shots are mind-blowing, and the overall effect is like watching the film again for the first time.  For a film where it's all about hte visuals, there are loads of things in it that I just didn't see before.

El Unicornio, mang

I'm definitely going to check out Sopranos on blu-ray. Also I've heard that Seinfeld is getting the widescreen treatment for it's Blu-Ray release. Should be interesting. I noticed that Kubrick's films have been widescreened, which I'm in two minds about. I prefer it to 4:3, and with most people getting widescreen HD TV's now it makes sense,  but his intention was to have them that way and I had kind of gotten used to his films (post-2001) being in that aspect ratio.

Artemis

I'm just about to replace the TV I've sold with a nice new model, and after I've done so, I'll be sniffing around for Blu-Ray players. I'm also after the FOX-T2 Humax Freeview HD PVR which is scheduled for release before the world cup. Then I'll be as HD as I can be. You don't have to look far on YouTube to see for yourself the difference in true HD compared to SD. It can be literally breathtaking.

_Hypnotoad_


I bought a Sony Blu-Ray player recently.  It came with 3 films - Slumdog Milliner, Angels & Demons and Terminator:Salvation.

Bought a decent HDMI lead to hook it all up to my nice Panasonic Full HD TV.

I tried all 3 of the films above, but was actually pretty underwhelmed by the difference initially.  I mean, obviously, it was a lot better than standard DVD's looked on this TV through my old player, but the Blu-Ray experience wasn't quite as jaw-dropping as I'd hoped.

That was until I watched "Up" on Blu-Ray last week.  Unbelievable.  I was stunned by how gorgeous that looked, and I'd heartily recommend a viewing of that on Blu-Ray for anyone yet to be convinced about this whole HD hoo-ha.

I still won't be BUYING any Blu-Ray discs for the foreseeable though.  Still too damned expensive.  I'd rather just wait a couple of months and get standard DVD's in HMV or on Amazon for about a fiver, and watch them in a perfectly decent up-scaled state on the Blu-Ray player.

biggytitbo

Blu rays aren't expensive! I just bought the Departed on Amazon. £7.99! How can you go wrong at that price? I've recently bought the Dark Knight, the Shining, Blade Runner, Children of Men, Baron Munchhausen and Casino Royale and I've not paid more than a tenner for any of them. Apart from the very latest releases you'll be hard pressed to pay more than a tenner for any blu ray on Amazon or Play.com. They're just a ridiculous bargain at the moment.

Feralkid

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on March 07, 2010, 04:00:08 PM
I'm definitely going to check out Sopranos on blu-ray. Also I've heard that Seinfeld is getting the widescreen treatment for it's Blu-Ray release. Should be interesting. I noticed that Kubrick's films have been widescreened, which I'm in two minds about. I prefer it to 4:3, and with most people getting widescreen HD TV's now it makes sense,  but his intention was to have them that way and I had kind of gotten used to his films (post-2001) being in that aspect ratio.

Well none of his films post 2001 were intended to shown in 4:3 theatrically - so presenting them in widescreen for home viewing isn't sacrilegious at all.   In fact that old full frame DVD of The Shining actually lets us see some of the rotor blades as the helicopter shot nears the Overlook Hotel.  As far as I can tell those later Kubrick films were all meant to be projected at 1:1.66 and certainly all cinemas post the 60s would be set-up for either regular widescreen or the odd scope presentation.  Prior to the mass adoption of widescreen tellys Kubrick presumably though that open matte full frame presentation was a lesser evil than pan and scanning.

Quote from: biggytitbo on March 07, 2010, 05:37:32 PM
Blu rays aren't expensive! I just bought the Departed on Amazon. £7.99! How can you go wrong at that price? I've recently bought the Dark Knight, the Shining, Blade Runner, Children of Men, Baron Munchhausen and Casino Royale and I've not paid more than a tenner for any of them. Apart from the very latest releases you'll be hard pressed to pay more than a tenner for any blu ray on Amazon or Play.com. They're just a ridiculous bargain at the moment.

Yeah, that's fair enough.  But i already have most of those on DVD anyway, and don't really want to start going down the road of replacing all of my existing DVD collection with their HD equivalent.  Especially as you get fuck-all for DVD's when you try to trade them in anywhere these days.

biggytitbo

Ahh. I've got tons of DVDs biut I always had a policy of not buying films on dvd precisely because a HD format was imminent so I'm getting stuck in now. Even if I had a DVD of a film I really liked, it'd be worth paying 8-9 quid to upgrade to the Blu-Ray I think because you're future proofing yourself. Short of having an actual cinema in your house I really can't see a home format better than Blu-Ray for at least a decade.

