Blu-Ray Best Of The Best - for discussing releases only

[Bleeders]

Me either. My other watched it on though, says it's good.

[Extra Terrestrial]

I watched the last 15 minutes of Ice Age 2 on my friends (import) PlayStation 3 last night and was blown away, literally. I have the HDMI Samsung upscale DVD player and am pleased with the quality of the images but after last night, I'm going to watch films in a (slightly) different perspective now(!)

[Bleeders]

Deadline for BD Java Support.

The quicker they get this sorted, the quicker we can enjoy the likes of Batman Begins and The Matrix Trilogy.

[Lyris]

End of OCTOBER?!

[Angry the Clown]

Blaming it on Java is a bit unfair. I keep seeing the press and many forums leaping to that conclusion. Every Blu Ray player HAS to support Java, the delayed mandate is the 1.1 hardware profile that specifies for the instillation of secondary video decoding in all Blu Ray players. One kind of relies on the other to work certainly, but there’s a growing amount of Java stuff in use on discs already now (Big Fish’s menus, interactivity on The Guardian and Chicken Little, the forthcoming Pirates of the Caribbean discs…etc). The Picture in Picture spec for Blu Ray is a wee bit more advanced than it is for HD DVD, and Java isn’t known to be incredibly friendly so obviously there’s a prolonged timeline for beta testing ahead.

It gives Warner a tight window of opportunity to prep something like The Matrix trilogy for Christmas of course, but one would hope that studios and player manufacturers will together be joined in beta testing sessions over the summer for what I can only assume will end up being 3rd gen players due for launch in November and Dec.

Assuming they do finally meet this new date however, I’ve a theory that in an ironic twist it may actually work to Blu Ray’s advantage provided Warner are indeed able to debut The Matrix in the 4th Quarter as planned. With Thanksgiving and Christmas always seen as the biggest times of year for home video sales, and this year’s festive season arguably being an important time for both HD DVD and Blu Ray, releasing Matrix (and possibly other ‘in movie experience ‘titles) over the holiday season when they’d be considered ‘new’ to Blu Ray, promoted at a time when they’d be joining the exclusive Blu Ray releases of Pirates 3, the Spider-Man trilogy, and probably Ratatouille and Die Hard 4, would perhaps do a lot for public awareness if you consider that promotion for the HD DVD version of The Matrix will have fizzled before the summer’s end. It’s quite crucial this mandate for the 31st does not slip though, and that Warner are free to put out the Matrix and Harry Potter this winter.

[dvdmike]

Just watched Tears of the sun, and to all the people who said I was wrong about MpegII looking good in the right hands, buy it and watch it

[Bleeders]

Casino Royale does impressive numbers on BD.

Good going for a medium that is still a niche market.

[RLench]

And if it wasn't obvious, or nobody has yet said it, Casino Royale is thebenchmark for Blu-ray image quality so far. Absolutely amazing visuals, IMO

Just watched Tears of the sun, and to all the people who said I was wrong about MpegII looking good in the right hands, buy it and watch it

I never would have believed it until I saw it for myself...but MPEG2 can look damn good Fantastic 4 is MPEG2 and it's one of the best HD transfers I've ever seen. It's almost as good as the best HD-DVD transfers

[Lyris]

Huge difference of opinion here. Fantastic 4 was filtered and lacking in detail as a result, and had some Noise Reduction artefacts (watch the actors' stubble when they move their heads). It's not awful but it's certainly not as good as the likes of HD DVD's King Kong.

[johnno15]

In most peoples eyes it isnt its good but its not even in the top tier

And if it wasn't obvious, or nobody has yet said it, Casino Royale is thebenchmark for Blu-ray image quality so far. Absolutely amazing visuals, IMO

[dvdmike]

Casino was filtered to remove grain, the prosess also removed detail.

As for great picture in tier 0 imoh (as close to scource as possable)

Go for Black Hawk Down every time

[Hartley Hare]

Out of all the Bluray-s we have, the single most impressive so far is LAYER CAKE and I thought Casino was good, this is a step up again.

Shocking

[dvdmike]

Is layer cake really that good ?

[Hartley Hare]

Yes,

The film is 7/10
Picture 10/10
Sound 9/10

?13.99 movietyme

[dvdmike]

I love the movie so will pick it up today thanks