That thread and it's sister thread about HD-DVD quality are a lot of fun to read. Some of the debate over there can get quite heated.

Fifth Element - NON-REMASTERED .... Breathtaking!

Even though The Searchers is only ranked as a Tier 2 release in picture quality, it is by far my favorite "show-off" disc. The clarity of the images and the way the colors pop on this film is amazing (thanks to VistaVision restoration). While it isn't the flawless transfer of say a Spiderman 3, the fact that the movie was made in 1956 actually makes it the more impressive transfer to me (and so far to everyone else I've shown it too). Obviously we are just talking picture quality here, as the BD has a mono soundtrack.

Ratatouille and Cars get another vote. A lot of people say Planet Earth have it havent had a chance to watch it yet though. Watched Cars and Ratatouille and they were amazing

I totally forgot about the mis-framed Pirates. I'll need to check that out on the Best Buy copy i just bought.

Meanwhile, Ratatouille is awesome.

I got a bad one from Best Buy on Monday.

Quick ref:

Bad discs - on the playing side the numbers are 008740.

Corrected discs - on th playing side the numbers are 016570 or A0100894564-A911 / B911

See original thread for all the details...

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread....9&page=1&pp=25

Thanks for the info. I traded for a copy a while back and just checked my disc and I have the corrected version.

Cars and Ratatouille are the best currently released HD discs for sheer picture quality. Period. Flawless transfers from a direct digital source. The only movies that will ever be able to compete with them are other animated Pixar titles. For live action film it's hard to argue with the two Pirates sequels as the best.

Is that what that is? I never cared for the way those demos looked, technically the picture quality is good but it looks unbelievably fake like it is dropping frames or something. Never knew if it was something to do with the transfer, TV or what.

So it is entirely unique to a certain type of LCD TV?

Gattaca looks pretty damn good.

Well I've only watched about 7-8 BD titles so far (including "No Country for Old Men") and the one I've been most impressed with in terms of picture quality is "The Untouchables".

The 'super real' video effect is a feature of the 120hz TVs. It was explained to me in another forum thusly:

"OK, let me try to clear up the whole "120 hz, motion processing, blah blah" stuff. I'll avoid being technical where possible.

1) Faster refresh rates (or "frame rates" if you will) are good... you get more frames into each second which reduces motion blur and increases motion detail. This is an inarguable fact.

2) Film is (primarily) shot at 24fps. This is largely a traditional thing... it was deemed the lowest acceptable frame rate to not appear "jerky". Using less films saves on film cost, plus early cameras were limited, etc. Newer cameras and digital production make it easy to shoot at higher frame rates, but the whole world has been set up to run at 24 fps or 30 fps, so even if you did it would be difficult for your increased frame rate movie to be appreciated by anybody.

3) TVs usually run at some multiple of 30hz (usually 60hz). This is because television broadcasts are sent at 30 fps. This creates a problem with film since it is running at 24 fps... what do you do with the extra 6 frames your television is expecting? So 3:2 pulldown is used, repeating frames at different rates to get to a multiple of 30. Since certain frames are displayed longer than others (some are "3" and some are "2") this creates jerkiness in motion in film, which is bad.

4) New TVs/HD players have a 24p mode which allows them to run exactly at 24 fps, just like film. This eliminates "jerkiness" due to 3:2 pulldown. This is good.

5) However, 24 fps is still a pretty low figure... it's not exactly smooth and well below the capability of the human eye. So even if there's no 3:2 "jerk" something moving very fast at 24 fps will still look "blurry". This is also considered bad.

6) 120Hz TVs work to resolve this a bit by using an incredibly high frame rate, allowing them to display the 24 fps source at a faster rate. The number 120 is specifically arrived at because it is a multiple of 24 (24*5 = 120). This is considered superior to pure 24p processing as it "refreshes" each frame 5 times, thereby making your eye less able to pick up on the "slowness" of a 24 hz refresh rate. This is good.

7) Motion Enhancement on 120 hz displays (it goes by various names) takes things a step further. If we have 120 frames to work with, why waste them on repeats? Instead of simply repeating the same frame 5 times it asks "what if we had more frames to work with? What if the film was shot at 120 fps rather than 24 fps?". So instead of taking frame 1, repeating it 5 times, then moving to frame 2 it will figure out the average between frame 1 and frame 2, and insert this average as new frames between frame 1 and 2. So instead of having a frame "jump" from frame 1 to 2, you will instead get all the "in between" information. This in between information allows all the detail in the frame to remain sharp even in motion as it eliminates the blur inherent to 24fps material.

