What are your best-looking Blu-rays?

The soundbar comment was for the typical consumer.

I disagree that going from a 60" plasma to a projector has less impact than a major surround sound upgrade. You can look in my profile. I'm an audiophile first. I will tell you that without question that you aren't getting much of a movie experience without a large image. I'm also not suggesting that everyone should revolve their lives around having a real home theater either.

 

Note that the show was shot on film, which is not inexpensive. I think a lot of money in the budget went towards the fact that they had Martin Scorsese as executive producer and another 14 producers. The sets weren't nearly as costly as you might think. Costumes, props, and vehicles were not cheap.

Unfortunately, I think the problem was that the show was not very good and lost a lot of luster over time, partly to the departure of some key characters. I like Steve Buscemi (quite a bit), but I don't think that he was enough to carry a show like this. And I think HBO was disappointed in terms of ratings, particularly when compared to the cost of the show (reportedly over $5 million an episode).

Overall, I'd say quite a few of the HBO shows have wound up looking as good or better than anything on television. Game of Thrones has often come up in conversations about the best-looking shows on TV, and I would also put Westworld in that category.

 

Planet Earth II is the best looking I own or have seen. Even though it's not a great film, Lucy looks particular good with HDR. Better Call Saul also looks really good, probably the best looking television series.

 

A great overlooked film `THE FALL`...simply jaw dropping on Blu ray.


Another favorite `AMELIE`....Pause any frame, print it out, hang it on your wall.
Amélie (2001) Official Trailer 1 - Audrey Tautou Movie

 

"Lawrence of Arabia" is spectacular. I look forward to (re) buying it as a UHD disc; the heroic transfer/restoration work by Harris and co. truly deserves to be seen in as high quality as one can muster.

Bela Tarr's "The Turin Horse" is a great example of a "late" film-shot production in 35mm B/W that looks absolutely stunning on BR. Grain rendition, tonality, contrast...it's all done right.

"Singin' in the Rain" is an orgy of Technicolor and production design and the transfer (both on BR and the included DVD) is top-notch.

"The Red Shoes" and "Colonel Blimp" are both reference-quality, as is "The Searchers."

C.

 

Have you seen the UHD releases of Spartacus, Blade Runner, or Apocalypse Now? How does it compare? While I was impressed with the 4k restoration of "Taxi Driver", I found even the Dolby Vision UHD version of "Goodfellas" a little underwhelming. The 4k restoration of Lawrence does indeed look spectacular...it was downscaled from a 8k restoration. I've read that 65/70mm film can achieve resolution nearing 9k while it seems that 35mm film can barely reach 4k at best. *shrug*

I ripped the digital file of Lawrence at 4k to my PC and experimented with image doubling algorithms as opposed to upscaling with good results. Image doubling requires most of the resources of my 1080 TI. If my system wasn't liquid cooled it would probably start a fire right around the point where Lawrence blows a match into a desert sunrise.

 

WN,
I haven't seen any of the streaming-option 4K titles you mention, but I can imagine how much extra is hidden in the original 8K scan of "Lawrence." I may give it a shot before it shows up on disc.
"Goodfellas" on UHD disc didn't get much in the way of praise when reviewed; whether that was just a case of not taking advantage of the original material or if the film just didn't have that much more "in it", I don't know.

C.

 

My first two Blu-ray viewings were NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and THERE WILL BE BLOOD. Hard for any studio shoot to compete with the infinite resolution of nature.

I really want to see the Criterion editions of THE NEW WORLD and THIN RED LINE. I read one review that called THE NEW WORLD a standard setting Blu-ray.

 

It wasn't just the cost of building the sets, but of the talent capable of the overall set design that took the show up a few notches. Even the way the bullet-riddled bodies and blood were carefully laid out in the set after the assassination attempt launched by Gyp Rosetti, as Nucky was making his escape. I don't think I've ever seen a set of corpses more perfectly made up or filmed. That's why so many producers were involved and the costs were so high.

Buscemi carried the show just fine unless you're in the younger demographic and want to see more of a traditional "leading man." I for one was glad to see Jimmy go. He was the weakest actor of the bunch, and it set up the plot in most of the other seasons. The cast overall was brilliant, particularly Michael Kenneth Williams as Chalky. The show was destined to be more of a critical success than a commercial success. I think HBO knew that going in.

Definitely better than anything else on television--Mad Men the possible exception--and significantly better than the average movie I see.

 

The Fall is beautiful on blu-ray, and it was ever more so at the theater on a big screen.

