[oleus]

watched the 3d disc last night. it's really a subpar conversion, nowhere near the Avengers conversion or even earlier ones like Captain America. And it's much darker than it should be, more black crush than i've ever seen in a 3d title.


i know a lot of people liked this better than the first Thor, but i found it to be a huge letdown. a very strange followup to the Avengers.

 

[SFMike]

I was actually pleased with this conversion and thought it was on par with "Captain America." Yes there were a lot of dark scenes but the title says it all. In the end battle I thought they used the 3D quite well and that it added to the fun.

 

[oleus]



Quote:
Originally Posted by SFMike  /t/1520452/thor-the-dark-world-3d-impressions#post_24439367


I was actually pleased with this conversion and thought it was on par with "Captain America." Yes there were a lot of dark scenes but the title says it all. In the end battle I thought they used the 3D quite well and that it added to the fun.

well there's dark, and then there's what I saw which was just plain murky and crushed. someone posted that all of the Thor bluray product disappeared from some Wal Marts, I wonder if there was a problem with some of the discs? What I saw didn't come close to Captain America's conversion, and the only other 3d bluray i've seen that approached this level of murkiness was parts of Fright Night 3d.

 

[RonAlam]

was the end scene in the Asgardian throne room all green screened? Looked really cheap and early 90's.

 

[Don Landis]

oleus-


I watched Thor last night off of Sony PS3 digital download. It is $7.50 Considering that I had planned to rent it from 3BR for $7.99 it seemed like a better deal through Sony, as it is lower cost ( not that that was a deal changer) but my experience with the rentals from 3BR has taken weeks lately due to their popularity.


I have to agree with your review on the image quality. It may be that my Projector system is not tolerable for these darker, murkey, and crushed images but many are indeed much better to watch. The conversion to 3D, I don't feel is at fault here but just the way the entire movie was produced. Even in 2D this movie suffers from a good range of contrast, so in 3D with the glasses exacerbating the issue, Thor was a bust and disappointment although the z depth in the film was not bad it's too did not take advantage of opportunity to present in a full range of depth like Frozen 3D or many others.


The story was what held my interest and better than the first Thor. I give credit to Natalie Portman for that because I always enjoy her in every film. I'll watch it again this evening before my 24 hr rental runs out, but only because of Portman's performance I enjoy.

 

[blastermaster]

I thought there were definitely some nice scenes in 3D. Specifically, the brighter scenes which, unfortunately, didn't happen very often. This was definitely on the lower end of 3D conversion relative to my collection. I found Captain America to be way better, but I felt like that movie had so much separation that it actually bothered my eyes every once in a while. As far as the movie itself is concerned, Thor: The Dark World was a very enjoyable movie to watch and I'm glad it's part of my collection.

 

[Toe]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Landis  /t/1520452/thor-the-dark-world-3d-impressions#post_24446579


oleus-


I watched Thor last night off of Sony PS3 digital download. It is $7.50 Considering that I had planned to rent it from 3BR for $7.99 it seemed like a better deal through Sony, as it is lower cost ( not that that was a deal changer) but my experience with the rentals from 3BR has taken weeks lately due to their popularity.

That is too bad Don. I get rentals from 3BR in about 3 business days and I average $3.30/rental on the one out at a time plan. I cant stand streaming since you don't get full blu ray quality for audio or video. What kind of A/V quality do you get with PS3 digital download?

 

[Josh Z]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Landis  /t/1520452/thor-the-dark-world-3d-impressions#post_24446579


I watched Thor last night off of Sony PS3 digital download. It is $7.50 Considering that I had planned to rent it from 3BR for $7.99 it seemed like a better deal through Sony, as it is lower cost ( not that that was a deal changer) but my experience with the rentals from 3BR has taken weeks lately due to their popularity.

What resolution are the Sony 3D downloads? I assume it's top/bottom 3D at either 720p or 1080p, or possibly side-by-side at 1080i?

