Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

I really hate all the bitching about DNR. People go out of their ways to notice it many times which is fairly uncalled for unless there is a noticeable decline in detail or waxy figures.

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

DVDBeaver review of The International

when comparing it to DVDTalk's own review, the PQ descriptions/impressions seem to differ.

I for one, am impressed with the screen captures from off of DVDBeaver and I'd assume some of the brief scenes actually shot with 65mm camera/film stock looks fantastic.

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

DVD Beaver comparison of Inglorious Bastards. As the reviewer notes, the image looks very soft and hazy.

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

Watched Any Given Sunday last night. It's pretty average looking, but better than the old dvd. There's a good amount of detail and the outdoor football scenes look good. But one of the big negatives of the picture was an annoying line that was running down the right side of the screen, about 3-4" off the edge. Sort of distracting at times. I got this at Amazon for $9.99. Glad I didn't pay more.

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

The Cutthroat Island Blu-Ray is actually pretty good and very affordable. The 7.1 is very robust for an older title.

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

I was ordering a book for my mother and needed to spend another $8 for the free shipping so I grabbed this I think for $12. I always thought the movie was pretty enjoyable and I don't mind upgrading the really early issue DVD's. Mine was the 2000 release and it looked like it.

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

For an absolutely perfect one, watch Knowing!!!

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

Hi,

Sorry to put my message here, but didn't know where to put it :

Is A Perfect Getaway region free ? i guess yes since it’s an Universal blu-ray, but saw someone on a forum, said the blu-ray is region A only …

Thanks :)

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

I was able to watch Collateral recently. That's one of my absolute favorite films. It helps that the BD is superb. Solid transfer. Most of the movie is at night and the picture still offered up plenty of detail. The scene inside the hospital, along with most of the indoor scenes, looks spectacular with some very strong color. A huge improvement over the DVD. As with other Mann films, the gunshots are booming with thunderous volume. The DTS-HD audio is terrific. This is an easy recommendation to replace the DVD version. Paramount's track record for catalogs is mixed, but they nailed this one.

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)

I got a chance to view the new Blu-ray Disc release of The Thomas Crown Affair a few days ago. Included with the BD is the movie on a DVD-18: widescreen on one side and foolscreen on the other. The Blu-ray version is AVC encoded and is on a BD-50, so it isn't some leftover MPEG2 encode from the early days of BD.

PQ:
Having the DVD makes comparing the two versions very easy. The PQ of the BD is significantly improved over the DVD, as might be expected. However, I saw what appeared to be a bit of EE in certain scenes, albeit much less than the DVD. But overall it was a considerable upgrade.

AQ:
The audio is lossless DTS-HD Master Audio. Unlike some, I don't pretend to hear any difference between a good DD track and a lossless one, when they are volume matched. So, no complaints about the AQ from me. The disc also includes more than twenty foreign language tracks and more than twenty-five subtitle tracks. Yes, really.

Extras:
There are no extras on the BD. None. However, it appears that the DVD was the same one released before and it includes the extras from that release: a commentary by the director and the trailers from both the 1968 and 1999 movies. That's it. Of interest to me was the fact that the main menu for the BD was silent and didn't include the animated menu loop from the DVD. At first I wondered if I had my sound system turned on.


Like many others, I consider the 1999 version of The Thomas Crown Affair one of the rare re-makes that is better than the original. For me, it is has been a favorite since I originally saw it in the theater (and I saw the 1968 one in the theater also). For $12 from Amazon, I think that this Blu-ray Disc release is a worthwhile upgrade over the DVD.

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

Re: HD DVD / Blu-ray Reviews and Recommendations
 

DVD Beaver on Region-free UK Escape from New York