Hi-Def and Home Theater Thread 2

[mikeszekely]

Obligatory link to the old thread, now in the Hall of Supertopics.

Anyway, Michael Bay's dream has come true, and Transformers hit on Blu-ray today. It took so long to load on my PS3 that I had to check Google to see if that was normal. I'm not sure if it was, since I do need to do a System Update, but it did eventually load. Anyway, visually I didn't notice a difference from the HD-DVD. Some people online seem to think it is better, and hey, maybe it is. My TV only does 720p/1080i, so maybe those of you with a 1080p TV will see a difference I don't. The audio is greatly improved, however. I dare say it is to the HD-DVD what the HD-DVD was to the DVD, although I am sorry to report that it's just Dolby TrueHD. The bassy blast from Blackout's EMP still seemed a bit bigger in the theater, but it's a huge improvement vs. the HD-DVD.

Depending on how much you like the movie, you're mileage may vary. Aside from the audio, it's still basically the HD-DVD package. For me, though, I decided the improved audio and the fact that I can now stuff my 360's HD-DVD player in a closet and forget about it (Transformers was my last HD-DVD) was worth going Blue for.

[eugimon]

Thanks for the quick review. I guess I'll pick it up when it goes on sale

[bandit29]

Kill Bill vol 1 & 2 due next week. Reviews have been good. They are US theatrical versions, not the Japanese. Not sure if I'll get them...I have the JP DVDs..

but Amazon has a bundle deal for 40.00....

http://www.moviefreak.com/artman/publish/b...bill_vol1.shtml

http://www.moviefreak.com/artman/publish/b...bill_vol2.shtml

[eugimon]

Wasn't there supposed to be a "final cut" re-edit of kill bill?

[Gaijin]

Wasn't there supposed to be a "final cut" re-edit of kill bill?

"The Whole Bloody Affair"...at this point, who knows when it will be finished. QT talked about it quite awhile back. The Weinstein Bros have the rights and not Disney though. This would be the whole thing with extra scenes, not just the colorized Blue Leaves Japanese version.

[eugimon]

I'll keep waiting then... I liked Kill Bill, but not enough to double dip.

[Gaijin]

I'll keep waiting then... I liked Kill Bill, but not enough to double dip.

You'll be waiting a LONG time. Honestly, at this point, no one is sure if it will ever be released at all. If it is, it will most likely be quite a long time.

[David Hingtgen]

I'm thinking about picking up a PS3 soon (more for Blu-Ray than games), I'm waiting to see if there's any inkling of a price drop (unlikely) after the next 360 drop next week.

[eugimon]

I doubt it. PS3 has been selling well and Sony still isn't turning a profit on the hardware so I doubt there will be a price drop anytime soon.

[Oihan]

Am the only one annoyed by the load times with Blu-ray? I don't EVER recall having a load time with a HD-DVD disc. >_> (At least with all of the HD-DVDs I've viewed there wasn't a load time.) That was partially a reason why I was rooting for HD-DVD to win. One would think in this day and age that there wouldn't be any freakin' loading times to watch a movie...with all of the current technology out there. I've had one Blu-ray disc that refused to play whatsoever...all it wanted to do was load whatever the hell it was trying to load. I could understand if it was loading a firmware update or something of the likes...but every time with every disc?!

Edit: Grammar

Edited September 3, 2008 by Oihan

[eugimon]

which is why I got a PS3 for my blu-ray player and not a dedicated machine.

[Oihan]

which is why I got a PS3 for my blu-ray player and not a dedicated machine.

Is that issue non-existent with the PS3s? I know the PS3s are said to have a good Blu-player, but I didn't know loading times weren't an issue with them. That makes the PS3 all the more enticing then. ...Though, one thing I have noticed about the PS3s is that they don't do too great of a job upscaling 480p content. I could live with that if the load times, with BR discs, are non-existent.

[Gaijin]

PS3 load times with Blu-rays are pretty much non issue. EVen BD Live 2.0 discs like Spiderman 3 and Transformers take like 5 secs.

Mike, I dunno why your disc took so long. I know that BD Live discs will check to see if your player is up to date so maybe that was it.

Edited September 3, 2008 by Gaijin

[eugimon]

The disc that takes the longest for me is Cars, and I think it's between 5~10 seconds. It's not as fast as HD-DVD but not as slow as I've seen on stand alone players.

The upscaling is decent, it's not spectacular but it also doesn't suck.

[MacrossMan]

I'm thinking about picking up a PS3 soon (more for Blu-Ray than games), I'm waiting to see if there's any inkling of a price drop (unlikely) after the next 360 drop next week.

