'Black Rain' - High-Def Digest Review

[jed]

Peter says fans should love this one. The transfer, soundtrack and extras are apparently all pretty fantastic for a catalog title like this.

Full review:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/blackrain.html

[theHDphantom]

I remember getting this as one of my freebies half a year ago. The movie was okay I guess. Audio was alright. but the video, I thought was crap.
To be honest, the whole time I was watching it I thought I was watching a standard def DVD. It was rediculous. Anyone else who's watched this on Blu-ray feel the same way as I do?? Or was my PS3 just not acting kindly to this transfer?

[Scripture]

Originally Posted by theHDphantom

I remember getting this as one of my freebies half a year ago. The movie was okay I guess. Audio was alright. but the video, I thought was crap.
To be honest, the whole time I was watching it I thought I was watching a standard def DVD. It was rediculous. Anyone else who's watched this on Blu-ray feel the same way as I do?? Or was my PS3 just not acting kindly to this transfer?

I'm not sure about the Blu-ray edition, but I thought that the HD DVD version was utterly horrible (different encodes I believe). The colors lacked vibrancy, and the image was flat throughout. Many scenes are murky and dark, and there's not very many instances of the image popping off the screen. There's absolutely nothing crisp about the image whatsoever, in terms of detail. I usually agree with most of Peter's reviews, but this is certainly not one of them. Much like you said, I'd liken it to an upscaled DVD. Bottom line, I thought that this was an atrocious transfer, and I'd give it a 2.5 on a 5 star scale.

How either one of them received a 4.5 score, I'll never know.

[xen]

They received high marks because this is an ooooold review. At that point in time, transfers weren't what they've become today. If you go back to any of the old reviews, they are hardly applicable today.

[Neutral101]

To be honest, the whole time I was watching it I thought I was watching a standard def DVD. It was rediculous. Anyone else who's watched this on Blu-ray feel the same way as I do?? Or was my PS3 just not acting kindly to this transfer?

Well I watched this movie on my PS3 and I thought the transfer was great, considering this film came out in 1989. I have the standard DVD and when I compared it to my BD, it was like night and day.

[Josh Z]

Originally Posted by Scripture

I'm not sure about the Blu-ray edition, but I thought that the HD DVD version was utterly horrible (different encodes I believe). The colors lacked vibrancy, and the image was flat throughout. Many scenes are murky and dark, and there's not very many instances of the image popping off the screen. There's absolutely nothing crisp about the image whatsoever, in terms of detail. I usually agree with most of Peter's reviews, but this is certainly not one of them. Much like you said, I'd liken it to an upscaled DVD. Bottom line, I thought that this was an atrocious transfer, and I'd give it a 2.5 on a 5 star scale.

I'm not as high on the Black Rain transfer as Peter is, but I also don't agree with anything you've said here. What you've just described is not the disc I watched.