Just as some DVDs don't look much better than their VHS counterpart, the same goes for DVD/Blu-ray comparisons. As some have already said, the care involved in the transfer as well as the source print are what matters most. Good film stock simply does not exist for some films, so the higher resolution of Blu-ray will certainly be an improvement, but maybe not worth the expense in those instances. And like DVD, many Blu-ray titles will eventually be upgraded with better transfers, as some of the first round of BDs have been rushed into production without the attention to detail they deserve.

Some studios have decided that going forward, all new Blu-rays will be packaged with a standard DVD copy as well, so for an extra $5 folks can compare the two formats pretty easily as well as have a disc for portable players.

Another benefit of Blu-ray discs is the uncompressed audio. This is very often overlooked, but a huge deciding factor if you want your concert and music films to have the best possible sound. It's akin to the variation in sound between mp3s to CDs.

SOTT the movie... whereforth art thou? I knowest you have had a pro HD transfer which led to the Canadian DVD and the Encore HD cable showing....

Excalibur and Conan? Star Wars and Jaws? E.T?

I bought King Kong '76 on blu-ray from Amazon France... and it looks AMAZING. I love film grain.

squirrelgrease said:

I didn't know normal DVD audio was "compressed" like that...

Cinnie said:

It had to be to fit the film and all the channels on the disc. AC-3 is at the highest a lossy rate of 640kbps, but is usually less while CD audio is at least 1411kbps uncompressed. Sampling rates on DVDs are usually higher than CD, though.

Cinnie said:

all 5.1 discs have compressed audio. it's comparable to mp3 quality. the dvd video format only allows stereo sound in lossless, which is the PCM stereo track you sometimes get, usually on music dvds such as prince's the hits dvd

part of the reason is that standard digital connections, such as optical or coax don't have sufficient bandwidth to allow lossless multichannel. that's why sacd and dvd audio discs required connection via RCA cables, before hdmi came along, as that has a higher bandwidth, and can handle lossless multichannel

the dvd video spec doesn't allow for lossless multichannel, only the dvd audio format does

dupe
[Edited 3/1/10 23:09pm]

Cinnie said:

Agreed. To me it's a waste of money. The quality difference I've seen in blu ray vs a regular dvd does not justify the cost!

joseph8 said:

The cost for the software is an excellent argument against Blu-ray. But the quality difference between DVD and properly mastered BDs is striking.

joseph8 said:

I remember people saying that about DVD when it first came out in the late 90's.

joseph8 said:

The cost of a player or the cost of the discs themselves?

The ONLY difference I caught when it comes to blu-ray was in the Planet Earth film, thats when I thought "So thats what the big deal was about".

Other than that, I'm with Cinister Cee.

Many of them are just SD put onto the BR disk and upgraded to an extent to 1080. But without proper mastering and processing and coding the image is not going to be all it can be based on the data on the disc.

Also some movies are being process not from an original print of a movie or a HD digital copy but from a less than idea source.

One movie that may never be able to be true 1080 is Purple Rain, as at least one section of the original negitive was lost and they used the 'work print' to make the final film (this info is on the PR 20th Anniversary commentary).

Without a major digital overhaul frame by frame that section will always be less clear and not as high resolution as other sections.

This problem is also an issue with many older films. Their original films are gone, and they now use copies. They can now take each frame and scan it digitally at a high resolution and make it possible for even higher resolution.

But the real reason is: they are cheep and lazy and do not want to do the work needed to make the movies truly 1080. Just like many DVDs were taken off of an analog source (like video tape)

Harlepolis said:

You don't see ANY difference between the screen captures of the films on this site posted earlier? http://forum.blu-ray.com/...post5.html

sextonseven said:

I do see it,,,,but I don't think its THAT much of a drastic difference, esp when one puts its price into consideration.

Harlepolis said:

I get almost all my blu-ray discs from Amazon which has blu-ray sales constantly where you pay almost the same price as the SD DVD of the film. I do agree though that the prices in stores are on average too high.

OnlyNDaUsa said:

what's an example of this?

OnlyNDaUsa said:

the workprint is still of a greater resolution than 1920 x 1080 pixels!

okay...i'm off to buy the blu ray of 2012. the reviews are very good for the transfer and it's only $20 at best buy

Fury said:

That's the single disc, right? Isn't there a 3-disc edition at Target?

edit: yes there is: http://www.target.com/201...B0037DYBO8
[Edited 3/3/10 8:45am]

Fury said:

I always by used blu-rays of amazon... you can find some good deals!