Topic: HD Video Card and PC Blu-Ray player.

[Tom]

I haven't watched it yet, but apparently Iron Man is a top drawer title. Same with WALL-E, Dark Knight and Wanted.

Those four I would have recommended as well.

[Touti]

That shouldn't matter should it? You'll have HDMI to the TV and optical to the speakers from the BR, and when you want to use the PC, switch the channel on the audio?

I think we have a misunderstanding here.  What do you mean by "switch the channel on the audio" ?  I can't switch, I have to share a connectors pack between the PC and the BR player.  Problem is only one connection works at a time, either digital or analog.

I'm basically stuck with 3 devices to plug but only 2 input connections.

[Touti]

Replying to myself...........

I knew I couldn't have misread it that much.  Here's what the manual says.

The digital satellite receiver can be connected to the VIDEO 1 COAXIAL IN or VIDEO 2 OPTICAL DIGITAL IN jack instead of the VIDEO 1 or VIDEO 2 AUDIO IN jacks of the system. The system can accept both the digital and analogue signals. Digital signals have priority over analogue signals.  If the digital signal ceases, the analogue signal will be processed after 2 seconds.

I guess the PC just never cuts off the digital signal and that is why once I plugged it I could no longer use Analog.  It won't be a problem with the BR player because once it's powered off it won't send any signal.

[Najemikon]

Ah, I understand. I think the BR and PC will sort themselves out, as you say. Connections are always fun! If you get really stuck, I bet there's a switched splitter you can use. Plug two devices into it then select which one you want. Like an old parallel printer switch! 

[Touti]

Allright........I'm off to buy a BR player now.........I'll post my first impressions in a few hours

[Tom]

Allright........I'm off to buy a BR player now.........I'll post my first impressions in a few hours

 

[Touti]

Ok so I bought it, it's out of the box and connected via a 8.99$ 3 feet long HDMI cable which claims to be 1.3........we'll know in a few minutes.  I'm just reconfiguring my universal remote and then I'll be ready to try it.

I'll admit that I'm wondering if I made a mistake here.  I had not set foot in a video club in years and I was disappointed surprised by the very little choice.  I guess it's only a matter of time anyway.

I picked up "No country for old men", "Casino Royale" and "Blood Diamond" (because my first Blu-Ray experience had to include Jennifer  ).  Then as I was waiting in line to pay I checked the covers and on "No country for old men" I read "A cohen brother movie".....................so I put it back and picked "88 Minutes" instead

[Najemikon]

Ah, shame! Almost got you watching another Coen Brothers... tch. To be fair, No Country For Old Men, is very very different to Fargo and based on popular American thriller book. Deathly serious and an incredible ending.

[Touti]

My 8.99$ HDMI 1.3 cable seems to be working.........sorry Jon  .  But in all fairness I don't remember if you said it was required for HDMI sound or for Blu-Ray as a whole, maybe it won't perform well when things get "busy" on the screen.

I've connected the player to my router and checked for software update.  It found a new version which I downloaded and installed painlessly.  The update process is a little "cheap" on this player though, there's nothing on the screen, you only get some information about the progress on the unit's diplay like fup: 0/9, fup: 1/9 etc.  When finished the unit went off then back on, the display showed "Finish" for a 2 or 3 seconds and then it went off again.  At that point I wasn't sure if it was finished or not and if it was safe to press the power button again.

I've been through the whole setup for sound and images and watched about 20 seconds of "Blood Diamond".  Now I'm gonna grab a beer and watch the whole thing.

I'll be back with more comments in a few hours.

P.S: Jon, it's not only Fargo......I hated every minute of "O brother where art thou" also..........well every one of the 25 or 30 I watched anyway.  If "No Country for Old Men" is anything like it I will hate it too.

[Touti]

10 minues into the movie.........oh, I'll admit this Blu-ray thing isn't bad after all 

[Najemikon]

My 8.99$ HDMI 1.3 cable seems to be working.........sorry Jon  .  But in all fairness I don't remember if you said it was required for HDMI sound or for Blu-Ray as a whole, maybe it won't perform well when things get "busy" on the screen.

I've connected the player to my router and checked for software update.  It found a new version which I downloaded and installed painlessly.  The update process is a little "cheap" on this player though, there's nothing on the screen, you only get some information about the progress on the unit's diplay like fup: 0/9, fup: 1/9 etc.  When finished the unit went off then back on, the display showed "Finish" for a 2 or 3 seconds and then it went off again.  At that point I wasn't sure if it was finished or not and if it was safe to press the power button again.

I've been through the whole setup for sound and images and watched about 20 seconds of "Blood Diamond".  Now I'm gonna grab a beer and watch the whole thing.

I'll be back with more comments in a few hours.

P.S: Jon, it's not only Fargo......I hated every minute of "O brother where art thou" also..........well every one of the 25 or 30 I watched anyway.  If "No Country for Old Men" is anything like it I will hate it too.

Hey, if the cable works, it works. Bear in mind I was quoting UK prices and I haven't even seen a HDMI cable in that price range. If I did I would expect it to be a length of string with "hdmi" written on it with black marker pen!  There are all sorts of other factors as well and maybe splitting the sound off makes a difference.