 

Lawrence of Arabia was scanned at 8K but downrezzed to 4K DPX files and color-corrected by Scott Ostrowski over at Colorworks in Culver City. The film looks fantastic and they did a very good job on it, but I don't think there's any detail beyond 4K in that 65mm negative (though it was shot with spherical lenses and is a very sharp-looking film for that era). The key to me is that they got the color right, and I think they were able to grain-manage all the opticals very well so the movie had a very clean but natural look all the way through.

 

I think it's time Warner Bros. does a proper restoration of 2001 A Space Oddyssey, the movie is crying for a new scan at 4K or 8K, money, time, effort and good taste to make it look like it deserves.
The current BD from 2007 is obsolete by today's standards, it was scanned from a 35 mm reduction and not a 65 mm copy or even better, the OCN, and that bit-starved VC-1 encode is dreadful. I can't believe Warner Bros spent some much money to restore Blade Runner to release it in the then-new format BD and just do a plain scan from a 35 mm for 2001, that seems senseless and mean.

 

Are you sure about that? I know there was a 65mm OCN 6K scan at one point, and I assume it was out. There's a lot of stuff that's scanned at a higher rate than the final release. WB is extremely aware of how to do this stuff.

 

Other than the aspect ratio controversy, BARRY LYNDON looks beautiful.

 

James Bond - Spectre looks pretty good.

 

I can't be 100% sure as I'm not a pro and in addition to that I live in Spain, a lousy country (whatever Americans Almodovar's followers may say) for film and audio and video production (I'll tell you a Spanish mid to high budget later) so I have to rely on what I read on trusted websites on the internet.
I remember back in 2007 an interview with a Warner Bros. executive and the interviewer said that 2001 looked amazing on BD (anything looks amazing on an HD panel on BD compared to DVD, even in 2007) and asked him what sourced they used and the Warner Bros. guy answered that the BD (and HDDVD) release came from a scan from a 35 mm reduction, not a 65 mm or the original. The 2001 BD version doesn't look grainy as hell, far from it, but I don't see the very thin grain structure of 65/70 mm on it.

 

The Blu-ray PQ Tiers have been mentioned before in this thread but I wanted to let everyone know the PQ Tiers got its first update in over a year today:

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/150-b...re-quality-rankings-pq-tiers-july-2017-a.html

By a consensus of our users, Planet Earth II is now ranked as the best pure video quality on the format. It beat out a number of top animated discs, including Moana and The Secret Life of Pets.

 

Prometheus

 

Gravity.

 

Computer animated (and even traditional animated) image quality should be segregated from live action.

I have the PE II UHD set, but I haven't upgraded to a UHD player, etc just yet.

 

We've definitely heard that suggestion before. I realize many of the animated films don't interest adults.

 

It's not that at all. There isn't any rationale for comparing animated film image quality with that of live action. What value is there in comparing computer animation with real world 35 mm film (or digital)?! The top tiers are skewed toward animation. The conclusion one might reach is that all blu ray content should be animated so that the image always perfect. No thanks.

In any event, thanks for maintaining the rankings. Definitely encourages interest in blu-ray.

 

2001 has been sourced from 65mm ever since MGM did their first letterboxed LD after Criterion's Kubrick supervised transfer of a 35mm IP. At the time there wasn't any way to scan large format for video and on that first release MGM messed up the color which had to be corrected for the CAV boxset reissue.

The Warner Kubrick titles are all outdated (except Barry Lyndon) and based around HDDVD specs as Blade Runner was. Some are okay but many are problematic like The Shining with its pink tennis balls, Eyes Wide Shut which looks absolutely nothing like its theatrical release, and 2001 which has changed color and lost the original soundmix. It's a mixed bag but none are desecrated or anything like Universal's piss poor treatment of their Hitchcock titles. Drops mic.

However there is a 4k master of Clockwork Orange already done so I'd definitely expect a 4k uhd revisit in the near future.

 

Personally while I'd immediately say the large format classics like LoA and Spartacus are the best looking there is much to be said for the staggering classic restorations that have hit BD. It is now possible to have unbelievably beautiful copies of great films that look as good as they did on release without inherent flaws and damage. Seeing the BDs of Kong, or Sony's restored Capra titles or even Warner Archive's releases is truly amazing.
Now if only everybody would stop overzealously using noise reduction on the audio tracks! Criterion is big on this sometimes. Their Night of the Hunter is staggering in every sense of the word yet the audio is so NR'd that the old MGM DVD wipes the floor with it.

 

What are the best looking Criterion Blu Rays? There seem to be a lot of classic Blu-Ray Criterion releases since the last time I was interested in them. I just bought 12 or so I haven't watched yet because they are 60% off at Barnes & Nobel this Month. I bought a few of the $99 collections for $40 and other new ones for $12.