Blu Rays worth buying

waterford1988

Well lads,
I have a PS3 and I am going to invest in a few blu rays shortly along with a HDMI cable. Anyone recommend a few titles that are really worth buying blu ray copies of?

Makaveli

The Dark Knight anyway. Some of the scenes look amazing.
Although not a film the Planet Earth boxset looks great too and you should be able to pick it up for a reasonable price.

Roar

off the top of my head, star trek, dark knight, planet earth, sleeping beauty, wall-e (any of the pixar stuff really), Mad Men (i LOVE it)

jaykhunter

LOL, Dark Knight and Planet Earth are at the top of my list too... Terminator 2 looks AMAZING in HD. I couldn't believe how much better it looked than upscaled DVD... Purely for HD, Casino Royale (is cheap to buy) looks amazing. The new Star Trek...

Just FYI, 300 and Death Proof don't look great in HD because they've intentionally got blurry film grain on them...so don't really benefit from HD :mad: Batman Begins looks almost exactly in HD as upscaled DVD

krudler

The Dark Knight
Band of Brothers
Planet Earth
300
Wall-e (or any of the Pixar movie)
Speed Racer (looks utterly amazing in HD)
The Bond movies (even the old ones, great restoration jobs)

Kess73

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.


A brilliant film that now looks and sounds as good as the film is. Picked up a US import version of it. It is region free so will work on European blu ray players and PS3s.

OP, it you are looking to start buying blu rays, you would be best served buying them online, as the prices in a lot of the bricks and mortar stores here are a joke.

rednik

The Bourne trilogy
The Godfather trilogy
Blood Diamond
Blade Runner
Iron Man
Try some concerts like The Police - Certifiable, Jeff Beck live at Ronnie Scotts, Rush - Snakes and arrows.

Glico Man

The Matrix Trilogy

Not a fan of them myself but they look glorious in HD

Skinfull

The Dark Knight
Star Trek 2009
Starship Troopers
Terminator 2
Signs (audio is superb!)
Braveheart
Close Encounters
Iron Maiden Flight 666

Richard Dower

I bought my first BR player in the last week, LG BD-370P. But, visually/quality wise i don't see any difference from DVD?....BD Live is good, i shoulda got the 390 as it's built-in wireless....mine uses Ethenet which is kinda pants.

But IMO i think BR is overrated.

MagicMarker

Richard Dower wrote: »

I bought my first BR player in the last week, LG BD-370P. But, visually/quality wise i don't see any difference from DVD?....BD Live is good, i shoulda got the 390 as it's built-in wireless....mine uses Ethenet which is kinda pants.

But IMO i think BR is overrated.

You're wrong.

Richard Dower

I'm not...it's my opinion.

baileyjackson

Watched the following lately on BR and thought they were worth every cent:

Benjamin Button
Pans Labyrinth
Star Trek
Angels and Demons
Defiance
The Reader
Burning Plain

krudler

Richard Dower wrote: »

I bought my first BR player in the last week, LG BD-370P. But, visually/quality wise i don't see any difference from DVD?....BD Live is good, i shoulda got the 390 as it's built-in wireless....mine uses Ethenet which is kinda pants.

But IMO i think BR is overrated.

You're doing it wrong then:p What kind of setup have you? if you went from using an upscaling dvd player on a HD tv then with some movies you wont see a massive difference, depending on the transfer, but if you watch something like a Pixar movie on dvd on a regular, non hd tv then on BR and cant see any difference, get your eyes checked:D

Richard Dower

Actually i went to Specsavers on Wednesday for an eye test, all good. Using a 47" LG 47LH4000 with fimware hack, it's a quality set + a quality HDMI cable set to 1080p.

robby^5

Richard Dower wrote: »

Actually i went to Specsavers on Wednesday for an eye test, all good. Using a 47" LG 47LH4000 with fimware hack, it's a quality set + a quality HDMI cable set to 1080p.

What you should do then is get a bluray and if you can get the same thing on dvd and see for yourself the difference, because there is one and it's not so subtle that you seriously cant see any difference whatsoever...unless you're buying the wrong blurays, cause some can be terrible especially some older films. I personally dread Star Wars coming to BluRay, I can just imagine all the dirt and fingerprints etc. on all that plastic is going to look terrible in HD

Richard Dower

^ good idea...compare the two.

krudler

robby^5 wrote: »

What you should do then is get a bluray and if you can get the same thing on dvd and see for yourself the difference, because there is one and it's not so subtle that you seriously cant see any difference whatsoever...unless you're buying the wrong blurays, cause some can be terrible especially some older films. I personally dread Star Wars coming to BluRay, I can just imagine all the dirt and fingerprints etc. on all that plastic is going to look terrible in HD

Like this?

