Firefly Blu-Ray review thread

POSTED BY: OPPYH
UPDATED: Monday, March 16, 2009 07:22
VIEWED: 4003
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DAVIDSTALLARD

Sunday, December 28, 2008 7:44 AM

I just got a blu-ray player for Christmas and I watched the Firefly pilot today. Sadly, I would have to side with Cozen. While some shots do look nice and crisp, many others are overly soft. There's one shot which is full of tiny blue specks and just looks horrible; clearly a mistake. I also noticed a few shots containing lens flare where the smallest flare was solid blue for some reason, so you have this blue dot moving around the screen as the camera pans (causing the lens flare to shift).

It makes me want to throw in my regular DVD and see how the upconverted 1080p picture compares to native blu-ray. Doing that might make me appreciate the BD picture a bit more, but based on what I saw, I half-expect the upconvert to look better than the BD version, even though that's counter-intuitive.

My player is a Sony BDP-S350, just for reference. It has all the firmware updates so is a Profile 2.0 player.

SHINYGOODGUY

Sunday, December 28, 2008 9:25 AM

Yes. I agree, some shots were grainy and on the flares in some scenes it did seem to throw off the BD quality. But for the most part the overall quality was sharp and crisp.

My guess that the shots with the flares, and others, was intentional by Joss and would show up no matter the viewing medium. I was watching a BR version of Stargate about a week back and saw some similar flare shots that had similar results. It also depends on how you have your TV monitor set up for viewing.

When I was watching The Dark Knight (which BTW had the opening sequence shot in IMAX) I found the picture and sound to be quite clear and detailed. But you must remember that both these movies and series were shot totally different.

The couple of eps I watched were quite beautiful to watch.

SGG

Tawabawho?

ECGORDON

Sunday, December 28, 2008 3:07 PM

I have a PS3 and have been watching Firefly on Blu-Ray for the past week. I'll be watching "Heart of Gold" tonight, "Objects in Space" tomorrow night, then buying Serenity on Tuesday.

There are good and bad things about the BR release. In the roundtable discussion Joss mentions the look he was going for, the rough '70s western movie feel, nothing "hi-def" (his words). So in essence, trying to transfer that to a HD format was bound to show up some of the cinematographic techniques that he and David Boyd used. The dark scenes can be grainy and possibly not even as sharp as the standard discs, but in any well-lit scene the superiority of the BR image is unquestionable. The audio is also superior on the new release, and I'm just listening to it through my tv's speakers. I haven't noticed anything wrong with the lens flares though, so it might just be the player you are using and not the discs themselves.

The extra commentary is nice, but I wanted more. I'd love to hear Sean and Summer talk about "Safe," or Sean, Summer and Adam on "Ariel." And Nathan and Christina on "Trash" would have been hi-larious. One of these days, whenever the next generation video format is introduced, maybe we can get multiple commentaries on every episode, the way they did with Freaks and Geeks.

I haven't heard anyone mention the menu screens, which I like a lot more than the original dvds. Also, they've corrected at least one subtitle error. One they didn't correct is at the end of "Ariel" when Mal says the word smooth, but he didn't articulate it well and the captioner had the word "scruth," whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. But in "The Message," when Tracy backs out of the bridge and grabs Kaylee, the original caption reads that he shouts, "You're a rabbit, Mal," but that is now corrected to what we knew he said all along, "Gorrammit, Mal!"

As I said in another thread recently, I don't think it matters on which format you watch Firefly, standard dvd, Blu-Ray, or a VHS tape from the original FOX broadcast or off Sci-Fi. It's still the best gorram show out there, and I will continue to support the show, Joss and all the other BDHs no matter how many times the series is released. Same goes for the Big Damn Movie.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

OPPYH

Sunday, December 28, 2008 5:35 PM

Wow!
Can't believe all the negative reviews.
Of course it isn't the best looking blu-ray on the market, but over the standard dvd it's a noticeable upgrade.

The DTS HD audio track is the icing on the cake. I'm very impressed with this set.

ECGORDON

Sunday, December 28, 2008 6:57 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by OPPYH:
Wow!
Can't believe all the negative reviews.

Not sure if you consider my report negative, but I don't. Just trying to be as honest as I can. I have absolutely no regret about buying this.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Monday, March 16, 2009 7:22 AM

Where did this thread go? I kept looking for it. guess I found it for now.

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