 

[Don Landis]

Sony digital download on PS3 is 720P x 1280 frame packed, same as Netflix 3D. I checked it last night. VUDU is claimed to be mastered at SBS full but then converted to 720p FP by fulfillment center. Last I looked I believe it was 720p frame packed on my screen as well.


Top Bottom is very rare here. YT is mostly SBS half.


The biggest quality detractor is not the difference between 720p and 1080p it is the movie itself. Good image quality movies like Frozen 3D on Vudu was like watching a Good BluRay 3D although there are what I call superb Blu Ray 3D too. Like Hubble documentary was very high image quality in low noise and detail in the image. There are many. With Thor, I probably would see some improvement with the disk but it still gets a thumbs down on overall lack of contrast and image clarity, Ive seen this before on other 3DBD. It's the movie and how it was produced.

eg. I have the Grand Canyon 3D and The Croods 3D on Disk. Both are on Netflix 3D. They look nearly identical in PQ to my eyes. yet the resolution is 720p60 on digital download and 1080 24p on disk. Looking very carefully at the image I can see more detail in the 1080p, but not enough to get crazy over.



I addressed the problem of slower and slower delivery of the rental disks with 3BR and he promised to correct it, and if I send him an email, from now on when I preorder the disk will be mailed out on opening day. I have been waiting 3 weeks on some preorders. Transit time has been consistent at 4 days so post office is not the problem. Glad you are having excellent delivery. Has not been my experience in the past 6 months. before that, no complaints.

 

[Toe]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Landis  /t/1520452/thor-the-dark-world-3d-impressions#post_24447936


Sony digital download on PS3 is 720P x 1280 frame packed, same as Netflix 3D. I checked it last night. VUDU is claimed to be mastered at SBS full but then converted to 720p FP by fulfillment center. Last I looked I believe it was 720p frame packed on my screen as well.


Top Bottom is very rare here. YT is mostly SBS half.


The biggest quality detractor is not the difference between 720p and 1080p it is the movie itself. Good image quality movies like Frozen 3D on Vudu was like watching a Good BluRay 3D although there are what I call superb Blu Ray 3D too. Like Hubble documentary was very high image quality in low noise and detail in the image. There are many. With Thor, I probably would see some improvement with the disk but it still gets a thumbs down on overall lack of contrast and image clarity, Ive seen this before on other 3DBD. It's the movie and how it was produced.

eg. I have the Grand Canyon 3D and The Croods 3D on Disk. Both are on Netflix 3D. They look nearly identical in PQ to my eyes. yet the resolution is 720p60 on digital download and 1080 24p on disk. Looking very carefully at the image I can see more detail in the 1080p, but not enough to get crazy over.



I addressed the problem of slower and slower delivery of the rental disks with 3BR and he promised to correct it, and if I send him an email, from now on when I preorder the disk will be mailed out on opening day. I have been waiting 3 weeks on some preorders. Transit time has been consistent at 4 days so post office is not the problem. Glad you are having excellent delivery. Has not been my experience in the past 6 months. before that, no complaints.

What size is your screen out of curiosity and seating distance? I thought the few Netflix 3d titles I streamed looked good, but not blu ray good on my 9' wide screen. To be fair though, I did not do an A/B with the same film between the stream and an actual blu ray. The lack of lossless audio is no good either.

 

[Don Landis]

I decided to watch Thor again in 2D at 1080 60p before my rental time runs out.


I hate to say this but this movie was so dark that in 3D too much was lost in the shadows. Because of this I had trouble following the story. In 2D there was still lots of dark images but this time some key moments in the story showed up. For those who have seen this you will understand but in 3D I completely missed the part where Jane was infected with the aether. In 2D that was visible in the dark shadows. In 3D the black aether was lost against the black stone. Something like this is really important to the story. There were other key points too that were lost in the 3D version that were just barely visible but good enough in 2D. Additionally, the 2D 1080 60p did offer some added detail but I also adjusted my projector to a higher brightness level to bring that out.