Santa's Boyfriend

I can't get rid of my old CRT for any price, it seems.  It's a pretty big tv and it's in perfect working order, but no-one wants it, even for a tenner.  I suppose I should have expected it, but it seems a shame to throw out a perfectly good tv.  (I'll probably put it on freecycle in the end, but even then I wouldnt' be surprised if it doesn't go.)  This christmas new TVs were flying off the shelves faster than stockists could get them in, presumably due to the whole digital thing.  That's progress I suppose.

Glebe

Latest Blu-ray viewings:

Switchblade Romance - bloody mental French horror. Decent transfer, nice, strong colours.

Evil Dead II - a fave, but this transfer is taken from a remastered DVD edition that erased a lot of detail. Meh indeed.

Thirst - Chan-wook Park's latest, the tale of a vampire priest. Top stuff. Nice picture, too.

AsparagusTrevor

Quote from: Santa's Boyfriend on March 07, 2010, 10:36:19 PM
I can't get rid of my old CRT for any price, it seems.  It's a pretty big tv and it's in perfect working order, but no-one wants it, even for a tenner.  I suppose I should have expected it, but it seems a shame to throw out a perfectly good tv.  (I'll probably put it on freecycle in the end, but even then I wouldnt' be surprised if it doesn't go.)  This christmas new TVs were flying off the shelves faster than stockists could get them in, presumably due to the whole digital thing.  That's progress I suppose.
Give it to a charity shop or summat. Some of them do pick-ups, I had the British Heart Foundation come and take my old TV.

Santa's Boyfriend


Viero_Berlotti

I thought charity shops had largely stopped taking old electrical appliances now? I think legally they now have to get a qualified electrician to give them a once over before they can sell them. So this cost actually means they would end up losing money on most second hand electrical appliances. Maybe it just the charity shops where I live.

AsparagusTrevor

I've been in the BHF shop that took my TV a couple of times, and they certainly had quite a few TVs, stereos, etc.

Papercut

Quote from: Viero_Berlotti on March 08, 2010, 12:59:17 PM
I thought charity shops had largely stopped taking old electrical appliances now? I think legally they now have to get a qualified electrician to give them a once over before they can sell them. So this cost actually means they would end up losing money on most second hand electrical appliances. Maybe it just the charity shops where I live.
This is true, I've had electrical stuff refused at charity shops for this reason - and just went to the local wuvvly kittens charity shop down the road instead, who were less scrupulous. Perhaps its just a policy of the larger charity shops?

Uncle TechTip

Quote from: Artemis on March 07, 2010, 04:37:56 PM
I'm just about to replace the TV I've sold with a nice new model, and after I've done so, I'll be sniffing around for Blu-Ray players. I'm also after the FOX-T2 Humax Freeview HD PVR which is scheduled for release before the world cup. Then I'll be as HD as I can be. You don't have to look far on YouTube to see for yourself the difference in true HD compared to SD. It can be literally breathtaking.

I'd seriously think twice before investing in Freeview HD. It's way too early to risk, there's only one device available, that should worry you. On Freeview there will only ever be the public service channels in HD - no room for anything else. If you really really must have HD - which I suppose you have to if you spent all that money on a telly - then consider satellite, ideally Freesat (though the range of channels on there is pitiful).

I liked Baker's take on HD a few weeks back - "normal telly with the contrast turned up". But I expect that when you've spent all that money you can easily convince yourself otherwise.

Santa's Boyfriend

My dad's got Sky HD, and frankly I'm pretty unimpressed with anything outside of the BBC channel.  The BBC channel looks fantastic, they've clearly worked hard to make sure everything looks as nice as it should, but the channels like Discovery, Arts and so on really don't look that great.  And they tend not to show anything worth watching either, which really surprised me.  Surely they must have a backlog of great documentaries?

It's typical of cable and sattelite telly though.  There really isn't much worth watching once you've gone past what's already available in freeview.

Puffin Chunks

Quote from: Beep Cleep Chimney on March 07, 2010, 05:29:37 PM
Bought a decent HDMI lead to hook it all up to my nice Panasonic Full HD TV.

Now, I haven't upgraded to HD yet, unfortunately my somewhat nomadic lifestyle at the moment precludes me from it, so I am prepared to be corrected on this....

but...

Isn't one of the points of HDTV that it is a purely digital signal? There are no artefacts introduced by DA conversion. Effectively this means that your BR Player/PS3/XBox360 is outputting a load of 1s and 0s which are then recompiled by your HDTV. This surely means that the whole expensive HDMI cable verse cheap HDMI cable is all a massive con? At the end of the day it's just passing 1s and 0s from one unit to another. Therefore it doesn't matter how 'good' or 'shite' your cable is. 1s and 0s don't degrade in signal on the way. They either make it, or they don't.

