Watched my 1st Blue-ray DVD - Frankly I'm not impressed
 

Keeping in mind that I only have a 1080i (50") display, I watched "The Brave One" on my PS3 last night and I can't see a friggin difference in video quality between that and say "Rome" which I've been watching all week on my upconverting Oppo. I'd often read that, on displays 50" and less, the difference between 720p/1080i and 1080p was so small as to be indistinguishable. I guess that is correct or, I'm simply getting old and blind. Plus, these blue DVD cases are friggin ugly. :)

Did you have the PS3 connected to the TV with a HDMI cable?

I haven't seen "The Brave One," so I don't know if the picture is a good representation of what Blu-ray is capable of. Check out "Pirates of the Caribbean" or "Planet Earth." If you don't see a difference there, then either you have your equipment set up wrong or you need to have your eyes checked.

As a point of reference, I have a Panasonic DMP-BD30 and a 50-inch 1080p Sony SXRD.

And two more points: It's Blu-ray, not Blue-ray, and it's not a DVD.

He's Canadian, cut him some slack, at least he didn't call it Bleu-Ray!

I have a 50 inch Sony Wega 720p and I can see a noticeable difference between BR most SDDVD's so maybe it's the way you have it connected.

I can't speak for the quality of the Brave One as I have not seen it yet. I would recommend comparing an older title like The Shining. If you can't see the dramatic difference between the DVD and BR then I don't know what else to tell you.

And the blue cases look cool. :p

I only have a 32 inch 1080i TV. I watched the Brave One and it was fine, not reference in any way.

As for things looking similar, I had Con Air Blu Ray and then watched it on TNT that same night. Not a HUGE different (visually), but the difference that there was, was noticeable. I think once I get a 1080p TV, I will see a bigger difference.

However, I love my Blu Ray!

How far do you sit from the screen?

Depending on who you are asking, usually about 8 feet. Mind you, the difference most of the time is obvious..very clear and crisp colors. I still want a 1080p TV, at least 46 or so inches.

FIXED. ;)

The difference is not a quantum leap.... and what he is communicating is essentially a common refrain. BD/HD is better. No doubt. But it not the same jump as people experienced from VHS to DVD, and many expect the same "Whoa!" response.

Yup using HDMI, properly calibrated tv, sitting about 10 feet away. But then again, I'm getting old, my vision even with glasses isn't what it used to be, and I'm more of an auditive than a visual person. Looks good but no "Whoa!".

Also watched "Disturbia". Movie sucked so bad that I coudn't concentrate on the visuals. :)

I'll borrow a Blue-ray (sorry but "Blu" isn't a word :D ) disc of a film I already own on DVD so I can do a direct comparison.

Oh well, off to watch "Spiderman 3".

Curious, what are you watching your standard DVD's on? Is it an upconverting player? Because if not, even I could see the difference between 480p and 1080i :)

That's a good idea. A test like that might help show the difference. I've done that with BDs of older films (ones that don't "pop" like newer films often do) just to convince myself that the BD still looks better, and have always noticed a difference, often strikingly so.
Yeah, but that's the exact reason why Sony could trademark "Blu-ray" but not "Blue-ray" :)


As mentioned, the difference between DVD and HD is not really a "quantum leap" which is why I've always felt that convincing the average person to upgrade will be a steep uphill battle. Us folks that frequent this forum are really not representative of the general public, it's hard to remember that sometimes. :lol:

I've been watching HD media for almost a year on a 51" 1080i CRT RPTV. I'm still in awe of some of the films I'm seeing in HD now. There is no contest between 90% of SD DVD and HD DVD/Blu-ray. (upgraded from a 32" Sony Wega)

People who aren't impressed either have a small tv / not properly calibrated tv / sitting too far away / or vision issues.

It's still a "DVD" otherwise there would be no such thing as HD DVD. Geeks...

Just kidding (sort of) :)

I know I'm just messing around. :)

Thanks for insinuating I'm a Joe Sixpack :mad:

... :lol: ...

I had a couple of friends over to watch Pirates 3, and they had the opposite reaction when it came to HD. We were only watching it on a 40", but they kept commenting on how awesome the picture looked. Always fun to convert people to HD...

I have to ask this to you as well, are you watching your SD DVD's at 480p or do you use an upconverting player?

