New to BR

[irshjet35]

so here is my newbie question. while shopping for a new tv last year my wife and I took a look at blu ray for the first time and were impressed with the way it looked. The movie was Pirates of the Caribbean and picture looked like the actors were really there. Now for xmas she surprised me with a BR player the panasonic dmp bd35 and we went out and got a couple movies expecting the video to be what we had seen, but were disappointed that it wasnt the life like video we had seen before. We were still impressed with the quality of the picture over regular dvd's, but was expecting a different view. We have a samsung 46" believe its either the a540 or 550. Now to the question, could it be what we saw was because of AMP and/or 120mhz tv or is there something I am missing in the setup? The tv is already at 1080p and the player is 1080p/24. HDMI cable. Thanks for any help