Hi everybody,

Last night I was watching Iron Man on Blu-Ray. And a freaking thought struck me in a sudden. The thing I was watching did not look like cinema. It was looking rather like a HD video of an outtake, or some British TV Show. Almost plastic colors, CGIs showing themselves as, well CGIs and incredible resolution and brightness. It is not the way we see it in a movie theater. Nothing like a 35 mm. reel. It is not just Iron Man, Spider-Man 3 also looks so very much artificial on Blu-Ray than any other format.

Please do not be mistaken, I am very eager for the new format but there is this urgent need for justification and having other people's opinions for what I think. It may be because of the system I use, or just because of these specific Blu-Rays.

Urgent advise is required. Cheers.

What sort of advice? Sell your Blu-ray player and go back to VHS?

It shouldn't come as a shock that heavily CG movies come off looking CG. I saw the movies you mention in digital theaters, and they looked the same there.

Try watching something else. You know, something filmed with real people. "The Third Man," "The Shining," "Casablanca" and pretty much all my other non-CG movies look fantastic, and very film-like.

Advise: Burn your house down, quickly!

What kind of tv were you using? A lot of newer HDTVs have that whole frame interpolation crap going on, which always just looks weird and artificial to me with movies. Blu-ray itself looks absolutely stunning...

If you want it to look exactly like film and a projector, buy film and a projector.

Funny you should mention this, I was thinking the same thing the other day after watching the end of the Fantastic 4. The special effects looked almost "poorly done" (best description I can give) when compared to the crystal clear backgrounds and actors. I too had the feeling of one of the old sci-fi tv shows.

I found it to be very distracting to watch and really took me out of the movie.

That was my first thought too.

Same here. BD is as close to a theater experience as is available. It sounds like a set-up issue, not a format-related one.

Don't forget you need to calibrate your TV, BD player and DVD player as well. Using Digital Video Essentials or AviaII will help your colors, contrast and sharpness look the way it should be.

Yep, sounds like that 120hz feature is turned on in the TV. It was eye catching when I first saw it displaying Pirates of The Caribbean at Best Buy, but after a while I said to myself I wouldn't be watching my movies with that turned on.

Another vote for interpolation. That gives any movie a video (kinda Daytime Soap Opera) feel.

Interpolation here too, I know what he means by "British TV shows," it's always felt that same way to me.

My vote is for interpolation as well. Try adjusting your TV's settings to see if this is the issue.

If you have an flat panel TV:

1) Turn off Interpolation (on our Samsung it's known as 120Hz Auto Motion Plus) (Interpolation gives movies a "video" look, seemingly adding frames that don't exist, it looks terrrrrrrrrible on everything except live HD broadcasts (Sports) and some nature shows --- a lot of stores STILL show it off as a feature to make Movies look better, it's just wrong on so many levels.)
2) Set the Blu-ray player to 1080p/24 mode (Cinema mode playback)
3) Set the TV to Cinema Mode (Mutes the colors a bit)

If you have a projector:
1) Set the blu-ray player to 1080p/24 mode if supported
2) Set it to Cinema mode and adjust from there

Done. IMO, it looks 35mm and the clarity and stability of the image and brightness makes it vastly superior to most theater experiences.

Agreed with above.

The trick to making it film-like is a true digital connection (HDMI) and a 1080p/24 display. If you're running your BD player with analogue connections the TV is allow to ... mess ... with it more through analogue -> digital conversion.

Also your settings could be way out of wack (most flat screens have brightness and contrast WAY too high so people say "ooh la la" on the sales floor.

Iron Man is also DNRed to shit and looks more digital than others.

I actually disagree with RichC2. If you have a 1080p/24 BD player (or DVD player) then you definitely want to set the flat screen or PJ to 120Hz. Most peeps don't have a 1080p/24 BD/DVD player though, so that is why it looks so bad when you turn on the 120Hz option.

And as I said before, calibrating your TV will make a world of difference in picture quality. If you can, get it ISF calibrated (or THX just released their own technicians to do the same). It costs a lot, but is well worth it. At the very least, get DVE or AviaII to do basic calibration.

Just my $0.02.

I hooked up my PS3 -- which is definitely set to 1080p24 -- to a relative's Samsung over the holidays to watch some Bond, and 120Hz made it absolutely unwatchable. When I turned off the interpolation, it was fine. His set wasn't even close to being calibrated, but my problem was with the way the image looked in motion, not wonky contrast or out-of-whack colors. I hated it as much as I have when I've seen these sets in on storeroom floors.

I mean, clearly some people prefer 120Hz -- these manufacturers have to be churning 'em out for a reason -- but I'm definitely not one of them.

Absolutely not. The "frame interpolation" feature that many 120Hz TVs have is not something that everyone will "definitely want" to enable. It's a matter of preference and many of us despise the "video" look that it gives to film-based material. To maintain the look of film, you want your 120Hz TV to be doing 5:5 pulldown (repeating the exact same frame for five passes), not displaying guesses at what the four frames in between would look like.

You're right guys, sorry about that. It's Friday and my brain is totally not working. Move along and ignore me

The ONLY way to get 1080P is through a digital connection. 1080i/720p through component is the same as 1080i/720p over HDMI/DVI. No matter what, there is a D-A conversion somewhere along the line.

So, what, they look sped up and scantily clad ladies chase the main characters around the screen at odd moments throughout the movie?

Yup. Totally ruined The Bourne Ultimatum.

What was the issue in the Bourne Ultimatum?

Sorry. I was actually Mexican Menace backing up Mexican Menace's Benny Hill reference/joke.

But, in all seriousness, I did watch that film with interpolation on a Samsung LCD once. It was like watching a live broadcast of c-span where the cameraman was drunk. It was very disorienting given the shaky cam use in that film.

Actually, all films look weird to me after a few minutes with interpolation set on. It's kinda cool at first but almost immediately it starts to really bother me.

Wow I'm glad I read this thread. Every time I see a new TV at the store running a beautiful bluray like Dark Knight running in that 120hz mode, I'm always so confused as to why people would ever prefer that. I haven't seen it doing sports(which is probably the only good use for it), but it absolutely ruins bluray for me.