Gladiator Master Blu-ray Comparison and Review Thread - Page 43

That's a given. Kind of hard to SEE something that is MISSING isn't it?

Oh, come now. I also only have a 42" plasma (and only 720p) and I notice a MASSIVE difference in PQ with Blu Ray over DVD. Sure I'd like to buy a bigger full-HD display at some stage and I imagine I'll see even greater PQ improvements when I do, but honestly Blu Ray kills DVD on my 42". Absolutely no question.

Comments like this annoy me.

Not with that attitude we won't! It is up to the consumer to send a clear message to the manufacturer by not making a purchase. thedigitalbits and bluray.com have already started the ball rolling by already mentioning a disc replacement plan and planting the seed! Kudos to them! Pirates 1, 5th element, Matrix 3, Terminator 3, all got replacement discs. No remaster on bluray huh OK, Troy, Full Metal Jacket, 5th Element and others I can't think of got new masters on their subsequent editions. Bottom line a 9 year old transfer doesn't cut it for a premium bluray!

Amen brother! Blu-rays really stand out on my 42" over dvd as well. Is 42" the new 19" these days! Some of us can't afford the big projector screens or 60" displays, so we do the best we can.

Friend, it's a 720p display...and yes blu-rays do look significantly better on it over dvds most of the time.

Expected? Yes. Funny? Well, if your level of being amused is so low, then I guess I could see it....

I watch just as many Blu Rays on the bedroom plasma as I do in the HT via projection, and expect to spin this one soon. The price is right for me.

Whenever I hear this it's nearly always a matter of watching a low quality Blu-Ray, watching a low quality display, watching an incorrectly connected display, or watching a display using far from optimal settings.

I've got a 50" KRP-500M, and if you couldn't discern a massive difference between HD and SD while watching it, I'd hope that you're not licensed to drive a vehicle, because your eyes are in seriously bad condition.


Then either you've heard some poor HD audio tracks or your stereo equipment is not of sufficient quality.

I watched this on a properly calibrated 58inch Panasonic 850 series plasma, using a Panasonic DMP-BD55 blu-ray player.

Every blu-ray I've watched on this setup has been nothing short of stunning, and out of the 150 or so blu-rays I've watched and own, this Gladiator blu-ray has to be the worst.

All the DVDs issues have been amplified by the HD transfer, it appears that they spent no time cleaning this thing up.

Watching it on HDNET was a FAR more enjoyable experience.

I'm o.k with the grain, my issue is with the double image or shadows, that pop up along the edges of things like flag poles and spears.

A perfect example would be the flags atop the coliseum during the Cesar's entrance into Rome.

PQ is so inconsistent scene to scene that I'll have a hard time watching this again.

I put alot of the blame on the lazy ass director, you can tell by the transfers quality wether or not he cared about quality or pocketing some more change, this was unfortunately all about the money.




Its a damn shame that a 30 year old Clint Eastwood western looks better on blu-ray than a 9 year old modern day classic like Gladiator.

Shame on you Universal!

I hate LOTR. I sat through the first hour of #1, and it was boring. I just fast forwarded to the action scenes. I tried ROTK, and after half an hour, just forwarded to the big battle sequence.

I also hated Transformers. And wouldn't you know it, the BD gets reference PQ and AQ. So thanks to me, you guys will probably get a stunning LOTR transfer.

EL-CID was shot in Super Technirama 70, a massively detailed film process, but the so called "restoration" was created using 35mm elements because (rumor has it) 70mm prints and the original negative are gone or so bad as to be useless.

The DVDbeaver screenshots show obvious signs of DNR on some of the facial shots, though I would need to see the actual BD for myself to be sure, since even 35mm EL-CID elements would have less grain than a film shot in 35mm.

I will not buy the disc with this quality of PQ, but I haven't seen the movie in such a long friggin' time (held off watching my standard for the BD, and then gave the DVD away in prepartion) so I rented it along with Braveheart tonight to ease my longing. But I will not buy.

Which is still no excuse when films like 'Big Trouble in Little China' and 'Bladerunner' get awesome transfers to Blu-ray.

Me thinks the pixel peepers doth protest too much!

I just finished watching the Gladiator (Extended Cut) on Blu-ray. I was expecting a nightmare of halos and plastic skin. Gee... I guess I was too busy watching and enjoying the movie to even notice. Was it the finest transfer I've ever seen? No. But it is far far from the reported piece of crap so many make it out to be. I'm very happy to have it in my collection!