David you might consider a new PC with Blu-Ray with an MC Extender. I was tetering on a PS3, but I haven't played a gaming system since Super Nintendo. Oddly enough, the more real the games and their graphics got, the more I lost interest, but that's a whole other subject. Anywho, for what I wanted it just made more sense to purchase a new PC with the following specs:

HP PAVILION ELITE M9300T PC WITH TV/PVR

ATSC-NTS TVTUNER WITHHPPVR, FMTUNER, REMOTE

INTEGRATED 7/1 SOUND W/FRONT AUDIO PORTS

NORTON INTERNET SECURITY(M)2008 – 15 MONTH

MICROSOFT ® WORKS 9.0

KEYBOARD & HP OPTICAL MOUSE

HOME & HOME OFFICE INSERT

GENUINE WINDOWS VISTA HOME PREM. (32 – BIT)

INTEL ® CORE ™ 2 QUAD PROCQ6600(2.4GHZ)

3GB DDR2 – 800MHZ DUAL CHANNELSDRAM

256MBNVIDIAGEFORCE9300VI – I, V6AADT, HDMI

NO MODEM

320GB 7200RPM SATA 3GB/S HARD DRIVE

BLU – RAY RW&LIGHTSCRIBE SUPERMULTI DVDRW

15 – IN – 1 MEMORYCARD READER, 2USB, 1394, VIDEO

Pretty decent PC for the price: $701 on Ebay minus 10% discount brought the total to $630 shipped or about $230 more than a PS3. I purchased an extender and can now wirelessly stream all my digital content (including HD) to my man cave. Ripping Blu-Ray is a pretty tedious process and time consuming at this point, but I am sure it will be a lot easier in the future. As of right now I really use the extender to access my music library. I had a get together recently and everyone was amazed at being able to pull up the music and movie library on the TV let alone stream it on my wireless network. I must it's pretty bad ass and for the application you are considering using the PS3 for I would seriously consider investing a few extra bucks and go with a PC with an extender device.

OO

[Dangard Ace]

PS3 load times with Blu-rays are pretty much non issue. EVen BD Live 2.0 discs like Spiderman 3 and Transformers take like 5 secs.

Mike, I dunno why your disc took so long. I know that BD Live discs will check to see if your player is up to date so maybe that was it.

I've had the same slow load time issues with Transformers as Mike. I'm hooked up to the internet wirelessly and I was downloading alot at the time so that could have been my problem. OR it could be a hardware gen problem. Don't know what Mike's got I've got one of the original 60Gb with the EE chip.

[mikeszekely]

I've had the same slow load time issues with Transformers as Mike. I'm hooked up to the internet wirelessly and I was downloading alot at the time so that could have been my problem. OR it could be a hardware gen problem. Don't know what Mike's got I've got one of the original 60Gb with the EE chip.

I've got the same 60GB unit. I wasn't downloading anything at the time. Like I said, my firmware was out-of-date (stupid incremental firmware updates every two weeks...), so I'm hoping that was the issue. I just really wanted to play the movie, you know, so I didn't feel like updating then. I'm updating now, though. I'll report back when it's done.

EDIT: Update's done. Transformers still starts with a loading screen, which was followed by a second loading screen, but the who thing took 5-10 seconds. While this might sound bad considering that most Blu-rays didn't need any load times on my PS3, I should point out two things:

1.) The HD-DVD had the same loading screen. At least on the 360 player.

2.) 5-10 seconds is a huge improvement over the pre-update load times. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was between 5-10 minutes. It was going on so long that I was honestly on Google looking if there was any known issues playing Transformers on the PS3, or if I had a defective disc.

Edited September 3, 2008 by mikeszekely

[bandit29]

Do we really need six Sony Blu-ray recorders released(Japan only) at once?

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=1739

[eugimon]

With the transformers disc, isn't the wait time because it's downloading web content? I know the HD-DVD version took a while to load first time I watched it because it was downloading new content.

[Gaijin]

With the transformers disc, isn't the wait time because it's downloading web content? I know the HD-DVD version took a while to load first time I watched it because it was downloading new content.

That and making sure the player is up to date. My TF disc took maybe 10 secs the first time, and is about 5 or so anytime now. The same as a normal DVD.

[Gaijin]

If for some reason, your disc is loading excessively long, it might be the Wi-Fi downloading and taking forever...you can always set the BD options in the PS3 to ask instead of automatically downloading.

[mikeszekely]

If for some reason, your disc is loading excessively long, it might be the Wi-Fi downloading and taking forever...you can always set the BD options in the PS3 to ask instead of automatically downloading.

While I'm not saying that couldn't contribute to the problem, it can't be the sole cause. My PS3's hooked up using wired ethernet.

