I broke down and got a Blu-Ray

I have been very happy with my Oppo DV-980H upcoding multi-region DVD player, but wanted to get a WiFi setup to pick up my Netflix & other online media, as well as network with my PC server in the other room.

I was looking at the Roku digital video player which has great reviews, and had no plans to get a Blu-Ray. Then I saw the built in WiFi and USB-2 input and other media features & great reviews, so ordered one of these LG BD390 players. It is not region free, but that's ok since I have my Oppo.

I'm not about to duplicate my existing DVD collection, but there are a few classics I will probably end up getting. For starters, I ordered the BBC Planet Earth collection, and BladeRunner Collector edition.

What other HIGH QUALITY, well done BR converted or new titles do you guys recommend? Any other strong candidates besides these that are remarkably better on BR than from upcoding DVD?

• Coppola's Godfather Series
• Wizard of Oz 70th Anniv.
• Matrix Trilogy
• The Dark Knight
• Star Trek
• BlackHawk Down
• Quantum of Solace
• Casino Royale
• The Fifth Element

Thanks

Definitely The Dark Knight especially if you have a good sound system.
Some of the early scenes are filmed on Imax and it looks incredible.
Many will disagree with me but the Transformers blurays are good eye candy whether you like the movie or not, again unreal sound track.
Blu ray picture is great but the sound is spectacular also.
Have fun with it.
Knights of Ni

Seriously BlackHawk Down seriously a must get and a consistant all time Blu-ray top seller

Die Hard (First is the best IMO but first 3 are good 4 was Iffy)
French Connection 1 & 2
Dog Day Afternoon ( excellent xfer & flick) Dirty Harry Series
Predator (not a great xfer but good)
First Blood
One more for any pilot or anyone that likes Fighter Jets "Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag" on Blu-ray its awesome the footage is shot from the Pilot's view
J&R in NYC is having a Blu-ray sale 9.99 for a lot of them Black Hawk Down is $23.99 worth every penny
JR.com

Thanks so far. Let me repeat what I am asking here...so this doesn't become a grab bag of personal choices in movies.

I'm not at all interested in average or "good" transfers, since the Oppo does such a superb job of upcoding. Nor am I interested in obscure (i.e. Fighter Pilot) titles, or places that are running "special BR sales" in this thread.

I'm mainly looking at which EXTRAORDINARY & CLASSIC MOVIE BR replacements of my existing DVD's are considered really must have because they are so much better than DVD. I do have a great sound system.

I made some of my first round choices from "Must Have BR" links like these:

• Squidoo.com
• Digital Trends
• Blog Critics
• Amazon List
• CNET Reviews

"Ehehe, Blondie.."




Also, if you're a Trekkie, even slightly, you'll appreciate the original Star Trek series with William Shatner on Blu-Ray; every rebroadcast of Star Trek you've ever seen on television is a copy of a copy that's been floating around network archives for years, some of these are transfers from decades ago. It turns out that the series was actually filmed with 35mm movie cameras, with resolution and detail so high that no previous television technology could capture it - it's only now with Blu-Ray technology that for the first time the full theater-presentation quality of the original recordings can be fully revealed. It's really mesmerizing to see a small sci-fi production from nearly 40 years ago that looks as high-quality as any current HD television series..

Can they really take an old master such as The Wizard of Oz and improve upon it's DVD offering?

I have the next Oppo in the series, the 983H. It does a superb job of upscaling standard DVDs so I understand your criteria. It would have to be pretty darn good to improve noticeably on the experience. I was inches from getting the Oppo BD player but was hesitant because it would seem difficult for BluRay to be that much better to justify the investment particularly given the commodity pricing of DVD source material. I'm holding out but its on my Christmas list. It better be REALLY better.

I think a PS3 is in my future so that will probably be my BD entry point. I've been no help at all but I'll be interested in the responses.

I'm using the Oppo BDP83. IMO, DVDs vary wildly in transfer quality, as do Blurays. But any BD is still better than DVD. It seems like you're looking for transfers that are a LOT better, though.

I'm just starting on BDs, but transfer-wise, Bladerunner is quite good, as is Goldfinger. 2001 is a decent improvement over DVD, but Clockwork Orange isn't so much. People have complained about Bullitt on BD, and I concurred it's not a huge improvement over the DVD, but noticeable. I think Bullitt was also just not made as a technical film, but a looser, 60s style.

