blu-ray dvds

Basically putting a movie on a DVD involves compressing the picture quality to fit the available space. BluRay has more space so less compression. They also added a newer/better set of audio codecs (again as the space was now less of a problem).

That's why you can get some older mopvies in BluRay format, the film quality shot was OK but it had always been compressed to get it on video or DVD.

See http://www.sony.co.uk/hub/blu-ray-disc-player/3

Standard DVDs can hold 4.7 or 9.4 (double layer) gigabytes of data (compared to the 700 megabytes +/- of a CD).  Blu-ray discs use a more precise laser to read them (DVDs use a red laser and Blu-rays use blue, hence "Blu-ray") so a lot more information can be stored.  If I remember right, a Blu-ray disc can hold between 25 and 50 gigabytes of data.  That translates into a much sharper pictures and clearer sound over the DVD, permitted your output devices are good enough to make the differences noticeable (like having a nice high definition monitor and decent speakers/cans).  I couldn't really tell the difference in audio quality, but the video quality differences are very noticeable on my television.

Audio wise, I would say the most discernible difference for BD can be found with lossless surround formats. For 2 channel, it's that whole can of worms. It's whether one can, or maybe has the belief that they can hear higher resolution than 16/44.1.

BTW, since it's the music forum, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,released Mojo as a Blu-ray Audio Disc recently. It's not the first one of course. Neil Young release Archives. The Pixies released some BD's with  Minotaur. Nine Inch Nails had a special edition for Ghost I-IV. There have been some other specialty releases. But I believe it's the first single disc, regular retail album release for a major artist. I would love more like this but don't have my hopes up.

I've only had a BluRay player and a 1080p 120hz LCD for 6 months, but here's my impressions.

Don't replace a DVD if it's just for audio quality. Using Porcupine Tree's Anesthetize, BluRay looks sharper but audio seems the same. I have the CE with discs in both formats and I have the players to do the A/B testing.

Don't swap an older movie on DVD for BluRay until you've seen it. Often most of the improvement is in the film>DVD conversion and putting it on BluRay doesn't improve it.

If you recently upgraded your TV to full HD, check out your present DVD collection for the improved image quality.

Given a choice I'll buy the BluRay versions of new movies as long as the price difference isn't too much. I hardly ever pay retail for a movie unless it's very special for some reason, and then I go nuts and buy the CE.

The most surprising moment was finding that LoTR doesn't look all that much better in BluRay than the last DVD edition with both versions of the entire trilogy.

One of the best things about BluRay has nothing to do with playing discs. Some of them have network access to Netflix, YouTube, Pandora and others. I use the Netflix feature fairly often, so often in fact that I dumped my Comcast cable TV service.

Well, I hope there was something usefull in there.

it's not the age of the movie it's the way it was shot, the condition of the source materials, and the care taken in the process of transferring it to blu-ray

also it's blu-ray disc or just blu-ray... not "blu-ray dvd"

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot 

There isn't much advantage to bluray for normal sized tvs. It takes a big screen to start seeing the increased resolution of 1080p. I have a 120 inch projection system, and the best blurays look like imax, but for old movies, the difference is considerably less.

Not sure what you mean by normal size, but with my daughter's 32" 1080p 120hz, you can certainly tell the difference. My present TV is a 47" 1080p, but the one before it was a 42" 720p. The difference in picture quality was huge, and not because of the size.

Blu-ray looks awesome on big TVs but DVDs are perfectly fine. It's like lossless vs. lossy. I couldn't be bothered to get a Blu-ray drive on my laptop because I don't own very many Blu-ray discs but I love watching them on my family's big screen TV. We have a pretty good pair of speakers connected to our TV and Blu-ray movies with lossless audio sound amazing! But alas, most Blu-ray movies have lossy sound and don't really sound any better than DVDs. It's a shame because the picture is so awesome.

It should be noted that some newer BluRay releases have a "digital copy" included so you can watch on a laptop or other portable device.

Digital copies suck and I think that to tell the difference between 1080p and 720p you need 40+ inches.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot 

Generally, it takes a screen of over 42 inches or so and a resolution of 1080 to be able to tell the difference between DVD and bluray. If you're noticing a difference on a 32 inch screen, odds are it's the difference between a poorly mastered DVD and a well mastered bluray. Or perhaps the upscaling on your player isnt very good. DVDs look fantastic on average size screens. They look great on my 120 inch screen too. The main difference is going to be in highly detailed scenes or with on screen text. Shots of people won't show much difference if any.

IT DEPENDS ON THE VIEWING DISTANCE JUST AS MUCH AS IT DOES THE SCREEN SIZE

I notice a nice difference on my 43" Sony XBR.

The other thing that hasn't been said yet is on many Blu-Ray movies, they've done a lot of improvement in the way the menus work. For instance, sometimes you can get a pop up menu that doesn't interrupt the movie until you select something. There are more interactive features if you're into that, but in general I think the navigation is a lot better than a standard DVD.