Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince - Page 14

Yes its the download that has a limited time = BR + DVD + DC is on limited time.

Another crappy looking Potter movie. Whether it is copyright protection, penny pinching, artistic license, special effects, lack of skill or a desire to resell a better version of the movie a few years down the road I don't care.
I will never buy a blu-ray movie that looks almost as soft as a dvd. I spent as much time trying to adjust different blu-ray transports and the tv to improve the picture as I did watching the picture. The most irritating thing was the special features showed scenes from the movie that looked better than the movie. Glad I rented.

I don't know if it's my TV or what, but this movie looks far from crappy to my eyes. I totally agree with most reviews, which give it 4/5 - 4.5/5 on video quality. Yes it's dark, but I don't find it soft at all. Some of the darkest scenes in fact look the best.

Agreed. But I'm not sure what that has to do with THBP Blu-Ray.

There were soft-focus scenes (as there are in many films) but just as many were razor-sharp.

If you thought it looked "crappy", get a better display.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1201418

Look at that thread and tell me again it looks like the DVD.

The scenes in the special features are the film before it was color graded.

I'm also guessing you didn't see this theatrically. Otherwise you'd know the BD was faithful to the director's intended look.

The difference might be huge but the look of the movie won't suit majority of the eye-candy folks. Who knows how much of information has been filtered by Warner.

The look of HP movies has been steadily degrading to the point where there is only a small difference between DVD and Blu-ray. The first 2 movies were barely an upgrade from DVD.

IMO, Prisoner of Azkaban is the best looking in the series.

I don't know how some of you guys can say the Blu-Ray version is only a small difference vs the DVD for Half Blood Prince. Screencaps from Xylon show the drastic difference, and I popped the DVD version in a few weeks back and it is a very noticeable difference between the BD and the DVD.

And if you read the books you would understand that as Voldemort gained more power throughout the series things became much more dark and gloomy. This is by design and clearly the director of the movie was trying to capture this in the film. I don't think you can blame Warner "filtering" this movie, but I know some of you guys think everything has been DNR'd that touches Blu-Ray.

I have not seen the dvd, but I watched part of this last night with the grand kids. Display device was a HTPC-driven RS1 that projected onto a 120" Dalite High Power screen. Viewing distance was about 8 feet.

This is one of the sharpest 2.35:1 bds I've seen. Certainly much sharper than any of the previous Potters. This is the way bds should be.

Agreed and filtering was no issue on this title. I think most of the problem is some people are viewing on relatively small, uncalibrated, low contrast displays from too far of a seating distance in a brighter environment. I could see such conditions destroying the PQ of this movie.

I don't know if I'd describe HBP as "sharp" overall.
Overall, I'd describe it as leaning to the soft side.
In my admittedly "soft" memory, I thought OOTP was sharper, overall.
Not a criticism, just an observation.

Screened this at long last tonight. I agree with The Bland and others who have commented on the latitude (dynamic range) demands of this film on the transfer and display. For the first few minutes I was taken aback by the dark timing of the movie. It was so on-the-edge-where-there's-no-margin-for-error dark that I just knew that it was going to fall apart into noise or murkiness or lack of contrast as it fell into the floor of the projector' black level limit. But it did not. I would think this movie would drive a dynamic iris pj crazy, or just look inferior. This movie screams for the JVC's native CR. Of course, a killer like the Lumis would do it justice, too.

So, I was quite amazed at how beautifully vibrant the image could be while remaining so uncommonly dark overall. I dare say that some home theaters will surpass most film presentations of this movie because film does not like to be printed this low. There is just not enough latitude in the print stock at the printer lights and SMPTE lamp house outputs specs used to not look rather murkey on a good portion of this movie.

As for many other posters here who have complained endlessly about PQ, I recommend they go join the DGA and make their own movies the way they want. Like so many other movies these days, this is manipulated to the extreme for creative reasons in post-production of the DI. If so desired, a shot may have crushed blacks, clipped whites, any bizarre color imaginable, or defocused. This can even be done in only part of the frame. It's all part of the creative process of filmmaking these days. It is not done in the transfer stage. The challenge in the transfer stage is not not screw the pooch and deliver something that is not faithful to the original.

Projected in a nominal home theater environment (reasonably well light-controlled) with the right calibrated gear, a cinema-scale HVA of 40 to 45 degrees, this is a terrific looking BD; faithful to the original master by all but a fraction of a percent. In my professional and personal opinion, I think it is done quite beautifully. I would be darned proud of this BD if I were the DP, colorist, or director.

Indeed. As one of the first to comment on how beautiful I think this film and its Blu-ray transfer looks, I'll point out that I am in fact watching on a fully calibrated Pioneer Elite PRO-FPJ1, which is a clone of the JVC RS-2, on a 106" color corrected white screen. The projector's gamma was recently tweaked within an inch of its life (2 1/2 hour calibration session just working on gamma). Obviously not everyone can evaluate Blu-ray discs under these conditions, but it is useful to point up the fact that most of the time when some people comment how good something looks while a like number of people think the same thing looks bad, the culprit is usually the hardware.

