Night 90 Blu-ray up for Pre-Order

[shootemindehead]

..... Christ, that's shite. I've always maintained that there's been a bit of codology with Blu rays over DVD. To me, I rarely see a huge difference in picture quality between a well produxed DVD and the average Blu ray and oftentimes I think a lot of people are just telling themselves that it's "wayyy better" despite the contrary. There's been a couple of exceptions though, like 'The Thing' or 'Jaws'. But, by and large, I am usually rather nonplussed. However, the quality of the transfer on the NOTLD Blu is unbelievable. Not that I was going to be replacing my DVD copy, or anything, but that's just...well....shite.

[kidgloves]

Savini is at the stage in his career where he will endorse anything should it increase his profile in any light, good or bad. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This

[MinionZombie]

@Shoot... There are stunning Blu-Rays, and then there are duff Blu-Rays, just like how on DVD you'd get dud ones (e.g. Nightmare in a Damaged Brain simply transfered from an old VHS tape, or Don't Look in the Basement which was "digitally remastered", but was again just a shockingly poor copy & paste hack job from a bad VHS copy to DVD), but you also get great looking ones (Blade Runner, even Transformers looks great on DVD). However, it's the crispness where the real difference lies - I suppose it's, in a way, like a JPEG compared to a PNG. Sometimes a JPEG can look really nice, but other times the colours can look ill-defined and the detail can be softened, while a PNG has crisp colours and lines ... ... an iffy analogy, perhaps, but even on a 24 inch screen I can see the difference (even with the DVDs being upscaled - some more successful than others). Now, of course - as I've always argued - image quality doesn't tell a good story any better, or improve a duff one - but I have found myself having warmed a fair bit to a crisp HD image. That said, I still buy DVDs (I bought The Innkeepers on DVD t'other day), and I do have to wear glasses for watching the TV on the other side of the room because if I don't the HD image is reduced to SD, heh. The real draw to Blu-Ray for me though was the extras. I was a bit pushed into hopping onto the BR bandwagon when it was announced that Grindhouse would only get the new extras on Blu-Ray, and many other flicks were moving that way too (it's now an exception for a DVD to have the same extras as a Blu-Ray now, so it seems generally), but then it did allow me to get a HD image for my Xbox too, then my BR player also gave me the option to have DivX playability, and the TV itself is far smaller in volume (larger in screen) than the previous CRT (which I was still very fond of), which helps a lot for turning the screen to face different directions in my room. I'm rambling now, but with Blu-Ray now no longer really being at a premium price, it has shifted into becoming more of a standard. It's still not the standard generally speaking, and won't be for a while, but it's certainly made significant in-roads in the two years since I converted. That said, I'm still buying DVDs, however when the extras package is clearly better on the BR, that forces my hand. A crisp image alone isn't enough for me personally to buy a Blu-Ray, it's more about the extras and/or upgrading a film - e.g. last month I went from a pan & scan VHS of Jaws to the newly released Blu-Ray (and that's a vast upgrade) - I never owned it on DVD, you see. ... Circling back to Blight of the Lilac Dead though ... yeah, it's a dreadful filtering job. It's just daft. If you're making the movie brand new today, then yeah fine, go for it from the getgo, but to try and 'do a Lucas' and totally shift the look of the flick long-after-the-fact ... no, just no.

[triste realtà]

@Shoot... There are stunning Blu-Rays, and then there are duff Blu-Rays, just like how on DVD you'd get dud ones (e.g. Nightmare in a Damaged Brain simply transfered from an old VHS tape, or Don't Look in the Basement which was "digitally remastered", but was again just a shockingly poor copy & paste hack job from a bad VHS copy to DVD), Circling back to Blight of the Lilac Dead though ... yeah, it's a dreadful filtering job. It's just daft. If you're making the movie brand new today, then yeah fine, go for it from the getgo, but to try and 'do a Lucas' and totally shift the look of the flick long-after-the-fact ... no, just no. First paragraph: these video to dvd transfers are usually unofficial bootlegs. Nightmare in a Damaged Brain was released by Code Red DVD as Nightmare 30th anniversary edition with 3 different transfers and an unsubtitled interview with Scavolini on 2 disks but their dvds are very limited and go oop besides being msrp squared. You can find several reviews about it but it is region 1 or 0, not sure, and ntsc. Subtitles for the itnerview have since been srt'd and released on a forum. I just got em the other day. 2: This is the look of movies today, filmed through sunglasses or a lens that has been sitting at the bottom of a vat of used motor oil for eons. I hate it. A lot. Along with the digital seizure camera movements.

