BREAKING NEWS: Wing Commander Academy on DVD (September 1, 2011)

It depends on the movie and mastering. A surprising number of Blu-Rays are poorly mastered - the studios just did a Blu-Ray to make money. This is especially so on catalog titles where the use of DNR (Digital Noise Reduction - to get rid of film grain) and subsequent digital sharpening. This process often destroys fine details (background signs and textures are often lost), as well as doing things like blowing highlights and smudging dark areas as well as posterization.

For animation, this is less of an issue since the DNR will at worse give you posterization. However, given the nature of animated shows, posterization happens naturally anyways - the only people who'd notice are those who have copies of the original masters.

Luckily, WCA should be recent enough show that the masters are easily available - older shows of the 80s have suffered from the fact that the film masters have degraded, and the process from film master to broadcast master to station broadcast tape often have extra scenes added, removed or edited. Many purists have noticed their old VHS copies have differed from recent DVD releases because they used the wrong master.
 
That's the catch, isn't it? Doesn't matter what quality your recording is in, if the source isn't the best possible available, there's no point in pursuing a Blu-Ray option. It's why I've only chosen to get Blu-Rays for more recent movie releases. I'll make an exception for Star Wars, of course - will be interesting to see how the classic trilogy will look, especially with the miniature models.
 
It's a matter of source type, not age. Anything shot on film is going to look great on bluray, whether it's a movie from the 1930s or something that came out last week.
 
Well, I was thinking also how well they're going to process that source, be it film or otherwise. Anyway, I decided not to get the Back to the Future trilogy again on Blu-Ray... you or anyone else thinking it's worth the shift from DVD? All the effects were done with miniatures, as I understand - very little to no CG in those days.
 
Well, I was thinking also how well they're going to process that source, be it film or otherwise. Anyway, I decided not to get the Back to the Future trilogy again on Blu-Ray... you or anyone else thinking it's worth the shift from DVD? All the effects were done with miniatures, as I understand - very little to no CG in those days.

I don't understand the hangups of miniatures vs. CG being a reason not to get a Blu-Ray. There's actually *very little* miniature work in the BTTF trilogy. The effects were done optically and then mixed with digital effects for the sequels. But both created photography that creates a moving picture. Blu-Ray can give a much more photographic image than a DVD. There's still a ton of detail on a miniature that is lost, obscured, or DNR-ed or sharpened out of a MPEG2 DVD video... miniatures can hold up on a 75mm print blowing up to hundred foot screen, just as CG can... but a MPEG2 DVD will just look fuzzy.

CG or not, there's details missing even on mundane stills.

This looks like a photograph: http://highdefdiscnews.com/screenshots/back_to_the_future_15.png
This looks like a thumbnail to a photograph: http://highdefdiscnews.com/screenshots/back_to_the_future_DVD_3.png

The only thing you can read is 'Youth Jailed' http://highdefdiscnews.com/screenshots/back_to_the_future_part_2_DVD_3.png
Now you know Queen Dian is visiting, Kelp prices are up, the President says she's tired, and someone ran a 3 minute mile http://highdefdiscnews.com/screenshots/back_to_the_future_part_2_4.png

Finally, just another example - of The Godfather:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14703667#post14703667
 
Very often, miniature work actually ages better than CGI - especially in the early days of CGI, computer graphics were pretty terrible compared to what you could get using minatures. Image quality also shouldn't be an issue, since any miniature work would wind up being shot on film.
 
A region 2 release would be great. If not I'll may have to get an external DVD drive for my mac and have it set as Region 1

A region 2 or region 0 DVD would be great unless I can set my PS3 to play any region?

There used to be a disc you could get for the PS2 from places like HMV that allowed you to temporarily change the region of your console (until next restart)

I wonder if there is one for the PS3
 
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