last year i rented star trek (the remake) on regular and was blown away by the graphics. this week i received my netflix order of star trek on blu ray. i was expecting it to be on the next level of clarity and sound...but it looked pretty much the same as dvd. that being said, i'm playing god of war 1&2 on my ps3 and i'm constantly like --fucking incredible. ps3 games are 720p and my tv is full 1080p. but back to the movies--i've watched quite a few movies--mainly ones released after blu ray--and none have been like wow!!!

anybody?
[Edited 2/27/10 4:20am]

I think it's called capitalism.

you mean you are comparing the standard SD dvd of star trek to the same movie on bluray?

the blueray of ST looks amazing. something must be up with your setup or eyes, or panel

generally speaking, some blurays aren't that great due to the mastering process, but newer movies usually benefit the most, especially long movies or movies with high action scenes or special effects, as the higher bitrate really helps, not to mention the higher resolution

unique said:

i'm just saying that the difference isn't as great as i'd hoped. playing resident evil 5 made me say wow--this is big difference. with the movies i'm just like ....
[Edited 2/27/10 4:47am]

I think it has everything to do with how the films were shot and what type of specs they were aiming for during the production stage.
[Edited 2/27/10 5:03am]

It also depends on the transfer. Some movies that are shot digitally might look different than those on film. We have all the Star Trek blurays (ALL the movies, including the new one (which isn't a remake, btw)). I think the new Star Trek looks spectacular on BluRay. I saw it in IMAX, and was just as happy with it at home.

Also, the idea of putting CGO together for a video game vs filming live action for a movie, and having to deal with lighting, shadows, etc (opposed to creating them with CGI) puts forth the differences you're seeing.

There will always be something on BluRay that doesn't quite meet the "BLU RAY" standards people think of. But again, the medium itself, as high def as it can be, is still limited by the specs and conditions of the original master.

I'm not feelin blu ray.

If you can't see the difference then either or combo of the following apply:

1 Your tv sucks
2 Your player connection to the tv sucks


because DVD's are 720 x 480 pixels
blu-rays are 1920 x 1080 pixels.

There is nice difference in quality. I watched Battlestar Galactica on DVD up till the last few seasons, then switched to blu-ray. The difference was HUGE. The effects unfortunately looked more fake on blu-ray, because it's so clear. But overall it was much more dramatic on blu-ray, more immediate.

Here are samples (but I couldn't find star trek yet, but I'd be willing to bet that the blu-ray looks better than the DVD sonce other JJ Abrams stuff like LOST or Cloverfield is completely different on blu-ray!):

Click on a movie title on the following page to see the difference (it's fun!):

http://forum.blu-ray.com/...post5.html

I think some people's expectations of blu-ray discs are too high. It's not like you'll be able to see the movie in 3D or something. If your eyes can't tell the difference then don't waste your money buying them.

I can see the difference between blu-ray and standard definition DVDs (quite clearly for most releases) and love watching them--so much so, that I no longer buy new releases on SD DVD. And if there's no blu-ray edition then I don't buy the movie at all.

My tv is fine and my connections are fine thank you very much. Maybe watching a blu Ray movie is just not the huge leap that the studios
want you to believe. I'm not saying there wasn't a slight difference in clarity but a regular DVD in a ps3 using a gold hdmi cable came pretty close

ufoclub said:

sextonseven said:

that's probably more accurate in my case

Fury said:

okay, "tv sucks" is insulting and I didn't mean that. What I meant was that the tv might not be calibrated correctly (also is it 1080?), and won't display high resolution correctly. If you click on the link look at the differences in the screenshots. It's the difference between slightly out of focus on details and not. Even the menu's are startlingly clear. Just the FBI warning is completely clear. PS... gold cable hype is just hype! HDMI is digital... gold or no gold, it's the same signal. There's a lot of rip off going on with 3rd party audio video companies.

