9 is pretty good.

This post has been edited by anfieldude: Dec 19 2010, 09:46 PM

I thought I was the only one still waiting for my BF parcel. The irony it was not on sale for BF I just confirmed during BF. I've waited 3 months before when I ordered during BF, so let's see if this beats that.

The uk has better pq but a lossy audio codec.

The specs for the 3 versions. This is from the AVS forum. No different in times. The difference is in Audio and video codec. With so low lossless bitrates, I doubt there is too much of a real life difference between the lossy and the lossless codecs for audio. Even the video I'm no so sure u will see major differences, slight probably
Region Year Title Codec Display Aspect Bitrate Length Movie Size Disc Size Bitrate Primary Language Audio
ABC [US] 1994 The Shawshank Redemption VC-1 1080p24 1.85:1 16.42 2:22:33 23,564,599,296 31,883,162,744 22.04 TrueHD 5.1 48/16 1423 / AC3 5.1 48 640
ABC [UK] 1994 The Shawshank Redemption AVC 1080p24 1.85:1 25.98 2:22:32 30,448,109,568 42,586,687,776 28.48 AC3 5.1 48 640 / AC3 2.0 48 256
[JP] 1994 The Shawshank Redemption VC-1 1080p24 1.85:1 16.42 2:22:33 23,564,599,296 31,883,162,744 22.04 TrueHD 5.1 48/16 1423 / AC3 5.1 48 640

Some older title bd review.
Taken
Entertaining movie, fast paced and good acting. Put off watching this for a while as I hv kids and was uneasy with the storyline. Good movie to show teens on the dangers of strangers.
PQ - Not sure why but there was inconsistencies with the transfer. Blu ray.com rated it highly but High Def Digest did not. I observed some black crush and some scenes that did not receal enuf details.
AQ - Top notch for lfe. Surround are used well.

Confucious
Movie was good. Slow pace at some parts. I'm no historian so I'm not sure how accurate it is. Sceneries were good.
PQ
Good solid pq. No real issues detected. Not reference but no major problems.
AQ
7.1 strong. Surround used very well, good lfe.

Kandaswamy - decent movie. Great pq, heavily stylized with boosted contrast, excellent transfer. Very good aq, very lfe heavy....really. If played loud, the lfe content will warm up ur heatsinks on ur sub for sure.

U2 360 Live at the Rose Bowl
Concert is a must hv for U2 fans. Very good collection of songs. Great performance. Great stage.
PQ - Very good. Did not detect any major artefacting. Stable and good black levels throughout.
AQ - Up there as one of the best for concerts. I'm a huge U2 fan so I might be biased.

District 9
I love this movie. Great storyline about Man in general. A major dig at the superpowers in the world who exploit others for whats important them while justifying their acts as needed for world peace.
PQ - very very good. Alternates between video like to film like seamlessly.
AQ
Another winner. Very good lfe moments. Active surrounds.

Storyline was normal but I liked the underlying criticism of how some governments behave.

Did not hear abt vc-1 though...

VC-1 vs AVC debate will rage on. I've not spent too much time researching on them. In my opinion, as long as the person who is supervising the transfer knows what he is doing and is detailed both r fine. The same with dolbt truehd vs dtshd ma.

Be prepared for an ugly slipcover for this. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and How to Train Your Dragon all have slipcases but its not lenticular and it looks crappy.

However, the encode of the Sound of Music for video and audio is fantastic. Much better than the MPEG-2 version that I had....

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is also 7.1 and the opening scene that I tested revs all 8 speakers before u see video!

A note for those accustomed to buying fr Amazon uk. The VAT there has increased to 20% starting yesterday so it means cheaper BDs for us as VAT is deducted fr the price shown for foreign addresses. Coupled with the lower pound...u know what that means.

IINM ,the reason why they decided to include SEA as Region A was due to the fact that most of the BD players in the US were supposedly coming from the SEA region.

