BR disks of older movies as good as BR new movies?

Hello,
Thank you for your time and comments.

I wonder if say, Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo was released on BR, would it be that much better than the version onn DVD - both played on BR players. I guess it depends on the master.

I wonder if there is a website that reviews the quality of newly released BR disks?

Thx
Chesschess

Master. Transfer. The first depends on the condition. The second takes pure time and money.

Nothing comes to mind as first rate "old" BDs. Hmmm. I think 2001 is supposed to be decent. Not reference PQ or anything, but quite an improvement.

The best transfers I've seen of "older" (not Vertigo old) are actually on HD-DVD. The two best I think of are The Thing and Darkman. Darkman has some of the most detailed faces Ive ever seen on either format. The color stock is representative of its time period; not as wide of a color palette. The Thing shows the master's age once in a while, but man, unbelievable man, unbelievable.

The Last Starfighter is a step down for sure.

Peter Jackson's The Frighteners is close to bottom of the barrel. Still a very fun movie, but PQ is a no go.

Ah yes, I have Life of Brian on Bluray. Its alright. Its ok. I also have Blazing Saddles, but waiting on a couple of friends before throwing that on.

Whether older, or current, the quality of master is often associated with the budget of the movie itself, AFAIK.

Here is one thread I use to get some help in PQ purchases for BD:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=858316

You can also somewhat predict the PQ by the amount of gb's taken up on the 25g or 50g BD. Or the video bitrate. Bitrate is very variabe, a certain movie can have 5x the bitrate from one scene to another.

Bitrate specs, total, video, audio:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=760714

bluray stats:
http://www.blu-raystats.com/stats.php

Hope that gets you started.

If you want pristine transfers of older movies, Criterion is releasing their first 5 in November. I already have all 5 on preorder. Also, Godfather will be here in a week and a half, and is supposed to have gone thru a pristine transfer. If I understood correctly, even the DVD was using the same master as the VHS?

I really dont know much about this stuff I suppose. hope this helps.

last time I read about it, Criterion is pricing their DVDs at the exact same price as the Blurays for these releases.

Casablanca.

Its definitely not claimed to be perfect, or even comparable with the better PQ examples, but still a worthy improvement to be a worthwhile purchase.

Greetings and thank you very much for your replies.
They are most helpful (-:

My new Pioneer LX508A arrived. Its amazing (-;

Blue ray is next.

Cheers
Chesschess

good PQ 'old' movies (one's that I own)

Patton
Close Encounters
Blade Runner
The Omega Man
Dawn of the Dead 1978
Day of the Dead 1985
The Road Warrior (one seen, a night one, has lots & lots of film grain, but just lasts a few sec's)
Unforgiven (a few of the the night shoots could be better)
The Shininng


Blazing Saddles... Ok PQ

not so hot PQ

Goodfellas (looks like a dvd sometimes)
Total Recall (one of my worse PQ BD's, but it was just $12)
StarGate (outside stuff good/ok PQ but stuff indoors or nights suck)

and so I just ordered it. heh. It was always priced pretty high, even if its all of material/discs or something. well, it finally dropped under $20 with vendors at Amazon, so yay.

Patton, unfortunately, has been often noted for DNR. When I mentioned Casablanca, it was with a couple of consumers of HD-DVD. But, Ive heard the BD is also suffering from undue DNR.

Thumbs up on remastered Blade Runner... very good ...

Unforgiven is ok, imo, on HDDVD. Night scenes are almost always worse in every movie. They're tough, I believe they require faster film with low lighting.

Thanks for the review g.m.a.n. and the straw that broke the camel's back regarding CE3rd. I give in!

I watched Close Encounters and Pale Rider on Bluray. They are both top notch.

Close Encounters, there are 3 versions, and I watched the director's cut. It is the only Sony release to date with a DTS-MA track, which is what I selected. They included it due to Spielberg's demands.

Pale Rider was really superb, especially in terms of black detail or shadow detail, IMO. There was a bit of inconsistency in PQ, perhaps mostly near the beginning, but grain detail was top notch overall, especially for an older movie like this.

I give both movies the thumbs up for PQ.

Last week I bought "I Robot" on Blu-ray. The video quality is stunning. Audio mix is stunning. It's one of my favorite movies to show people what Blu-ray is all about. My other favorite movie is the remasterd Blu-ray of "The Fifth Element". It's almost unreal when you can see individual specs of sweat glisten on facial hair. You need to have the "re-mastered" version because the first Blu-ray version wasn't so good. You can tell because the aspect ratio of the re-mastered "Fifth Element" is 1.40:1.

AVS Forum reviews new BR DVD'd but you can start a new thread and ask the members. Home Theatre Magazine reviews new movies and that interesting because some moveie ar rated low.

within AVS, I can tell you for a fact that no other sub-forum has moderators that close down as many threads as in the BD software & player forums. They get moved, or closed, on a regular basis.

These two are the subforums that require the search function more than any other.

I've probably posted in 20 subforums at AVS. Just an FYI.