Gladiator Master Blu-ray Comparison and Review Thread

Interesting. On Firefox they show up as thumbs, but IE they are ok.

Those extended shots really rub salt to the wound.

Did the camera move or is the blu-ray and HDTV versions cropped?

It's like Dark City all over again...

We are expected to pay $30 for a premium edition of a movie, when the studios aren't willing to spend the money necessary to do a new transfer, even after close to a decade? F that. They're bringing nothing new to the table, I'm not bringing my money.

damn! those unfiltered shots look ace. we need to set up a mass-complaint. maybe they can do something about this?

I'm going to e-mail them and explain exactly why I'm not buying it. Futile but it can't hurt.

hm, had my hopes up for this one, looks to be a stinker

Its amazing how much better the unfiltered shots look compared to the filtered ones! Why are they messing around with the picture why?? Are they incompetent? Why is it so hard to make good picture quality for them? Ughhh... Forget this. I'm all over Braveheart.

I dont know why but the BD pics give me a similar feeling to car sickness. Yuk.

I can't believe I might actually pass on owning Gladiator on BD.

People and their MP3s, LCD torch mode, BD w/ DNR & EE etc etc are really starting to piss me off. Honestly I dont blame the studios, sadly they are marketing to masses. Unfortunately the masses have crappy taste in AQ and PQ. Sad thing is if you went on the street and asked 100 people what looked best they would all point to the BD pics.

I can see it now written on the front of future BDs. "MP3 quality audio!", "Boosted Sharpness!" "Enhanced for LCD torch mode!" "Coupon inside for $100 off a $500 monster HDMI cable"

Still waiting for the caps from UNI's BD. If they too are like this I am left with no choice but to cancel my Steelbook pre-order.

Shot no 8 confirms grain removal on the Blu-ray despite the sharp look.

Even if the Universal's BD PQ looks Warner'ed I am fine. The German BD review at areadvd.de doesn't talk anything about NR / EE.

I hate to sound like an airhead, but are the screenies in the first post of the Blu Ray from the version that's being released in North America on September 1? Just want to make sure. If so, have you watched the movie through on extended version? How noticeable of a transition is it between the unfiltered extended scenes and the rest?


edited to add:

While I generally do take screencaps with a large grain of salt, the EE in the BD pic with Crowe on the horse makes me want to punch someone. And I'm really not a violent gal!

this might be the first time i'm tempted to import something if it is indeed better.

hopefully he german disk is great, it's the easiest to acquire by special means

Region Free?

Yes. It's Region Free but PQ???

I have to ask: what's "BEV"?

A Canadian satellite company. It used to be called Bell ExpressVu (hence BEV).

Ahh, thanks--that I understand. I'm actually surprised that the OAR HDTV shots don't look as good as the Bell HDTV shots; of course the BD shots look very similar to the OAR HDTV shots, so I can't help thinking something got recycled on the master side of things...

eesh. Just look at the difference around the word GERMANIA...

The unfiltered extended shots vs. the DNR'd, then sharpened theatrical footage is a night and day difference (to my eyes.)

The theatrical stuff looks digital, clayface, fake, sizzling; I don't want to say it looks like upscaled DVD but it's got the same type of processed feel about it.

This one needs to be fixed.

I did not realise this movie was out yet. Amazon is still showing sept release.

good call. The difference is huge. I hate that we are having a thread like this over a movie like this. Makes me mad

holy damn. where are the apologists now...?

It is only every so often that we are blessed with a quality Blu-ray Disc such as this one. The only way it could have possibly looked better is to horizontally (or even vertically) stretch the image. Ah, if only every BD was treated in the same way The Truman Show was. :/

I think that provides enough idiotic BS.

Well, when i google translated that German review from Area HD the rewiever stated that there were big difference in detail in the extended scenes hence the theatrical, so that Uni disc seems to be cut from the same cloth, and that would mean even the UK is the same right

It's hard me to understand how a movie studio can screw up like this. Unfortunately it seems to be the rule rather than the exception. When will studios finally learn that DNR filtering and EE are *BAD* things?

As a general rule: When a broadcasts beats the Blu-Ray, some heads should roll.

I've just cancelled my Gladiator Blu-Ray preorder.

I'm sure the FX artists who worked on this will check this out and just love seeing that many of their digital flaming arrows have now disappeared because of some program some nitwit supervising the transfer implemented. Oh well, the program just thought they were
"noise" or that ultimate home video boogeyman, "grain"...



oh and that soldier really didn't need that spear to be solid. You have GOT to be kidding me...