I also agree the Star Trek OS sets are grand to watch if you like that. I've been able to compare some of it to a 35mm print, and the BD is very good. You can program the playback to show original special effects, or the recently redone ones.

There's a lot of talk over whether transfer should be made at 2k, 4k or 8k resolution. I understand Bladerunner is 4k. Some of my ordinary DVDs look barely better than 16mm, whereas some look like maybe 80% of a BD on my Oppo.

Geepondy, there are some articles on how much effort was recently put into restoring the Wizard of Oz. I don't have the BD, but reviews have been good for the improvements.

StarHalo, I love Clint in almost every movie acting & directing. Interesting that those lists I posted last time don't have any of the Sergio Leone classics listed as an outstanding transfer.

I am a devout Trekie, but may rent one of the ST-OS BluRay on Netflix to see if it is worth buying. It's hard to imagine as cheesy as their sets, budget, special effects were that it is worth bothering with BR version...but it may be.

da.gee & louie, most people who never got a high quality upcoding Oppo don't realize how nice of a job it does. I'm not convinced that EVERY BR is clearly better than upcoded DVD, although theoretically it should be. It all depends on the original print resolution, and the transfer technique.

I only play games on PC platform, so was not interested in PS. Mainly was looking for an effective networked WiFi interface between my PC and TV, also including Netflix downloads...and this LG model did all that in spades + apparently is a superb BR which was a bonus....so I got sucked into BR as a secondary motivation.

Much of the new blockbuster/action movies are being filmed with BR (& higher resolutions) in mind, so going forward I am more confident in new movie quality giving BR>DVD. It looks like most of the classics (that I already have in DVD) are not worth buying a new BR copy.

I know Bladerunner, Wizard of Oz 75th, Godfather-Copolla Restoration, 2001, Baraka, BBC Earth, Iron Man, Cars, Ratatouille, Pirates-2, Dark Knight, two latest 007's are dramatically better. I'll probably add Kill Bill to the list.

I just went through and did a count. I'm up to 36 BD's, that includes two seasons of TV shows. Out of the ones you listed Lux, I have Black Hawk Down, Casino Royale, The Dark Knight, and the Matrix box set. BHD and the Matrix replaced DVD copies I had for years, and there is a difference. While watching Dark Knight on HBO in HD, I could tell the quality wasn't as good as my BD.

I'm with you on not running out to replace all my DVD's There are a few I want to replace when the BD's are available... assuming the transfers are worth it. You've obviously done more research on this than I have. Specificly Kill Bill. I love those movies, and I wouldn't have expected the transfers to be too much better. I might have to look into them. One BD I have that has beautiful visuals is The Watchmen, although I have no idea if it's any better than upconverted DVD:shrug:

I noticed they now have Band of Brothers on BD. Have you looked into this one for a quality difference?

I've been an early adopter since the inception of the Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats and found these sites to have the most comprehensive information
on PQ.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1168342
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/reviews.html

You may be surprised by the PQ of some older classic titles. Several have image quality approaching the best of the new (non-CGI) releases.

For sure I'm not running out and replacing every DVD with a BD (if available). For one, it's expensive. Some of my DVDs may never get replaced by BDs, they're just not worth it to me to see them in HD. OTOH, my faves will get replaced by BD.

I also get this feeling that BD transfers will improve over time, just as DVDs did. The conspiracy theory is that they will issue "special editions" and improved transfers to make you buy yet another copy. Some titles may just have a BD version made from the DVD transfer just to get on the bandwagon ASAP. Those aren't going to look as good as a 4k or 8k careful transfer, maybe just a little better than the DVD.

I have looked at the BBC Earth BD set, and most of it is very pretty. Like a picture book. I don't think I'll buy it, though.

Congrats Lux. That's a nice player.

I just ordered and installed this Samsung over at my folk's house and set everything up last night. I'm pretty happy with it so far.



Regarding reference quality material, I always go here first...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1168342


Cars, I Robot, and Curse of the Black Pearl, have been the most impressive movies I've seen on blu ray. The Patriot and Fantastic 4, are close 2nds

P.S. I watched "Patton" last night and the picture was a 8.5 out of 10! The soundtrack sucked though despite being DTS. It wasn't mixed well so I had to turn up the sound a lot to hear dialog and had to turn it way down for other ambient sounds. Very annoying! Do not purchase...

1wrx7 said:

While watching Dark Knight on HBO in HD, I could tell the quality wasn't as good as my BD.

Click to expand...

You realize that all High Def via cable/satellite/fiber/Uverse is not real HD, right? Most of the HIGHER quality transmitted HD are at 720P, some 1080i, and it can fluctuate movie/show to show even on the same channel. They are not transmitting at true Blu-Ray HD of 1080p, so you can not compare any transmitted channel HD with BR.

SCEMan said:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1168342
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/reviews.html

Click to expand...

I have seen those sites, but they are not specifically saying which titles are SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER than a QUALITY UPCODED DVD version. They are only saying which have the best PQ, but in some cases the DVD also has superb quality that is further improved with upcoding. That is part of what I have felt is the "SCAM" of BR, especially when they paid off Toshiba to drop the DVD-HD competition that had more room to improve than BR.

I use the term "SCAM" intentionally, because there is an industry wide conspiracy to try and convince consumers to spend oodles and oodles of money buying a new HD TV's, HD Receiver, HD Sound systems, higher cable/satellite/phone monthy HD fees, HD BR Player, higher priced BR Discs, upgraded PC's, PC-BR burners, PC HDMI Monitors to watch BR movies.

When you check into more and more details, if someone has a high quality upcoding DVD player, there is not a huge reason to upgrade from DVD to BR. It is nothing like the difference moving from VHS resolution to DVD.

So again, I'm looking for what is probably 10-20 existing titles that have been significantly improved for transfer to BR.

Patriot said:

Congrats Lux. That's a nice player.

I just ordered and installed this Samsung over at my folk's house and set everything up last night. I'm pretty happy with it so far.

Regarding reference quality material, I always go here first...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1168342


Cars, I Robot, and Curse of the Black Pearl, have been the most impressive movies I've seen on blu ray. The Patriot and Fantastic 4, are close 2nds

P.S. I watched "Patton" last night and the picture was a 8.5 out of 10! The soundtrack sucked though despite being DTS. It wasn't mixed well so I had to turn up the sound a lot to hear dialog and had to turn it way down for other ambient sounds. Very annoying! Do not purchase...

Click to expand...

I looked first at that Samsung model, and read both writeups at CNET, with their giving a number of advantages between the two to the LG. I also wanted the faster WiFi "N" standard and ability to play AAC tunes.

It seems pretty well accepted that the Disney/Pixar animated movies (No offense to your avatar, but the only one I would think of watching more than once is Ratatouille.) and at least Pirates-2 are significantly better.

What you saw with Patton is exactly why BR is not necessarily worth jumping into the complete setup expense. I also think it is inexcuseable for studios to do crappy transfers for BR. Do they think people who bought Patton BR are then also going to buy a "Director's Edition" of Patton?

It will be interesting to try and objectively compare the upcoding processing of my Oppo vs. this new LG BR.

I rented Quantum of Solace on bluray. While the movie itself was not very good (the plot is absolutely horrible), the higher sound quality from the Blu-ray disc was very good, especially with the car chases. However, you obviously need to have a receiver that can support this audio format.

I don't see why any transfer of a movie to HD wouldn't be significantly better than an upcoded 480P dvd. With 480P you simply don't have the added data to make the movie truly at a higher resolution. I have watched numerous upcoded DVDs, and while they are better than dvds played on a non-upcoding DVD player, they are still noticeably lacking when compared to a blu-ray movie. The data simply isn't there to create a true 720P or 1080P picture.
You should probably give Saving Private Ryan a try. Also, Band of Brothers is now out on Blu-Ray, and apparently it is pretty good.

The Bourne trilogy is also very good in HD with a good sound system (lots of car collisions).

LuxLuthor said:

You realize that all High Def via cable/satellite/fiber/Uverse is not real HD, right? Most of the HIGHER quality transmitted HD are at 720P, some 1080i, and it can fluctuate movie/show to show even on the same channel. They are not transmitting at true Blu-Ray HD of 1080p, so you can not compare any transmitted channel HD with BR.


I have seen those sites, but they are not specifically saying which titles are SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER than a QUALITY UPCODED DVD version. They are only saying which have the best PQ, but in some cases the DVD also has superb quality that is further improved with upcoding. That is part of what I have felt is the "SCAM" of BR, especially when they paid off Toshiba to drop the DVD-HD competition that had more room to improve than BR.

I use the term "SCAM" intentionally, because there is an industry wide conspiracy to try and convince consumers to spend oodles and oodles of money buying a new HD TV's, HD Receiver, HD Sound systems, higher cable/satellite/phone monthy HD fees, HD BR Player, higher priced BR Discs, upgraded PC's, PC-BR burners, PC HDMI Monitors to watch BR movies.

When you check into more and more details, if someone has a high quality upcoding DVD player, there is not a huge reason to upgrade from DVD to BR. It is nothing like the difference moving from VHS resolution to DVD.

So again, I'm looking for what is probably 10-20 existing titles that have been significantly improved for transfer to BR.

Click to expand...

I strongly disagree with this... As I said, I have watched upconverted dvds on the exact same system as I have watched blu-ray (both my blu-ray player and my receiver have upconverting capability). Even though one of my TVs is only 720P, I could easily see an improvement with the bluray over the upconverted DVD. You can't magically make an image a higher resolution (sort of like the "image enhancement" that is used on many crimes shows to seemingly magically resolve a license plate number from a grainy low-res security camera video) if there isn't any data there. If you put something originally filmed in HD (or traditional film) down to 480P and then covnert it back up to 1080P, then you still only have the same level of detail as the 480P image, it is just better fit for the 1920 x 1080 resolution.
I think that calling it a "scam" is kind of paranoid. There most certainly is a difference, but whether or not people feel that difference is worth it is up to them. You might not feel that it is worth it, but that doesn't mean that others do not. You state that the difference in resolutionbetween Blu-ray and DVD is nothing when comapred with DVD and VHS... A VHS "image" would have about 80,000 "pixels" (if VHS had pixels), while a DVD has about 300,000. A Bluray "image" will have over 2 million pixels. a 720P image will have about 1 million pixels. Therefore, with a bluray picture you have over 6 times the image data of a DVD, where the difference between DVD and VHS is probably about 4 times. The difference between a 1080P signal and a DVD is therefore more than the difference between DVD and VHS, not less. Even if you upconvert a DVD, you do not get any more data.

Again, that added data might not translate into a benefit to you, but calling HD video a scam is not accurate. I (and many other people) upgraded to HD and Blu-ray capable equipment because I felt that there was a significant difference over DVDs (even upconverted dvds), not because some blu-ray advertisement told me I should.

Mjolnir said:

I rented Quantum of Solace on bluray. While the movie itself was not very good (the plot is absolutely horrible), the higher sound quality from the Blu-ray disc was very good, especially with the car chases. However, you obviously need to have a receiver that can support this audio format.

Click to expand...

As a sequel to Casino Royale within the Bond series, I enjoyed QOS--plot and all. But then I am a die-hard 007 fan....also a Die-Hard Willis fan for that matter. LOL!

Mjolnir said:

I don't see why any transfer of a movie to HD wouldn't be significantly better than an upcoded 480P dvd. With 480P you simply don't have the added data to make the movie truly at a higher resolution. I have watched numerous upcoded DVDs, and while they are better than dvds played on a non-upcoding DVD player, they are still noticeably lacking when compared to a blu-ray movie. The data simply isn't there to create a true 720P or 1080P picture.

Click to expand...

Same response to your next post.

This is a common misunderstanding. Once you read about the topic which is introduced at this link, you begin to get an idea of the concept. A higher quality upscaling DVD player samples more surrounding pixels to more accurately interpolate (create) new pixels to then be displayed as 720p, 1080i, or 1080p. I also seriously doubt that you have a high quality upcoding DVD player. It matters which cable connection is used, and the quality of the TV connected to.

It is akin to a lossy high quality MP3 (made with Exact Audio Copy with specific Lame encoder version, in secure mode with error correction, etc.) created from a CD. In this comparison, the CD represents a Blu-Ray 1080p, and the MP3 a DVD. When the high quality MP3 is played back, the missing frequency data that was on the CD is interpolated and added to the playback. If done right, only the most extreme audiophiles with the most extreme equipment can actually hear any difference between the two.

Of course, then there is SACD & higher quality multi-input sound recordings that can reproduce to a degree that it sounds like you are in front of the recording artist as they are performing live. Video resolutions have already begun moving way beyond the Blu-Ray 1080p resolutions to compare with SACD & higher audio rates. Example is the QuadHDTV from Silicon Video Inc., 3840 x 2140 @ 30 fps or 4 times the BR standard.

Mjolnir said:

You should probably give Saving Private Ryan a try. Also, Band of Brothers is now out on Blu-Ray, and apparently it is pretty good.

The Bourne trilogy is also very good in HD with a good sound system (lots of car collisions).

Click to expand...

I have all those on DVD, and have not yet heard that they are SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER than a quality UPCODED DVD version. Band of Brothers is a wonderful miniseries though.