[zomtom]

I pre-ordered Night 90' on day one. It was one of the few zed movies NOT on blu ray and 30 bucks is a tad much for me throw at a movie. That being said; I was pretty satisfied when I watched the movie tho I recall thinking the movie seemed a little darker than I remembered. Ofcourse the next day I came here to the forum and read all of the reviews. I thought you were all being a tad critical. Needless to say, the next night I brought the blu ray and the dvd downstairs and compared them. Sonofabitch, if you guys weren't right!! I've got close to 400 blu rays and I'm pretty satisfied with most of them. Even Night 90' will find a place on my shelf. I'll just bring the dvd version to my camp and watch it there during the warm months.

[krisvds]

Christ, that's shite. I've always maintained that there's been a bit of codology with Blu rays over DVD. To me, I rarely see a huge difference in picture quality between a well produxed DVD and the average Blu ray and oftentimes I think a lot of people are just telling themselves that it's "wayyy better" despite the contrary. There's been a couple of exceptions though, like 'The Thing' or 'Jaws'. But, by and large, I am usually rather nonplussed. However, the quality of the transfer on the NOTLD Blu is unbelievable. Not that I was going to be replacing my DVD copy, or anything, but that's just...well....shite. Yeah, that recent Jaws restoration job was awesome. If ever a series of films deserved to be lovingly, painstakingly and very expensively restored on an 'original negative' level it's Romero's original trilogy. Those films are an American institute. Especially NOTLD. This NOTLD90 debacle? Insulting.

[AnxietyDilemma]

Some argue that the look suits the movie better, but regardless, the tragedy lies in the detail lost due to the filtering. The opening minutes looked so promising, and the next 20 minutes would've really sparkled in 1080p with what appears to be an otherwise clean transfer if they would have only left it as it was.

[DjfunkmasterG]

Well, Tom Savini loves it. I personally think he has gone cuckoo for cocoa puffs, but yeah... we're stuck with this bullshit.

[shootemindehead]

@Shoot... There are stunning Blu-Rays, and then there are duff Blu-Rays, just like how on DVD you'd get dud ones (e.g. Nightmare in a Damaged Brain simply transfered from an old VHS tape, or Don't Look in the Basement which was "digitally remastered", but was again just a shockingly poor copy & paste hack job from a bad VHS copy to DVD), but you also get great looking ones (Blade Runner, even Transformers looks great on DVD). However, it's the crispness where the real difference lies - I suppose it's, in a way, like a JPEG compared to a PNG. Sometimes a JPEG can look really nice, but other times the colours can look ill-defined and the detail can be softened, while a PNG has crisp colours and lines ... ... an iffy analogy, perhaps, but even on a 24 inch screen I can see the difference (even with the DVDs being upscaled - some more successful than others). Now, of course - as I've always argued - image quality doesn't tell a good story any better, or improve a duff one - but I have found myself having warmed a fair bit to a crisp HD image. That said, I still buy DVDs (I bought The Innkeepers on DVD t'other day), and I do have to wear glasses for watching the TV on the other side of the room because if I don't the HD image is reduced to SD, heh.... I've worked as a graphic designer, so your analogy makes sense. However, as stated, a "well produced" DVD can often be just a nice as a Blu ray. Of course, viewing distance is a factor. At most comfortable viewing distances, there's little benefit in choosing Blu over a good DVD. If you're sitting on top of the tele, then you will notice a difference, but I have literally watch some Blus and DVDs on the same TV's side to side and was REALLY hard pressed to point out where the Blu was better in picture quality, enough to warrant a purchase anyway. Soundwise, if you have the system, the a Blu is worth the dosh, especially for those films that have made a mark on you. I certainly won't replacing my DVD collection with Blu's, unless it's a substantial improvement, like the recent 'Jaws' effort. However, I have mentioned my disappointment about the aspect ratios on the extras on another thread and that sullied the overall enjoyment somewhat. I primarily bought 'Jaws' for the 'The Shark is Still Working' doc and because the restoration was so lovingly done, but to be honest, was perfectly happy with the old DVD transfer. Usually, I'll get a Blu, if it's on sale. I wouldn't normally buy at Day 1 prices. The early DVD releases you are talking about were bad, due to the producers knocking the product out from a bad transfer, as "triste realtà" said above. It had nothing to do with actual DVD limitations. For instance, I must have gone through about 3 'Zombi' DVD's before I got my hands on a decent copy. I used to love it when I'd see some old video nasty released on DVD, by some obscure company, with "digitally remastered" emblazoned on the box. I knew that that was a load old bollox, but an awful lot of people would be taken in. It's akin to the .99 in 1.99. But, I've bought Blu's of classics, like 'The Battle of Britain' or 'Where Eagles Dare' and have been really underwhelmed by their quality and next to their DVD brothers they're not that much of an improvement, despite being produced by major companies. In the end though, I don't think Blu ray will kill off DVD, as far too many people still opt for the DVD when buying. They vast majority of people just don't care about Blu ray and walk up to the til with the 9.99 DVD and leave the 18.99 Blu Ray on the shelf. Some time in the future, I think some newer medium will come along and destroy both formats. last month I went from a pan & scan VHS of Jaws to the newly released Blu-Ray (and that's a vast upgrade) - I never owned it on DVD, you see. That's like going from this: to this:

