Still looking for reason...

[diverx]

Yes, I did buy a blu ray player, but still trying to justify the purchase.I do own good upconverting dvd player and some blu disks simply look the same as the upconverted ones. The menus are confusing, the only thing is definately better is the sound...My blu is the panasonic, version 1.1, but only a few disks with the futures(picture in picture), there is still a lot of work to be done when comes to the whole thing working flawless. I dont know why but hd cable transmission (live especially) looks 10 times better than any blu movie.So why should I buy a blue movie for 30 bucks.Any opinions from you guys?? I do have an older dlp tv (only1080i) but I don't thing the quality would improve that much.What do you think????

[alkalinesi]

which blu movies did you watch?

[diverx]

Casino Royale- good quality,28 days later - terrible, my upconverting player presented this one I think a lot better.I have noticed one thing.If there was a lot of light (daylight) everything looks great and sharp, but grey is terrible when watching dark scene. And why the cable box hd looks a lot better then the movies? Any smart one out there?

[johnADA]

Originally Posted by diverx

Casino Royale- good quality,28 days later - terrible, my upconverting player presented this one I think a lot better.I have noticed one thing.If there was a lot of light (daylight) everything looks great and sharp, but grey is terrible when watching dark scene. And why the cable box hd looks a lot better then the movies? Any smart one out there?

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, blame it on your setup would be the normal answer.

I have yet to see one movie with radical differences in contrast such at night and day scenes actually not contain a lot of noise in dark scenes worse than cable or sat macroblocking.

4 players I've owned and 2 others of different makes I've seen at buddies first hand all showing up with this crap. Good quality standards on transfers is the problem IMO.

[diverx]

For me Pan's Labirynth is almost perfect, the dark scenes are great and clear

[HD 335]

Originally Posted by diverx

For me Pan's Labirynth is almost perfect, the dark scenes are great and clear

I've already posted in your other thread stating it's most likely due to calibration and a lack of a better TV. But check out the BD tier thread for excellent PQ ratings of movies.
Tier System for Blu-ray

Pan's happens to be one of the best PQ movies imo out there. I have it on HD DVD and it's amazing. Other movies that I know are significant upgrades over SD are I, Robot, I am Legend, Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix, Live Free or Die Hard, Independence Day, Ratatouille, Gattaca. Actually, I would say most of my collection of hi-def media, I can tell it's better than SD. Just keep in mind, a BD movie will not mean that grain is not present.

[johnADA]

Originally Posted by HD 335

I've already posted in your other thread stating it's most likely due to calibration and a lack of a better TV.

Same bull, different day.

Calibration and TV type has NOTHING to do with anything, never will, never was.

If you watch on the TV, which is un calibrated and a piece of shit a SD movie, then watch a BD one and it doesn't clean it up greatly, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TV. Shitty digital transfer is all it is.

If I am legend was suppose to be good, it was really not much better than SD. Hair Spray on the other hand it by far the best I've seen yet out of 20+ movies and should be how they all look.

[HD 335]

I don't disagree with you that a bad transfer is not going to compare against a good one. However, I do believe you are erroneous for stating that calibration and having a better tv would not help an average transfer look better when comparing with his existing Toshiba 44HM85 and let's say a Samsung LNT-xxx71F or a Pioneer PDP-xx10FD set.

I've haven't seen his current set-up in person so I'm all making assumptions based on the information he posted. He stated that he doesn't see much of a difference between SD and HD except for a few movies. I find that hard to believe since SD even upscaled can't compare to a HD on our XBR4. With our old Toshiba projection set, there wasn't a dramatic difference so from my experience, I can see a TV will make a difference. We also just calibrated our Sony and there are improvements in PQ quality. Of course anything less than 40", improvements might not be as dramatic.

[johnADA]

Originally Posted by HD 335

I don't disagree with you that a bad transfer is not going to compare against a good one. However, I do believe you are erroneous for stating that calibration and having a better tv would not help an average transfer look better when comparing with his existing Toshiba 44HM85 and let's say a Samsung LNT-xxx71F or a Pioneer PDP-xx10FD set.

I've haven't seen his current set-up in person so I'm all making assumptions based on the information he posted. He stated that he doesn't see much of a difference between SD and HD except for a few movies. I find that hard to believe since SD even upscaled can't compare to a HD on our XBR4. With our old Toshiba projection set, there wasn't a dramatic difference so from my experience, I can see a TV will make a difference. We also just calibrated our Sony and there are improvements in PQ quality. Of course anything less than 40", improvements might not be as dramatic.