Toe- My screen size is 105" diag and I moved to front seating for the 2D which is 8Ft from the screen. I watched the 3D from 16 ft seating to get all the depth range I could.


Audio was quite powerful in both 2D and 3D. It was streamed at 370Kbps. 5.1 Plenty of surround content, no complaints. But note that I'm not listening with 25 year old ears.

I have 4KW on the subs which are 2 15" JBL's and 2- 10" Infinity. 1KW on each speaker using Carver SW amps.

 

[Toe]

Thanks Don. I canceled my Netflix streaming as I don't want to compromise the A/V, both of which are obviously compressed (and lower res 720p video from what you are saying) vs an actual blu ray. I do have NF until the 18th though and will try and check out a few more titles before it's gone and do a few A/B comparisons with the actual blu on my 9' wide screen.

 

[Don Landis]

Toe- we value a service quite differently. I look at content, more so than pixel count. Currently, Netflix offers me the most selection in content of all the services, including Dish Network basic AT250. But for the monthly cost it is the lowest of them all. Cancelling Netflix becauase it takes second place to BluRay disk doesn't make sense, considering Netflix costs 1/4 for a whole month what one Blu Ray disk costs. I pay $8.64 per month for Netflix. $7.99 for Hulu+ and $130 for Dish Network. Hulu is loaded with commercials, very annoying. Quality is the softest of them all.


As for Vudu- I can watch on two devices and they are different-

PS3 does 720p60 Frame packed.

WDTV does the same movie in 1080p60 Side by side


I can't tell the difference in the presentation comparing how it looks and sounds.



Based on the WDTV Vudu experience, it would be great to have Netflix do WDTV device for 3D. Currently it just does those SHD or 1080 x1920 that do look as good as BR Disk 2D.


One thing I am pretty sure of, that regardless of the inbound, the PS3 output will not do more than 720p60 for 3D from a digital IP inbound. 1080p24 for the disk but one title costs avg 4 times what all of Netflix costs.


One thing is most definite- we are getting more and more options all the time for 3D. And, many are quite affordable, IMO.

 

[Toe]

It makes sense for me to go to 3BR rentals which averages out to $3.30/rental with full quality on the one at a time plan. Quality takes priority over quantity for me (I respect that you feel the opposite) and my personal feeling is that I have too much time, money and effort into my system to feed it cheap gas, but that's just me. Not to mention 3BR rentals has a much larger selection vs Netflix. I personally hate knowing I am getting watered down A/V on my system, but if that does not bother you, then I agree Netflix is a good way to go for what selection they have. How many 3d titles do they have now? Last I checked it was not even 60. I know you don't get good shipping speeds with 3BR, but I get discs in about 3 business days on average which is fast enough considering the rental cap (which I don't like, but what can you do........there is nowhere else locally I can rent 3d blu ray discs and of course RB and NF don't have them).


Is Vudu only 720p as well for 3d?



Glad we both found a service that works for us though which is all that matters. I really hope RB and Netflix start carrying actual 3d blu rays at some point which for me would be the best option.



As far as THOR 2 goes, I am torn which way to watch this. All the comments about how dark the film is at times has me leaning toward 2d........

 

[cinema13]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Toe  /t/1520452/thor-the-dark-world-3d-impressions#post_24451560


It makes sense for me to go to 3BR rentals which averages out to $3.30/rental with full quality on the one at a time plan. Quality takes priority over quantity for me (I respect that you feel the opposite) and my personal feeling is that I have too much time, money and effort into my system to feed it cheap gas, but that's just me. Not to mention 3BR rentals has a much larger selection vs Netflix. Iquote]

Agree about 3DBR. They have the best selection...just about everything. I didn't even know that there were 3D discs of indies like PETE SMALLS IS DEAD, Japanese 3D flicks, and even things like MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS, LITTLE RASCALS, etc. (even though they are conversions). The service is a gold mine for 3D viewers.

