poor blu rays

[admin_exported]

Is it me or are there a lot of poor quality blu ray discs about ? Have any of you had any disapointing ones ?

 

[Frank Harvey]

A small number yes, but on the whole, most are excellent picture and audio.

 

[manicm]

Yes, I have, but these were mainly very old movies like The Third Man. My rule is that if the movie is older than 5-10 years stick with the DVD, unless there's a lot of marketing for re-mastered older movies like Lord Of The Rings (Blu-ray is superb full stop), or the forthcoming Star Wars.

I just use doubt - if I have any I get the DVD. It helps my Sony BDP-S370 is a good upscaler too.

 

[Anonymous]

A few of the original realeases with the old encode where pretty shocking, but on the whole most seem to be excellent, have you seen the Tron legacy transfer yet?

 

[manicm]

A few of the original realeases with the old encode where pretty shocking, but on the whole most seem to be excellent, have you seen the Tron legacy transfer yet?

I'm sure it will be great - my comments referred to older movies.

Another good example is the Godfather trilogy - I bought the tinbox DVD re-master 3 years ago but only watched it when I got a Blu-ray player (I forgot I bought it)! I was tempted to get the Blu-ray but read many mixed reviews on it. Anyway, the deliberate grain gives the DVDs charm, and the picture is great and hugely enjoyable - so I'll never bother getting the Blu-ray.

 

[roger06]

I almost exploded with excitement when I saw Who Dares Wins was on BD so I rented it through LoveFilm. I assumed it would all be cleaned up and expected an awesome sound track with SAS gun battles & choppers etc.

It was quite appalling. The picture was still grainy and the sound was only two channel. Why bother? Had I bought it I'd have taken it back...

But yeah, most are very good.

 

[Anonymous]

EDITED BY MODS - House Rules

 

[pete321]

My rule is that if the movie is older than 5-10 years stick with the DVD

I've been amazed at the picture quality on some older films re-released on Blu-Ray. Take the old 007 movies, Dr No looks great for a 60's movie. The pixels are already there for the big screen cinema release, they just clean them up a bit. The only thing that let's them down is the sound, that was never there in the first place during the 60's, 70's and early 80's.

 

[Frank Harvey]

Yes, I have, but these were mainly very old movies like The Third Man. My rule is that if the movie is older than 5-10 years stick with the DVD, unless there's a lot of marketing for re-mastered older movies like Lord Of The Rings (Blu-ray is superb full stop), or the forthcoming Star Wars.

I just use doubt - if I have any I get the DVD. It helps my Sony BDP-S370 is a good upscaler too.

Have you not seen Psycho? The film look amazing on Bluray! As does a lot of 80's stuff like Back To The Future. It's all down to how well the film was recorded, how well the film has been looked after, and how well the film is transferred to Bluray. DVD adds a lot of it's own shortcomings to a film, regardless of how good the film looks.

I wasn't bowled over by a few movies like Donnie Darko, Escape From New York, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, but this may be because they're low budget movies. But on the flip side, there's so many more that look awesome, like Avatar, Rogue, Psycho, Alien, Back To The Future trilogy, Tron Legacy, Friday The 13th etc.

 

[manicm]

My rule is that if the movie is older than 5-10 years stick with the DVD

I've been amazed at the picture quality on some older films re-released on Blu-Ray. Take the old 007 movies, Dr No looks great for a 60's movie. The pixels are already there for the big screen cinema release, they just clean them up a bit. The only thing that let's them down is the sound, that was never there in the first place during the 60's, 70's and early 80's.

No of-course there have been great Blu-ray releases like some Alfred Hitchcock ones - however these were well marketed. However I've bought a few stinkers that were marketed well that were a complete waste of money.

 

[Tom Moreno]

EDITED BY MODS - House Rules

 

[laserman16]

EDITED BY MODS - House Rules

 

[richardw42]

HIGHLANDER (so called special edition) BD is shockingly bad in places.
A VHS that's been stored in the loft for 10 years would be better.
That isn't an exaggeration it really is horrendous, releases like this should not be allowed to shelter under the BD banner.

 

[Anonymous]

Remember 35mm film has a larger pixel rate than full HD, so the Blu ray quality is usually only due to the effort put into the transfer and the efficiency of the encode.

 

[Anonymous]

The only poor BD I've got is Forbidden Planet.

The picture is very grainy, so much so I did wonder if I had a faulty copy.

 

[strapped for cash]

Yes, I have, but these were mainly very old movies like The Third Man. My rule is that if the movie is older than 5-10 years stick with the DVD, unless there's a lot of marketing for re-mastered older movies like Lord Of The Rings (Blu-ray is superb full stop), or the forthcoming Star Wars.

I just use doubt - if I have any I get the DVD. It helps my Sony BDP-S370 is a good upscaler too.

Old movies can look phenomenal on Blu-ray. The difference between the Criterion remaster of The Third Man and the lazy effort forced on everybody else is quite frankly an insult. I wish Criterion releases were not region locked. There would probably be a worthwhile market for Criterion releases outside of "Region A."

 

[aliEnRIK]

I wasn't bowled over by .....Escape From New York

Escape was actually an upscaled dvd - small wonder it looks so poor

 

[Frank Harvey]

Yup, sadly

 

[aliEnRIK]

Yup, sadly

Personally I think its completely wrong that they would release a bluray which is just a poorly upscaled dvd

They should re-release it properly encoded from the film print (Or certainly a far better source than the original dvd!) and allow those that bought the original a free copy

There should be a law against it really

 

[Anonymous]

Yup, sadly

Personally I think its completely wrong that they would release a bluray which is just a poorly upscaled dvd

They should re-release it properly encoded from the film print (Or certainly a far better source than the original dvd!) and allow those that bought the original a free copy

There should be a law against it really

+1

 

[Frank Harvey]

Yup, sadly

Personally I think its completely wrong that they would release a bluray which is just a poorly upscaled dvd

They should re-release it properly encoded from the film print (Or certainly a far better source than the original dvd!) and allow those that bought the original a free copy

There should be a law against it really

It does look better than the DVD to be fair, although as you say, it should look better. The only thing that might bother me is if it loked too good! YOu grow up watching these sorts of films on Betamax/VHS, then on to DVD, and they're all flawed, but when you see what you've grown up with all pristine, it somehow doesn't look right! Although, I doubt we'll ever see EFNY pristine...

 

[Anonymous]

Just going back a bit yes ive seen tron legacy on 3d and dident think it was all that good

 

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately I've just watched Heat on Blu Ray and it was no better than DVD. Although the audio says its in Dolby True HD, its not a great transfer. Such a shame really as its one of my all time favourite heist films.

 

[professorhat]

Strange, as I remember, the transfer of Heat was very good - not the best ever, but certainly a step above the DVD on both picture and sound.

 

[aliEnRIK]

Comparing dvds to blurays will be different for everyone purely due to different scalers being used