Transfers are the #1 problem with BD movie quality.
They vary wildly between movie companies and between a home release one and a rental netflix is going to use.

Calibration does exactly what??
Maybe get your black and white levels more in line and thats it.
You don't have enough adjustment on the menu section of any TV to clear out noise, sharpness etc that may clean a picture up some. You need to be able to get into the service menu.
Besides that, I've said it before. No 2 people can see or like the same picture setting. Some people have color problems and so on so that a perfectly calibrated TV via the service menu may not look right to them. Same as you have DVD players that push certain colors etc, you have people that have the same problem. Good, Better, Best in most cases can be a state of mind.

Upper ended TV's push colors that are cartoony looking etc and are known for that to get the WOW factor. Problem is no one has a astro turf lawn, sky blue sky, pure white clouds etc and calibration done professionally makes it accurate, but again accurate to whom.

I think he stated it clearly that light scenes are very good and dark ones suck. Thats the consensus of many including myself and were not seeing the grain of the film, were seeing noise from bad transfers.

Of over 50 setups I've done for people, never have I not gotten a wow from showing them a SD broadcast to a HD one, NEVER. Same can't be said for HDM!! Problem is HDM!!

[irrob]

yawn. these rants might be better off in smackdown?

[cleeve]

Originally Posted by diverx

Casino Royale- good quality,28 days later - terrible, my upconverting player presented this one I think a lot better.I have noticed one thing.If there was a lot of light (daylight) everything looks great and sharp, but grey is terrible when watching dark scene. And why the cable box hd looks a lot better then the movies? Any smart one out there?

Cable box HD should definitely NOT look as good as Blu(and at the moment I don't have a reason why it does for you), but the reason 28 Days later was 'terrible' is because it was filmed on SD digital cameras, and does not benefit from blu-ray at all whatsoever. Unfortunately 28 days later is pretty much the worst looking Blu-ray money can buy . Trust me, the high majority of Blu-rays look like Casino Royale and literally NONE look as bad as 28 days later IMO...

Just a bad start.

[trp1985]

lol...28 weeks later is one of the worst Blu-ray's for the above mentioned reason. You are better off buying the DVD on that one. Casino Royale on the other hand, is the complete opposite: it's one of the best looking titles around.

[Motorheadache]

You know, I really don't get how people can't tell the difference. It has to be the setup or the tv, because I can always tell the difference with Blu-Ray (I have a calibrated 61" 1080p Samsung LED DLP). Even releases that get low pq reviews (like Robocop) still have that extra clear and sharp high def look to them that you don't get with upconverted dvd, even if the source material isn't in good shape. Now when I watch standard dvds they all have this sort of muddy, fuzzy look to them because I've gotten spoiled with Blu-Ray discs.

[jackdoe]

Originally Posted by Motorheadache

You know, I really don't get how people can't tell the difference. It has to be the setup or the tv, because I can always tell the difference with Blu-Ray (I have a calibrated 61" 1080p Samsung LED DLP). Even releases that get low pq reviews (like Robocop) still have that extra clear and sharp high def look to them that you don't get with upconverted dvd, even if the source material isn't in good shape. Now when I watch standard dvds they all have this sort of muddy, fuzzy look to them because I've gotten spoiled with Blu-Ray discs.

Probably the size of the T.V. If it's small enough, you probably won't notice all the artifacts from the upconverted DVD. I myself have a 50" and I can easily tell the difference between an upconverted DVD and Blu-ray/HD-DVD movie.

[Neutral101]

Yes, I did buy a blu ray player, but still trying to justify the purchase.I do own good upconverting dvd player and some blu disks simply look the same as the upconverted ones. The menus are confusing, the only thing is definately better is the sound...My blu is the panasonic, version 1.1, but only a few disks with the futures(picture in picture), there is still a lot of work to be done when comes to the whole thing working flawless. I dont know why but hd cable transmission (live especially) looks 10 times better than any blu movie.So why should I buy a blue movie for 30 bucks.Any opinions from you guys?? I do have an older dlp tv (only1080i) but I don't thing the quality would improve that much.What do you think????

I don't know what kind of system you have man but you need to upgrade, I have a lot of blu-ray discs and all of them look way way better than regular DVD. Have you watch any of the Pirates of the Carribean films on BD? Those are probably one of the best BD transfer out there.