Picture quality impressions on the following films ?

Celticbhoy1888 · 16-05-2007, 8:34 PM

Anyone able to pass on picture quality impressions for the following HD DVDS ?

The 40 Year Old Virgin
Flags Of Our Fathers
Smokey And The Bandit
Letters From Iwo Jima

Before I take the plunge and buy the lot !

Many thanks

McNab · 16-05-2007, 9:47 PM

The 40 Year Old Virgin - Not out yet
Flags Of Our Fathers - Not out yet
Smokey And The Bandit - Not out yet
Letters From Iwo Jima - Er...Not out yet

HTH

Celticbhoy1888 · 16-05-2007, 9:52 PM

The 40 Year Old Virgin - Not out yet - Yes its out !
Flags Of Our Fathers - Not out yet - And again Yes its out !
Smokey And The Bandit - Not out yet - Oh and again Yes its out !
Letters From Iwo Jima - Er...Not out yet - Surely not again ? But Yes ITS OUT

HTH

Jan20 · 17-05-2007, 6:13 AM

To be fair street date is 22nd May on all these and Hidefdigest don't have any reviews as yet. I find this the best source for reviews.
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/reviews.html
You can aldo try AVS whose members generally get their discs a day or two quicker than here in the UK.http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=152

KevD · 17-05-2007, 6:34 AM

I have Flags and Letters, havent spun them up yet because they arrived on the same day as The Matrix. Might get to have a look later today

McNab · 17-05-2007, 12:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celticbhoy1888

The 40 Year Old Virgin - Not out yet - Yes its out !
Flags Of Our Fathers - Not out yet - And again Yes its out !
Smokey And The Bandit - Not out yet - Oh and again Yes its out !
Letters From Iwo Jima - Er...Not out yet - Surely not again ? But Yes ITS OUT

HTH

Really? Where from?

If that's so, then I appologise.

KevD · 17-05-2007, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by McNab

Really? Where from?

If that's so, then I appologise.

Flags & 40yo Virgin are on same day shipping at Movietyme. all are shipping from Axelmusic and I got mine from PlayHD.

So I should imagine th same in most other places

Jan20 · 17-05-2007, 12:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevD

Flags & 40yo Virgin are on same day shipping at Movietyme. all are shipping from Axelmusic and I got mine from PlayHD.

So I should imagine th same in most other places

Damm! You've gone and made me order the two Clint films from Play HD now

Monkeyspoon · 17-05-2007, 1:10 PM

I've had both Flags and Iwo Jima for nearly a week now and both have very good picture and sound.

av addict · 17-05-2007, 3:06 PM

would you rate them tier 0 or 1 monkeyspoon?

Monkeyspoon · 17-05-2007, 3:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by av addict

would you rate them tier 0 or 1 monkeyspoon?

I have no idea what u mean.They both look and sound great tho.

AgentCool · 17-05-2007, 4:03 PM

I've got Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of our Fathers as well. Only watched Letters so far and it has excellent picture and sound. I haven't got the equipment for TrueHD so can't comment on that but the DD+ scaled to DTS is brilliant.

BIGRED · 17-05-2007, 5:09 PM

I got both letters & flags a few days agao, thats the weekend viewing sorted(unless the ultimate matrix collection arrives tomorrow!!!) It may sound like a stupid question but what order should i watch them in , i was thinking letters then flags , i haven't seen either of them yet !

McNab · 17-05-2007, 5:25 PM

What confused me was the street date of May 22nd.

Once again, Celticbhoy, I appologise.

*captainH* · 17-05-2007, 5:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celticbhoy1888

Anyone able to pass on picture quality impressions for the following HD DVDS ?

The 40 Year Old Virgin
Flags Of Our Fathers
Smokey And The Bandit
Letters From Iwo Jima

Before I take the plunge and buy the lot !

Many thanks

I have received all of these from Movietyme but have only briefly spun them to check they work. However they all look like they have nice pictures. As expected S and B seems to have some scenes better than others but it still looks good from what I saw.

'You sumbitches couldn't close an umbrella' - Class.........

irascian · 17-05-2007, 7:28 PM

I'm stuck with a third generation Pioneer plasma limited to 720p so judge my impressions accordingly but I'd say both "Flags of our Fathers" and "40 Year Old Virgin" are top-notch picture quality - certainly better than many other titles I've got.

"Flags of our Fathers" is very monochromatic in places but certainly up to, if not exceeding the likes of "The Departed".

I was surprised at how good the PQ was on a title like "40 Year Old Virgin" - almost 3D like and great value for £12.99. The usual HD-DVD case comes in a nice slip-case with a cover that changes an inside picture as you open the cover up.

17-05-2007, 8:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BIGRED

what order should i watch them in , i was thinking letters then flags

That would be my advice.

Geoff_D · 17-05-2007, 9:50 PM

40 Year Old Virgin looks good at first glance, but there's far too much edge enhancement for my liking: check the halos around the opening titles for a dead giveaway.

It still kicks DVD's ass all the way home, but the edge halos do detract from what is already IMO a soft transfer. Ah well. Great little movie though!

Monkeyspoon · 18-05-2007, 7:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BIGRED

I got both letters & flags a few days agao, thats the weekend viewing sorted(unless the ultimate matrix collection arrives tomorrow!!!) It may sound like a stupid question but what order should i watch them in , i was thinking letters then flags , i haven't seen either of them yet !

I'm watching flags first then letters simply because thats the order they hit the cinema.

irascian · 20-05-2007, 9:50 AM

Picture quality opinions seem to differ VERY widely.

I thought the picture quality on "Flags of our Fathers" was stunning and stood out, but have to say that watching "Letters from Iwo Jima" I had to eject the disc a couple of times to make sure I was playing the HD-DVD side. Not that it was bad, just that it didn't stand out as being hi-def compared with the best standard DVDs. Maybe I just got blind-sided by the monochromatic de-saturated look of the whole film (I'm sick of this "gimmick". You shot the damned film in colour so show it us in colour. We don't see life through a monochramatic haze!)

I've just finished watching "Freedom Writers" and was disappointed with how soft the picture is, especially when compared with "The 40 Year-old virgin" which is almost 3D-like. "Freedom Writers" might just as well be a good quality standard DVD as far as this viewer's concerned. And yet the review over on AVPlay talks about there being "no sign of softness". What???!!!

The biggest disadvantage to "good" HD-DVD is the variation one finds. It often becomes too obvious that certain scenes were shot "soft" or had problems and they stick out like the proverbial sore thumb when everything around them is so good, where on poorer HD-DVDs or the standard DVD the transfer is such that all the scenes are soft and nothing stands out as being wrong.

The only problem I had with "The 40 Year-old virgin" was that the picture was so clear that you could see Steve Carell had rather thick TV make-up on in a couple of scenes, which took me "out" of the reality of the scene. On standard DVD I bet that wouldn't have happened.