In absence of an open General Blu-Ray thread, I'll post this as a separate topic.

I picked up the Nordic Blu-Ray of Children Of Men from Xploited Cinema. Other than it being a known problematic combo, I was very happy with domestic HD DVD. It was actually better looking than my theatrical viewing.

The audio track on the Blu-Ray is 640kbps according to the PS3 display. For those who care, bitrate peaked into the high 30's from time to time, but mostly hung out in the 20's.

For the actual scene comparisons, I used my BD30 for the Blu-Ray and my XA2 for the HD DVD. I bitstreamed audio in both cases to my Onkyo 605.

I did a quick comparison of several scenes.

The transfers appear identical. The Blu-Ray has the same Universal and Strike titles at the beginning as the HD DVD, so I would not be surprised in the least to hear they are the same master - I could not detect any difference in color, sharpness or anything else.

On the audio, the Blu-Ray's DD track was significantly hotter than the HD DVD with the same level at the receiver, but I don't really make anything of that. I have to admit I heard virtually no difference in clarity between the two tracks. I want to say there was slightly more "spacialness" on the DD+ track, but without a proper tool for measuring volume output, I'll just say the tracks sounded virtually identical to me. The impact of the bomb in the coffee shop and the ambush scene in the car had sounded great on both discs.

Now the disappointing stuff. Not only in the Blu-Ray bare bones, there is not even a pop-up menu. Also, you have no choice for no subtitles, so you have to wait for the movie to start and then use your player's subtitle menu to turn them off.

I don't regret buying the BD as I now know I don't have to rely on the combo for one of my favorite films (yes I am aware of the non-combo UK HD DVD), but I don't think I'd recommend the import to anyone who is happy with their combo. If you don't have the HD DVD and want the movie on Blu-Ray, the disc serves its purpose as being a fine presentation of the film.

Thanks for the info. Been debating buying it on HD DVD.

Hey bunkaroo, did it come in the thick or slim Blu-ray case? Thanks.

Slim case - the kind with the latch and embossed Blu-Ray logo. English printing on the cover and spine.

I'm happy with my version - but thank you for the comparison

Raw deal in having it bare bones, I hope you didn't pay a ton for it. But as others have said, thanks for doing a write up about it. I ponder from time to timewhether to buy some BD's from overseas, but I may hold out for a while. I guess I was fortunate in that I have hardly had any problems with my combos. Of course, now that I just said that.....

Isn't there a Korean Children of Men disc as well?

Well it wasn't cheap, but like I said, I absolutely love the film so I don't mind this time.

FWIW, both of my 2nd-gen players haven been fine with the title since one of the firmware updates from last May(?). My larger concern is if the disc had a production run issue, could there be some problem way down the line with the disc as it ages. It's more paranoia than anything else, but I feel better having another HD copy of it.

I knew I was going to get it either way so I don't mind taking a bullet on it this time. It's someone else's turn now.

This is going to be a problem on some Blu-ray players. The Panasonic BD30 does not have a Subtitle button on the remote (nor have I found a code for one in my Harmony), for example.

Actually it's not a problem for the BD30.

On my BD30 remote, one of the buttons (will have to verify which button-may be Status), brings up a display where you can cycle through multiple pages. One of them has a Subtitle option which you can toggle Off or On for this disc. That's how I did it. Obviously this is more cumbersome than a working subtitle button, but it works.

I have the Harmony One and there is a Subtitle soft button listed, but it didn't do anything. I have to open up the Logitech software and see what it's mapped to.

EDIT: It's the Display button. Check out page 18 in the BD30 manual.

To the original poster, is the BD version on a BD-25 or a BD-50? Just wondering...

Nothing on the case indicates one way or the other, but given the length of film, no extras and a DD track only, I'd guess it's a BD25.

Flip the disc over. If you see one bar code around the inner ring, it's a BD25. If you see 2 bar codes in cocentric layers, it's BD50.

You're right. I'd forgotten that I had to do that to turn on subtitles for the bonus features on a couple Hong Kong discs. It was indeed cumbersome.

Yes, I programmed that button into my Harmony 880 and it did nothing. It's probably mapped to the "subtitle" code for Panasonic's DVD players.

Very cool info - thanks. I'll check this tonight.

Just wanted to confirm this is a BD25. Only saw one barcode. I checked another disc I knew to be a BD50 so I could see how two barcodes appeared.