_______
Edit:
And a quick google search for 'HDMI Con' turns this up:

http://whatconsumer.co.uk/hdmi-cable-con/

So save your money, people. Get the cheapo cable from Tescos.

I needed a bit longer cable, and quite a few people said that once you get over 10 metres, it's worth putting in a bit of money. But I decided to get the cheapest 30 quid 15m cable and it works fine. I haven't really tried pushing full high bitrate 1080p HD material through it, it's attached to my computer, but it works fine for my needs.

Artemis

Quote from: Uncle TechTip on March 09, 2010, 11:43:28 AM
I expect that when you've spent all that money you can easily convince yourself otherwise.

I was convinced before I bought the new telly - that's the whole point! Although I suppose it's easy to convince yourself that those who enjoy HD have themselves become easily convinced because of the money they've spent when you haven't got one yourself ;)

A Freeview HD PVR will replace my current one which is on the way out, and the small (but growing) HD channels on Freeview will be a very pleasant bonus. Plus my XBox looks great at 1080p, and the Blu Ray will look magnificent too.

Uncle TechTip

Fair dues. All I'm saying* is take care with this new technology - looking on Digital Spy it seems that the most exciting thing about Freeview HD is some stupid egg-related game that comes with the box. And as far as I can tell there will only ever be BBC, ITV & C4 HD channels. Closedown of SD channels looks a very long way off.

* OK OK I was also getting in a rather cheap dig at HD. Although I have seen it in action on the right equipment and it ain't all that (Sky's offering - my friend defended it by saying "but some of the graphics and captions look really crisp!" to which I looked at him and straightened my eyebrows)

AsparagusTrevor

Broadcast HD is still too overly-compressed, crap compared to a good Blu-Ray transfer.
I suppose HD-TV is to Blu-Ray what SD-TV is to DVD.

buntyman

I thought I'd share my experience of HD. I've been round to friends' houses who have sky HD and if you've got a nice 40" tv, you're into sport (football expecially) and have lots of money, then I'd have to say it is a hugely noticeable improvement on the standard CRT freeview football that I'm used to.
I have the Xbox HD DVD player myself that i got for about £20 off ebay and have accumulated a large collection of HD DVDs for probably under £2 on average. At those sort of prices I was happy to take the risk on a few titles without reading in detail on AV forums how black the black levels are and how much of the grain is 'as the director intended'. The quality is extremely variable as I'd guess Blu Rays are too, many you try to convince yourself are better than DVDs until you next watch a DVD and realise that they're still pretty good. That said, I have picked up a few films that are absolutely brilliant and really enhance my enjoyment of them. As have been mentioned before,some of the old films like Blade Runner and 2001 are (surprisingly) great, Planet Earth is essential and my other favourites are: The Bourne Ultimatum, Zodiac, The Sopranos (6th series), Galapogas, The Matrix, Lethal Weapon, Casablanca, Corpse Bride.

Father O`Blivion

Quote from: Puffin Chunks on March 09, 2010, 01:07:52 PM
Isn't one of the points of HDTV that it is a purely digital signal? There are no artefacts introduced by DA conversion. Effectively this means that your BR Player/PS3/XBox360 is outputting a load of 1s and 0s which are then recompiled by your HDTV. This surely means that the whole expensive HDMI cable verse cheap HDMI cable is all a massive con? At the end of the day it's just passing 1s and 0s from one unit to another. Therefore it doesn't matter how 'good' or 'shite' your cable is. 1s and 0s don't degrade in signal on the way. They either make it, or they don't.
I think it was supposed to refer to build quality rather than picture quality but unscrupulous scumbags like Currys have taken the opportunity to lie about this and con their customers.

I bought 3 cheap (£7.99 I think) ROSS brand HDMI cables from Asda when I bought my Samsung LCD. One goes into the Xbox, one goes to a Philips DVD player and the other goes to a little WD media player that sits on top of the Philips. Recently the telly has had trouble detecting the WD media player and I eventually worked out that the occasional small movements caused by me plugging flash drives into the side of the WD over the last few months have loosened the connections in that end of the HDMI cable.
So I've got the option of either spending another £5-10 in Asda and getting another one that may pack in after a few months or spending £££££££££££'s in the likes of Currys on one that may possibly last a bit longer.
Think I'll be popping into Asda tomorrow.

falafel

I did have the end bits of one cheap HDMI cable sort of snap off into my telly. Had to pull it out with a pair of pliers. Beware.