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[gettodamoofies]

Originally Posted by captain_obvious

Picked up Avatar on blu ray today for free after spending $100 on other items from jb hifi.

I saw that deal as well. I'll be making the trip to JB this weekend. Seeing as though I plan to buy a few things from them anyway it seems like a pretty good deal...

[Ventura]

Originally Posted by Suntory_Times

I would expect that will be a reality by mid next year. I already have the money set aside as I started saving towards it early last year.

You're smarter than me mate, early last year? You really saw this coming

I'm definitely going to have to start putting money aside for that too.

[troyus]

Originally Posted by atexp80

I saw that deal as well. I'll be making the trip to JB this weekend. Seeing as though I plan to buy a few things from them anyway it seems like a pretty good deal...

its on DVD's and CD's. spend $100 on them and get it free. Dosent apply to games, didnt check on BD's.

avatar only $24.95 anyway.

[thetechnique]

Just watched it. movie is alright but the video quality is bloody amazing by far the best blu I have sen so far!

[gettodamoofies]

Originally Posted by troyus

its on DVD's and CD's. spend $100 on them and get it free. Dosent apply to games, didnt check on BD's.

avatar only $24.95 anyway.

Yeah, it applies to BDs. Picked up Walk the Line, District 9 and The Cure - Trilogy all on BD and some CDs also. Managed to get the above 3 BDs plus 3 CDs for $108 and got Avatar for "free". Works out to $15 an item which was very reasonable.

[troyus]

ah, well done.
I just bought a heap from amazon.com and couldnt justify making up $100 at JB just for fillers.

[4styler]

watched Avatar Saturday night, and I must say it is quite a pleasure to watch, but somehow the story didnt posess the spark it had first time around, District 9 is still my fave film and blu-ray of 2009

One thing I would like to know though, with the 2D tranfser, do they simply just choose between one camera or the other's footage, or combine it into one kick ass image for 2D? Cos it looks like the two have been combined into one!

[LordCrumb]

Originally Posted by 4styler

watched Avatar Saturday night, and I must say it is quite a pleasure to watch, but somehow the story didnt posess the spark it had first time around, District 9 is still my fave film and blu-ray of 2009

One thing I would like to know though, with the 2D tranfser, do they simply just choose between one camera or the other's footage, or combine it into one kick ass image for 2D? Cos it looks like the two have been combined into one!

Its both, if you close your left eye you see a completely different angle, likewise with your right eye....

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by Ventura

You're smarter than me mate, early last year? You really saw this coming

I'm definitely going to have to start putting money aside for that too.

Hey.


Monster vs Aliens really made me start thinking and Coraline only confirmed in my mind that 3d would be huge. The only thing I saw stopping it was if avatar was bad (which it wasn't).

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by 4styler

watched Avatar Saturday night, and I must say it is quite a pleasure to watch, but somehow the story didnt posess the spark it had first time around, District 9 is still my fave film and blu-ray of 2009

One thing I would like to know though, with the 2D tranfser, do they simply just choose between one camera or the other's footage, or combine it into one kick ass image for 2D? Cos it looks like the two have been combined into one!

Pandora itself is an important character in the film, and watching it on anything but front projection (or one of those 100 inch screens) will not give the film its due (moreso then other films). I also cannot stress how important it is to calibrate your display.

I have noticed some anomolies though on the blu ray, i'll get the time codes and see it anyone else has noticed them (or it could simply be my display). They are very minor, but there does appear to my eyes to be some aliasing on a small area of plants when jake wakes up with Neytiri after bieng bonded for life. Also the second time Jake takes control of his avatar as he is getting in whatever it is they lie down in there is some on the curve of the machine in the background.

[thetechnique]

Originally Posted by Suntory_Times

Pandora itself is an important character in the film, and watching it on anything but front projection (or one of those 100 inch screens) will not give the film its due (moreso then other films). I also cannot stress how important it is to calibrate your display.

I have noticed some anomolies though on the blu ray, i'll get the time codes and see it anyone else has noticed them (or it could simply be my display). They are very minor, but there does appear to my eyes to be some aliasing on a small area of plants when jake wakes up with Neytiri after bieng bonded for life. Also the second time Jake takes control of his avatar as he is getting in whatever it is they lie down in there is some on the curve of the machine in the background.

I didn't notice anything on my bedroom telly where I watched it. I've got a Bravia 40 inch on the wall and the image appeared to be no alaising on the image in the scenes u mentiond. I was using my Sony bd s360. Must check it out on the ps3 tonight. What setup are you using?

