Gladiator Master Blu-ray Comparison and Review Thread - Page 21

If you use a very long analog cable from the player to the display.

I'm quite amused by the faith some people over there put in "pro" reviews, especially the blu-ray.com reviews... their scoring is so arbitrary that I skip right to the screencaps. I was perusing some movies yesterday, and one of their writers actually wrote that his DVD looks better than the evil dead 2 blu-ray and still gave it 3 and 1/2 stars

The differences between the Extended Scenes and Standard Scenes is huge. I was looking forward to owning this on blu but will wait it out and can only hope that the studio will correct it. You would think that lessons would have been learned by the industry from The Fifth Element and Full Metal Jacket. I guess not.

There are a few reviewers out there that I trust. Josh Zyber usually calls it like it is concerning DNR/EE. Josh, if you are reading this I hope you get your hands on "Gladiator" and offer up a review.

Dont forget Ralphy!

I feel he's been pretty fair!

It does kind of makes sense. All the captures of the titles that Xylon have exposed for being "garbage" had a kind of bad photoshop quality to them. Examples:

The Fifth Element (first release) = blur filter

Bram Stoker's Dracula = clipped shadow detail with levels and reduced color saturation

Patton = plastic wrap plugin

Dark City = unsharp mask and reduce noise cranked to 100%

Star Trek films = median filter

The Dark Knight = unsharp mask and contrast

Gangs of New York = all the filters combined

Somehow Xylon conveniently praised How the West Was Won, Braveheart, The Sand Pebbles, Shootem Up, A Passage to India, etc. I guess those were HD-DVDs in disguise.

Jesus, the thread on the 'other forum' is a circle jerk.

Don't know if this has been posted, yet. Over at the HT Forum, someone posted a link to a German site in which someone has made a .gif showing the erasures of flaming arrows and fireballs as a sort of before and after:

http://forum.cinefacts.de/6342075-post216.html

Oh, my. Could this be the worst Blu-Ray yet? That's pathetic.

Well, you WOULD be watching it at 24fps, not 2. Frankly I have a hard time noticing the scratch removal at work in the short 1080p video clip I downloaded in motion (it's still a despicable instance of laziness though).

Anyone got time codes of these particular sequences?

Wow. This one keeps getting worse. Please tell me there aren't dancing ewoks hidden in the forest there.

There are worse blurays, but this is one of the biggest dissapointments.

This movie should be used as demo for the format. But with this quality...

Currently I'm enjoying the 'insider' making fun of people who have the disc and claim the quality is not up to snuff. Pathetic.

I just posted a realtime version of the same animation. Judge for yourself:

http://forum.cinefacts.de/204053-gla...ml#post6342617

Keep in mind that this is only one of the effects missing. There are literally dozens of arrows and fireballs that are similarly affected in this shot.

Well, what do you expect, Blu-Ray.com is a shill site for the format. They don't tolerate any bashing of a release as long as it's on the blu-ray format.

What they don't understand is that we want a good release on Blu-Ray, but this is one of the worst quality releases for a major picture in quite some time.

At a quick glance you wrote "still shite for the format".

And they have made a couple of references to AVS in that Gladiator thread. Small world with the internet.

And sometimes you don't need a translator to know what the poster is saying.... "ach sh!t!"

The bottom line is that we're disappointed with this release, regardless of it being on Blu.

If it looked like this and was released on DVD, LD, HD DVD, etc, we would also be bagging on it.

They just don't get that over there and instead try to claim that AVS is "anti Blu".

Maybe they should wake up and realize that some of the top home theaters in the world are located in the homes of AVS members.

Preaching to the choir there, friend.


Browsing Blu-ray.com certainly gives one pause. It would be, at least to me, completely excusable to draw the conclusion that folks over there don't give a rat's ass about picture quality. It's a weird disconnect, considering how much they claim to care about the format. I believe the format war did irreparable damage to some still-forming brains. It also doesn't take a shrink to see that some egos were very badly bruised during the war as they still haven't been able to let it go.

And finally, "Don't mention the war. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it alright."

I've watched the 2 small clips that eric.exe posted a few pages back on one of my HDTVs, the Blu-ray clip is a travesty. Yes, even 'in motion' half the flaming arrows are missing, and the fireballs disappear and reappear.

But I guess this makes me a rabid HD DVD fanboi.

Well, things will calm down when 90% of them return to school next week

OK, I am putting you on notice that some news has come my way. Some information that is simply mind blowing.

This will make most of you so angry you will likely suffer a massive stroke.

I am asking some additional questions about what I have learned and once i have those answers, I will post back here. I just ask that when I do break this news everyone try to remain calm and not start making profanity laced phone calls. OK?

Se you in a bit.

I will say one thing about the 'other site', it keeps all of them over there instead of here.

Remember to verify all information with as many sources as possible to avoid embarrassment later on. Trust me, you don't want to learn that lesson the hard way.

Can it get worse?

Perhaps Russel Crowe was completely edited out in favor of Kathy Bates in some of the fight scenes..

Paramount is recalling all existing copies so they can re-issue it next month with more Academy Award winning visual effects removed?

Yes - AVS banned a lot of those members during the format war.

Matt,

This should be interesting.
From your post the "news" doesn't sound promising.
Make sure you have backup on your info brother!