Actually SowYau reason seems more realistic...Might be due to piracy.

This post has been edited by anfieldude: Jan 8 2011, 10:49 AM

Incredibles (Pixar) BD announced for Apr 12. Cool.
BluRay.com Incredibles Announcement

More or less most of Disney/Pixar titles are released in BD now.

Review:

How to Train your dragon. (HTTYD)

Dreamworks is definately stepping up. KungFu Panda was definately one of their best. HTTYD seems neck and neck with that minus the gross jokes. The movie is fast paced, simple and keeps adults/kids entertained..I did not take my kids to the cinema for this, I shd have just for the big screen effect (but it would never hv looked like HD though!).

PQ - Not giving this 5/5 is a sin, its that good (close to any Pixar)

SQ - Another 5/5. Great surrounds, great lfe and great sound mixing all in all.

Even if u r not a animation fan, u shd check this out, technically I could not find any flaws.

Just double check that the language (English) has lossless encode. I remember reading that some of the German steels had lossless only for German and lossy for english.

synco....

Hv not seen u around for sometime now....looks like people hv forgotten abt ur reputation...

Andrew,

Have u auditioned a proper projector setup? U wld be amazed how a properly setup 120in screen would look like....Try it.

PJ technology has come a long way, 1080p was what was lacking all this while. DLP, LCD, LCOS, SXRD improvements have been tremendous. Granted the black levels are not quite there but seriously, some of the JVC pjs come quite close.

Even for fixed pixel displays, I hv a 60in, those who has seen it, never complain that it is not sharp enuf. I think its just the seating distance. Of course, the tendency is people move back from bigger displays. But for 1080p content on a 1080p display, u need to ensure that u sit in the proper distance to enjoy ur 1080p display.

On another note, reviews of recent movies.

Despicable Me
Movie was entertaining. The animation industry is really picking up. This was done by Universal Studios/Illumination entertainment and was fun. Steve Carell was hilarious. The minions were a nice touch, their gestures and facial movements were really good. I would easily give it 4.5 out of 5.
PQ : Stellar...I did not catch any banding. Could not detect any artefacts or aliasing. It seems to be a solid transfer. 5/5
AQ: Extremely robust DTS HDMA track. LFE was really good. 5/5

Hellboy 2 : The Golden Army
Movie was a blast. Ron Pearlman is the man for the role. The pace is pretty steady and its a very good comic book adaptation. Script seemed wittier in Hellboy but its still a fun ride. I would rate it a solid 4. The only thing that I did not like was the amount of characters introduced...I hope there is a Hellboy 3 as the script left it open for that.
PQ : I'm not that great with adjectives. Try as I might I could not find too much wrong with the transfer. The only niggly I could find was consistency between shots. Some seemed to exhibit crispness but some were slightly soft. I'm not sure if it was intended, IMHO a 4.25...
AQ : I give them at least 4.25 for doing it in 7.1. The LFE is a constant barrage, its abundant but there are only a few moments were it seems to dig really low. Still if it were the LFE alone I would give it a 5, the surrounds and the vocals seem slightly detached, I cannot understand why...

Easy A
Movie: Better than decent teen comedy flick. Have not seen too much of Emma Stone, but she does seem like a good actor. Movie is simple enuf, decently paced and well timed.
PQ: Sony rarely fails to deliver and it was the same here. The only thing that I noticed was some night scenes seemed washed out especially a key scene in the street towards the end.
AQ : Dialogue driven, still the surrounds are used more than ur average rom com, the soundtrack is pretty good, and the bass tracks are strong during the soundtrack.
A 4 all around...not sure if my wife would rate the movie higher but I did not squirm wishing the movie would end faster....also there were some genuine laugh out loud moments.

Enjoy

This post has been edited by anfieldude: Jan 17 2011, 10:16 PM

Right that's what I mentioned earlier, a lot of people seemed to have forgotten synco and the others.