A scanner darkly review any one ?

[mrb713]

Has any one seen a scanner darkly on blu-ray yet? If so ,please let me know what you think of the film and if you think it's worth owning or just a good rental.

[Scorxpion]

It is already posted on hometheaterspot.com

click on forums then BD reviews you will find it.

Already Got 5 over 5 on Hometheaterspot.com PQ is Great

[Banjo]

The PQ got a 5 out of 5 stars at HighDefDigest.com

[mrb713]

Thanks guys .

[Blu Tiger]

I watched it last night with some friends. We all liked it, but agreed it was a little confusing. Picture quaility was top notch though; talk about a clean picture. The very first scene with the aphids was my favorite. From what I've read online, it would probably be better to read the book first, or at least read about what it was about. I watched this again after reading what the book was about and it made a lot more sense after I knew what was going on.

[Shin-Ra]

Shame there's no lossless audio on this release, does anyone know how much of a HD-DVD it fills? Perhaps to get the PQ spot on they had to drop better AQ and didn't dare give Blu-ray better audio exclusively for fear of the backlash?

If Warner are willing to release early on HD-DVD because PiP is oh-so-important, they should be maxing out what Blu-ray's capable of right now.

[Stuie]

Enjoyed the film also, very confusing nonetheless.

[BLu-Balls]

It was filmed originally in Hi-def then went to editing for 2 years for the visual effects. So, I expect nothing less than flawless when it comes to the PQ.

[sardaukar1977]

I really need to watch that movie, I will probably pick it up this weekend.

[Blu Tiger]

Want some advice? Try to read what the book was about online first, or just read the book first. Try to get a sense for what it is about beforehand so you won't be totally confused during the movie. Usually, I like watching movies without knowing what they are about, but this movie was different. At least read the back of the case. It helps to know the name of Keanu Reeves character (Bob Arctor) too, because they talk about him a lot.

[HDJK]

I just ordered a copy. There is so many different opinions to this movie I'll just give it a try. Will report back with yet another opinion

[Shin-Ra]

If people are genuinely fond of this movie, it could do with some more Blu-ray reviews at Amazon.

Also, can anyone confirm that this is region-free? It's not on http://bluray.lindsite.dk/ and I can't remember if it's WB titles that are all region free.

[HDJK]

Originally Posted by Shin-Ra

If people are genuinely fond of this movie, it could do with some more Blu-ray reviews at Amazon.

Also, can anyone confirm that this is region-free? It's not on http://bluray.lindsite.dk/ and I can't remember if it's WB titles that are all region free.

Yes, all Warner titles are region free. Actually it's the first sentence on http://bluray.lindsite.dk

'All reported BD titles from Warner and Paramount are reported as "No Region" discs hence should playable in all players!'

[Shin-Ra]

Ahh, cheers. You can never be too careful though as sometimes those intros are often forgotten about and not updated when no longer true.

Just made an order, it's surprisingly cheap. £13.50 with standard international shipping, plus £1 charge for paying in $ from my bank. Most UK BD's cost more with free shipping.

[Best of Both Worlds]

My copy of "A Scanner Darkly" arrived in the week and I have to say it looks very impressive indeed. Pictures are about as good as it gets - really crisp, clear and colourful. Looking forward to watching the movie. From the bit I saw (the opening scene), it looks like my type of thing!

It's certainly on of the best looking BDs I've seen so far.

[Shin-Ra]

I've watched this all the way through and I'm very disappointed with the job Warner did compressing it down to 30GB. I noticed a lot of unintentional banding and macroblocking - surprisingly LARGE blocks and not just in the occasional scene but throughout.

The movie (VC-1) hovers between 7 and 15Mbps for the most part. Also remember that this movie has only English 5.1 Dolby Digital audio @ 640kbps and the few extras it has are all 480p with very heavy compression, much worse than DVD quality. I believe A Scanner Darkly needed the full 50GB Blu-ray capacity to be done full justice but Warner crippled it with HD-DVD's limit.

Just a few examples:

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Title 1 - Chapter 2 - 00:04:57

The green background in this whole podium scene is a mess but in the closeups I was appalled by the clear artifacting.

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Title 1 - Chapter 2 - 00:05:30

Same scene, possibly the worst part of all.

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Title 1 - Chapter 19 - 01:15:50

Keanu lying back on couch. Lots of macroblocking in reds but totally unmissable as it dances, flickering above the focal point of Keanu's head. I found it quite amusing that he looked right up at it.

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Title 1 - Chapter 20 - 01:16:54

Keanu talking about the two hemisphere's of his brain. Now I assume the posterization of the green background here is intentional but there's so much macroblocking that the slices of green aren't clearly defined so it looks unintentional.

-----
Top Menu - still image

Is there an A Scanner Darkly website? It looks like the author of this top menu image took it from a website, passed it through compression a few more times then stuck it on the disk.

When I think that all these faults must be even clearer on some peoples huge 1080p displays, I'm all the more baffled.

[jbuttler007]

Damn I'm behind 12 movies, I still have to watch all the others before I get to that one.

[HDViewer]

I had high hopes for this flick if for nothing less but pure eye candy.

This is unacceptable, especially when you consider the quality that Warner is known for.

HD-DVD must end.

[Shin-Ra]

Does anyone on this forum have a PC Blu-ray or HD-DVD drive to capture some PNG still shots?

I'm surprised the hawk-eyed reviewers didn't make any mention of the faults I highlighted.

[Scorxpion]

The real answer to your question why warner Bros should use a high bit rate VC-1 codec is the real example of the lately BD release by Buena Vista ,a movie called DEJA VU which exceeded and surpasses VC-1 lower bit rate so far done only for HD-DVD.