 

[Don Landis]

Toe- We all have fixed time to enjoy and I respect that you want to KNOW your time was spent with the top quality. Me too, but I also need variety, not necessarily quantity. Netflix gives me that variety, immediately. I also use Redbox now to replace Blockbuster B&M store. It's great!


Yes, Vudu 3D on PS3 is 720P but on my WDTV Vudu 3D is 1080p Likely why my Frozen 3D looked so good.


On Thor2, I would recommend watching it in 2D first so you can get on board with the story. It is difficult to understand coming in blind and then to lose some key visuals necessary to understand things if you have trouble seeing black stuff over a black background in your system. I never tried it on a passive monitor with much higher contrast ration but on my projector the 2D on this title was necessary. Even my wife couldn't follow what was happening and how the different chapters tied together with the 3D. Bottom line- watch it twice, first in 2D and last in 3D. I think you will enjoy the 3D much more.

 

[Don Landis]

Re 3BR- Been a fan for a long time. With exception of the past month's releases, I have rented every one of theirs. I don't have the subscription so my per copy price is higher. I think I average about $6.50. Sometimes I've ordered 4-5 at a time.

 

[Toe]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Landis  /t/1520452/thor-the-dark-world-3d-impressions#post_24452974


Toe- We all have fixed time to enjoy and I respect that you want to KNOW your time was spent with the top quality. Me too, but I also need variety, not necessarily quantity. Netflix gives me that variety, immediately. I also use Redbox now to replace Blockbuster B&M store. It's great!


Yes, Vudu 3D on PS3 is 720P but on my WDTV Vudu 3D is 1080p Likely why my Frozen 3D looked so good.


On Thor2, I would recommend watching it in 2D first so you can get on board with the story. It is difficult to understand coming in blind and then to lose some key visuals necessary to understand things if you have trouble seeing black stuff over a black background in your system. I never tried it on a passive monitor with much higher contrast ration but on my projector the 2D on this title was necessary. Even my wife couldn't follow what was happening and how the different chapters tied together with the 3D. Bottom line- watch it twice, first in 2D and last in 3D. I think you will enjoy the 3D much more.

I hear ya Don and agree. I also really love Redbox! I am sure you can relate, but at this point, I have at least 10 RB kiosks very close to my home and can usually run down a new release in my area quick after checking for it online. It's great how you can rent from one and return to another if it's more convenient. Love the reserve feature as well.

It's a great service for sure.


Thanks for the Thor 2 tips. I will definitely watch first in 2d and then 3d after that if I want another viewing. I enjoyed the first one, so looking forward to part 2.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Landis  /t/1520452/thor-the-dark-world-3d-impressions#post_24452994


Re 3BR- Been a fan for a long time. With exception of the past month's releases, I have rented every one of theirs. I don't have the subscription so my per copy price is higher. I think I average about $6.50. Sometimes I've ordered 4-5 at a time.

I am really loving it so far! I love how you can get 2 at a time on the 1 out at a time plan by checking out with something not in stock then having something shipped to you that is in stock while waiting for the out of stock blu which they send you once it's in no matter if you have one out or not.

I actually got two in the mail today doing that........Oz and Yogi Bear.

 

[Toe]



Quote:
Originally Posted by cinema13  /t/1520452/thor-the-dark-world-3d-impressions#post_24451967


Agree about 3DBR. They have the best selection...just about everything. I didn't even know that there were 3D discs of indies like PETE SMALLS IS DEAD, Japanese 3D flicks, and even things like MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS, LITTLE RASCALS, etc. (even though they are conversions). The service is a gold mine for 3D viewers.

I did not know that!

I will have to track those down! Where exactly do you find those?


Thanks!

 

[Don Landis]

Another thing 3BR will do for you. If you find a 3D movie release on disk that they do not have, let them know and they will order it in for you and you get to rent it for regular price before they list it for others. I did that last summer with one title which saved me money to watch it as opposed to a purchased disk.