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Best (and Worst) High-Def Discs of 2006

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the buyer-beware dept.

An anonymous reader writes "High-Def Digest has released their first annual 'Best (and Worst) of the Year' list of movies released on HD DVD and/or Blu-ray. Not surprisingly, the 'best' list is heavy on superheroes. Superman, Batman, and the Hulk all made the list. Not a bad cheat sheet for those of us with a Blu-ray capable PS3 or an XBox 360 HD DVD add-on on our Christmas lists."

36 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. I know this'll burn karma... by DarkHelmet · · Score: 4, Interesting
    But what would be even nicer than having a list of nice HD movies, how about a nice guide of HD sets that accept 1080p via composite input or VGA input?

    After all, what good is having a 360 HD drive when you're only going to be watching the stuff at 720p or 1080i anyhow?

    Anyone?

    --
    /^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
    1. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      1080p transmission is a farce when you're dealing with movies. There is basically no difference between transmitting in 1080i vs 1080p when viewing content at or below 30 frames/second.

      When talking about high def tv's, you're mostly talking about progressive displays (plasma, lcd, dlp, lcos, etc...) and in the US those displays are running at 60hz or 60 frames per second. Movies on the other hand are shot and encoded at 24fps. Now both an hd-dvd player and a blu-ray player, whether by component, dvi or hdmi are transmitting data to your tv at 60 fps. 1080i sends half the image on cycle 1 and half the image on cycle 2, your tv deinterlaces the image fields and shows you a progressive image for 2 frames. 1080p on the other hand sends the whole image on cycle 1, and nothing on cycle 2, and shows the progressive image for 2 frames as well. When you put down $1000 for a 1080p player, you've just paid $500 extra for a marketing term and the belief that movies will ever be shot at 60fps in the forseeable future.

      Alot of people will probably chime in and start screaming about interlace artifacts right now. The only way you get interlace artifacts on a progressive tv, is if the source material was shot as interlaced, for example http://thewebfairy.com/911/presentation/artifact.h tm, but both hd-dvd and blu-ray, and presumably network tv are all shot in a progressive format, so your deinterlacer is reassembling the same image you'd see over 1080p.

    2. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by DrXym · · Score: 3, Informative
      When talking about high def tv's, you're mostly talking about progressive displays (plasma, lcd, dlp, lcos, etc...) and in the US those displays are running at 60hz or 60 frames per second. Movies on the other hand are shot and encoded at 24fps.

      Except that some TVs can output in 1080p/24. So they can show the movie at the same frame rate as it appeared in the cinema. Getting a player to output in that is another matter. The PS3 can't (at the moment), but allegedly a firmware patch will add that support (see here for details).

    3. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by iainl · · Score: 2, Informative

      1) No, 1080i and 1080p work just fine on the 360. Image Constraint Token has not been implemented on a single public disc yet, and is highly unlikely any time in the near future, given the speed at which these add-on drives are flying off the shelf. By the time it does become an issue, you'll have almost certainly got your $199 worth of fun out of the drive, and the standalone players that you'll need will have come down by that much.

      2) The grandparent is strictly off-topic. Burning karma to get his question answered is, I'd suggest, a real issue.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
    4. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
      The only way you get interlace artifacts on a progressive tv, is if the source material was shot as interlaced, for example http://thewebfairy.com/911/presentation/artifact.h tm, but both hd-dvd and blu-ray, and presumably network tv are all shot in a progressive format, so your deinterlacer is reassembling the same image you'd see over 1080p.
      No, the deinterlacer is trying to reassemble the separate fields of an interlaced image to a frame. To do this, is has to guess where the 2:3 cadence falls, and detect whenever there are glitches (bad edits). While modern deinterlacers are actually quite good at guessing, none are perfect. Additionally, this makes it unneccesary hard to smoothly play movies at 24Hz, 48Hz or 72Hz to avoid the judder inherent in 60Hz playback.

      The interlacing part isn't as simple as you make it out to be. For film it's actually showing the odd lines of the first movie frame, the even lines of the same frame, then repeates the odd lines, shows the even lines of the second frame, then the odd lines of the second frame. Note that inbetween there's a video frame that is made up of odd lines of the first movie frame and the even lines of the second, so the deinterlacer has to start assembling some frames with odd fields and some with even ones. More on this in Wikipedia or secrets of home theater and hifi.
    5. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by The-Bus · · Score: 4, Informative

      I have no mod points, so I can only respond and say you're right. The source material of HD DVDs and Blu-Ray discs is 1080P. If there's an exception, you'd note it on the back of the case. From what I understand, if the source material is 1080P but your TV is 1080i, you most likely won't see any difference unless you have a very poor deinterlacer.

