Blu-Ray must-haves & official Blu-Ray thread

Right now I have
Hancock (no idea why)
The Dark Knight
Pineapple Express
Up

I haven't dug into the special features on any of them really. I did check out some of the stuff on the first disc of TDK, which was great, but that's just the first disc.

I really want the Blu-Ray of Bruno. Apparently it has an extended commentary where they pause the movie and go into a lot of detail on how they did everything, which just sounds awesome.

I already said so in the thread for the film, but the new Inglorious Basterds BD looks and sounds great.

I haven't even gotten around to see the film yet. Is it worth owning, or is it only worth a rent/download?

It's one of the best films I saw all year, and it's Tarantino's best film by a wide margin. The cast is incredible (Cristoph Waltz is a pleasure to watch) and the use of different languages is clever and intelligent. And like always, Tarantino is a fucking genius in the music department.

I'm going to cry when the LotR extended editions come out on Blu-Ray and all I have are the stupid DVDs.

well, get a damn BD player, mang

Don't think it's been mentioned in this thread but the latest Star Trek movie is absolutely stunning in terms of image quality.

Just bought Inglourious Basterds, will be viewing it sometime next week. If it's as good as all these online reviews claim it to be I should be one happy camper!

I have one. I'm saying that I have the Extended Editions on DVD and replacing them with the Blu-Rays is going to ass rape my wallet.

just got

lost season 5
24 season 7
inglorious bast3rds
star trek
terminator salvation
transformers 2
some others i forget...

Godfuckingdammit. I finally sat down to watch my Blade Runner BD and the Final Cut disc is the Workprint disc. What the fuck. Supposedly this is a common problem and I have to call Warner Home Video to get a replacement.

I'm thinking of getting the whole Pixar collection in Blu Ray, so I far I have Wall E

Called them. That was easy. Anyone could probably call them and request the disc, hah.

Maybe I'll try that

On a related note, my Pineapple Express blu-ray isn't working. I put it in and it just shows a puff of smoke going up over and over

The absolute must-have (and what I use to demonstrate BD to my friends) is David Attenborough's Planet Earth series. It's visually amazing.

Other greats are Wall-E, The Dark Knight, and The Shining. Any digital animation looks great on BD. With a lot of older films the increased resolution only means you see the film grain a lot clearer, but the increased space usually means remastered sound and tons of extras.

I actually like the film grain quality. For flicks like A Clockwork Orange it gives it the feel like you're at the theater. The thing I dislike the most is stuff made with TV Studio aesthetics. For example Office Space probably looks better in SD because of how it was shot.

Just watched Sin City and I was very impressed by the video quality. The only problem is that the actors looked so good and detailed that everything else seemed a little washed out.

Yeah, the Planet Earth Blu-Ray set is absolutely stunning.

You really think so? I'm incredibly tempted to try this...

does some versions of a film in blu-ray vary to other versions.. in quality? I bought 300 not too long ago but IMO the quality was shit.. and I've seen it mentioned here a couple of times..

btw I have watchmen and dark knight and you can't get close to compare 300 to them

yeah, i was dissapointed with 300's pq too...

Different BD authors use different hardware and software to encode the video and audio. The process hasn't exactly been streamlined or standardized yet, so those who don't know what they're doing or do a rush job end up with a product that reflects that. At this point, BDs take a bit more dedication than DVDs to create well. The technology is still growing.

From now on, before you buy, read technical reviews at a site like www.blu-ray.com

AFAIK there are at least 2 versions of The Fifth Element on BD, with noticeable quality differences, so yeah, it can vary from release to release.

it seems completely bullshit to me that one version of a movie could be better than another, it just seems retarded to me.. but oh well next time I'll check just that..

Did you read my post at all?

Another way of explaining it...think of it as different engineers mixing and mastering an album. The music can be performed with and recorded with high-dollar equipment by experienced professionals, but in the mixing and mastering stages you can completely change the way it sounds, sometimes for the worse.

...

did you read mine? it was just an opinion that I still think it's retarded, not that I didn't undestand

why having a worse version of the same movie when there's a better version of it out, I mean yeah they could have just released the better one, but in that case just don't sell the other one anymore, it's just stupid because both versions are the same price in most cases

Rights issues; the film rights change hands and whoever gets their hands on it wants their own pressing of it to rake in more bucks. That's why different versions exist, most of the time. Or, the shit one is released first and people complain, so then a better copy is released.

All of this happened with the DVD format as well (and still does) but it's far more apparent with BD format.

Yeah I agree; I wasn't saying that as if it's a bad thing, just that I've heard people say they got some movie from the 70s on BD and were surprised that it didn't look like something shot natively in HD.

holy shit YES

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=3993

8 discs?! I wonder why so many. Standard DVD copies? Digital copies? Separate discs for extras (this would be best since it would give the films more room to breathe on their own discs)?

Fade to White version of Lady Vengeance may have its own disc. That is so awesome that they included both versions.

Too bad there doesn't appear to be commentary for Lady Vengeance.

I am going to buy the everliving shit out of this set.

I bought the Ultimate Edition of the first Harry Potter movie today, will buy the second if I am pleased.

Why did I buy that Vengeance trilogy on dvd a few months ago? That BD set looks delicious.

sell it quickly!