[Dangard Ace]

Tried the Transformers disc again today. No loading screen whatsoever. Went straight to the Dreamworks logo so I'm guessing the long load time was because of the BD Live content download.

[eugimon]

I picked up Transformers at Target (it was on sale!) and the load time is definitely faster than the HD-DVD on the 360.

sound is noticably better, and while the shockwave scene still doesn't pack as much punch as in the theater, it too was beefier than the on the HD-DVD. I wonder if the frequency is just too low for most subs to resolve. If that's the case, I think they should have remixed that scene since the rest of the movie has such a constant low druming of low frequency goodness.

Image quality seems to be the same, but I'm going off of memory as I'm too lazy to switch back and forth to do a side-by-side comparison. Definitely both are noticably better than the HDHBO version which is artifact city.

[eugimon]

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/09/04/sony-...y-mega-changer/ Edited September 5, 2008 by eugimon

[Uxi]

Forgot all about the web rubbish but picked up Transformers and Miami Vice on Blu-ray. Both are great movies... already had the latter on HDDVD but decided I liked it and it's improvements enough to double dip. Rocked my AV setup with em of course. Also picked up Shoot Em Up cause it was 15 bucks at BB. Horrible plot and unrealistic ala Transporter 2 but some decent enough action scenes.

[mikeszekely]

and Miami Vice on Blu-ray. Both are great movies...

*Kyle voice* Really?

already had the latter on HDDVD but decided I liked it and it's improvements enough to double dip

Really?

I mean, to each his own, but I thought Miami Vice was awful.

Edited September 5, 2008 by mikeszekely

[eugimon]

*Kyle voice* Really?

Really?

I mean, to each his own, but I thought Miami Vice was awful.

miami vice IS awful. I like Michael Mann, but this was close to unwatchable.

[Uxi]

You guys are on crack. That is one of the best and most realistic gunfights evAr. From one of the few guys who's been in an actual gunfight with automatic weapons.

[eugimon]

The gunfight was awesome, there were lots of awesome sequences, but the movie as a whole is a failure

[Gaijin]

While I'm not saying that couldn't contribute to the problem, it can't be the sole cause. My PS3's hooked up using wired ethernet.

Well, even then the download in general could have been causing the delay. Seems like a few people had the loading issue when playing it the first time...maybe the servers were wonky that day.

[Gaijin]

I picked up Transformers at Target (it was on sale!) and the load time is definitely faster than the HD-DVD on the 360.

sound is noticably better, and while the shockwave scene still doesn't pack as much punch as in the theater, it too was beefier than the on the HD-DVD. I wonder if the frequency is just too low for most subs to resolve. If that's the case, I think they should have remixed that scene since the rest of the movie has such a constant low druming of low frequency goodness.

Image quality seems to be the same, but I'm going off of memory as I'm too lazy to switch back and forth to do a side-by-side comparison. Definitely both are noticably better than the HDHBO version which is artifact city.

Rumored that on the home audio mix of TF, the bass was recorded mostly to the mains, and not the LFE...so no matter which one you had, DVD, HD DVD, BD, it wasn't the same as the theater. I know that scene is many times better on BD than the others but yes, it's still not as "punchy" as the theater.

[eugimon]

hmmm, that makes sense, my sub seems to be only kicking in to deliver extra "oomph". It's just odd though, because there's plenty of other scenes where there's enough bass to make my entire room rumble, like when ironhide does his gun assisted cartwheel over the screaming girl. The scene where megatron says " I am Megatron" got a nice bump in the BD version as well, his voice comes across as much deeper and with some nice rumble.

And I guess "devestator" is the official name for that tank, it still hasn't been changed to brawl.

Edited September 5, 2008 by eugimon

[JsARCLIGHT]

So has Michael Bay come out singing heavenly praises for his masterpiece now that it is on Blu Ray? Everything I read seems to indicate TF was not improved leaps and bounds in it's transfer to BD picture or audio wise as Michael Bay seemed to imply it would be. I wonder where his furor is now?

And am I alone in not buying a Blu Ray movie in months? Where are all the first tier catalog movies I've been waiting for? I constantly see movies I want to buy "in HD" on the HD satellite channels but their corresponding Blu Ray releases are nary to be found. I'm starting to become impatient and long for the days of the format war when both camps seemed to be in a mad panic to "win" and they seemed to be churning movies out like a puppy mill. Sure most of them were crap but when you had such heavy release cycles there were bound to be some gems in the mix. Nowadays the Blu Ray release chart reads like a "crap new movie of the month" or "what can we port over from HD DVD" list.

Where's my Aliens franchise? Where's my Indiana Jones already? I'd even be happy to see Escape from New York released at this point. Lord knows I've seen it enough on HDNet...

[Dangard Ace]

Iron Man. End of the month.