Worst Blu-Ray Picture Quality

Well, by worst I really mean the most "unimpressive" given the high-quality expectations of this format:

Freddy vs Jason
The Stendhal Syndrome
Donnie Darko
Close Encounters of the Third Kind - way too much grain, very disappointing.....

 

Have you seen Gangs of New York?

 

The Godfather triology - Way too dark and strange colours.

I do not mind film grain, but you want to stay away from Flatliners and the non-deluxe version of Full Metal Jacket. The deluxe Full Metal Jacket has less grain, but the colours are all messed up.

The Terminator has annoying encoding artifacts.


is not always bad. This becomes obvious to so
I have Full Metal Jacket in original hd-dvd and Deluxe Edition blu-ray

 

Not seen it myself, but the initial release of The Fifth Element is supposed to be pretty bad.

 

High Bristolian count though.

 

Its not really bad at all..just not impressive.

 

After all the early bad encodes (and follow-up remasters of DVD), as well as the general push to get consumers to adopt a new format in a little over 10 years, there really is no excuse for encoding artifacts on a Blu-Ray title.

 

To my mind - as far as Blu-ray is concerned - there's no difference. Impressive should be standard.

 

A Clockwork Orange

 

The godfather?

 

Although memory on this kind of thing is often unreliable, I seem to remember that in the theater it showed a fair amount of grain, too, especially in 70mm in the opening sequence. The Blu-Ray to me is very faithful, and impressive.

In general I don't get the comment on "too much grain." It's not as if the Blu-Ray is inventing grain that wasn't there. I think most people are so used to seeing films shown in sub-optimal conditions--with projectors slightly out of focus or bulbs not turned up full--that they don't realize how much grain there is in the average film. Now that you can see it much closer to the state of the negative--as the director or DP see it--people are a bit surprised.

John K.

 

Those who complain about film grain are the same ones who complain about tape hiss.

 

CE3K is divine - it literally took my breath away (viewed on a 92in FP set-up).

Donnie Darko looks as it should - a film shot on 800 ASA film.

Both are very high quality. Haven't seen the other two you mention.

Worst quality Blu of a high-profile title IMHO should go to Gangs of NY. An abomination that should be recalled.

 

Do we have a new equivalent of the original DVD release of Bladerunner then?

 

The very worst looking BD's, for the most part, are the ones that Sony and Lionsgate made in the first few months of the format. Total Recall is patentedly poor. It's colour is way, washed out and motion artifacts abound.

Any poor disc since those first few months is a bigger failure since the tools of authoring improved. Patton and Gangs Of New York are standouts.

 

There's the 5 disc set with all the released versions of the movie. The movie looks good but don't expect eye popping results since it's a darkly lit movie with grain.

 

I'm watching it now...it looks great!

 

Well I think he was basically asking if Gangs of New York blu-ray is as much universally panned on Blu-Ray as the original Blade Runner dvd was for dvd.

I have Blade Runner on Blu-Ray and it's wonderful. It has never looked better. I can finally retire my Criterion laserdisc (which has always looked better than the original dvd release). I also love the workprint, blemishes and all- it still looks amazing.

I have no issues with grain or some film showing their signs of age at all, as long as it's truly high definition. Encoding artifacts are a different beast and in this day and age, ridiculous. Especially coming from Sony since they're the ones behind the format.

 

My sense is that the CE3K Blu-Ray is very faithful to the source print. It looks the way I remember it appearing in the theater way back when...lots of grain in the effects shots.

You have to remember that sci-fi films in the late 70s were pushing the absolute technological limits of optical compositing. The composite work was superb, but at the cost of increased grain in those shots. The first Superman is similar, and that Blu-Ray is also well-done.

 

Kiss of the dragon. good thing I just rented it!

 

Oh yeah; this thread really makes me want to spend thousands on a new TV, new Blu-Ray player, and new copies of movies I already own on DVD...