Just finished watching Cruel Intentions last night on BD. Excellent AVC transfer, four out of five stars (maybe four and a half). Nicely detailed, very little grain. I believe all the special features were ported over from the SD version, too. Sounds fine.

I also watched Hellboy on BD last weekend. I was actually very impressed by this one. The opening scene with the rain was surprisingly amazing (sharp, detailed, deep blacks). Personally, I would give the transfer five out of five, though I'm sure High-Def Digest will find some minor issues and give it four and a half. It's another AVC transfer and it is indeed the Director's Cut. I don't own the DVD version, so I don't know what they dropped, special features-wise, but it has a good array.

Was that the import version of Hellboy or the US release?

Also, just to let you guys know, barring any unforeseen delivery problems, tomorrow we should have up a review of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest disc 1 on Blu-ray. The full set with the second disc (which is all the DVD extras) will arrive later.

The US version.

I hope Disney took the time to clear up the horrible, horrible edge enhancement that plagued the DVD.

I got a look at the discs Monday night at a Disney event and they looked pretty amazing. Obviously I'm reserving final judgement until I can sit down with the disc and really scrutinize it, but I was very impressed with what I saw the other night.

And now you can see my final thoughts on it:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=28121

Edit: I had no idea when I wrote this review it would spark a whole new chapter of the HD wars. :lol: By following referral links for the review, I came across several threads at AVS, HTF, and other forums where people are quoting my image quality portion of the review as some sort of "proof" that Blu-ray's higher bitrate means HD DVD cannot ever look as good once the bitrate is cranked up. Also, the HD and BD fanboys are coming out of the woodworks to praise The Matrix/attack POTC, or praise POTC/attack The Matrix. Interestingly, I will also be reviewing the Matrix HD DVD set, so we'll see what kind of controversy that sparks. :) Just found it interesting.

I completed my Dead Man's Chest review to include all the extras on disc two. Now watching Curse of the Black Pearl. Review of that should be up tomorrow, barring any unforeseen problems.

Edit: Just to mention, Curse of the Black Pearl is another 5-star for PQ/AQ.

so.... I guess the hideous grain present on the BluRay demo disc isn't apparent and cleaned up for 'Curse of the Black Pearl' ;)

as for the Dead Man's Chest - I thought the theatrical DLP presentation was pretty amazing and windowlike in it's clarity... glad to hear the BluRay replicates that.

High-def Digest gives glowing reviews for Flags of Our Fathers on both formats. This is the first Paramount title on BD to use AVC. They are really impressive when it comes to their day & date titles. Very consistent.

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/flagsofourfathers.html

Oh, there's definitely grain in Curse of the Black Pearl, but it doesn't detract from the image quality at all.

My review of Curse of the Black Pearl is up:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=28215

Horray! :clap:

so you watched the movie four times with each commentary track ;)

I know it just got released today but are there any online reviews of Apocalypto?

Looks like only two so far, but apparently it's pretty awesome.

http://hddb.net/reviews/1325

I don't trust a review that incorrectly lists the film's aspect ratio at 2.35:1 when it's 1.85:1 (DigitalAudioVideo - Apocalypto)

DigitalAudioVideo is worthless. Don't waste your time reading their "reviews".

Hmmmm... Personally, I would have had to knock at least 1 star off the movie rating due to it being a good hour or more too long. :)

Sorry, Josh, Curse of the Black Pearl has me hooked from beginning to end every time I watch it. I really have no criticisms for it as a movie.

I'm set to review this one, but right now I'm wading through the monster known as The Ultimate Matrix trilogy. However, since I love you guys so much, I'll pop on Apocalypto on a break and post my A/V impressions.

I'm looking at Apocalypto now. I hope Mel Gibson was going for a drab look, because that's how this transfer comes off to me. It's high bitrate AVC, and looks pretty sharp, but the colors do seem dialed down. Obviously I'll get in a more detailed review when I'm done with Le Matrix.

The uncompressed audio is pretty great, though. Gotta love that 5.1 Mayan track. :)

The opening scenes seemed drab to me but after 30-45 mins things really looked great IMO.

Did anyone else check out "The 40 Year Old Virgin" yet? Peter Bracke noted he didn't see any EE unlike previous dvd versions but I swear I was seeing EE when they switched to some shots, most noticably shots of his front lawn.

Apocalypto looked amazing to my eyes. Better than Curse of the Black Pearl IMO. Dead Man's Chest looks absolutely breath-taking. I highly recommend all three.

So, I got a Ps3 today, and picked up some BluRay discs at Best Buy. WTF is with the security stickers?! CD's & DVD's have been out for 15-20 years, and they still can't figure out a way to seal these things so it doesn't leave jizz all over the case to my $30 BD?

Sony insists on putting 3 stickers on their Blu-ray titles which are damn near impossible to take off without leaving a bunch of sticky residue on the cases. Paramount I think does the same thing.

Ive watched both Pirates movies and they look stellar. Great presentation.

Now, on to the Matrix boxset....great few days for these formats. ;)

Goo Gone.
I swear by this stuff. :thumbsup: