Hi Guys,
Just thought I would give you my first impression with Blu Ray.
I fell into the HD world when i walked into a shop and saw a HD DVD player and discs selling so cheap that even though i had never even thought about HD before I had to buy it.
I connected it to my 2.4 mt wide 1080p display via hdmi and was blown away by the pic it definatley had Punch and the sound was so Full that it was like listining to Laserdisc again, WoW.
A few months down the track I find my self looking for a Blu Ray player because i wanted to be able to watch some of the latest movies.
Before i even demoed a player I saw a good deal on Ebay for a Sharp bluray player and some movies.
After setting the player up and connecting it with the same hdmi cable I had on the HD DVD player My first impression with blu ray was that I found the pic to be lacking the punch that HD DVD has, I even had to get up and check that i did in fact put a BLU Ray dvd in and not a standard dvd.
The movies i have watched with this player are Spiderman 3 Stargate Continuum Starship troopers.
Has anyone else had a similar experience or is it these particular movies or the Player that is the reason or have i been spoilt by HD DVD.
Cheers

Which hddvd player did you have? The sharp is ordinary at best. Mine is relegated to the second room.

As I have both, I think I can answer this question reasonably dependant on a couple of questions. I am aware of the Sharp Blu Player you are talking about. Which HD player do you have?? If it is the EP10 or XE1 then there is a good chance the HD player is better quality than the Sharp even though all are 1080p. If you have an E1, then I would be very worried as that is a lower quality picture than the Sharp.

I personally have not noticed much difference in the picture quality between BLU and HD. My only pet peeve with blu is the menus are not as easy to use as HD, but that will probably change as the Blu menu profiles develop. My suggestion is to borrow another movie from your local Lackluster video (like Cloverfield etc) and try it out again.

Hope that helps as a starting point

Best Regards,

Mathew

Hi
Thanks for the quick replies.
I own the E1 and 10 Hd DVD players and they both have a fantastic picture.
I have the E1 set at 720P and it still has alot more punch than the Blu Ray player set at 1080P.
So, what player and how much do you have to spend to get a player as good as the HD DVD players I have,
because with the Blu Ray Player I have i am not even interested in buying another Blu Ray movie.
I wonder how many ppl that review Blu Ray Players have ever owned a HD DVD player?
Cheers

As they say ......"The best format lost !"


C.M

Any @Biff% and #Bam@ that you can recall? What was it Full of?, BS?

Don't laugh but have you tried swappingthe HDMI cable between the Sharp and the E1. It's only a small chance, but I cheap HDMI cable couple be the difference. Plus, it takes a whole 5 mins to see if that was it and it costs nothing

On the whole HD/BLU format argument, I have Bridge to Terebithia on both formats and it makes no difference in picture quality. Some other people with more knowledge may be able to help you further. My suggestion is to ask for help in the Blu Forum but keep negative comments on Blu to a minimum. Some people love their precious Blu's and you dont want to cause any problems with dodgy bickering done mainly by other people (such just a warning for your own good - I almost learnt the hard way )

Best Regards,

Mathew

Hi
I am using the same cable.
I dont know what hijinx is on about but he reminds me of another question i want to ask, Is there an age limit to this forum because my 4 year old wants to join as well .
Cheers

.....very wise, this young padawan is

cheers

Just a quick comment on your choices of films. Stargate Continuum on the whole is a very disappointing print. THE 100% CG shots like nice, the rest was done on cheap stock (same as the series) which doesn't come up too crash hot on BD. Starship Troopers, while looking the best it ever has on BD, is in my opinion a little soft. Spiderman 3 is a pretty good print.

Which HD DVD's have you watched? Knowing those titles I could let you know where those BD's you have watched sit quality wise in comparison. Not all HD titles are the same quality so it is very possible the BD's you have watched are inferior to the HD DVD's you have watched.

Just ignore any idiots who have a go at you (as mfedley said, some get quite defensive of blu-ray - not sure why). If I had to list the 3 best looking prints I had seen in High Definition, 2 of those 3 are HD DVD's. It's all a matter of what the studios do with the sources.

Mate you're original post is full of holes and full of "Punch" BS, punch is very much a brightness/intrascene CR term. Both BR and Hd-DVD have the same resolution, colour space, bit depth and codecs both audio and video.

The difference is BR has the potential to look and sound better than HD-DVD in some instances where a higher bitrate may add more detail in complex scenes, because of BR's higher bandwidth/space, it is possible to do so, but was not always so....if a lower bitrate is used, like the early 25GB BR disks that had a inferior bitrate applied to the encode than HD-Dvd, Tomb Raider and XXX are good examples of this, due to lack of space.

Read up on the DCI standard being introduced by Alan Gouger and associates, 1080p with 3x the bandwidth of BR, to be distributed on encrypted hard drive.........perhaps you may discover a benefit to having a greater bandwidth.

I see you joined in 2006 and have 7 or 8 posts.........should have asked more questions this way you wouldn't be so ill informed.........having more punch/fuller sound? sounds suspect..........vorlon what is the real agenda?....do tell!

BTW Spiderman 3 is a terrific encode both video and audio wise.Link

Perhaps you're 4 year old is more informed than you.

On the other hand you could be on the level....in which case I would suspect you're Sharp is faulty.

I have a what, An Agenda because i am a newbie to this forum.
Well you got me
I am from the Planet Toshiba and live on the largest continent Island called HD-DVDville and my mission is to weed out weirdos.
And i have sucseeded.
ha ha ha ha ha

It seems it has descended into chaos already. Vorlon's secret plans to convince Toshiba to start producing HD DVD's again is starting to take shape, be wary all you blu ray fans, a cunning plan indeed. Load your guns with silver bullets they are a dangerous foe!!!!!

Fanatics turn up in the strangest of places

Take note of Momaw and mfedley's advice.

Spiderman 3 should be a good test-source for your system, and i'm surprised that it hasn't been 'cutting the mustard' for you, so to speak.

There's certainly some more adept discs out there to test for similar results.

Last but not least, let's not forget to a degree this is a subjective hobby, and you'll find some things please you more than others.

vorlon, It is exactly as Mo' has said


......."It's all a matter of what the studios do with the sources. "

All the rest is technical B/S, as one might put it.

Never mind Highjinx, I think he is a little disappointed that Blu-ray has not turned out to be the resounding success he had boasted about in the past and that to the derision of HD DVD.




And yes HJ, I do have a Blu-ray player of sorts and some Blu-ray's I have rented have been very good indeed but it's your insistence on Blu-ray's technical merits that has become tiresome.

So if Vorlon thinks HD DVD movies have more punch etc.........so what? ......that's his subjective viewpoint and he is entitled to it, whether it is true or not is another thing.

In the end, Blu-ray can only improve....HD DVD can not, that is ....given enough time .

C.M

Having two XE1's and having been a real advocate of HD DVD I saw a fair number of HD DVD movies. I haven't gotten through them all yet but have over 150. In all those movies there are some great ones and some that the transfer or the master were just not brilliant and therefore the movie itself is little better than an upscaled DVD. Since the demise I bought a PS3 and have watced a number of BD's, I think I have about 20 to date. Of those I have seen the same thing, some great transfers and some not so good. The very best transfers on Blu and HD look similar to me and the worst on both formats, similar again. All the talk of potentially better on Blu due to higher bitrates I think is just something for people who are anal about statistics, I don't see any difference at all. But having said that I also cannot agree that Blu is not as good as HD DVD - as I say, they both are about the same to me but I must add I don't use a magnifying glass to study PQ while I watch as some must do. They both give a much better image and sound than DVD and the only issue I have to this day is that the more expensive and less consumer friendly format one. Otherwise Blu-Ray is every bit as good as HD DVD to watch.

I'd have to agree. I have an XE1, EP10, PS3 and a HTPC with a GGW-H20L and good Blu-rays look similar to good HD DVDs and the converse is also true.

I have also noticed that some studio transfers of the same movie can also be different ie I have found some US releases of HD DVDs to look and sound better than local releases of the same movie - not checked this out for Blu-ray though - only have a zone A PS3.

As I can now admit to coming out of the closet, having purchased a BR player last week. I have only watched one BR movie to date so can not back up what SDL, Mo & others have said conclusively (but would agree). The one BR movie I did watch was Pans labyrinth and all though it was not my thing (usually makes me more critical of PQ) IMO it was breathtaking in PQ and equal to the best I have seen in HDDVD on my system.

I have also had BR copy of ACDC live at donington demoed to me, and that was utter crap PQ

Fair to say that BR has only caught up in the last 6 months PQ wise, when I had both players I often said the the red corner always seemed more vibrant, but BR is now getting there

I guess the main problem is that Universal normally have good transfers out of the major studios. And as most HD titles were Universal, this may explain it a bit. Have only heard mainly good things from Universal Blu transfers

unlikely but could it be the display is handling 720p better than it's native 1080 for some reason?

Is this called fishing?.....sure you're using the correct bait?

The therapy obviously didnt work did it CM.

Well, I am suprised at that but obviously no, it hasn't. The senior board of psychiatrists and myself have been studying your case history for sometime now and it seems that you have been suffering from a delusional disorder ( a psychosis ) relating to some obscure 'format war ' of the past. It is apparent that the prescribed therapy hasn't worked for you this time by your questioning its veracity, but, with the next round of treatment involving high voltage realignment of your mental capacities you'll be on the right track in no time at all.

P.S .....This is no time for laughing.......otherwise that'll be another thing we'll have to treat.

Below is a link you might like to read .....it could help you recognize symptoms .

http://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/delusional-disorder

C.M

Thanks for that but I feel fine.

I was actually referring to you, but you knew that.

It is good to see that you have a sense of humour and a happy disposition. Cheers.


C.M

yeah I think too many people take these forums too seriously.

Its all fun and games until someone loses a pixel.

Hey no inviting Blown Pixel back

**** post mate. You need to pull your head in.

can u even get 2.4m 1080p displays yet

1080P Projectors. I know quite a few on the forum have 110" 1080P projectors (even seen a couple of those lucky guys in action - extremely sweet). 110" = 2.75m

100" 1080p here...........and loving it

cheers

110" 1080p here.....................and loving it too.

I watched Iron Man on DVD last night and thoroughly enjoyed the movie.
On standard DVD on my Panny viera,the PQ was average and the Dolby Digital soundtrack is less than impressive.
I hope Blu Ray has MUCH BETTER audio and PQ or I am going to be dissapointed.
I am ready to buy a player BUT I want all the goodies,DTS and uncompressd analogue PCM outputs and decoding, and the best PQ.
It is damn hard to find a reasonable priced player to do all this.
I was ready to buy the Panasonic BD-30,but it does not do the PCM uncompressed 5.1 output.
Any suggestions
Cheers
Thornton

I rented out 'Iron Man' on Blu-ray tonight and watched it at 1080p............let me say, you wont be disappointed....HD at it's best......even the movie was better than average.

C.M

Vorlon was having a bit O' forum fun I feel.

Normally, people with a 1080p projector will state that, along with the screen size....not say:

"I connected it to my 2.4 mt wide 1080p display via hdmi and was blown away by the pic it definatley had Punch and the sound was so Full that it was like listining to Laserdisc again, WoW."

Sounded like he was talking about a directview unit to me........anyway.

When I go Blu Ray it will have to be via a region-free player for both blu ray and standard discs. I've been told the newest Sony blu ray player (costing just under $400) is region-free but will have to see that to believe it!

Its region free for dvd not blu ray.

Build yourself a HTPC...everything is 'region free' from then on.

C.M

If I build a HTPC,which Blu Ray player would I use?
Just curious
Thornton

Thornton. I use the LG Blu-ray/HD DVD Rom drive, model GGC-H20L .

It generally retails around $165 but may have had a slight price increase due to the low value of the dollar.

It is a Sata drive and comes with PowerDVD 7 and other software. PowerDVD 7 allows you to play Blu-ray and HD DVD discs.

The player is surprisingly an excellent performer considering it carries the L.G label, which I must add is not my favourite brand.

HTPC 's require a bit of grunt to process the HD video stream so something in the order of a 2.5 Gig Core 2 Duo CPU, 2 Gig of 800Mc/s Ram, a quality SATA motherboard, a reasonable capacity Sata Hard Drive, and at least a 8600 series video card with DVI output.

Other people may offer other suggestions, I have just given you something to work from, it is also requires a little patience to fine tune it all but then computers are like that.

Before you enter into the mystique world of HTPC's make sure you do a lot of reading on the subject as HTPC's allows one to have a lot of flexibility in movie management and storage.


C.M

110" 1080p here.....................and loving it too.

Dont worry............... if you build it, it will come.

Thanks for the info Chicken Man,my PC is overdue for an upgrade,this gives me a starting point .
Cheers.
Thornton