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First Blu-ray Disc Reviews Posted Online

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the what-about-star-wars? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "With the first Blu-ray player and discs officially making their market debuts tomorrow, High-Def DVD Digest has posted the first reviews of three of the first Blu-ray discs -- The Fifth Element, 50 First Dates, and xXx. So what's the verdict? So far, in terms of video quality, the results seem to be mixed: standard DVD fave 'Fifth Element' underwhelmed ('just not the best HD I've seen'); likewise, 'xXx,' was a disappointment ('up close just looks like a messed-up bunch of dots'). Somewhat surprisingly, it's '50 First Dates' that ranked highest of the three in video quality ('holds its own with the best high-definition transfers out there')."

1 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. Re:and this is going to catch on how? by Dominatus · · Score: 5, Informative

    The problems are almost always in the source material.

    Hell, TNTHD upconvertes and stretches (!) normal SD content for most of the day and calls it "HD".

    I've noticed that the most important part of HDTV is the source, and this is evident just through simple channel surfing. Shows that I assume can afford better cameras because they need less of them, and less mobile ones, such as Jay Leno/David Letterman, SNL, etc, have absolutely amazing quality. Watching it on a 1080p 50 inch Sony SXRD is phenomenal, with no artifacts, or lack of detail. The colors, contrast, and image quality is so good that it appears your looking through a window.

    Anyone who has seen this TV displaying true HD content at my apartment is immediately excited. And almost everyone says "oh oh! put in a DVD so we can see how that looks", unaware that DVDs are of a much lower resolution.

    So I put one in, usually something fun like The Matrix or what have you, with a warning that it's going to look much worse then what they just saw. I have a pretty good upconverting DVD playing that puts out 1080i/60 over HDMI. Looks better than a normal DVD player but considerably worse than the HD content. Everyone so far has been disappointed with DVD quality (except my mom, but she's ...well...a mom).

    Point is, there *IS* a difference, a huge difference, and those of us with good TVs are begging for a way to watch our movies in the same detail we watch our TV...other than HBOHD.