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/4629/hd5mj9.jpg

http://www.millenniumfalcon.com/highdefinition/mf_ANewHope1080p_VaderTusks.png





Personally I dont mind it as the Star Wars universe is meant to look weathered and beaten up, theres a shot that i cant find of a few stormtroopers standing beside Leia when Vader is talking to her and you can now see the flaws in the armour, there's big dents, yellowing, chips missing and even numbers etched into them from the prop department:)

Basq

Back on topic, my own personal favourites.

• Sunshine
• The Dark Knight (especially for the IMAX filmed bank-heist opener)
• Cloverfield (sound is stunning!)
• Wall-E
• The Nightmare Before Christmas

I've too many Blu-ray's still unwatched in their packaging including Reservoir Dogs, Matrix Trilogy, Band of Brothers, Pan's Labyrinth etc.

voxpop

Richard Dower wrote: »

But IMO i think BR is overrated.

I would have a pretty similar opinion of blu-ray, but the opening scenes of the dark knight blu-ray looks amazing on a decent plasma.

G-Money

The best Blu-ray dvd's I've seen from a picture quality perspective have actually been WWE wrestling discs. Specifically the most recent two Wrestlemania's and the 2009 Royal Rumble.

They film the stuff in HD and don't add in graining and other stuff (which often seems to distort the difference between HD and normal dvd stuff).

I have a Sony 32" LCD with 1080p and the WWE Blu-rays look good on it. On a bigger TV they look even better.

Liamario

Richard Dower wrote: »

visually/quality wise i don't see any difference from DVD?

If you can't see the difference, you either don't have a HDTV (or if you do, it's not set up properly) or you have problems with your eyesight, ie being able to see

Basq

Anyone who can't notice the difference between DVD and Blu-ray is mental!

Some DVD vs Blu-ray comparisons:

Blade Runner
Live Free or Die Hard
2001
Spider-Man 3
The Shining
Eyes Wide Shut (NSFW)
300
Casino Royale
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

L31mr0d

basquille wrote: »

Some DVD vs Blu-ray comparisons:

Didn't "My name is Earl" make fun of this, by having a piece of paper in one of their shots that read "High Def Rocks". If you where watching it in SD you couldn't make out the words.

Also, detecting the differences between DVD and BD really depends on how close you are sitting to the screen. I have a friend with a 1080p 55" screen but he sits a good 15ft away from it and doesn't notice the difference. IMO, with a screen around 50" or smaller, if you sit more than 8ft away from it your eyes won't be able to tell the difference.

My recommendations:

The Matrix Trilogy
Sunshine
The Fountain
The Fall

and anything CGI from the last few years, Beowulf is especially amazing in HD, as well as the Japanese CG film Vexille

Basq

L31mr0d wrote: »

Didn't "My name is Earl" make fun of this, by having a piece of paper in one of their shots that read "High Def Rocks". If you where watching it in SD you couldn't make out the words.

They did indeed..

rednik

Also try Hellboy II. A couple of oldies given fantastic transfers are Zulu and North by Northwest and I suppose it helps both are great films.

johnny_ultimate

I picked up a few BluRays when I bought a PS3 and of that lot Pan's Labyrinth was the only fantastic one. I've been annoyed with the aspect ratio on a few of them - Blu Ray should be 16:9, because who the **** has a 2.35:1 setup? I know it may be more loyal to the theatre quality, and possibly not fixable in some situations, but you can't really tell the image improvements with black bars! Also I don't know whether it is worth buying older films in HD format - after all, only so much difference you can make when the film was made in an older format.

Watching Planet Earth at the moment though, and out of this world quality. Helps to show the difference between HD and SD too - there are plenty of trickier bits shot with lower quality equipment (or higher quality in crazy conditions!) and when it switches to those stunning HD vistas you can definitely see the advantages.

krudler

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I picked up a few BluRays when I bought a PS3 and of that lot Pan's Labyrinth was the only fantastic one. I've been annoyed with the aspect ratio on a few of them - Blu Ray should be 16:9, because who the **** has a 2.35:1 setup? I know it may be more loyal to the theatre quality, and possibly not fixable in some situations, but you can't really tell the image improvements with black bars! Also I don't know whether it is worth buying older films in HD format - after all, only so much difference you can make when the film was made in an older format.

Watching Planet Earth at the moment though, and out of this world quality. Helps to show the difference between HD and SD too - there are plenty of trickier bits shot with lower quality equipment (or higher quality in crazy conditions!) and when it switches to those stunning HD vistas you can definitely see the advantages.

They have some of those 2.35:1 tvs in a few of the electronic stores around, very cool for movies shot that way but i wouldnt bother, everything else would have wierd black bars at the sides of the screen, thatd completely take me out of watching something, the ones on top and bottom are more acceptable