I own the A-2 and have seen POTC 2 (among other BR) on both the Panasonic ($599 model) and the 2nd gen Son player and although this is supposed to be a great PQ, it didn't look that amazing, it looked like a Tier 2 HD-DVD. Is this because I have somehow trained my eyes to hate blu-ray or is their pq not as good as HD-DVD? Thanks for any help because I know I will be going neutral in August because Bruce Springsteen Live in Dublin and Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds at Radio City Music Hall both on Blu-Ray.

Greetings

Good and bad stuff on both sides. Overall quality is about the same ...

Often badly set up TVs tip the scale one way or another.

Regards

Pirates of the Caribbean looked good, but it definitely isn't the "amazing new standard" the pro-DRM crowd would like to believe. On top of that POTC2 sucked.

not sure, but I have a PS3 in addition to the XA2 and never felt BD to be any better, even with the POTC movies. There comes a point where more bitrate won't yield a noticeable improvement.

IMO, the best of Blu-Ray and the best of HD-DVD are on equal footing in the Picture department. Audio goes to HD-DVD because every standalone player decodes TrueHD.

I'm format neutral and own both BD and HD-DVD although I tend to favor HD-DVD simply because I was so disappointed in the BD launch. I think both formats are close to the same now. Casino Royale on BD is awesome as are several titles on HD-DVD.

Pirates of the Caribbean looked good, but it definitely isn't the "amazing new standard" the pro-DRM crowd would like to believe. On top of that POTC2 sucked.

They probably look amazing compared to those two hundred MPEG-2 / BD25 discs that most people have seen in the past!

However they are really just up to the quality of most HD DVD titles - that's right not surpassing, but 'up to' :-P

There are only a dozen or so titles with similar good picture quality on Blur-ray including:

Déja Vu
Pirates of the Caribbean 1 & 2
Hellboy
Casanova (2005)
Casino Royale (2006)
Donnie Brasco
Fifth Element (June 2007 version ;-)
Flags of Our Fathers
Chicago
The Prestige
Flightplan

I still maintain that MPEG2 titles are the lesser of them all. I thought Blu-Ray to be inferior until i started seeing the latest AVC envcodes. Some of them look damn good.

The Prestige looks fantastic on Blu...buut Kong is still my favorite for showing the raw resolution/detail potential of BD. For sound it's a toss up, but I sure do like the BD of Black Hawk Down in surround!

Blu-Ray definitely needs to button the hardware down though. Any player you buy today will be outdated next year, with the exception of PS3 it seems.

Pearl Harbor with MPEG-2 encoding looks ultra sharp and colorful.

Maybe the set was poorly calibrated or running without hdmi; pirates 2 looks great and is a match for kong (well kinda, i think pirates has better dark scene quality while kong has better daylight scene quality) though not better.

bd has some amazing looking discs. the mpeg2 black hawk down mentioned above is one. i also think rocky balboa and flags of our fathers look pretty slick.

i own a bunch of titles for both formats, have a well calibrated tv running via hdmi and if pressed to say which format has better PQ, i would say neither... depends upon the movie. the warner title are identical for both while the Paramount titles are always very close to each other (sometimes the HD DVD version is a little better while other times the BD version takes the cake).

finally, i know that a lot of people love the animated movies and talk about how they are total reference material... i generally don't like kids films like ant bully or the wild and thus do not agree with that attitude. To me a reference title is something like bourne supremacy or black hawk down... maybe you're like me and your idea of reference material is not most people's and simply pirates 2 doesn't do it for you.

I still maintain that the FIRST RUN MPEG2 titles are the lesser of them all.

had you said that i would agree with you. once black hawk down hit (the first really good mpeg2 transfer imho), the mpeg 2 titles on the 50 gig discs all look great.

HD DVD titles looked great out of the gate. +1 for HD DVD.

I may have missed the review or overwhelming sentiment of the masses but.... which movie "looks" better on BD than on HD-DVD?

[QUOTE=youknowryan]Maybe the set was poorly calibrated or running without hdmi]

Same display, same hdmi, two different blu-ray players. I work at BB and we had this test. The Samsung was our demo ISF calibration set. We started this when a customer wanted to see the difference between the 599 panny and 499 sony. 2 bb guys and the customer thought that the panny had a better image. But once the customer left we both thought that hd-dvd looked better and tested COM looked superior.

Universal's recent catalog binge is not helping HD DVD in the PQ department, judging by the review ratings for PQ these discs have been getting.

Still I think all the newer titles being released are about the same... As I posted before I am not buying formats I am buying HD... ;)

They probably look amazing compared to those two hundred MPEG-2 / BD25 discs that most people have seen in the past!

However they are really just up to the quality of most HD DVD titles - that's right not surpassing, but 'up to' :-P

There are only a dozen or so titles with similar good picture quality on Blur-ray including:

Déja Vu
Pirates of the Caribbean 1 & 2
Hellboy
Casanova (2005)
Casino Royale (2006)
Donnie Brasco
Fifth Element (June 2007 version ;-)
Flags of Our Fathers
Chicago
The Prestige
Flightplan

Man, you are missing A LOT of great PQ titles exclusively to BD, here are some of those that I owned and looked even better than many of the titles I have seen in HD-DVD:

1-) Apocalypto (What a movie...)
2-) Black Hawk Down
3-) Kingdom of Heaven
4-) Rocky Balboa
5-) Pearl Harbor

Some that I don't own but I have seen via Netflix:

1-) Crank (One of the best PQ in both Formats, worst movie I have seen in some time)
2-) The League of Extraordinary Gentleman
3-) Gridiron Gang
4-) Ghost Rider
5-) Goal: The Dream Begins
6-) Bridge to Terabitha
7-) Fantastic 4
8-) Invincible

I can tell you a couple of more, but at work now, but you can get my point ;)

I just picked up my PS3 last week after the price drop so I am now officially format neutral.
I also bought Casino Royale, the Prestige and PoTC 1. All 3 movies look very impressive and to my eyes, are as good as the best available on the HD-DVD format. I still think King Kong is the best looking movie in either format, but I haven't seen PoTC 2 yet. I don't have an HDMI receiver either, so I'm stuck with DD and DTS 5.1 from my PS3.

I'm happy I can enjoy the best from both formats now. I'm kind of hoping that both formats will co-exist together for the next year or two, but I have a feeling Blu-Ray will win eventually with their greater studio support. I'll probably start to cut back on my HD-DVD purchases and only buy the Universal exclusives I'm interested in.

I think those of us that really enjoy HD movies have no choice now but to be format neutral unfortunately. I just wish studios would release their movies in both formats and let the consumers decide which one they prefer.