Due to the desires of friends and family, I wound up seeing Half Blood Prince twice in its theatrical run, both times in 2K D-Cinema. Even the big Christies could not handle the range of some of the more difficult dark shots. There is clearly more shadow detail in some of these shots on the JVC at home than the theatrical DLP projectors could muster. The DLP show had a bit more "punchiness" in the upper IREs, but the D-ILA is better "in the dark".

Unfortunately, the consumer grade LCD TVs so many people are now watching, almost none of which are even calibrated (not that it would make that much difference), simply can't do justice to this type of material. LCD just isn't a great technology in its present form as a high-end video display.

That is an interesting and accurate observation. One of the tasks I have to accomplish specifically when calibrating LCD displays (at least Sammys) is to manipulate the lower gamma. The darker grays just are not dark enough before reaching black. It suddenly lands on black rather than gradually changing to black. You can easily see it by eye on a 5% step gray scale, and you can see it in calibration software on a gamma curve graph. After measuring from black to white, the measured curve conforms to the target curve very closely from reference white to about 30 IRE, then starts to swing out away from the target curve because those lower grays are too light in color. That really makes the image lose a lot of punch in the low end. Fortunately, it can be calibrated so that it will conform to the target curve...and looks a ton better.

I'm sure your RS2 clone does a great job with this movie. I just calibrated Hogpilot's RS35, but didn't yet have this BD. I would love to see it using an RS35. Like you, I really enjoyed it on my RS1 system (CIH).

Robert C,

Don't take my comments in a negative light. I'm not dissing anyone's particular system, but making a general observation on the state of current technology. I design and sell custom AV systems (among other things) so I have a pretty good perspective on how various technologies perform in real-world systems. Personally, I blame the CE industry for pushing LCD technology so strongly into the consumer electronics market despite LCD's obvious shortcomings. Profit before performance. Not my philosophy. People buy what they are offered at their budgets.

That said, in the 42-60" display category, there are competitively priced plasma options that calibrate considerably better than LCD. Instead, the LCD makers and sellers are too busy scaring people with "burn in", shorter life, and other such negative hype about plasma. Remember, these films are still mastered using CRT monitors, and plasma comes much closer to the look of a CRT than LCD ever will.

Don't buy into the plasma cool-aid.

Yes, a good plasma TV will yield a better picture than a good LCD...right now. However, the tech is getting better all the time and will catch up to those levels. Sure, plasma might have improved, too, but it simply has too many shortcomings:

- The fact is, plasma TVs are more prone to burn-in. It's not nearly as bad as it used to be, but with all the bugs, bottom lines and HUD displays on games that spend a great deal of time in one spot these days, it's a dangerous game. It's one thing if you build a dedicate home theater to watch movies, but if you're going to do that, you should be considering FP anyway.

- Plasmas, like CRTs, are power hogs. With new legislation going through on "green" technology, LCD is one of only a few display technologies that can hope to create a big screen with a small electric footprint.

- Ask the average buyer where they have their HDTV. Most will say it's in a living room with plenty of windows letting the sun in. Under those conditions, it doesn't matter what the screen technology is. Without proper light control, you have no hope of properly calibrating the display. You're not going to see inky blacks in a room with a giant picture window. Further, most people never even do any kind of image adjustment after pulling the TV out of the box.

Burn in IMO is a non issue these days if my Panny plasma (bought last March) is any indication. Between me and my GFs 2 daughters there has been plenty of gaming marathons with "static" images such as HUD displays and while you might be able to see it on the screen after you are done, it goes away very quick when you throw on any other material. I was worried about burn in before I bought this set due to over dramatic posts like yours (no offense) but I dont even think about it anymore.

To the topic at hand, I watched HBP with "only" my RS1 in a totally light controlled HT and thought it looked great. I think light control is crucial (as well as a good display like you guys mention) to get the most from this film from a visual perspective.

Question....

Does this BD have a bunch of previews that you can only Fast Forward, ie you can't skip?

I just received my Netflix copy and on the disc, it clearly is labelled "Rental." When I popped the BD in my player, it had like 20+ minutes of previews that you can't skip. You can only Fast Forward. Is the store version like this as well?? I sure hope not...

And then people ask why anyone would want a HTPC vs a standalone...

I popped in the disk and played it. If there were un-skipable previews, I didn't see them.

Could be just the rental copy then. Am not surprised... Thanks.

By the way- the rental copy only has the previews and the movie....that's it. Nothing else. It's different than the one you buy in the store. So, it looks to me like they added in unskippable previews in for the rental copy. I own over 50 BDs and none of them have previews you can't skip.

The only preview I remember on the retail disc was for The Wizard of Oz, and even that was skippable.

exactly.....ok, so I'm not crazy! I knew that wasn't right!

I am trying to watch Harry Potter and the half blood prince. I skipped past the wizard of oz promo and started the movie. I keep getting popups which are showing either commentary or how the movie was made. I did not turn on these popups so I cannot figure out to turn them off. It ruins the movie for me to keep having these, I guess bonus view, popups. I have tried looking through the movie menus but don't see anything for bonus view. I tried turning the Max movie mode to off but that does not seem to have any effect. Please help.
Thanks.

Find the forum for your player model and ask there.

-Bill