      Even if your TV is 720P, you'll still see a difference between regular broadcast / DVD and HD discs. Some people (myself included) claim to see a difference between HD discs and HD broadcast; for me, this is mostly due to HD DVDs having none of the compression artifacts and color banding you find occasionally on your HD broadcast.

      --

      Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

    6. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by matt328 · · Score: 5, Informative

      It all depends what FPS the content was created at. If you're talking video games, its 'content' is created procedurally by a GPU at as many FPS as it can crank out. If you've got a movie that was shot at 30 FPS, viewing it at 60 FPS will cause each source frame to be displayed on the tv for 2 frames (or cycles, or whatever you want to call it). Even though the FPS on a tv is higher, it depends on the FPS of the content you're displaying.

      An example would be if in one frame of a 30 FPS source, my hand is on the left side of your screen. My hand moves so quickly to the right so that in the next frame it appears on the right side of the screen. So one frame has my hand at the left, then the very next has my hand at the right. Even if you view it at 100000 FPS (impossible, I know, but stay with me) there would be 50000 frames showing my hand at the left, followed by 50000 frames with my hand at the right. Even though you raise the FPS, there are still no frames that exist with my hand anywhere in between left and right. Unless 60 FPS TVs are able to interpolate between the two, there's just nothing available to show during the 'extra' frame so it stays the same.

      When it comes down to it, a movie is still a finite amount of pictures shown in rapid succession (mainly 30 of them per second). Even though a TV can be capable of displaying twice that many in a second, it's not capable of 'making stuff up' to show you every other frame. So I guess I'm trying to say its the content, not the TV that determines the 'smoothness'.

      --
      Check out the cave on the east side of lake Hylia. Strange and wonderful things live in it.
    7. Re:I know this'll burn karma... by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 2, Informative

      After all, what good is having a 360 HD drive when you're only going to be watching the stuff at 720p or 1080i anyhow?

      Anyone?

      Um, because it will still look an order of magnitude better than 480i?

  2. If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Kris_J · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Let's see;
    • BATMAN BEGINS (forgive the caps, I'm copy 'n pasting). I own it on DVD and I still haven't been able to sit through it.
    • THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, which made a good friend of mine motion sick.
    • HULK, which I thought was roundly considered awful.
    • MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III, starring the recently disowned by his old studio Tom Cruise.
    Meanwhile, it looks like some good movies were completely screwed up, such as Army of Darkness.
    1. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Batman Begins is #88 on the IMDB Top 250 and is rated a solid 8.3. Do you really expect us to take you seriously when you're trashing what is arguably the best superhero movie (let alone Batman movie) in the past decade?

    2. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by jgoemat · · Score: 2, Insightful
      1. BATMAN BEGINS, the best Batman movie in my opinion
      2. THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, another excellent movie, although I didn't like the jerky camera action either, but I understand why it was necessary to hide the poor fight-work
      3. HULK, guess you missed Ebert and Roper giving it two thumbs up
      4. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III, I haven't seen this one. If someone I know owns it I may borrow it, but I'm not going to give Tom Cruise one more dollar to give to Scientology.
      What good movies (other than Army of Darkness) were the losers? Oh, I see at the bottom that "Field of Dreams", "Crash" and "A Christmas Story" are dishonorable mentions...
    3. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Mark+Maughan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Batman Begins was arguably the best superhero movie ever.

      Hulk was a Shakespearian, father-son conflict, tragedy shot comic book panel style. The only reason people thought it was awful was because they came wanting to see some piece of shit like Fantastic 4 and instead got a more thoughtful, artistic masterpiece. It was a highbrow movie about lowbrow subject matter.

    4. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by EvilIdler · · Score: 3, Funny

      Not just trashing it, trashing it on a geek site!

      Batman Begins is back to the darkness, not quite Burton style, but very far from
      Batman & Robin. I'm sure the original poster just got Batman titles confused..
      Give him a notice for the record, and pull his geek license next time it happens.

