Finally got "The Other Boleyn Girl" on BD and the PQ is absolutely stunning. Jaw dropping in fact. THE best Blu-Ray image I've seen to date. Even beating out "No Country For Old Men". It's the one I will demo to my friends. Now I know the movie got mixed reviews. But if you liked the "Elizabeth" movies, you will like this.

I received One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Blu-ray today from Warner Bros. I already sold my 2 disc DVD, but the Blu-ray picture quality is a definite improvement. I think all of the bonus features from the DVD have been carried over.

A Nightmare on Elm Street - September 2

Interview With the Vampire - October 14

http://www.releaselists.com/BLURAYNorthAmerica.html

Also, these titles have been added for October:

Gremlins
The Goonies
John Carpenter's The Thing

^ Cool! But I think this should go in the release announcement thread.

I watched The Lost Boys last night. Looks pretty good for its age. What surprised me was the default track on the disc is DD 5.1 and not TrueHD. This is the first time I've encountered this on BD. Reminded me of the old DVD days when DD 2.0 was the default over 5.1.

Funny, I noticed the same thing. I usually always check anyway, but it was a but of a surprise to see it defaulted to DD5.1.

Disney will sometimes default to the DD5.1 instead of PCM track, but nearly every other studio has either DTS MA, TrueHD or PCM already selected.

I wonder if that was a hint that they originally planned only a DD 5.1 track and then threw the TrueHD on there later.

I thought that, but Lost Boys was planned for last year on both HD DVD and Blu-ray but was pushed back (the rumor going around...though it makes sense) to tie in with the sequel. I bet they had TrueHD planned for both releases.

I watched the UK BD of The Assembly last week and I can wholeheartedly recommend it as a great movie. The video is great with a thin veil of grain and the audio rocks also. There is some dust and debris on the film but nothing distracting. The extra features are in PAL so they did not play in my PS3. There is also a HK release of the movie without the bonus features available.

I think most discs with PCM don't have it selected by default. (Well, except for that Elton John concert that doesn't have DD at all, but even then I don't remember if the 5.1 or stereo PCM was the default.) I've always had to select it manually.

Many Warner titles default to DD 5.1 because of how they're authored. They don't have the DD track as "hidden" like Sony and others. I believe this may be due to authoring for both HD DVD and BD, so maybe this has changed or will change with titles only authored for BD.

Watched my region-free UK BD of Escape From New York last night and it was a decent disc. Definitely no reference PQ here, as detail is fairly muted and unremarkable, though the colors (what few of them there are) are much richer, e.g. the escape pod. I'm not one who will generally look for or is bothered by EE, but it is here as it was easily found on the scene where Hauk is on the wall looking out across to Manhattan, for those that are. Audio was decent as well, though no Transformers mix here. I glanced over the extras and they seem to be the same as the SE DVD that came out a few years ago. No HD for the alternate opening scene in case anyone was expecting that.

I only had the original release DVD and never got around to picking up the SE DVD, so this was a no-brainer upgrade for me and I'm fairly happy with it. If you already have the SE DVD, then you may want to weigh if it's worth the $30 to import.

In the past two days, I've watched the Blu-ray releases of two seminal late-sixties films: Bonnie and Clyde and Cool Hand Luke. I have to say, Warner did a fantastic job with both of these releases. The transfers are wonderful, with good detail and grain intact. The original mono tracks sounds as good as they ever have (and I'm thankful they weren't replaced by a 5.1 remix). The extras are very substantive, particularly on Bonnie and Clyde. And I know they're not popular, but I really love Bonnie and Clyde's digibook packaging and I kind of wish Cool Hand Luke had gotten a digibook as well.

Warner releases can be hit-or-miss, but they got these two classics right.

Beetlejuice (Blu-ray) - Wound up getting this today. Detail is very good, colors are excellent and sharpness, while it varies by scene, is generally quite good. Fans of film grain will eat this one up, and it generally looks very good, especially when compared to the previous DVD. The effects look about the same and are not hurt particularly bad by the added resolution.

The disc looks very good overall. The menu is very simple and offers up the very slim special features -- 3 episodes of the cartoon, the theatrical trailer, and the Music Only option (the full feature with only the music).

The disc sports English Dolby TrueHD, English Dolby Digital, French (Quebec), French, Dutch, Italian, Castellian, and Spanish for languages in addition to the Music-only track. My receiver doesn't support Dolby TrueHD so I can't really comment on it.

Subtitles in about 20 languages.

Slim special features (but I love the cartoon) but the disc is pretty nice on the whole, :up:.

On a side note, the cartoons are encoded in VC-1 and are not in High Def (and are 4:3, of course).

Agreed. As far as the movie goes, period dramas are not my cup of tea but the acting was excellent and the picyure and sound were so absorbing I loved the whole thing.

Glad you liked "The Other Boleyn Girl". It's still one of the top 3 best PQ BD's I've seen so far.

Speaking of which, I just watched "The Forbidden Kingdom" BD from Netflix. Really enjoyed it. I'd give the film a 7.5/10. And the PQ was absolutely gorgeous. That gets a 9.5/10

Been waiting for a new disc for one of my faves for many moons. Glad to hear it's a good BD!

Anyone with a word on "Young Frankenstein", yet?

