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Old movies on blu-ray... Is there ever a point?

Tokyo Slim

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Originally Posted by Bird's One View

Digital aquisition is improving, has significant cost and convenience advantages over film, and can be done more or less artfully; but I have yet to see anything that is indistinguishable from film.


Maybe you just don't know you've seen it.
smile.gif
 

Tokyo Slim

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Originally Posted by imageWIS
Well, technically: aspect ratio / size / grain is to film what resolution / aspect ratio is digital.

There is not a direct correlation between the two when it comes to image quality Jon.
 

milosz

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Originally Posted by GQgeek
I'm looking through blu-rays on the amazon page and I see that they've just released a north by northwest 50th anniversary edition on blu-ray. There aren't any review about the quality of the disc. For those of you with experience with the format, have you ever compared the DVD to the blu-ray for older movies? I'm genuinely curious.
Why do you think it would be pointless? On many classic films, there are issues with negative degradation - an unrestored, dusty print would not be suitable for Blu-Ray. Those films have been transferred to DVD primarily because that's the only option for viewing them now and they look like ****. (Open City for instance - masterpiece of neo-realism that's not broadly seen in the US because the only available DVD is unrestored and looks like balls) But when you're dealing with something like NxNW - where negatives/prints are in good shape or have recently undergone restoration - then BluRay makes as much sense as it would for a contemporary 35mm or Hi-Def DV film. Maybe more, honestly - Rear Window/NxNW/Vertigo look ten times better than anything Hollywood is producing today.
 

turboman808

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Originally Posted by GQgeek
God I hate these types of posts. Yes, people are going to stop buying HDTVs and DVD will be the format king until everyone ditches that in favor of watching movies on their iPhones. Blu-Rays will never drop to $15 because the studios are greedy and don't understand how to price discs optimally!

Have you even looked at the prices on amazon? The Dark Knight is $19 bucks right now. Batman begins is $12. There are movies as low as $10 dollars. There are lots for $15. Blu-ray players are under $200 and Target is releasing a player for $100 bucks soon. Best Buy is increasing floor space to 30% and I'm sure others will be following. Mass-market BR is well on the way and it will completely replace DVD over time. This is not betamax/laserdisc part 3.

And yes, movies are shot on film (thanks for that, I wasn't aware), which has a higher resolution than DVD can present, so the format they are presented on does kinda matter. Obviously it will always depend a lot on the restoration/transfer process. My question was specifically in relation to old movies that have already been restored for DVD releases and whether there is much benefit to getting them on BR instead of DVD. I'm most interested in responses from people that have done direct comparisons, as opposed to people talking out their asses about itunes and completely unrelated products.
censored.gif


Great since you know everything then why make this post. Seems you got it covered. You know hd is better then dvd you know film is better then bluray. So buy your bluray. Why make a post.

The comparrison to the win98 guy is kinda backwards since I'm saying forget bluray and move onto to the next technology. He was saying go back 10 years. Complete intergration of hd content on every device in your home is here and most of us are using it right now.

When I can carry 30 hd movies on my cellphone and hook it to the hdmi input of any tv and watch it in hd while still having copies at home and the office server. Again what's the point of bluray.
 

Tokyo Slim

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Originally Posted by turboman808
When I can carry 30 hd movies on my cellphone and hook it to the hdmi input of any tv and watch it in hd while still having copies at home and the office server. Again what's the point of bluray.
You have a 125GB + phone with an HDMI out and a built in media player that can decode H.264? That's pretty sweet. Where to kop? You realize that people have been pirating movies and distributing them online for over a decade now right? And that it hasn't killed hard media yet.
 

Tokyo Slim

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Originally Posted by imageWIS
+1. I would really like to know where I can purchase such a device.
Presumably for less than a $128 BR player and 30 movies right?
 

starcrash

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Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim
Maybe you just don't know you've seen it.
smile.gif

David Fincher's last two movies, Zodiac and Benjamin Button, were shot digitally. They both look amazing.

As for the point of Blu-Ray, size really matters. HD formats like Blu-Ray are crucial when you're talking about large format playback. Play a standard def DVD on a 46" or larger screen or, god forbid, projected onto a theatrical screen and it looks like crap. Blu-Ray looks good on the "big screen".
 

GQgeek

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Originally Posted by starcrash
David Fincher's last two movies, Zodiac and Benjamin Button, were shot digitally. They both look amazing. As for the point of Blu-Ray, size really matters. HD formats like Blu-Ray are crucial when you're talking about large format playback. Play a standard def DVD on a 46" or larger screen or, god forbid, projected onto a theatrical screen and it looks like crap. Blu-Ray looks good on the "big screen".
I'm not 100% decided yet, but I think I'm gonna be getting myself this for xmas: http://hometheaterreview.com/panason...80p-projector/ Haven't chosen a screen yet but it will likely be a Carada Criterion 2.35:1 fixed screen, >=80". I spent a good chunk of my day going through blu-ray.com and identifying movies i want and the vast majority are shown in 2.35 or 2.40:1 aspect ratios, and I hardly ever watch regular TV, so it's a no-brainer.
Originally Posted by imageWIS
+1. I would really like to know where I can purchase such a device.
**** the device, I just want an internet connection that will allow me to download that many HD movies without huge surcharges and to be able to do so in in timely fashion. I was checking online and aside from leasing a fiber optic line, the best I can get is 25Mbps for 150GB/mo of transfer for $96/mo. That's less than 10 movies. Lame.
 

heli0x

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I hoped this was a joke topic, but I fear its not.
The improvements on these blu ray releases for older movie is unreal. I think it actually makes way more sense to release on blu ray much older movies (pre 1960) than the new stuff.

Comparisons between DVD and bluray for:
The General (1927)
Gone with the wind (1939)
Hamlet (1949)
North by Northwest (1959) Since you asked
Seventh Seal (1957)


Originally Posted by GQgeek
. There aren't any review about the quality of the disc.
There are actually tons of sites dedicated to reviewing blurays, in terms of audio video quality and extras.
 

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