[MinionZombie]

@Shoot - oh aye, I wasn't meaning that DVD was inherently inferior from-the-off, more that it's what you do with it - just like with Blu-Ray. If each format is handled well, the results can be stellar, but equally they can also have chucked out entries for the 'cash-in' factor. I too certainly won't be replacing my hundreds of DVDs with Blu-Rays (although I did buy The Evil Dead on Blu-Ray, despite owning it on DVD and twice on VHS - and I did notice a difference in the crispness). Again, a crisp image doesn't tell a story better or make a bad-or-good movie inherently better or worse, but it is nice to see the print looking as good as it can (particularly with Jaws which was a fantastic remastering from the ground-up - although I do agree with your disappointment at The Shark Is Still Working not being rendered out in 16x9). I often opt for the BR over the DVD these days because of extra features - the HD image is a bonus really - because I'm a special features whore. I love making ofs, deleted scenes, gag reels, all that stuff, so when the BR has all that and the DVD either has nothing or only part of that package, I have to go over to the BR. Now, on the other hand I sometimes opt for BR over DVD because I feel the BR will have a gorgeous image for a film that has great looks - such as Drive, which I went for on BR over DVD. Similarly there was Red State, and in that case it was shot on a RED camera, so as I'd suspected the image was utterly superb - but, again, crispness is a nice plus but not a specific selling point. The extras package is what makes my decision for me, even on things that aren't really necessary to own in HD - American Pie Reunion for instance, I got it on BR for the additional extras, and while it looks crisp, the image isn't remarkable - but then it's not a film where visuals are centrally important (we're not talking Blade Runner's intricate alt-world, or a Jaws-level restoration job). Now - Red Dwarf X - that comes out on DVD and BR in November, and I'm not sure which way I'll go yet on that. It was shot in HD from the get-go, but the real decision-maker will be the extras - will the DVD have the feature-length making-of documentary on it, plus deleted scenes and smeg-ups? The more I've viewed various Blu-Rays, the more I have noticed the difference, but as I've said, it's still not a decision-maker in itself. If I was buying something that I was getting on a punt, I'd go for the DVD, or if the package is the same on DVD - the DVD gets it - such as with Tucker & Dale vs Evil.

[Kaos]

I recently signed up with Vudu. It is a streaming own/rent service. Anyway, I had a $12 credit for setting up several boxes with it, and I sprung for their 1080P version of Night 90. It is worth every penny. It is everything that the blu-ray isn't in terms of quality. It doesn't have extras though. If you don't have the fastest of the fast broadband you can also get the 720P version. Vudu is pretty cool. You can buy or rent from them, you can do the Walmart Disc to Digital program, and you can link your Ultraviolet movies with them.

[Neil]

Maybe this is a new trend. Compare these shots from the original LOTR bluray, with the new extended bluray - BLAH! - http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/59621 W T F !

[AcesandEights]

Maybe this is a new trend. Compare these shots from the original LOTR bluray, with the new extended bluray - BLAH! - http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/59621 W T F ! What the hell? I disbelieve!

[Neil]

What the hell? I disbelieve! New thread here - http://forum.homepageofthedead.com/showthread.php?20834

[bassman]

I recently signed up with Vudu. It is a streaming own/rent service. Anyway, I had a $12 credit for setting up several boxes with it, and I sprung for their 1080P version of Night 90. It is worth every penny. It is everything that the blu-ray isn't in terms of quality. It doesn't have extras though. If you don't have the fastest of the fast broadband you can also get the 720P version. Vudu is pretty cool. You can buy or rent from them, you can do the Walmart Disc to Digital program, and you can link your Ultraviolet movies with them. I was just reading about this, actually. Apparently the vudu version is definitely the way to go if you want the best HD version of Night90. Blu Ray Vudu Blu Ray Vudu Those are pictures of the tv taken with a phone, but it still gives you an idea of which is superior...