But just click on the link to see what the difference should be like.

not all blu conversions are great. some suck. I visit this site all the time:

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/

ufoclub said:

Like srsly.

JerseyKRS said:

I know there are some rumored bad ones... but what's an example? People complain about the Godfather, but that's a matter of the colors that the makers intended, not an issue of sharpness.

Okay I do own one blu-ray that exposes the limitation of the source film...

Clockwork Orange. This movie was of a limited budget shot with little cheaper hand held 35mm film cameras at the time on documentary style film stock so they didin't have to light everything up... with crappy lens too!

It might be because Kubrick had no financial support after 2001 bombed at the box office, and he went to making a more small scale rough movie.

But the blu-ray of this is not a great example of sharpness because the actual movie itself is not crystal clear.

ufoclub said:

the godfather trilogy looks miles better on bluray than dvd, especially compared to the original dvd boxset. it's a set of films nearly 30-40 years old so you aren't going to get the same quality imagine as a modern transfer, but you can still clearly see the difference between SD and HD unless you have a crap setup. buying some cheap chinese LCD isn't going to give you a decent picture

ufoclub said:

it's a 40 year old movie. it still looks better on bluray than it does on dvd. all the kubrics look miles better in HD than SD. 2001 looks amazing regardless of it's age

usually what you see on a kubrick flick is what the director intended. he wanted the dirty grainy look on clockwork orange to match the gritty tone of the movie

unique said:

The reason Clockwork Orange looks bad was it was shot low budget style with shitty lens (just look at how cheap some of the set pieces are)... 2001 was a huge budget studio movie with the lowest grain film. Same goes for Barry Lyndon afterwards. I have 2001, Clockwork, and The Shining on blu-ray.

PS... any movie shot on 35mm with low grain (low speed film) film will have higher resolution than blu-ray. That's why and old black and white Hollywood film will look AMAZING on blu-ray.

I think it's funny that people don't know that even a movie made in the 30's has potentially better image quality than consumer HD if you go back to the film copy.
[Edited 2/27/10 14:45pm]

ufoclub said:

any film has higher resolution than HD as it's an analogue format

ufoclub said:

i have all the kubrick flicks on hd-dvd (that you can get), and the earlier ones on dvd. just not the first one or two early flicks that haven't been released on dvd. i have both dvds of the shining, usa and euro versions. the dvds of most movies are in academy ratio open matte and the hd versions are the cropped 19:9 versions

unique said:

Some film stock of high speed has courser grain particles which in effect lowers the resolving power of the image frame!

ufoclub said:

and?

film doesn't have a resolution. it's an analogue format, so the smallest thing you could define as a resolution would be particles or atoms. extreme HD formats can be created in the future and take advantage of this

unique said:

ufoclub is right. The grain, or lack thereof, is what effects the power of the frame.

unique said:

film resolution is measured in lpmm units lines per millimeter. Look it up!

Here's an interesting article:
http://www.filmschooldire...s_35mm.htm

Some of the blu rays I own that have made me go WOW are,
Pan's Labyrinth
District 9
Star Trek
Beowulf
Iron Man
I Am Legend.
I got House Of The Flying Daggers but I was totally gutted at the transfer.Crouching Tiger wasn't too great either.

Cinnie said:

Get some new glasses Cinnie before you write off the entire medium!

Another great site for comparing Blu-Ray vs standard DVDs is www.dvdbeaver.com . I'm personnally looking forward to the Blu-Ray version of Fritz Lang's M. The difference is almost night and day! Another old movie on Blu-Ray that blew me away recently, was Roman Polanski's Repulsion.
[Edited 3/1/10 10:46am]

Blu-ray is, when the transfer is handled well, miles above DVD. Watch Sleeping Beauty or Pinocchio: flawless. (Or for something more recent, any Pixar movie or The Dark Knight). Some transfers are just poor, and you have to wonder why the studio even bothered. But on the whole, wouldn't go back.
=0P