8) Motion enhancement thus ends up looking more "real" which is also coincidentally a bit more like live sports or soap operas look. Why? Well live sports are filmed at a rapid frame rate (60hz) so you can keep up with all the fast motion without jerking or jitter. Soap opera's are shot on video, usually at 60hz, but simply because it's cheaper than film.

9) So is 120hz processing "bad"? NO. It's superior in every way to 3:2 processing or even 24p processing.

10) So is "motion enhancement" bad? This gets more subjective. It certainly looks and feels different than traditional 24p processing. People usually get upset at change, so no surprise some people are freaking out over it. But on a technical level one could argue that motion enhancement is technically superior to all other forms of display. More frames = more information = more detail, plain and simple. You are getting a superior picture in a strict sense.

One could argue that this processing makes the film look "different" than the filmmakers intended. This is true, but you also have to remember that the filmakers have no other option: they can't shoot things at 120 hz even if they wanted to (well they can, but good luck getting it seen in theaters). The fact of the matter is that motion looks better at a higher framerate, period.

One could also argue that motion processing is adding things that were never there, which is bad. This is technically true, but technically false. The motion processing is simply trying to recreate the frames that WERE originally there (in real life) but were simply not captured by the camera.

At the end of the day, the simple fact is that there is nothing "special" about 24 fps... it's plainly inferior to higher frame rates. And while frame rate can be raised and lowered to give things a certain "feel" or "mood", filmmakers haven't been choosing 24 fps because it's the best, but simply because it's the only choice and it's traditional. As such, I see motion processing as an interesting step in the right direction. My eyes feel more "happy" to be seeing things at a more life-like rate. Unfortunately, whether this increase in information "fits" a film or not is going to depend on the film. I feel that MOST of them work fine with motion enhancing, but there are a few that don't (2D animation, for example).

I can imagine in the future that films will dictate the frame rates they run at themselves, even varying the frame rate within the film. So each film will be filmed at 120 fps, but the final encode "flags" the frame rate that the film should be running at. I imagine most films in this future would be flagged at a higher framerate (action, sports, documentary. etc.), with a few still opting for the "traditional" 24p look (drama, historical)."

The good thing is you can turn it off (with my sony anyway). Ive been having fun with it as a novelty to see films in the super real vision, but if I wanted to seriously enjoy a film id probably leave it off. It does seem better suited to animation.

Thanks for passing that along Save Ferris.

I HATE the 120hz feature on newer displays. I like my film to look like film and don't want it to look like video, which it does with the 120hz feature turned on. I don't like it at all.

agreed. more specifically, i like my movies to look like they did in the theater. the motion enhancement feature is a bastardization of the theatrical presentation, much like pan & scan, except this is in the temporal domain rather than the spatial domain.

Total Recall










I kid! I kid!

Again, mere 120hz is good, it matches the fps as it should--with 5 frames redundancy. its the Motion Enhancement (or branded version thereof) that extrapolates data between the frames, giving it the 'live action' non film look.

I have over 250 blu ray movies/sets. I agree with everyone here on what they think are some of the best. There are so many great parts in different movies that really show off the HiDef quality of Blu-Ray. I keep going back to Apocalypto starting from the scene where they are coming into the Mayan city. The scene on top of the temple where they show all the royals with the feathers and turquise is just incredible. It's what I show everyone that comes over to see my awesome setup:
Pioneer Elite Kuro PRO-150FD 60" Plasma
Pioneer Elite VSX-94TXH HDMI 1.3 A/V reciever 7.1 surround
Bryston 4B ST power amplifier
Polk audio RTi150 fronts
Polk audio CSi40 center
Polk audio FXi30 surrounds
Polk audio RTi38 rears
Polk audio DSW PRO 500 sub
Sony PS3 60 gig Blu-Ray
Toshiba HD-A35 HD-DVD

I was recently watching CARS on Cable and it looked great. I can't wait to see it on BD. That will definitely be one of my first BD purchases.

Funny about Total Recall, I was looking at th BD the other day wondering how it looked. Now I have my answer. I'll stick with my DVD.

Danny Boyle's Sunshine is pretty amazing. Looks like you could reach out and fry yourself on that sun. The DTS MA track is sweet as well. I don't have the capability of listenting to the lossless track right now, but even the 1.5 mbps core (the equivalent of a full bitrate dts dvd) is fantastic.

Save Ferris, your post about the "super real" video feature was interesting and informative. Thanks for passing along the information.

Ratatouille I usually show to people just because it looks so damn good. Troy is another great one and The Patriot.

I have to say the PQ on the The Island is pretty awesome!

Thanks for the info, SaveFerris.

I use Casino Royale. A few chapters in there's a scene of him in the Caribean that looks like you're there.