04.14.10 | George D. Allen and Irv Slifkin | Movie Buzz, Movie Buzz PodcastPrint this Post
Just what is this strange thing called Blu-ray, you ask (if, that is, you're one of the ones asking)? Is it better than DVD? Should I consign my DVD player to the scrap heap along with my VCR, Videodisc, and LaserDisc players and embrace this brave new world of home entertainment media? And, if I shell out the money to upgrade--how much scratch do I need, by the way?--what movies are the must-have titles to start my library?
Check in with our own "Movie Irv" and his special guest to get the answers:
I bought into HD-DVD and ended up with several movies in that format, which now I will unfortunately end up having to re-buy on blu-ray.. Totally agree with "300" and any computer animated film, they look amazing in HD..
My question would be about the classics, I had Blazing Saddles on HD-DVD and it looked incredible.. What can I expect, picture quality-wise, from titles that go even further back? Thunderball, Casablanca, Bullitt, The Searchers, etc..
I've only secured a few titles so far in my Blu-ray library, but I think the general answer to Mike's question is that the classics will look as good as the preparation or restoration of the original materials permits -- meaning older titles that have little or no restoration work will still look crisper than DVD, but their imperfections might also be more visible if they come from shoddy prints that remained untouched. The Bond films are a great example, as they've been beautifully restored for Blu-ray. "From Russia with Love" and "Live and Let Die" (the two I have so far) look tremendous -- whereas, say, "Predator," a much newer film, turns out to look just OK because not much was done to clean it up by comparison. "The Adventures of Robin Hood" is gorgeous, ditto Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut."
Great anwser George and to elaborate film is recorded at a much higher resoultion then even HDTV or Blu-ray. Film does not use pixels but to compare you can say that film has a much higher resoulion than even 1080p. Many people ask the question "How can an old movie look any better than DVD quality" The anwser is film is still the king of displaying movies and film existed many years ago so its just until lately we began to really take advantage of the quality of film with HD. I think the real question is will digital projection soon take over?
You are not your Blu-Ray player... you are not the High Definition television in your house... we're the all singing all dancing movie viewers of the world.
To jump in on George's comment fir Mike. I did read once that film itself has a resolution that can be scanned to 2000 lines and even 4000. I was surprised.
However, like George says, if the film isn't restored, you'll just see the imperfections better. Fight Club was a bit like this in that there seemed to be little specks of white in some of the darker scenes.
So I think older movies, unless fully restored, will look better, but won't be as clear as newer ones.
My opinion... George?
Well I haven't seen "Fight Club" on Blu so Anthony would have a better opinion about that (though no doubt dir. David Fincher probably goes on in some detail about why the movie looks the way it does if his commentary on "Seven" is any indication -- he's really a perfectionist when it comes to the look of his movies) -- but I'd say it's tough to say in general an old movie will not look as "clear" as a newer one all things being equal. Some older movies are so much more artfully photographed; the prints available might actually be better than what's available on a newer movie, etc. etc. etc.
I have a large collection of film noir and most look sharper and clearer when I play them on a blu-ray player,although they are fine in a regular DVD player. I should point out,however, that my vision is such that color movies bother my eyes and I am able to view black and white movies much clearer than color. Still,"L.A. Confidential" looked pretty good in blu-ray.