I just recently switched to upconverting over HDMI. Before I was watching at 480i over component and letting my tv do the scaling, but with both HD DVD and Blu-ray players, plus an HDMI-capable receiver, it was just kind of a pain switching the player's output back-and-forth between 480 and 1080. So now everything is 1080i over HDMI.

It looks the same for the most part, shadow detail is slightly better now though over HDMI than with component. SD DVDs look virtually the same on my tv whether upconverted or not. With only 480 vertical lines of resolution, there's only so much quality you're going to get out of it.

I've gone from VHS to Laserdisc to DVD to HD DVD/Blu-ray in my life, and HD media is definitely as big of a leap over DVD as all the other leaps were. Granted there are some discs that just don't look that great because of crappy transfers/poor encoding/etc., but like I said on 90% of the 100+ discs I've watched so far, the difference is huge.

Watch the SD DVD of Batman Begins, and then put in the HD DVD...there's a real testament to the difference. Or 2001, Blade Runner, The Thing, Fifth Element, etc...

You mention Spider-Man 3 and since that came with my PS3 and I already owned the DVD it was the first disc I used for an A/B comparison between the Blu-Ray on the PS3 and the DVD on my upconverting Oppo. At first glance I didn't see much difference either but as I started freeze-framing to do comparisons the improvement quickly became apparent. In the scene where they're presenting Spidey the key to the city you can clearly read the seal on the podium on the Blu-Ray but can't make out a single word on the DVD. Similarly as he's webbing around town the Blu-Ray shows an amazing level of background detail (individual bricks in buildings, BBQs on balconies) that simply isn't there on the DVD.

Viewing this on a 42" 720p set from 10 feet away i could clearly see that the Blu-Ray was better. But without the benefit of a direct A/B comparison I probably would have been underwhelmed as well. That vast improvement in fine detail just doesn't pop off the screen when the image is that small. Obviously the larger the picture the more you'll see the differences.

Blu-Ray didn't really floor me out of the gates either but the more I do direct comparisons the more pleased I am with the new format.

Sorry, it really wasn't directed at you, just more of a general statement. :lol:

But really, try an A/B comparison instead of trusting your memory of what the SD version looked like. I did this with ENTER THE DRAGON. After watching the BD version, I tried the SD DVD (not using an upconverting player, but I feel my television does a decent job of upconverting on it's own). Right away I noticed things like less detail in the backgrounds, comparatively muted colours, etc.

There are a lot of variables involved, like screen size and resolution, viewing distance, calibration, the transfer of the BD in question, etc. but if you do a direct comparison, you should notice a difference (the amount of difference would depend on the above variables)

Well, that's certainly flawed French Canadian logic! ;)

DVD and HD DVD are trademarks owned by a competing group. I'm sure they'd disagree with you that Blu-ray is a DVD.

To your original point, I will say that some titles are definitely more eye-catching in high definition than others. When you find one that is (such as "The Shining," which I just watched last night on Blu-ray), the improvement is really a thrill.

I watch standard DVDs on an upconverting Oppo 981, by the way.

Thanks guys I appreciate the viewpoints. What's fascinating to me is that some will say that the leap from DVD to HD is as big and noticeable as the leap between previous formats and others almost had to convince themselves that HD looked better by doing direct A/B comparisons and freeze-frames. And I'm sure that if you took a bunch of people with identical setups, same vision, etc... you'd still get the same differences of opinion, with some in between.

I can think of a couple of explanations for this (there might of course be others). One, as I hinted at in my original post, is the auditive/visual scale. Some people respond more to visual cues than auditive ones and vice-versa, while others will be right smack in the middle. Actually, one could be anywhere along that scale. So a more "visual" person would be more likely to see differences in image quality than someone who is more "auditive". Two, and this might be a tad controversial, I believe that some people are film lovers first while others almost seem to value technical aspects more than the movie itself. Personnally, as soon as I start watching a film (unless the transfer REALLY looks like crap) I don't pay much attention to the technical aspects. I'm watching a movie, not looking for technical flaws. Which of course, makes reviewing the image quality of discs a tad difficult, and a real pain in the arse as far as I'm concerned. Oh well, at least I get free Blu-Ray discs. :)

For me, I find the audio on an HD DVD or Blu-ray disc to be more impressive than the video from my upconverting DVD player (but I can appreciate the difference in the video too...)