Gladiator Blu-ray Discussion Thread

[RYJAPE21]

Just received it in the mail today and I'll check it out soon.

[persuazion]

Originally Posted by bfellow

They didn't "love" it. Braveheart got an up arrow and this didn't.

This isnt a good review???

The image appears to surpass even the 1080i HD TV (1.78.1 open matted) - which skin tones look quite a bit redder. Paramount's MPEG4 AVC transfer seems to have improved in every single facet of the visuals although it's not without it's digital manipulations with some minor edge-enhancement and some DNR. The image is certainly brighter - perhaps more than it may have been intended to be. It's tighter all around and is pretty impressive looking and I hope the captures below support this because this is one of the most anticipated Blu-rays I've seen this year - although some will snub the manipulation. Strangely the 'extended scenes' seem to have had no digital tinkering. People who project to a very large screen will find the filtering more visible. The image is frequently dimensional. There is also a marginal amount more information shown in the side edges (compared to the DVD versions). ...........

Im confused... How is this a bad review? I guess the "some will snub the manipulation" was a huge understatement.

[thebluemax]

Originally Posted by thebluemax

It looked very good on my Kuro too, maybe not the best I have ever seen, but excellent. Why all the complaints

I retract the above, on second viewing I caught the flaws, especially the horrible EE. OK transfer, but needs a brand new remaster.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Hey, I’ve heard of “Whiggles” ………as somebody today just linked me to a recent post of his……….
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=1536

I guess he wasn’t present at the demo (scroll down) showing the side-by-side comparison of an archival quality D5 master (and state of the art for 2006) with the Blu-ray of Black Hawk Down.
http://www.avforums.com/forums/blu-r...on-eklund.html

Ridley loved the high-def home edition though.

My God, I didn't know that the *scientists* read this thread.....much less this forum.

Seems as though about 18 min. after I made the above post, "Whiggles" edited his "evaluation" of Black Hawk Down !

Or, maybe "Whiggles" is stalking my posts.

[Disco]

This is one of the movies I have been waiting for a long time.

Watched it on HD TV, and it was awsome.

Will probably go down to Hastings and over pay.
I have waited far too long already for this release.

[thebluemax]

Originally Posted by DetroitSportsFan

That's impossible.

Hey, Detroit where abouts do you live? I'm in Troy

[ClaytonMG]

So is it possible the DVD received one of the "cooked" tracks? I believe it was Austin Powers that I recently discovered had the surround channels turned up on for the DVD release... Maybe this one also had the mix messed with and now we're hearing the untoched one.

[STARSCREAM]

Originally Posted by Hi-Def Steve

16 minutes, I expected better. LOL

LOL, I know, I was waiting for somebody to say it.

[VenomBrock]

Of the 150+ BD's that I have viewed, I would say Gladiator and Dark City are the only two discs to date where the DNR and other PQ issues bothered me to the point where I wasn't able to fully enjoy the movie.

I am surprised by so many people jumping to the defense of this disc...really makes me scratch my head.

[Ray_Rogers]

You know I don't think it's the transfer, I think it's primarily due to the encoding. If Universal just used the PQ from the Extended Edition and used that to make the Theatrical, then it'd be far superior compared to what we received.
I bought the damn thing anyway and just gonna watch the Special Features disc in the meantime although I own both Signature Selection 2-Disc and Extended Edition 3-Disc DVD releases. Just waiting for a disc replacement program.

[jsub]

Originally Posted by VenomBrock

Of the 150+ BD's that I have viewed, I would say Gladiator and Dark City are the only two discs to date where the DNR and other PQ issues bothered me to the point where I wasn't able to fully enjoy the movie.

I am surprised by so many people jumping to the defense of this disc...really makes me scratch my head.

I never knew people had a problem with Dark City until I read it in this thread. That movie looked GREAT to me.

[Grubert]

Originally Posted by jsub

I never knew people had a problem with Dark City until I read it in this thread. That movie looked GREAT to me.

To me it looked atrocious.

'Dark City - the Video game!'

[Petri Teittinen]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I'm sorry, but this statement is so ridiculous it is beyond the bounds of stupidity and lack of knowledge on the subject. In fact, I think it may be the most ignorant thing I have read on this forum all year.

The information came from an article or an interview with New Line I read many years ago. I might have remembered some of the details incorrectly, certainly. Instead of spewing obnoxious insults, could you please correct my misinformation in a polite and professional manner one would expect from an industry insider?

[Razputin]

I brought it before the reviews, and probably would have brought it regardless because I really love this film too much. But what really amuses me is the Amazon reviews claiming to "not buy this BD" to convince the studios to re-release it with a proper transfer.

Has this ever actually happened with a BD or DVD release?

[Beta Man]

Please refrain from tossing around insults..... NOBODY should be attacking the poster.... attack the post if necessary.

ALSO, keep this on-topic in regards to Gladiator.


And Finally.... Please don't attack AVS, or pull quotes from there with the intention of attacking them here.... If you want to counterpoint...... AVS is the place to do it, not Blu-ray.com

[Jimbo976]

Maybe, just maybe my copy will show up today but I somehow doubt it.

[cpgator]

Watched Gladiator last night, and while it certainly could have looked better, it was much better than I thought it would be. I netflixed it, but after viewing, I will be purchasing it once the price comes down.

This was an a 120" screen with a 1080p projector.

[aramis109]

Originally Posted by jsub

I never knew people had a problem with Dark City until I read it in this thread. That movie looked GREAT to me.

Are you kidding me? I love the movie, I own the disc, but to say you can't see it? They DNR'd the hell out of it. If you can't see that I really wonder about how far away you're sitting and your calibration. Last watched it on my 42" from 9 feet away and could see it.

Gladiator is the same way. I love it, I own it, but I wish the DNR and EE wasn't so atrocious. Honestly, DNR is applied to nearly every title, just not to this degree.

Originally Posted by Razputin

I brought it before the reviews, and probably would have brought it regardless because I really love this film too much. But what really amuses me is the Amazon reviews claiming to "not buy this BD" to convince the studios to re-release it with a proper transfer.

Has this ever actually happened with a BD or DVD release?

A remaster, or fix? Sure, it's happened 3x now with BD's that I can think of. The Fifth Element, Matrix Revolutions, and Pirates of the Caribbean: COTBP. Fifth Element was a true remaster. Though it occurred during the format wars so to just expect it to occur again is a bit of a stretch.

[Sussudio]

Just in case anyone's interested, DVDTown has their review up as well.

They make a lot of the same points Martin made (as I'm sure many websites will)

[tvine2000]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I think my all time fave is when comparing the 2 encodes of Flags of Our Fathers, the *scientists* found a single compression artifact via screenshot *analysis* in one frame and the mob went wild…..ready to lynch the compressionist that did the work.

And when you watched the scene in real-time, there was no way you could spot that compression artifact as that area could hardly be considered to be a point of interest in following the action of the movie.

Well maybe you could help us try to get some answers to why gladiator is riddled with dnr EE that anybody can clearly see.And why paramount is saying or doing noting just like they did with startrek 6 movie set.

What i'm hearing here and other forums is at best this title is an upgrade from dvd and thats ok.To me sir this is not ok.This is not about upgrades but about how much ahead is blu-ray vs dvd.Maybe i'm way off on this but we have seen great looking blu-rays,this high profile title doesn't help this format in the least.