And, for the record, it was viewed on a 70" screen via a Panasonic BD-35 and I sit 12 feet from the screen.

Mark

http://myhometheater.homestead.com/v...alculator.html

At 12 feet the recommended screen size is 93.6 inches for the optimal THX viewing angles. So you are sitting proportionately further back than many here who say have FP settups. For the optimal angle for your sized set, you should be sitting at 7.8 feet. That's a big difference. Things readily apparent and maybe even distracting, disappointing at 7.8 feet would seem much less at 12 feet. I have a 92" screen and I sit almost exactly at the recommended distance of 10.3 feet. Good Blu ray discs look amazing like this. Poor ones are very obvious.

And also Ghostbusters good transfer to bluray too and that is like 25 yrs ago.

Even though after rebate the Gladiator BD would be $12 I still am not excited as I was previously to get it. I'm sure the DTS-MA track must be great during The Battle Of Carthage but I'm worried about being distracted by the digital edgness that I see in the screen pics. I haven't heard many talk about the audio as much as the disappointment in the video department. My DVD of the original cut with DTS looks very good for SD upconverted by my Oppo BDP-83. I'm going to wait and see what Paramount does. I am curious on the DTS-MA soundtrack though.

Just took a look at GLADIATOR. Starting from the beginning, my reaction was something like this:

DreamWorks and Universal logos - "Okay, this isn't too bad. I would expect more grain but things look okay."

Gladiator logo and opening text crawl - "Ugh, that's some pretty nasty banding in the fog. Oh, and how amusing that, despite the DVNR machine having erased a bunch of arrows and fireballs, it's missed all the grit and dirt that's visible at the moment."

Shot of Russell Crowe's hand in the wheat - "Hmm, it looks okay. Practically no grain, though."

Close-up of our friend Russell - "He looks baked."

Close-up of the bird - "Why is there a forcefield round that twig?"

Wide shot of soldiers marching and "Germania" location type - "This looks OH MY GOD THIS LOOKS AWFUL! WHAT DID THEY DO???"

This is one wildly inconsistent transfer. A few shots look just about passable and, in some of the tight close-ups, you can almost kid yourself that you're looking at a decent transfer. Other shots look mediocre. A large number, however, look downright awful, particularly wide shots, where the forcefields around the characters, spears etc. are just shocking. I actually think this is the worst edge enhancement I've ever seen in an HD transfer, outside of upconverts like TRAFFIC and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. I'm genuinely shocked that this got through quality control. Is it the worst BD ever released? No, of course not, not by anyone's standards. It is, however, probably the worst BD I've ever seen of a film of this standing. I genuinely, truly don't understand why no-one said "Wait a minute - this is our 'A' title - it CAN'T go out looking like this."

The extended scenes - much, much better. BRAVEHEART puts them in the shade, admittedly, but then BRAVEHEART puts just about every other catalogue title I've seen outside of HOW THE WEST WAS WON in the shade. Had the whole film looked like these scenes, I suspect we would have been elated. Whenever an extended scene comes on, the rampant edge enhancement disappears completely, the grain becomes entirely natural, the facial textures suddenly look like real life, and detail goes up across the board. This is a night and day difference in my opinion, and ironically the presence of the extended scenes, looking so good, simply drags your perception of the transfer as a whole down, because it highlights just how poor the rest of the film looks.

An improvement on the DVD? In some ways yes, in other no. Certainly, you do get a bit more detail on the BD (although not much), but on the other hand, the DVD didn't suffer from anything like this level of rampant edge enhancement. I certainly wouldn't recommend anyone buys this release, particularly if they already have the DVD.

PS. Something that I don't believe anyone else has noticed is that, presumably believing it would give the picture more "pop", someone has cranked up the colour, giving everything an oversaturated look.

Well I watched Gladiator last night and I didn't think it looked that bad, especially after reading all the negatives and seeing all the screen captures. In fact, to me, it is the best version I've seen, having watched all of them numerous times. My tv is a lowly 56" Samsung 1080p DLP, sitting 8.5 ft away, using my Oppo 83. I saw some of the issues described here but they didn't take me out of the movie experience. The color really looks awesome, and was the most striking difference from the DVD version. Also, the sound is very good, and I heard things that I never heared before. I have the DTS DVD, and the bass is more pronounced at lower volumes. I found that I need to raise the volume slightly to equal the DVD in loudness. Overall, I enjoyed the film and did not have negative experience. I've seen many Blu Rays that look far worse!

