dlbpharmd wrote:I bought the bluray for LOTR and wasn't impressed at all. I bought the blueray for Band of Brothers and most of the extras would not work on my bluray player. I'm done with bluray, complete waste of money. Just let me know what Lucas does different this time around.
Wow, I thought LOTR Blu-ray was incredible. Breathtaking. Which version did you buy? The theatrical release was a very poor HD transfer. It did not look much better than DVD. In the home theater forums, it got horrible reviews. However, the Extended Edition was a vast improvement.
It also sounds like your player needs a firmware upgrade. It should be relatively easy to do. I just hook mine up to my router with an ethernet cable and it guides you through the process onscreen.
Blu-ray has more resolution, color depth, and hi-rez audio than many people actually utilize. If your TV isn't calibrated, or is too small, or you're watching under less than ideal conditions, or you don't have a receiver with HDMI inputs, etc. you're not getting the full experience and I can see how someone would think it's a waste of money because without the appropriate system, there won't be a vast improvement over DVD. However, with a proper system, Blu-ray is a huge leap forward.
Movies look weird on LCD, in my opinion. They're good for games, but for movies plasma is best. A Panasonic is about the best plasma you can buy these days, now that Pioneer has quit making them.
Also, Blu-ray's audio is lossless high resolution 7.1 surround. This means no compression. If your receiver is 5 years or older, it may not have HDMI inputs, and you have to hook it up with 6 or 7 analog cables ... if your Blu-ray player has the analog outputs. Most do not, and you have to pay extra for them, but it's better than spending $500 on a new receiver. A lot of people are watching Blu-ray on a Playstation, which does not have the analog outputs. So if your reciever isn't new-ish, and your speakers aren't at least mid-level quality, and they're not calibrated or set up properly, you'll be missing all the audio glory Blu-ray has to offer.
So you can see that Blu-ray isn't exactly user friendly like DVD was. DVD was more forgiving of modest system and user errors because it didn't take so much effort to get the most out of DVD .... because DVD didn't have as much to offer to begin with.
[*Edit* Looking through the 2008 thread on Blu-ray players, I refreshed myself on your system. Looks like you've got a kick-ass TV, and a newer receiver, and home-theater-in-a-box speakers. So perhaps calibration/set-up could explain your disappointment in Blu-ray, or the ambient light issue you mentioned. A 3-yr-old Blu-ray player almost certainly needs a firmware upgrade if you have never done that. I've only had to do it once, and haven't had a problem since. But that only affects the playability (extras, etc.), not picture quality. Other than those issues, I'm really perplexed why you don't see the huge leap forward in Blu-ray. How's your HD cable experience? Do you think that's a waste, too?]
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Now ... Star Wars on BD.
It looks great. The changes are relatively minor, compared to previous releases. Ewoks blink. R2 hides behind more rocks than before. Vader shouts, "Nooo" when he tosses the Emperor. Unfortunately, with higher resolution, the CGI tends to stand out more against the older effects shots. I wish Lucas would either take out all the CGI, or try to blend it better with new CGI.
I can't comment on the Prequel Trilogy, which I did not buy.
I hope you give some details on that, here, or somewhere, as I haven't gotten mine yet, but I intend to.