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by thetechnique

I didn't notice anything on my bedroom telly where I watched it. I've got a Bravia 40 inch on the wall and the image appeared to be no alaising on the image in the scenes u mentiond. I was using my Sony bd s360. Must check it out on the ps3 tonight. What setup are you using?

Epson TW3000 at 92" calibrated to d65. On a smaller tv the amounts that have a problem would probably not be visible, however if it is there it's there (given that it isn't my screen playing up). I'll post back with the time codes soon.

[Ventura]

Originally Posted by Suntory_Times

I also cannot stress how important it is to calibrate your display.

Do you have a link for a really good way to be able to do this yourself? Anything I might need to buy or download and burn?

The vast majority of the links I've found just end up being about audio calibration, and really nothing about video.

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by Ventura

Do you have a link for a really good way to be able to do this yourself? Anything I might need to buy or download and burn?

The vast majority of the links I've found just end up being about audio calibration, and really nothing about video.

Depends on how much time and money you want to spend. A cheap yet average option is to get something like the DVE basics disc. A better and more time consuming and complicated way (and much more precise) is to buy a colormeter and follow a guide such as this. Which I personally find well worthwhile.

[Rusty100]

I checked out some of the screenshots, and to be honest, it looks awful.
I'd expect TDK Imax PQ. Instead it looks like an old movie released on blu-ray. It's very soft which is strange since it was so crisp when I saw it at IMAX.

I just think it looks terrible for how it should look. Anybody else agree? I'm seeing a lot of people praise it's PQ, and I don't understand where that's coming from at all. Would anybody care to enlighten me?

[Suntory_Times]

^ Probably dodgy screen caps. It is softer then The Dark Knight imax scenes as Avatar was made a 2k resolution, wheras The Dark Knight imax scenes where shot using 70mm film (estimated at around 8k resolution). That bieng said, even with a front projection set-up Avatar is extremely sharp and overall has by far the best pq blu ray has thus far seen.

Also remember screencaps are compressed blu ray caps, some are better at compressing then others, and some movies are more affected when one compresses the image. More or less, unless screencaps show alot of edge enhancement and/or dnr, there is little to worry about.

[gettodamoofies]

Originally Posted by Suntory_Times

Also remember screencaps are compressed blu ray caps, some are better at compressing then others, and some movies are more affected when one compresses the image. More or less, unless screencaps show alot of edge enhancement and/or dnr, there is little to worry about.

+1. This whole screenshot science thing has really gotten out of hand. Screenshots and screenshot comparisons are very handy for identifying EE, DNR, artefacts and the presence of fine detail, but they simply don't represent the video quality. Unless they are a lossless container like a png file they get the compression of the image itself (eg jpeg) affecting the quality of the screencap like you mentioned.

Screencaps have been handy to give me an indication of a title's quality, but a lot of people will base their entire purchasing decision on a few caps. That's relying on a whole number of things:

1. That the screencap has been accurately captured. Some people capturing from PC have captured images that have been affected by their video settings changing things like contrast, brightness and saturation.
2. That the person capturing has not altered the image. Unfortunately, it's been done before where screencaps have actually been tampered with.
3. That the screencap is not in a lossy file format like jpeg. At lower quality levels it will add it's own macroblocking and other anomalies which will look like faults on the disc.
4. That the image/s are actually representative of the whole title e.g. screencaps show a lot of noise (not grain), but that's because they were from the 1% of the film filmed at night and the other 99% of the movie set in the daytime has no such anomalies.
5. That a still capture of a frame shows how the film looks like in motion. For example, Minority Report has gotten great reviews. The caps show a lot of grain (which is Spielberg's itended look). Looking at the caps you might think there's too much grain - in motion it looks completely different.
6. That the person doing the screencaps has not deliberately sought out the worst frames to ensure that the general view of the title is negative.

With that in mind, I certainly will use screencaps to answer a few queries if I'm a little hesitant about a title but I won't base my whole decision based on a few screencaps.

For the record I found Avatar to be very good picture quality wise. There were some shots that were a little softer, but I believe that's due to the integration of live action with CG backgrounds. All of the CG elements were as intended from my theatrical viewing experience.

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by alex09

the avatar is released world wide and when it releases it released in all the countries at the same so in the Australia movie released on same time

???

[LordCrumb]

Originally Posted by suntory_times

???

+1

[gettodamoofies]

Originally Posted by KaiGusto

+1

or: WTF mate?