Some notes about buying Blu-rays

When it comes to blu-rays, all discs are not made equal. The quality of a hi-def transfer can vary (sometimes greatly) depending on who's releasing the disc and the effort that has been put into it. You can always go buy your favorite movies, but honestly it's not always worth it. 28 Days Later, for example, was shot on a regular handheld camera and will not look any better than a regular dvd.

I'm not going to go too much in-depth about what makes one better than the other, since it's all pretty subjective. My main reason for posting this is simply to point out that it really important to do a little research before you go on any spending sprees. There are all kinds of sites that review new discs, and the one I generally look at is Hi-Def Digest. AVSforum is another good site, but the reviews are a little more technical.

A couple buzzwords to look out for when reading reviews:

DNR - Digital Noise Reduction is something studios use to make the picture look less gritty. Basically, instead of seeing pores and wrinkles on someone's face (these are some of the details i always look for in HD), they are going to look like a wax mannequin. I'm not sure why studios do this, but it always makes a movie look worse than it should.

EE - Edge Enhancement is something applied to the edges of objects to make them stand out from the background and make the picture "pop" a little more. It creates a "halo" like effect on the object, but honestly I never really notice it. It's something that gets mentioned a lot as a negative, but I don't necessarily see it as a deal-breaker like DNR might be. The Dark Knight, for example, apparently had some edge enhancement and lots of people were pissed. This one doesn't mean as much to me, but I figured I should define it anyway.

Film Grain - This is the most noticeable thing for me and the number one thing I look for. You'll know it when you see it. In some movies it is unavoidable because a movie was shot with film rather than digitally. In these cases it doesn't really bother me, it just gives it more of a natural look. Some times it is added in the studio for artistic effect. Band of Brothers has a lot of grain in some places, but there was only one episode where it was a little distracting. 300 on the other hand, I can't watch in HD. The whole movie has a layer of grain to give it it's distinct look, and you can't really notice it in standard def (like at the theater) but in HD it really distracted me.


So yeah, those are really the main things that are mentioned in regards to picture quality, so now you know a little bit more what they are talking about when the mention it.




There are also a couple of useful sections in their forums:

The Blu-ray tier thread has all titles organized based on how good they look. Tier 0 (reference quality) is the best.


The Blu-ray bargains section is also good to keep an eye on. Basically, buying your movies at stores like Best Buy is downright stupid unless they are having a sale or the movie just came out (and is thus probably a few bucks cheaper than it will normally be. Amazon is almost always the best place to buy from. Their discs are usually 10 dollars or so cheaper than at a normal store (and shipping is free over 25 dollars). They also have sales all the time. Right now, for example, they are having a buy two, get one free sale.


Anyways, I just thought I'd share some of the pointers I've picked up. I want to make sure you guys are getting the best hi-def experience you can.