Iron_Giant

I just bought my 1st HDTV (Zenith C32V37) a week ago. After going through about 15 of my DVDs, IJ The Last Crusade came out to be my favorite as far as video quality goes for a live action movie.

Live Action:
1. IJ and the Last Crusade (Wow! Detail everywhere and the colors were almost to colorful)
2. The Fifth Element

Star Wars II (very good, but I thought it could have been better)
X-men 2 (I thought it was dark and had too much grain in shadow areas)

LOTR TTT (have not tried yet, but I will try later this week)

Animated:
1. Monster's Inc (about as clear as a DVD can get)
2. Toy Story (just as good as MI, but the hair on Sully's is what gave Monster's Inc #1 in the animated dept


Any other movies that someone has played on their HDTV that gave them the highest picture quality possible for a DVD playing on an HDTV?

Thanks

TREX1993

In addition to the ones you listed, Finding Nemo looks fantastic

airic43

Here are a some of my favorites:

Matrix Reloaded
Seabiscuit
Se7en: Platinum Series
Insomnia
Hulk
Once Upon a Time in the West
North By Northwest

EskimoJoe

Don't have one, but the new Alien transfer is the sharpest thing I have seen in a long time.

Rypro 525

some scene's of Se7en seem offily grainy to me.

babka

BELOW
TRAINING DAY
TERMINATOR HD EXTREME EDITION

Snarff

I thought the following all looked outstanding

Starship Troopers Superbit
Once Upon A Time In Mexico
T2 EE
Both EE of Lord Of The Rings
Men In Black Superbit

airic43

That's because Fincher intended the picture to be that way. Detail and sharpness are so good especially in dark scenes. This is overall one of the best transfers I've seen.

abintra

How much more resolution does HDTV's offer for DVD's compared to SDTV's?

Tarantino

I think that Terminator 2 EE had the best picture I've seen.

Also, Bad Boys 2...The Rock...Punch Drunk Love...

BJacks

Unless you have a RPTV, in which case the bright reds (especially around the clown fish) may cause a problem for many sets.

Chew

My favs: both LOTR SE's, T2, and Nemo.

clappj

Blade 2 looks excellent!

dougshartzer

The Hulk looks pretty good (although i didn't really like the movie).

Ronin and Phonebooth also look pretty good.

doug

colossus

Outside of supporting anamorphic widescreen, it doesn't offer anything in terms of improved quality. Any 'upgrade' in resolution is empty of data. And FWIW, the DVD player is just as important as the display when viewing progressive. The difference in viewing the film Se7en in progressive/anamorphic vs. SD widescreen is very significant.

Regarding the red-Nemo issue BJacks mentioned, find out how to turn off red push and that will cease to be an issue.

All that said, I would have to say FOTR: SE.

Michael Corvin

Bad Boys: Superbit. One of the first ones I watched on my HDTV. Was blown away.

You are using a prog. player right?

DavidH

Colussus,

Can't you have the HDTV do the progressive part of it...not relying on the DVD player?

jough

Or, in English:

Some scenes in Se7en seem awfully grainy to me.

Don't forget Se7en used a bleach bypass process to make some of the silver remain on the negative, resulting in that gorgeous "stressed" effect. It's *supposed* to look like that, and it looks wonderful.

In addition to those mentioned, I'd recommend "Pearl Harbor: Vista Series," "Lawrence of Arabia: Superbit," and "Pirates of the Caribbean."

Congratulations on your new display!

colossus

This is correct! For me though, my TV- Sony KP53HS30 (RPTV)- the 3:2 pulldown on the TV sucked compared to the DVD player I had at the time. And that DVD player was a lame-ass Toshiba SD4700. I am now using a Denon DVD-2900 and it's even more obvious.

The decoding still needs to be done on the DVD player- and this is where you need to spend a lot of time researching which player to buy. The DVD-2900 is expensive, you can get a Panasonic with the same chipset for ~$600 less.

The difference in DVD player quality from SD4700 to DVD2900 was very obvious. Before I hooked up the DVD2900, I was watching AoTC and thought that it was time to do a manual convergence on my TV. After I hooked up the 2900, it didn't look like I needed to do it anymore. I did anyway and the picture was incredible.

How good? A while back HBO-HD was showing AoTC. I was viewing it on with a Sony SAT HD-300 receiver (in HD).

The anamorphic DVD looked better. Everybody in the room- my GF and her 11-year-old son included- agreed.

Dammit

What problem would that be? Mine is a RPTV and I haven't noticed anything. Could be that I use a HTPC via DVI for a DVD player most of the time though.

Dammit

How are you hooking up these components? I don't know if the 2900 has DVI or not off the top of my head but I'm pretty sure the HD-300 doesn't. Just wondering. I recently got cable HD service and have to use component outs on the box because the DVI port that IS present is not activated. DVD's through DVI with my HTPC can give some broadcast HD a run for it's money but there's been times where I've seen HD that just blows away anything I've seen on DVD so far. I didn'thave HBO HD when they were running AOTC but I've heard others say it was disappointing. I've seen a few movies on there that are either very lackluster HD transfers or they are simply upconverts.

To answer the original poster's question. All of the Pixar stuff looks incredible but also, Ice Age is surprisingly good at times. They did a wonderful job with the lighting. For live action, Fifth Element Superbit is still my favorite.

Iron_Giant

HDTV does make a difference:
1. You can get a bigger screen and not loose resolution
2. You need to make sure you turn on progressive scan on the DVD player. It did not make as big of difference as I thought it would, but I can tell that details are a little sharper with it turned on. HDTV can turn the signal into progressive, but it is better to let the DVD player do the conversion.
3. Make sure DVD player has 3:2 Pulldown
4. Tell you DVD player you are using a 16:9 TV
-If you are using a 4:3 (which is the HDTV I have), then turn on the 16:9 mode.
5. Adjust all the contrast, brightness, color, tint...
-No HDTV comes out of the box ready to go, they all need to be adjusted
6. The HDTV will only be as good as the quality of the DVD you use:
-You will be gratiful for all the DVDs that have high video quality, HDTV will show you all the good and bad.

Overall HDTV does make a difference, and even more if you use the steps abvove.

Dammit

That's not always true. In addition to my HTPC, I also have a JVC S500BK that uses the mediamatics chipset. It introduces some minor artifacts in progressive mode so when I'm using that, I run it in interlaced mode and let my HDTV do the de-interlacing with much better results. It depends on the equipment you have.

DonnachaOne

Really? I'd heard about major compression artifacts.

Iron_Giant

I watched "The Mask of Zorro" Superbit for the 1st time on HDTV and it really gave me a deeper appreciation for DVDs that have been created with much care given to the video quality.

This may become my favorite "Live Action" video/sound demo DVD. IJ and the Last Crusade also has great video quality, but TMoZ has the best sound and video combo I have viewed yet.

Thanks for all the suggestions