'Blood Diamond' - High-Def Digest review

[jed]

Just posted Peter's review of 'Blood Diamond' on Blu-ray. This unique release from Warner gets mixed marks -- he says the video is something of a disappointment, but the audio is superior, as are a combined collection of standard and high-def exclusive supplements. Whether Warner was right or wrong to release this title today (a full month ahead of the HD DVD), rather than waiting a few months for a fully interactive "In-Movie Experience" is likely to be the subject of continued debate...

Full review here:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/blooddiamond.html

[maximus2323]

I am returning my order....

[glocks out]

I think this goes to show it's not the codec or studio that's to blame for the picture quality. A new film on a BD50 with VC-1 codec at only 3 stars?! Could it be the film itself?

I'm interested to know how the film was shot. Was it standard film or HD cameras?

[Iggytx]

I don't know the Standard version looks nice. I wonder if they rushed the high def releases because of the demand.

[Paul Dundas]

Just one note: DiCaprio plays his character with a Zimbabwian accent (he states he is from "Rhodesia" in the film) which is not in the least bit British.

[galleren]

I guess it's gonna be fun to see the debate happening if the HD-DVD release scores 4 or 5 on the PQ mark.

[ajamils]

a big disappointment..... WB should get their act together becasue there is no excuse for messing up just a highly anticipated release.

[Hemoo]

ooh man I hope they don't make the same thing with 300.

[onyxx]

Like a couple of people have pointed out already, this is a very low bitrate video transfer.

The encode is done in a VC-1 1080p presentation, that is extremely starved in the bitrate department, and boy does it show. From the opening scene, compression issues arise in the backgrounds as well as the foreground. At first, I thought it might possible be grain, until I got up from my seat to get about 2 feet away from the screen and I was greeted with what looked to be “mini-macroblocks”, which from my normal seating distance shows up as video noise. I then popped up the bitrate meter on the PS3 and was astounded to see a bitrate of 7.9 Mbps! That is damn low for HD content, and frankly, I’m not surprised that it didn’t look worse! From this point on, I was on the lookout for this type of phenomenon, and it appeared again quite frequently in the presentation in low light situations. In one such case, DiCaprio and Connelly are speaking on the porch of an orphanage, and the camera pans back and forth between the two of them, out of about 5 sequences of each character, the video noise only showed up in one of them! Why were the other 9 OK and the other one it was present? Hard to tell, but I wasn’t that impressed.

http://www.hometheaterspot.com/fusio.../post/new/#NEW

[taygan315]

Thought I might blind buy this one. Now, I think I will pass. Bring on 300!!!

[double l]

Im always skeptical with his reviews i will need to see this myself, i do think its too bad they could not use AVC, but he also gave the movie 3 out 5 stars , so i guess to him, the Fantastic 4 is a better movie than Blood Diamond.

[Pisto]

I think the content was designed to fit on a 30 Gb disc. Of course, they had to cut the quality somewhere. That's what happens when a studio believes bonus features are more important than the main feature.

Anyway, I will probably rent it.

[e-x]

i'd rather watch a poor quality blood diamond than an amazing quality 300

[Hemoo]

is by any chance the PQ of HD-DVD release will be improved ?

[D3lta]

Wow, I'm very dissapointed. I was hoping for a 5 star PQ for this.

Warner just went down in my book.

Warner, you suck!