I picked up Gladiator and Braveheart last night from BB. The rebates and all convinced me I could buy Gladiator despite the comments about the VQ. I watched a bit of Gladiator last night. Things that disappointed me were poor blacks and an ugly blueish sheen in low IREs. This was most noticeable early in the movie in any sceens shot inside tents when they were in Germania.
I thought the AQ was good, a big improvement over the DVD, but I expected that.

Bill

I think Paramount also needs to keep in mind that they have one more title coming out soon under this series(Forrest Gump) and people will wonder how this one will come out, will it be excellent or sub-par?

I got the disc with eyes wide open hoping that things wouldn't look so bad. (I'm watching on a 106" 1080P projected image). Well...

Yeah, it's bad. The loss of detail is one thing (the opening scenes for example look only marginally better than DVD to me) but the halos from the edge enhancement in some scenes are horrific. I mean, they seem like 20 pixels wide! You don't need a degree in imaging science to see problems with the transfer.

Is the image watchable? Sure. Is it a upgrade over DVD? Sure, though with this transfer that depends on what scene you are watching. Is it even close to Braveheart on BD - a movie that is 14 years old and 5 years older than Gladiator? Nope. Not even. And it most definitely isn't the "perfect" picture they advertise on the "sapphire series" box.

It's too bad, really, because as I watched I forgot how totally amazing the movie is. I haven't seen it in years, and it still blows me away.

I just wish it did that on Blu-Ray without looking so blurry and halo-y.

EDIT to clarify: Definitely watchable, superb extras, PQ better than the DVD though only marginally in some scenes, and lots of edge enhancement and DNR is noticeable as a general smearing of details. Transfer is inconsistent, not nearly as good as a Blu-Ray transfer of an older movie in sharpness/pop/detail (see Godfather, 2000, Braveheart, Blade Runner, etc BDs as examples).

I doubt the BBC would respond to a few complaints on a QC issues like this. More likely, they get 5 complaints of people who are "offended" or outraged" by something they saw on TV, and like all Politically Correct organizations, they cater to a few complaints and piss off millions.

I think you're talking a bout a PC thing, not a QC thing.

True. The BBC are a publicly funded body, and as a result are obliged to take any complaint seriously, even completely idiotic ones. (I remember a couple of people complained last year because there was a simulated scene of a goldfish dying in an episode of Casualty. Hilariously, the BBC actually said they would "investigate" the matter, whatever that means.) With Paramount, it's more likely to be a case of "Thanks for the money, if you don't like it don't buy it."

if anything there'll be a recall anyways and they won't REPLACE the discs already in retail or has been pressed. therefore, i bought it . here's hoping for the replacement program to come soon!

I for one, will wait a while longer before picking it up. It is one of my favourite movies but I purchase Blu-ray for the quality of audio and picture. If it's not up to par, I have no qualms in buying the DVD for a fraction of the price (if I didn't own on DVD already :P). Here's hoping that sales go stagnant very quickly and Paramount realizes they f'd up royally on this release (yes, I had this pre-ordered as well and canceled as soon as heard about the picture inconsistencies).

Eric

Okay, I had a chance to get Gladiator along with Braveheart, so I did. Wife was itching to watch Gladiator, so we watched it first.

If you know what to look for - yeah, the disappearing speartip is embarrassing. I noticed EE from time to time as well - not the worst I've seen, but there, but not in such a way as to make your eyes bleed. That said, alot of it looked gorgeous. Since I get $10 back on rebate, this cost me $13. Well worth it, because despite a sloppy production and some really inexcusable work, it is KILLING the DVD. Chalk up another release that could have been better, but is still worth the upgrade.

Braveheart tonight...

A number of unnecessary comments have been removed. Further like comments will result in the loss of ability to participate in this topic.

this is the standard reply i take it for those that registered a complaint to Universal:

Viewing these screenshots on my 24" 1920x1200 monitor is exactly how I watch movies and play games.

From 1x distance (2 feet)
The DNR is intolerable, and Crowe's face looks like mush. The oversharpened look is harsh. The HDTV version is incredibly more detailed and film-like.

From 1.5x distance (3 feet)
DNR and sharpening are still apparent. Fine details are still being lost and replaced with thick and unnaturally more pronounced features. The HDTV version still looks more natural in every way.

From 2x distance (4 feet)
The only remaining complaint I have with the Blu-ray is that Crowe's skin looks too orange. The DNR and sharpening are only very slightly noticeable at this distance. It would be unrealistic for me to complain about that.