Bluray: not seeing a difference?

My BDT-210 came in on Thursday. My first disc was The Dark Knight (which I bought at Bestbuy for $5) and my second disc was Avatar, which I rented from Netflix. Both are on Bluray.

Oddly enough, I did not see the huge jump in detail that I expected, I'm not sure if I'm doing anything wrong. My tv is a 1080p set (TH-42PZ80U), and is connected via HDMI to the 210. I made sure that the connection was outputting 1080p, and I decided to let the player convert the 24p to 60frames (but maybe the TV would do a better job?).

In terms of picture quality, I really didn't see much of a difference. The couch is relatively close to the tv (~8ft, if that), so I don't think that is a problem. I watched the Dark Knight on DVD years ago, but I remember that it looked about the same. This doesn't really make sense, since the resolution is so much higher.

Does anyone know what I might be doing wrong?

Hi. It may very well be that 8' is too far for this TV. As my living room is very small, the very maximum screen size I could have had was ~47", but that would have required some significant alterations to the TV cabinet. The 42" fit perfectly in the cabinet. There is also no space for surround sound, so I can't experience the second benefit of Bluray.

In terms of sitting closer to the TV, would that not cause damage to the eyes? I remember that myopia is the eye's natural protection to unnaturally close reading/activity, since it accommodates to the activity by "pushing it back."

I had nothing to compare the BDs to, I thought that they would blow me away, so to speak, by their quality alone. I must admit that the close up scenes were very detailed (e.g. I was able to see Morgan Freeman's wrinkles very sharply), but during the rest of the movie, I didn't seem to notice that it was different. It seemed a bit better than OTA HD like CBS. One of my better experiences with HD is with sports. Sports in HD looks VERY good.

I did a rough measure from the TV to the back of the seating area, and it was about 2.2meters. Since my tape measure only goes up to 2m, I had to estimate the last 0.2m.

John, I think your advice to A/B the Dark Knight is an excellent idea. Given that it is one of the better BD releases, it is an idea film to test. My local library has a copy of the film on DVD. I'll go borrow it tomorrow, and do an A/B test.

The 210 is outputting 1080p, but not 24p. I could make the player output 24p, but since the tv doesn't support it, it would have to convert back to 60fps.

I thought calibration might be an issue.
I never had my screen calibrated by myself or professionally, and when I bought the TV, I just set it to the settings mentioned here, in the first thread.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1019763

Picture: +70
Brightness: +48
Color: +44
Tint: -3
Sharpness: 0
Color temp: Warm
Color mgmt: Off
x.v.Color: Off
C.A.T.S.: Off

Advanced Picture Settings:
Video N/R: Off
Black level: Light
HD size: Size 1

These may not be ideal, but it seemed fine. Maybe I should borrow one of the calibration discs and get it done myself, although I am not exactly confident about my ability.

The player is left in its default setting, (I believe it is called cinema) although it can be changed. If I calibrate my TV for Cable, for example, will I need to recalibrate for the 210?

Hi John,
My particular model allows me to have different settings for each input, so that would allow me to tweak settings that are right for each source.

I watched the beginning scene, at ~60inches away from the TV. I must say, it was a pretty nice experience. The clarity of the picture definitely held up at that distance, and it was pretty detailed. But I don't know about the stigma with sitting that close. My parents always taught me not to sit so close to the TV, and scientifically speaking, it does make sense as to the consequences (although it has apparently been "debunked"). Then there's the fact that I have to be a role model for others...

Art, it was a Black Friday sale at Best Buy. I had the last copy.
I thought that I should see the differences at ~7ft too, but it didn't seem like much. Can someone do an A/B with different distances and sources, to see if they can notice the difference? I was planning on doing it with a DVD copy of TDK, but my Library didn't have one, so I'll have to do an interlibrary loan.