    5. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by clickclickdrone · · Score: 4, Funny
      Hulk was a Shakespearian, father-son conflict
      I tried to get Hulk via P2P to see if it was as bad as everyone said but it turned out to be a renamed porn movie file with some seriously hot action. I was happy.
      --
      I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
    6. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by PingSpike · · Score: 2, Funny

      In the BS fight scenes, as near as I could tell, Matt Damon rolled around on the floor with a RealDoll while the director shook the camera hard enough to give old Star Trek space ship combat scenes are run for their money.

      If Matt Damon was doing something else, I apologize...because I COULDN'T SEE A GOD DAMN THING.

    7. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by Ucklak · · Score: 3, Funny

      Tell that to the boom stick.

      --
      if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
    8. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by JFMulder · · Score: 2, Funny

      This reminds me of an old Penny-Arcade strip.

    9. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by nomadic · · Score: 2, Funny

      BATMAN BEGINS (forgive the caps, I'm copy 'n pasting).

      Wouldn't it have taken less time to rewrite "Batman Begins" than it did to write "forgive the caps, I'm copy 'n pasting)?

    10. Re:If that's the best, they're in trouble. by heinousjay · · Score: 2, Funny

      Exactly. A real man would be rigid in his opinions for 30 years. Only the weak change their minds.

      --
      Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
  3. Never overestimate the loser potential of Anoracks by BristolCream · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This list seems to miss one crucial point: people watch movies for entertaiment. For the vast majority it's all about being told a good story, not studying the quality of the latest movig image to be projected onto a wall/into a box/whatever.

    Imagine having a collection that included films like hulk, mission: impossible iii and superman returns (I refuse to capitalise the titles - they're that bad). i'd rather spend the time beatig myself about the head with a dead salmon.

    The majority of films in this list are appalling.

    Which I suppose at least tells us the sort of people that are driving this insane rush to upgrade formats that simply don't need upgrading. If anyone for Sony is reading this, there's a lesson hidden in my title.

  4. They all look the same... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They all look the same...when you can't watch them at all.

    Seriously, please don't buy into HD, unless the DRM madness ends. A few extra pixels are not worth our rights, nor the damage to the open source community.

    1. Re:They all look the same... by iainl · · Score: 4, Insightful

      VHS only doesn't have DRM because the D stands for Digital, anyway. The Analogue Rights Management of Macrovision is (if anything) worse, because it's actually affecting picture quality, unlike on a DVD or HD-DVD where it's invisible on a working machine.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
  5. No matter how high the resolution by rolfwind · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Hulk was utterly mediocre. Wouldn't buy it for $4.99, let alone whatever it is high def movies fetch.

    Where are the real classics that I would actually want to see in hi-def?

    1. Re:No matter how high the resolution by iainl · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'd suggest you start with Casablanca, which is even better than that blurb makes it sound - the amount of texture detail and those deep shadows are just stunning. I can't believe this film looks better than I've seen far more recent movies look when projected from actual 35mm film, when watching on an 8ft screen.

      Next up, and almost as good (the larger grain of the original print being pretty much about it) is The Searchers. Finish off an initial purchase run with Forbidden Planet, and you'll be very happy.

      Blu-Ray has suffered quite a bit, if you ask me, from a studio perception that it's going to be almost entirely for people with PS3s, rather than standalone players. So the movies are being picked to appeal to that sector of the market, and pretty much only that.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
  6. Re:Never overestimate the loser potential of Anora by Duds · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Oh I think they know, but it's not hard to find reviews of these movies on an entertainment basis. It's surprisingly difficult to find reviews of "Let's assume you like this movie, here's how pretty this version is".

  7. They might be good HD by clickety6 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But most of these aren't good films.

    Sorry, but I'd rather watch a good film with a good plot and good acting on VHS any day over a whizz-bang technical film with crappy pretty-boy/barbie-girl actors and a script written by a committee...

    I'll pass on this one

    --
    ----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
    1. Re:They might be good HD by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Sorry, but I'd rather watch a good film with a good plot and good acting on VHS any day over a whizz-bang technical film with crappy pretty-boy/barbie-girl actors and a script written by a committee...

      Spoken like someone without an HDTV.

      When most people first get an HDTV set, they will watch anything in HD, no matter how inane, just for the visual quality. The wow-factor tends to wear off after 6-9 months, but just about everyone with an HDTV set still remembers those first few months where the only thing that mattered was picture quality.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    2. Re:They might be good HD by the_womble · · Score: 3, Funny

      You are clearly an eccentric.

      What has good plot and good acting got to do with making a good film?

