Any films where you'd rather have the DVD then Blue-Ray?

I appreciate your response. I felt the same way as you did about it. A New Hope looks great. In fact, all of the Star Wars films look great if for no other reason than they got rid of the garbage mattes and now they all really shine. There are some shots where you can kind of see them, but not many.

But what I'm thinking about is analogous to an audiophile who can detect the difference between an a CD and MP3, and, more to the point, the difference in depth between vinyl and CD. There is more "depth" in Vinyl, some say. If an old band recorded something in one room, you can almost "hear" how far away the drum-kit might be from the equipment, and the guitar player might be further away form the recorder and, if you listen to vinyl, you can actually "hear" that. That's because not everything was processed and re-integrated. It's all right there. For example, Rush's Moving Pictures sounds much better to me on vinyl than on anything else. (I haven't heard that new super remastered yet).

The same can be said for films. When many movies were made it was a chemical process.. the images and sound were being chemically pasted on film, and all of the lighting, staging, makeup, etc. was all done with that in mind. To pick apart each element separately, and then reintegrate it all together for high-definition takes something away. Maybe a spy thriller dependent on deep shadows for its effect would have a disservice done to it if you can see every wrinkle in a actor's face. Those films were meant to have a certain look.

When I popped in First Class and the very James Bond-esque end credits showed up, I liked the fact that I didn't have the blue-ray, and that the X's and the DNA strand graphics were not super-sharp and clear, as if I was watching it on the filmmaker's latest computer system. Instead, it looked more like I was watching Bond movie from the those days.

 

That's an interesting point. I never thought of it that way. I'm not much of an audiophile, but I have heard comparisons and there is definitely a warmth and richness to the sound on vinyl that's not present on the digital. But I wonder if a better analogy for what you're saying might not be to compare Blu-Ray with the film itself (in which case your argument is undoubtedly solid). After all, DVD and Blu-Ray are both digital formats, and most older films available on DVD have already undergone digital remastering, so it seems to me that a lot of that depth and richness would already have been effected by the transfer frim analog to digital. If anything, I would think that Blu-Ray actually gets us closer to the original film as it appeared in theatres.

First Class presents a special case, kind of like Grindhouse from Tarantino/Rodriguez. These are films that are meant to look like the product of an earlier time, and I'm not sure if HD helps that cause.

 

Well, to that, I'd reply that films aren't meant to be viewed on TVs at all - I'm convinced that there's a fundamental physiological difference between watching projected light bounce off a screen into your eyeballs versus a backlit display blasting your peepers head-on. So I guess my two cents would be to try viewing those same films with a home projector before declaring a preference for a lower-resolution version.

But Harmy's Despecialized versions are pretty much exactly the original theatrical releases in HD...

 

The theatrical releases of the Star Wars original trilogy don't even exist on Blu-ray, so that's a default yes in answer to the OP's question.

 

It depends... Generally I want it on Blu-ray, but there are exceptions. The TV series Life on Mars was filmed in HD but finished in post-production in SD, and upscaled for its Blu-ray release. Also it was filmed in 50Hz PAL, which is how it's presented on DVD. On Blu-ray it's slowed down to 24fps instead of 25, and the audio sounds weird. So that's one I chose to buy on DVD.

I also have Ghost in the Shell 2.0 on Blu-ray which looks great. But it also has the original Ghost in the Shell movie on there as well, presented in interlaced format, and it looks terrible. So bad that the original Ghost in the Shell movie on DVD looks better.

But in general, getting the film in native progressive format, and with the greater colour depth of Blu-ray and significantly less in the way of compression wins out everytime, that's before we even talk about the higher resolution and clarity.

Also living in the UK and having to put up with years of PAL speed up means that I'm actually double-dipping on DVDs that I never expected to, thinking they'd be good enough for the up-scale.

EDIT: I think that the OP's point is less to do with Blu-ray and more to do with modern digital cinematography. The average cinemagoer has gotten used to the shiny, de-grained, plastic look of digital filmmaking, and wants to see that replicated exactly on Blu-ray. But when it comes to actual film analogue, anamorphic, organic, rich with grain, with imperfection, the average fan no longer wants that. And studios decide to cater for it, by releasing older films on Blu-ray after they've been through an agressive 'restoration' that colour corrects the film, and strips the grain of DNR. You give a film a sympathetic restoration and it can look fantastic on Blu-ray, proper cinematic. Check out distros like Criterion, and Arrow, Masters of Cinema for sympathetic Blu-ray transfers. The average fan wouldn't buy those films, but if they did, they'd complain about grain, yuk! By that token, Predator is one DNR plasticised film I'm not going to buy on Blu-ray.

 

The US release of Law & Order: UK appears to have something like the same problem (everyone's voice sounds too deep). And that's not even a Blu-Ray.

 

The Blu-Ray release of Do The Right Thing has a terrible transfer that ruins the film's color scheme; the Criterion DVD release is far superior.

In general, though, no. HD has less resolution than 35mm film, so it's not suddenly revealing anything that wasn't perceivable in the theater during first run.

 

Along those same lines, the original release of Verhoven's Total Recall on Blue Ray looked awful. As did the only Blu-Ray release of The Wrath of Khan, with all that blue color-timing.

But there are some films that you can see too much in hi-def. People complained that you can see the imperfections (even the paint strokes) in Vader's black helmet. Although I'm not making that particular argument, there are movies that just look better in DVD or even VHS, that they have kept their mysterious qualities, and that they look more like films.

 

I would agree that the only argument for DVD is if the show was originally designed for television screens and upscaling it for higher res may reveal flaws in the sets that weren't there before. Just like watching Hobbit in 48fps made the models look faker.

But for films, those were all designed for either celluloid film or digital projection, so HD would not reveal anything that was not designed to be revealed.

