Blu-Rays to show off your tv's greatness?
Discussion
With a theme for the title quite obviously stolen from the "surroundness" thread also in this forum, I thought I'd look at the other avenue; the visual side. Mainly because I'll be getting a lovely new shiny tele soon but won't have funds to sort the audio for a while 
So, my question is - what are the good, no - great films to show off your tv's video quality?
I imagine many will be the same as the sound thread, such as Saving Private Ryan or Pearl Harbor, but I imagine in here we will also have suggesting of lots of Pixar/Dreamworks stuff?
With my new tele (Panasonic 42G10) coming in Mid-september, I'm starting the new collection of hi-def stuff now in readiness
So, my question is - what are the good, no - great films to show off your tv's video quality?
I imagine many will be the same as the sound thread, such as Saving Private Ryan or Pearl Harbor, but I imagine in here we will also have suggesting of lots of Pixar/Dreamworks stuff?
With my new tele (Panasonic 42G10) coming in Mid-september, I'm starting the new collection of hi-def stuff now in readiness
Hi Tony,
Great TV choice, we got one a few weeks ago, it is epic.
The first B thing we watched on it (via the ps3) was 'Defiance' lots of close up face shots (I'm not going to say facial here as it just seems wrong) which just seemed startling clear, we were quite amazed. We've watched a few things on it now, all seem very good, Australia was quite epic and GT5 prologue is awesome.
I seem to recall DeR suggesting we get a copy of Zulu, so I'll be adding it to the list.
Cheers
D
Great TV choice, we got one a few weeks ago, it is epic.
The first B thing we watched on it (via the ps3) was 'Defiance' lots of close up face shots (I'm not going to say facial here as it just seems wrong) which just seemed startling clear, we were quite amazed. We've watched a few things on it now, all seem very good, Australia was quite epic and GT5 prologue is awesome.
I seem to recall DeR suggesting we get a copy of Zulu, so I'll be adding it to the list.
Cheers
D
Great stuff, thanks Davidd. It was with Matt (Plotloss)'s help that I came to the decision of which tele - so I'm certain it will be a winner!
One thing puzzled me though - you said Zulu? Surely having been filmed so long ago they can't then create definition? Would the limit not be the film they filmed it on (if you see what I mean).
I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that only things filmed on HD cameras (say the past 10yrs max) would be of the "oh my god" quality - or is it still worth looking for older stuff? Star Wars, for example, I'd love to see in oh-my-god quality, but imagine it would be not as good as, say, Bourne films or similar?
One thing puzzled me though - you said Zulu? Surely having been filmed so long ago they can't then create definition? Would the limit not be the film they filmed it on (if you see what I mean).
I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that only things filmed on HD cameras (say the past 10yrs max) would be of the "oh my god" quality - or is it still worth looking for older stuff? Star Wars, for example, I'd love to see in oh-my-god quality, but imagine it would be not as good as, say, Bourne films or similar?
TonyHetherington said:
Great stuff, thanks Davidd. It was with Matt (Plotloss)'s help that I came to the decision of which tele - so I'm certain it will be a winner!
One thing puzzled me though - you said Zulu? Surely having been filmed so long ago they can't then create definition? Would the limit not be the film they filmed it on (if you see what I mean).
I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that only things filmed on HD cameras (say the past 10yrs max) would be of the "oh my god" quality - or is it still worth looking for older stuff? Star Wars, for example, I'd love to see in oh-my-god quality, but imagine it would be not as good as, say, Bourne films or similar?
AFAIK all celluloid film has a standard def of around 6000x4000 [ but will stand to be corrected!] So Blu Ray at 1920 x 1200 is infinitely inferior to the original. The film is then scanned down to enable an 'HD' image....One thing puzzled me though - you said Zulu? Surely having been filmed so long ago they can't then create definition? Would the limit not be the film they filmed it on (if you see what I mean).
I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that only things filmed on HD cameras (say the past 10yrs max) would be of the "oh my god" quality - or is it still worth looking for older stuff? Star Wars, for example, I'd love to see in oh-my-god quality, but imagine it would be not as good as, say, Bourne films or similar?
E31Shrew said:
AFAIK all celluloid film has a standard def of around 6000x4000 but will stand to be corrected! So Blu Ray at 1920 x 1200 is infinitely inferior to the original. The film is then scanned down to enable an 'HD' image....
Now you say it, it makes sense. Thanks edit to tidy up
Edited by TonyHetherington on Thursday 6th August 16:31
TonyHetherington said:
E31Shrew said:
AFAIK all celluloid film has a standard def of around 6000x4000 (but will stand to be corrected!) So Blu Ray at 1920 x 1200 is infinitely inferior to the original. The film is then scanned down to enable an 'HD' image....
Now you say it, it makes sense. Thanks Re Zulu - 70mm, even 35mm is way beyond HD resolution.
Production quality way better than the sepia-rid, overly contrasted, grainfests which oft masquerade as cinematography these days (and yes, that includes The Dark Knight which once you've skipped past the IMAX eye-widened cityscapes is really quite noisy.)
In the above classic from1964, it looks like it went into the can yesterday.
In The Italian Job, similar effect. 1969...
I'm semi-tired of the 'Wall-E' CGI material; for me, the value of the format should be the revitalisation of old classics which is why the golden era of tinstletown epics (Quo Vadis, Ben Hur, El cid, etc) is so appealing.
A lot of material is just so damn 'grubby' and/or dreary in the first place (Die Hard) that it seems to be less than the knockout revelation coming after a well scaled standard (or SuperBit) DVD such as 5th Element, Gladiator or Titanic.
Otoh, Top Gun is a wonderful exception - always looking like some cheap, transcoded NTSC secondary copy on ITV2+1 on FreeView - the experience on HD disc couldn't have been a bigger, very pleasant surprise.
I know, Kingdom of Heaven.
Production quality way better than the sepia-rid, overly contrasted, grainfests which oft masquerade as cinematography these days (and yes, that includes The Dark Knight which once you've skipped past the IMAX eye-widened cityscapes is really quite noisy.)
In the above classic from1964, it looks like it went into the can yesterday.
In The Italian Job, similar effect. 1969...
I'm semi-tired of the 'Wall-E' CGI material; for me, the value of the format should be the revitalisation of old classics which is why the golden era of tinstletown epics (Quo Vadis, Ben Hur, El cid, etc) is so appealing.
A lot of material is just so damn 'grubby' and/or dreary in the first place (Die Hard) that it seems to be less than the knockout revelation coming after a well scaled standard (or SuperBit) DVD such as 5th Element, Gladiator or Titanic.
Otoh, Top Gun is a wonderful exception - always looking like some cheap, transcoded NTSC secondary copy on ITV2+1 on FreeView - the experience on HD disc couldn't have been a bigger, very pleasant surprise.
I know, Kingdom of Heaven.
DavidY said:
For colur and costume detail, House Of Flying Daggers
I like that one myself and on a similar line I used 'The Forbidden Kingdom' when I was demoing projectors. I watched a scene ealry one in the film with wire fighting using spears and 'magic' blasts of fire over and over to compare the different PJs......even my old PJ (that I wanted to upgrade 
) made this disc look great. When I collected my new PJ, the dealer told me he'd ordered a copy for the shop so they could use the same scene. It's not a very high brow film though (not that many above are either). Transformer 3 looked pretty good too, but I think that's been mentioned.I notice that many of the discs listed are in 2.35:1 format which will obviously give 'black bars' on a fixed pixel display, which might not be desired for a new 'Flatscreen' owner (but a fact of life): The above discs look even better on a 2.35:1 screen.
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