You should take a look at something like Casablanca or even The Wizard Of Oz and tell me that doesn't look downright spectacular. Both movies from WELL before the '70's mind you.

Being shot in HD or not actually doesn't matter one bit on how the final product on Bluray will look.

For instance: Collateral (Michael Mann) was filmed in digital HD but looks pretty shite in my opinion. Why? Technically, the camera's weren't yet fine-tuned at that time and especially in dark scenes there is tons of grain (the bad kind: digital noise) as a result.

On the other hand: Zodiac (David Fincher) looks downright spectacular BUT: if ever we move to the next stage (and we will eventually), which is Ultra High Def (UHD) I wonder how they'll be able to transfer the 1080p-file to this higher resolution...

If you have a film shot on film, the only technical limitation is the quality of your master print, since it's an analog source with - so to say - limitless resolution when converted to digital. And judging from Warner Bros.' work they have some AMAZING prints in their archives.

Unfortunately Warner Bros. just decided to not offer any titles to Netflix until 28 days after the release date in an attempt to bully people into buying rather than renting. Thanks to that, I don't really want to buy their products anymore, and probably won't.

So 28 days sounds like the end of the world to you then? Seriously, I don't get it. I've waited for stuff longer than that. There are companies in general that pull weirder shit on the consumer than this thing.

I seriously applaud Warner for putting out so many great Bluray releases. Other studios should take notice.

I didn't say it's the end of the world. I'll be perfectly fine with cutting my purchasing of their products down to few or none. They're being greedy.

I don't have any problem with them doing that and I love Netflix.

Again, I wasn't saying it as if it's a bad thing. It's just I've noticed some people mention they got an older movie on Blu-ray and were surprised that it didn't look like The Dark Knight. For a lot of films this is a good thing though, for example 2001: A Space Odyssey looked amazing because the original film probably looked amazing (I wouldn't know, I was about 15 years from being born when it came out)... but just the fact that a movie is on Blu-ray doesn't necessarily mean it will look spectacular, especially for older movies. Metropolis for example would not benefit at all from a Blu-ray release if the only improvement was 1080p video.

This is exactly my point. The limitation is the quality of the original film, and a high-definition transfer of an ordinary looking movie may only look marginally better than the DVD. But the increased space of Blu-ray generally (though not always) means more space for remastered sound and special features. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a fantastic Blu-ray because it has a good enough film transfer, incredible (uncompressed) sound and a ton of interviews and featurettes.

The Road Warrior blu-ray is amazing, other than 1 night scene showing some age on the original print the whole movie looks brand new with little to no film grain at all, some amazing care was put into preserving the movie over the years and you can tell. Probably the best "older" movie ive seen in terms of picture quality on blu-ray so far its just... insane.

Its also IMO one of the best if not the best action movie ever made.

Nice recommendation, I'll add it to my queue right now!

I've already mentioned it plenty but so far I was most impressed by the A Clockwork Orange BD... it looks clean and detailed while retaining the Brit 1970's color tones, and the backgrounds really comes to life in both the indoor and outdoor scenes. The web critics seem to disagree with me but I was impressed.

Some nice BD deals at Amazon right now:

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/L-Confidential-Blu-ray-Kevin-Spacey/dp/B000Q8QH0I/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1264502990&sr=8-2"]L.A. Confidential for $11.99[/ame]

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Heathers-Blu-ray-Winona-Ryder/dp/B001DHXSXK/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1264503024&sr=8-3"]Heathers for $5.99[/ame]

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Shell-Blu-ray-Atsuko-Tanaka/dp/B002NUULNG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1264503123&sr=8-1"]Ghost In the Shell for %10.99[/ame]

The Amazon reviews for the GitS BD say they replaced a bunch of stuff with CG. Sounds lame

You;d be retarded not to buy this.

The original film is on the disc, as well.

I bought it and LA Confidential. Already have a full size rip of GITS on my hard drive.

WIZARD OF OZ Emerald Edition for $16.49 (list $49.99)
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002VWNIEK?tag=bluray-051-20"]Amazon.com: The Wizard of Oz (Three-Disc Emerald Edition) [Blu-ray]: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Margaret Hamilton, Billie Burke: Movies & TV[/ame]


The review of it sounds amazing.
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Wizard-of-Oz-Blu-ray-Review/7704/

I've been waiting for a price drop like this. So glad I spotted this.

Sweet deal.

How has the audio been mixed for 5.1? Is it just mirrored evenly across the channels or have they done some wizardry with it? Seems like a waste to encode a mono soundtrack from 1939 in TrueHD.

I'm thinking of picking up Ghost in the Shell 2.0 Edition. But I'm kind of wary regarding the whole CGI thing. Anyone know if the PQ on the blu-ray edition of GITS 2.0 is worth it?

The original cut of the film is on there as well. No need to worry.

The PQ of the 1080p rip I downloaded is pretty nice, but I haven't seen the DVD version since forever ago, so I really can't comment on how much of an improvement it may be.

The reviews in amazon don't seem to think the BD has much of an improvement in image/sound quality.

Yeah the reviews said the original one wasn't in HD or something? I don't know. I still might get it, I've only seen it once and it blew my mind but now I don't remember it at all so I want to see it again.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=4198

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=4188