 

Same. I only have a VCR, an old analog TV, and the computer to watch films on, which can only play DVD, and I didn't switch to that until about 3-5 years ago. I can't see getting into Blu-ray at all unless my next machine has a Blu-ray drive. Sux being poor now.

 

2001 is my favorite movie of all time, and I love the Blu-Ray, but there is one bit where you can see an imperfection: During the 'Dawn of Man' sequences, you can now see the film projection screen that was used for the 'sky' scenes. (All of the Dawn of Man was shot in a studio, and the 'sky' was created by projection.) But that's just nitpicking, really.

 

The "information" was always there, people just didn't notice and/or got used to seeing it a certain way. I can remember seeing a piece of white tape patching a stormtrooper's armor in the theater over 30 years ago.

Of course going to the movies is a different experience than home video, and is subject to a wide variation in theater equipment, condition of the print, skill of the projectionist and so on. When watched in HD at home, older movies can look different than people remember them. A lot of times this is because we remember them from SD TV. People sometimes complain about "graininess," but in a good restoration of an older film that shouldn't be seen as a problem. Film, after all, is composed of "grains" of silver crystals.

OTOH transferring an older film to digital video involves some choices, like digital color "correction," as has been mentioned, that can really change the look for the worse. But a credible restoration and HD transfer with the aim of matching the original projected film can be really, really good, even if you notice things you didn't before.

As far as BD/DVD, I am not a big movie buyer but I have double-dipped on a few favorites because the BD was such an improvement. I usually turn the old version in to a local shop, but there have been, I think, two DVDs I kept because they had bonus features that were not included on the BD.

 

I bought so many DVD's before blu-ray, and even during the HD-DVD vs. blu-ray wars, that I'm bound to want better looking versions of some or a lot of them at some point.

It really depends on the movie. I re-purchased the extended LOTR's on blu-ray as well as the full Star Wars set (though I kept the "2 version" Star Wars DVD's just for the sake of having the original releases & kept the LOTR gift sets for the figures that came with them).

But from this point on, it's blu-ray whenever possible.

Frankly, I'm glad I never bought any Star Trek TV series' DVD's. They were more expensive at the time than the blu-rays are now and the blu-rays are so much more beautiful.

 

This puts it stronger than I would have, but I still agree. DVD is good enough.

Ten years on, and I'm STILL not finished converting over from VHS to DVD. I'm not about to start the whole process all over again with Blue Ray. I have to have SOME money for food and electricity after all...

 

The only exception I remember reading in the paperback book (by Jerome Agel?) about the film was during the bone throwing scene right before it jumpcuts to an orbiting satellite. Not sure if it's the throw itself, or just the bone spinning in the air, but one or both of those shots is natural sunlight.

 

It looks as if some of the establishing landscape shots were done on location. Not sure.

 

Yes, and they are actually still photos.

 

You know looking back, I'm sure prior to upgrading to DVD i felt as if VHS was good enough. And excatly the same before upgrading to Blu-ray, DVD is good enough. After watching stuff in HD on blu-ray it's a case of this is so superior to DVD.

Blu-ray players are fairly inexpensive these days, and it's not like changing from VHS to DVD. As most Blu-ray players will p upscale DVD to 720p, so you don't have to double-dip and rebuy what you own on DVD (unless you want to).

Yes Blu-ray discs are slightly more expensive than DVD's, but I tend to wait till they come down in price or come on some sort of offer before i purchase. I have never paid RRP for a DVD or blu-ray.

 

Um, a movie being on blu-ray has nothing to do with how sharp or how bright it is. A movie from the 60's (or meant to look like it is from the 60's) is not somehow better on dvd. Just because you watched it on a crappy SD TV for years doesn't mean that's how it's supposed to look.

Regular old film is still higher resolution than blu-ray, so you can't say it "reveals things you aren't supposed to see". Even black and white movies from the 30's and 40's still look better and more true to the original film on blu-ray than DVD.

Furthermore, a movie that wasn't sharp to begin with doesn't look sharper just cause it's on blu-ray.

Sure, except you're not watching the movies on film. You're watching them on DVD. Your argument is like saying that a 96kbps MP3 is better than a 256 kbps MP3 because vinyl is not digital. It makes no sense.

 

If a bluray release is an upscale of the dvd version, then I won't bother wasting cash on the bluray if I already have the dvd version. (Alleged cases of this are Farscape, the first four seasons of the revived Doctor Who, etc ...).

These days I mainly pick up the bluray versions of movies and tv shows, largely to limit my habits of "compulsively buying" optical discs. For me, it's far too easy to go on huge dvd buying binges. When I restrict my purchases primarily to blurays, it cuts down significantly on such "buying binges".

Today I more or less have most of the movies I want on bluray. Not really much left of interest to me. I don't even bother wasting time anymore searching through the $5 bluray cutout bins.


What's left of interest to me, are current tv shows' seasons being released on bluray. (I'm not really interested in current movies). I'll only buy a particular tv show's bluray season set, if I really want to watch that particular show's season again.

Of the tv show season sets released on bluray over the past nine months or so, so far I have only purchased one: season 1 of Netflix's "House of Cards". (I prefer to watch it on bluray, than streaming it online). Otherwise the current batch of tv shows on bluray, hold very little to no interest to me anymore. (I watched every episode of: Fringe season 5, Nikita season 3, "Person of Interest" season 2, "Hawaii Five-0" season 3, etc ... which I thought were all rather mediocre compared to previous seasons). In practice, I find that tv show season sets have very little to no rewatch value, after I have seen all the season's episodes already (whether on disc, broadcast, streaming, etc ...).


In summary, the main use of bluray to me is largely a self-imposed way to restrict and change my optical disc buying habits.