      The measure of a good film is how much money is spent on making it: especilly how much is spent on marketing.

    3. Re:They might be good HD by MikeBabcock · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Do you have any idea how much PBS I've watched since having an HDTV for a year now? PBS in HD can be a truly beautiful experience. The stories were always informative I suppose, but from cooking shows to tours of aquariums to scenic vistas in nature or travel shows, HDTV really maximizes what they're trying to do with TV.

      As for regular content, almost every show I watch is in HD these days (scroll to the very bottom for the list). I don't watch many shows just for their being in HD, but going from 1080i back down to 480i on a wide CRT is quite the unappealing adjustment, visually.

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
  8. What happened to movies? by hsa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What happened to movies themselves. I honestly couldn't care less if I get video commentary with my HD movie or not. I watch movies for movies sake. Extras are something I watch if I liked the movie and have extra time to see how it was made. They are worth nothing if the movie sucks.

    The worst movies in list are lacking in extra HD content. So what? Couldn't care less. The winning movies have all sorts of cool extra content, but it still doesn't make the movie good. I will never buy World Trade Centre, even if had best extras and good transfer.

    Video quality and soundtrack are the only things I care about. Please remove the extras and put these in with higher quality.

  9. No Adam Sandler? by antifoidulus · · Score: 2, Funny

    But I heard fart jokes are so much better in HD!

    --
    Monstar L
  10. HD DVD Advert by dimer0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Man, that page sure makes it seem that Blu-Ray sucks ass. I'm not sure what they based their selections off of...

    If you want some better lists to work form, the guys over at avsforum are a much better information source, if you ask me:

    HD DVD Picture Quality Tiers List

    Blu-Ray Picture Quality Tiers List

  11. HD had better be more than just Cinerama. by dpbsmith · · Score: 2, Informative

    For you youngsters here: Cinerama was to 35mm movies as HD is to NTSC. It used three synchronized projectors on a deeply-curved screen subtending a 146-degree arc. Everyone who has ever seen it was bowled over by it. It is still shown on rare occasions when fans arrange it. It is universally acknowledged to be better than the later wide-screen processes such as CinemaScope, VistaVision, etc. all of which were pretty much acknowledged to be ways to get something sorta-kinda-not-quite-almost like Cinerama, but on the cheap. Many who have had an opportunity to compare it with present-day IMAX have judged it to be superior, too, although that's trickier. IMAX suffers by having too much height and not enough width; when presented on a flat screen, it's flat, and when presented on a dome screen, it's hopeless washed out by cross-reflection (unlike Cinerama, which was always pitch-black in the shadows). Of course CInerama had those awful panel joints... but I digress. Here's the point:

    Cinerama was never more than a footnote, because it was only suited to spectacle, not to storytelling. Only two Cinerama features were made with a conventional storyline: "How the West was Won," and "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm." The rest were pastiches of spectacle: travelogues, ride-film-like experiences, and so forth.

    It bodes very ill for high-definition that most of the "best" films are special-effects sci-fi extravaganzas.

    I'm glad to see they have Casablanca on their list, but it's not clear that they're saying the actual experience of watching the movie is any better than on DVD. They seems to like the many extras bundled in. Is Rick more world-weary in high-definition? Is Ilsa lovelier? Do the heartrending scenes rend your heart any more? I haven't seen it... but I doubt it.

    I like seeing superheros hurtle through space and things blow up as much as the next guy, but these are not enough to carry an expensive video format.

    How, exactly, is high-definition going to help directors evoke emotion and tell a story?

    --

    "How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!

    1. Re:HD had better be more than just Cinerama. by iainl · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Bogart's performance doesn't change, but Casablanca is stunning on HD-DVD because it looks so much more like film; the detail of the lighting, set design and indeed subtle details of the performances show up with a stunning clarity that does the film justice.

      And yes, the way the light catches Ilsa's hair is pretty damn lovely, since you ask.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
    2. Re:HD had better be more than just Cinerama. by GrayCalx · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You sir are confusing content with delivery method.

  12. Re:How could they screw up 'Fifth Element'? by lotsotech · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What CRT are you projecting onto a 119" screen? Maybe they look the same because the picture is so incredibly dim. On a Sony Qualia 004 (which only takes a 1080i input) the difference between Blu-Ray and DVD was very noticable to the people in the room. Standard DVDs look great, but nobody was saying that they looked close.