Early on in the HD DVD wars upscaling DVD players were a frequent topic as an alternative. But since Blu-ray audio codecs also offer significant enhancements over DVD sound, this is another reason to upgrade if your system supports it.

Personally, I buy very few BDs, mostly concerts and favorites (e.g., Band of Brothers) and prefer to rent.

I really think you should review the wealth of information available on the AVSforum. The upscaling vs. high definition debate has been discussed definitively there and this forum cannot do it justice.

LuxLuthor said:

As a sequel to Casino Royale within the Bond series, I enjoyed QOS--plot and all. But then I am a die-hard 007 fan....also a Die-Hard Willis fan for that matter. LOL!

Same response to your next post.

This is a common misunderstanding. Once you read about the topic which is introduced at this link, you begin to get an idea of the concept. A higher quality upscaling DVD player samples more surrounding pixels to more accurately interpolate (create) new pixels to then be displayed as 720p, 1080i, or 1080p. I also seriously doubt that you have a high quality upcoding DVD player. It matters which cable connection is used, and the quality of the TV connected to.

It is akin to a lossy high quality MP3 (made with Exact Audio Copy with specific Lame encoder version, in secure mode with error correction, etc.) created from a CD. In this comparison, the CD represents a Blu-Ray 1080p, and the MP3 a DVD. When the high quality MP3 is played back, the missing frequency data that was on the CD is interpolated and added to the playback. If done right, only the most extreme audiophiles with the most extreme equipment can actually hear any difference between the two.

Of course, then there is SACD & higher quality multi-input sound recordings that can reproduce to a degree that it sounds like you are in front of the recording artist as they are performing live. Video resolutions have already begun moving way beyond the Blu-Ray 1080p resolutions to compare with SACD & higher audio rates. Example is the QuadHDTV from Silicon Video Inc., 3840 x 2140 @ 30 fps or 4 times the BR standard.



I have all those on DVD, and have not yet heard that they are SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER than a quality UPCODED DVD version. Band of Brothers is a wonderful miniseries though.

Click to expand...

The reason that I dislike QOS is because I AM a "die hard" james bond fan. I have seen every movie at least twice, and many of them more than that. I felt that quantum of solace simply ditched everything that the 007 movies had in favor of nothing; they basically made it into a Bourne movie without as good of a plot. Additionally, it had no continuity with any other movie (besides Casino Royale).
I understand that upconverting can extrapolate to get some additional artificial detail, but the fact that the 480P signal has far less data means that it simply cannot match the quality of a true 1080P signal, since the upconverter is essentially guessing as to what the original picture looked like.
For what it's worth, I have a Pioneer Elite receiver with a Faroudja DCDI chip for upconversion, which is actually the same chip that is in the Oppo 981-HD, the unit that was above the model that you have in oppo's lineup. It seems like many of the upconverters do some form of anti-aliasing, which can make the picture look better. However, aliasing isn't really an issue at higher resolutions, like 1080P.

If someone already has an HDTV, then they might as well spend their money on a blu-ray drive instead of an upconverting DVD player, since they aren't all that different in price.

SCEMan said:

Early on in the HD DVD wars upscaling DVD players were a frequent topic as an alternative. But since Blu-ray audio codecs also offer significant enhancements over DVD sound, this is another reason to upgrade if your system supports it.

Personally, I buy very few BDs, mostly concerts and favorites (e.g., Band of Brothers) and prefer to rent.

I really think you should review the wealth of information available on the AVSforum. The upscaling vs. high definition debate has been discussed definitively there and this forum cannot do it justice.

Click to expand...

I didn't start this topic to devolve into a comprehensive discussion of upcoding DVD's vs. BR, and as in Patriot's Patton example, just having a higher storage capacity does not mean that the original movie production had adequate quality sound and/or video (without restorative manipulation) to always make BR sound significantly better than a quality upcoding DVD player.

The technology of current HDTV's and Upcoding DVD players has progressed dramatically beyond the early discussion days at AVS Forum.

The whole reason this thread exists is exactly what I am talking about. I wouldn't even begin to consider replacing a DVD with BR if it was not first on their top "GOLD" rating list. It would then need to be an absolute classic, and then have a number of recommendations that this specific title is radically better on BR.

However what they do not do in that thread is compare a given BR title next to a quality upcoding DVD player/TV setup for the same title. Obviously in a number of cases the BR will be better to some degree. I'm only looking for those that are DRAMATICALLY better.