Just so you know, No Country isn't anything like any of the Coen's other films. Still, not sure if you would like it any case. The ending upset a lot of people!

Good pick on Blood Diamond. I only have the DVD, but can imagine it's a perfect candidate. As to the range, your Blockbuster's sound just like ours! Bloody useless lot. Blu-Ray has a fight on its hands to get adopted and I don't think it's being marketed right. If you can't even rent the sodding things, it has no chance...

[Touti]

So I've watched 2 Blu-Ray and one DVD on the BR player so far.

Blu-Ray: Excellent........the quality of the image is amazing, I have to say I was quite impressed after I tuned my TV settings.  "Blood Diamond" was really a good movie for a first Blu-Ray experience because there's many scenes of forrests and mountains where on can really appreciate the quality of HD.  The movies is also pretty good.

The 2nd movie I watched was "88 Minutes", again I was impressed with BR, especially in the action scenes (when the Porsche explodes).  As for the movie...........it's not bad, Pacino is good as always..........Sobieski is as bad as ever.  I think she's the worst actress of her generation. 

(click to show/hide)

In the final scene when she tries to play plays the insane woman who's tough and became a Killer I totally disconnected because he acting was wo bad.  I'll have to say though that the direction didn't help her, she should have been coached on how to hold a gun, if she had fired a real one holding that way it would have bumped right back in her face.  And then when she's ready to shoot Pacino and closes one eye to aim.................totally ridiculous.

That was it anyway for BR movies.....then this morning I woke up early and decided to watch Jurassic Park III which I rewatched last week.  Since it was fresh in memory I thought it would be perfect to compare with BR upscaling.  I must admit I was a bit disappointed.  It is extremely good and much better than the 720p upscaling of my regular DVD player but I expected more....maybe my expectations were too high after reading here and there how good it was.

Overall I'm happy I made the move to BR.......I'll watch Casino Royale later today and post on that tonight.

[Najemikon]

That was it anyway for BR movies.....then this morning I woke up early and decided to watch Jurassic Park III which I rewatched last week.  Since it was fresh in memory I thought it would be perfect to compare with BR upscaling.  I must admit I was a bit disappointed.  It is extremely good and much better than the 720p upscaling of my regular DVD player but I expected more....maybe my expectations were too high after reading here and there how good it was.

Well as I was saying before, the BR players in this price range do well at upscaling standard def, but my Onkyo DVD player does a visibly far better job. What you will find though is a huge difference between DVD quality of various titles. Upscaling embarrasses lazy DVD mastering by revealing those who did just enough to make sure the quality looked good at standard def.

Remember my enthusiastic review of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford? That stuck in my mind as one of the most beautifully photographed films of recent years and it was the first one I went to for a sample of upscaling. Eric, it was horrendous. It's bordering on unwatchable and is is on the top my albeit short list of necessary Blu-Ray upgrades. It has a weird digital pixellated quality, reminiscent of VideoCD, especially on the early scene where Ford is trying to talk to Jesse and Frank amongst the trees. It's a very busy background and it just looks flat.

On the other hand, my MGM Ultimate Edition of Silence of the Lambs is staggeringly gorgeous and could be counted as a Blu-Ray killer. I'm not saying the BR wouldn't be better, because of course it would be, but if all DVDs upscaled as well as that one, Blu-Ray would be a harder sell. In fact, I think it's Toshiba who have released a DVD player that seems to be targeting the mid-range Blu-Ray player market as reviews claim the upscaling is so good the results are as good as BR! I can't quite see that. The definition has a limit, but it does show what an uphill climb BR has.

So keep an open mind regards the potential of your existing DVDs (what's left of them! )

[Touti]

Remember my enthusiastic review of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford? That stuck in my mind as one of the most beautifully photographed films of recent years and it was the first one I went to for a sample of upscaling. Eric, it was horrendous. It's bordering on unwatchable and is is on the top my albeit short list of necessary Blu-Ray upgrades. It has a weird digital pixellated quality, reminiscent of VideoCD, especially on the early scene where Ford is trying to talk to Jesse and Frank amongst the trees. It's a very busy background and it just looks flat.

I've had similar experiences with "The Last of the Mohicans" over the last year.  This has always been one of my favorite movies because of the beautiful scenes in the woods and moutains.  I first watched in a long time ago on my 55" rear projection TV.  At the time as was using a regular coax cable because my first dvd player didn't have components.

I rewatched it when I changed the player using components connections and couldn't believe how vivid the colors were.  The first scenes of "Star Trek insurection" where Data runs in the woods were also beautiful.  In both movies I just couldn't believe how green the trees were.

Then I got my first digital TV (EDTV) and somehow it didn't look good on it, everything seemed blurry, even in 480p.  A few months ago when I got my HDTV I was finally able to use my players upscaling (which it does only on hdmi) so I tried to rewatch it and it was even worse.  It looked like and old movie on and old tv.

I'm not even sure I want to try it upscaled to 1080p......

Thanks for saving me a big disappointment with "T...ass..Jessie James by.........Ford", I was actually thinking of watching it on Blu-Ray thinking it would look great.  I guess I'm still gonna use my regular player now and then huh!

[Najemikon]

I'd be interested to know if it's ok on yours though. Different equipment, region 1, etc.