Older Blu-rays - worth going for?

[EinCB128]

I'm interested in some old Blu-rays, some of them being released around the time Blu-ray itself started to kick off. My dilemma is that the earlier films I'm interesting in supposedly don't have great picture and/or audio. Would you go for the Blu-ray even if there's a minuscule different between that and the DVD? Or just stick with the DVD? Thanks in advance!

[meremortal]

Not sure when you got in the game, but there was a rather drama-filled format war going on the at the time between the hd dvd and blu ray groups during those early years. So studios were being babies and picking sides like a middle school game of dodgeball. Warner and Paramount releases were generally 'neutral' (if a bit biased towards hd dvd) and they released to both for a while with about 25gb of space in mind and usually without lossless audio. Sony, Lionsgate, Disney, and MGM put out a bunch of MPEG-2 blus during that time as well. So there were definitely a lot of rushed releases back then and it shows - plenty of old scans, outdated codecs, barebones releases, and movies without lossless audio. But there are some gems that have held up as well; it wouldn't hurt to check for a review first or browse through a thread for the release on the boards. And caps-a-holic may have comparisons between the blu and dvd as well. But with those earlier releases often being dirt cheap now, you can probably just pick them up for a few bucks and call it a day if there's not a better edition available.

[animefan77]

It does depend. If its a popular film that is a classic, has a cult following, or sequel coming up, it might have chance to get new remaster on some anniversary edition. But if its some obscure title, it may never get one.

But almost all Blu-Ray releases will be noticeably better than DVD, so go for it.(unless the review says it really messed up, but again that is incredibly rare when going against DVD).

Plus old Blu-Ray will probably be cheap these days and it does have extra scratch resistance than DVD.

[ol_Dut]

Yes. In almost all instances the blu will be better than the dvd. I cannot think of one blu I have watched where after I said, "Man, I wish I had watched that on dvd instead."

[UltraMario9]

Apocalypto still looks incredible