Disappointed in Blu-ray

[Greggy P. Wild]

I'd been looking forward to getting a Blu-ray player and building up a nice collection of hi-def movies for ages, so I picked up the Sony S350 and a couple of movies last week (Terminator 2 and Total Recall... 2/$20). And before you ask, I was always rooting for Blu-ray in the hi-def format wars.

The good news: A) The cases are great and look good on my bookshelf. B) I can kinda tell Terminator 2 is hi-def if I sit with my eyes 4 inches from the screen and squint. C) The S350 upconverts quite well (although the picture is a bit "warm" for my taste).

The bad news: A) Total Recall looks no better, and possibly WORSE than a regular DVD. B) Neither movie looked noticeably better than DVD versions. C) Several regular DVD's I own look MUCH better than either of these "hi-def" Blu-ray's. D) The HD-DVD's I used to own (King Kong and Goodfellas) actually looked hi-def (much better than both of these Blu-ray's).

So what's the deal? Is it common for Blu-ray's to look like garbage? And no, I'm not blind and my setup is fine (HD-DVD looked great).