At 27 bucks it isn't worth it; however, if you can manage to get it for 20, I'd definitely recommend picking it up. The quality isn't going to rock your socks off, but it's a hell of a movie and the extras are pretty damn good.

The BD is definitely brighter than the previous 16x9 dvd. But there are parts I had trouble telling major differences in. There appears to be some added detail as well.

The extras are the best part though. In addition to the old documentary on the dvd, which is solid, there's a new one that can also be viewed as a picture-in-picture feature. They show color photos from the set, which are very cool to see. And Mel Brooks starts off the documentary by talking about how great Blu-ray is. Kinda weird hearing Mel Brooks, of all people, talk about the format.

I'm still at the mercy of my old non-anamorphic DVD, and Fox's inclusion of real honest-to-goodness special features on a catalog title feels like something I should get behind and support.

Thanks for your thoughts, guys. Realistically, I wasn't expecting it to be a show-off disc; I just want it to be the best presentation possible.

Yeah, I'll second what Vipper said. It's a pretty decent looking disc and definitely worth an upgrade if you don't already have the anamorphic widescreen version (which I didn't). The Blu-ray disc is kind of overpriced, and because the look of the movie does lean back to vintage horror (grainy...a little softer than usual), it's not jawdropping or anything. I'm happy with it.

Cool. I see they just posted a review over at AVS. I think I'll spring for it. When this was announced I learned that my wife's never seen it, so I've been holding off showing her my old DVD -- just in case . . .

I know you want to support Fox for the special features, but they've really come around in the past few months. We might see some barebones titles come out that were completed a while ago, but I think that things have changed with them. Spinal Tap is even going to have the Criterion extras, apparently. I've criticized them in the past, but I have to give them credit when credit is due. Of course the pricing is still an issue.

The screencaps at DVD Beaver look very nice, given what I would expect from the film.

Agreed. It's nice to see some future titles being priced lower, too. Let's hope such positive trends continue!

And I am sooo looking forward to "This is Spinal Tap"!!

I know it's frowned upon to thread crap but I completely disagree with the recent bluray review of

Re-Cycle

we're all entitled to our own opinions, but it's obvious Adam and I did see the same movie, but did not share the same opinion. I thought this was total style over substance, and what was left, a anti-abortion/prolife movie in disguise was completely oftputting to me. I had purchased the standard DVD awhile back as a blind buy, and what a mistake...

Watched my Predator 2 UK import last night and was very happy with it, especially since I'm one of the few who may prefer this over the original. Not reference PQ but still looked damn good. The soundtrack was loud and aggressive.

DVD Beaver review of Casablanca.

Oh, it's not a thread crap at all to disagree with a review here, especially when you touch on why you disagree as you did.

I actually agree completely that it's a case of style of substance...I just thought it was stylish enough that I didn't mind. :) I don't have that reaction often (Across the Universe would be another kinda-sorta recent example), but sometimes I can get swept up in the visuals and shrug off the fact that there really isn't much meat on the bone.

Edited to add: wow, I didn't notice I was responding to a month and a half old post. Whoops.

DVD Beaver review of The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

:up::up::up:gotta say as one of the first BD ive bought "Can't Hardly Wait" looks great on the new format ... ofcourse a movie 10 years old isn't gonna look as good as Transformers but its definately worth picking up...11.99 at Frys Electronics ... you'll notice some scenes are better then others but for a 10 year old movie ... it looks great ...:up:

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

I watched Days of Thunder last night and was pleasantly surprised by what I saw and heard. This film was only available on dvd with a crappy non-anamorphic transfer. The BD boasts some very nice, bright colors. Detail is pretty sharp as well. I didn't think it would look as good as it does. The TrueHD audio is also impressive. The car engine roars sound terrific. Very lively track. I expect every BD to look and sound great, but this one exceeded those quite a bit.

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

DVD Beaver review of Raging Bull

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

Beat me to the link. Great screenshots.

I'll be pre-ordering it.

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

I normally see noticeable differences between the same movie on DVD and BD. However, I decided to compare One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest last night. I recently picked it up for $14.99 during Best Buy's sale.

This is an instance where there's not much improvement over the DVD. The positives for the BD is the lack of video noise that the DVD contains, and the detail is slightly, and I mean very slightly, improved. Other than that, I was struggling to find differences.

I know Cuckoo's Nest is a very drab looking film, but there's not alot of reason for anyone to upgrade from the DVD. I'm glad I didn't pay more than $15.

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

Did you notice how extreme white (an example would be when they are playing basketball outside with the nurses) was having a halo effect? I wasn't sure if this was a Blu-ray issue or if it was present on the DVD.

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

I didn't notice anything. I have a hard time seeing halos on any transfer. Probably because I'm not looking for them.

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

Watching a bit of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Transfer looks pretty fucking fantastic. It's about how I remember seeing it when one of the newly remastered prints made it to the Nuart. Listening to it with the mono track right now because I'm not using the big sound system downstairs, so I don't know how the lossless audio is. I love this film so much. And the score might be my favorite film score of all time. Morricone is, without a doubt, my favorite film composer.

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

That's good to hear. I was worried because the buzz around other forums is that they went crazy with the DNR and removed all traces of grain. This title is on my personal Top 10 and I'll be picking it up this weekend.

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

There seemed to be plenty of grain, but I just popped it in between Star Trek films, so it's not a definitive review or anything.

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

I recommend "21" on blu-ray because of its great picture quality.