Have your say & ask the experts

bonnie0523:

i have a 42 panny x10,its only 720p.i am now looking for a stand blu-ray player but after trying to work out which one i still don,t know.i normally buy products on the basis of how many stars what hi.fi have given them,but after buying my x10 given the 5 stars buy what hi.fi i wont be doing that again,i think there guys are to generous with there stars,me myself would rate the x10 as 3 stars and now its as low as £525 then possibly 4 stars.after reading so many reviews of buyers from products that these guys have rated 5 stars and product buyers have rated them less stars.i sometimes wonder if they get paid to big up products.hope not..i now what hi fi people will come back at me with the same old stoey that they rate products on the value but when your giving 5 stars for products its makes people think that the product is hot.e.g the x10,the sony 360,come on guys sort yourselfs out...

If you look on amazon, you'll see that the average rating of the 37" and 42" x10 was 5 stars over 40 reviews.

If What HiFi got paid to give 5 star ratings, in this case to a Panasonic TV, why did the V10 get 4 stars, their high-end flagship set the Z1 get 3 stars, and one of their lcds also receive 3 stars. Surely they would be giving Panasonic consistently exceptional reviews on their top of the line products, not on their entry level plasmas.  

ElectroMan:

bigboss:

I agree with manicm that there's no point in buying blu-ray discs of films more than 2 years old. Look at I am Legend, The Dark Knight, Ice Age 3 on blu-ray & you'll know the difference between a DVD & a blu-ray.

I disagree - some older films look amazingly good on BD, eg the early Bond films, Bullit, Bonnie & Clyde, Cool Hand Luke.

I find some BDs of recent films to be disappointing, possibly because I expected them to look better.

Besides which, I wouldn't base my buying decisions purely on technical quality!  

 

I keep hearing about these great transfers of old films. Now, i havent seen them, but theyre greater than 1080p to begin with (so it stands to reason that they could transfer well) and so many people say it that im inclined to believe it.

I think it is dissapointing if mor erecent films dont come up to snuff tho. A friend of mine who recently got a ps3 even stated that he needed to change his picture settings to suit different blurays. Mind, that could mean a few things i guess.

Im going to get TDK or BB on DVD to compare to my Bluray copy.

bonnie0523:

i have a 42 panny x10,its only 720p.i am now looking for a stand blu-ray player but after trying to work out which one i still don,t know.i normally buy products on the basis of how many stars what hi.fi have given them,but after buying my x10 given the 5 stars buy what hi.fi i wont be doing that again,i think there guys are to generous with there stars,me myself would rate the x10 as 3 stars and now its as low as £525 then possibly 4 stars.after reading so many reviews of buyers from products that these guys have rated 5 stars and product buyers have rated them less stars.i sometimes wonder if they get paid to big up products.hope not..i now what hi fi people will come back at me with the same old stoey that they rate products on the value but when your giving 5 stars for products its makes people think that the product is hot.e.g the x10,the sony 360,come on guys sort yourselfs out...

Have you played with the picture settings Bonnie? Can't believe a Panasonic plasma not being very good (apart from dynamic mode)

sonycentre:

maxflinn:

does anyone know if , dances with wolves is out on bluray ??

Yes it is maxflinn,Its in hmv stores at a respectable £13.99.the sound is stunning and a very good picture.

Play £11.99

bonnie0523:

i have a 42 panny x10,its only 720p.i am now looking for a stand blu-ray player but after trying to work out which one i still don,t know.i normally buy products on the basis of how many stars what hi.fi have given them,but after buying my x10 given the 5 stars buy what hi.fi i wont be doing that again,i think there guys are to generous with there stars,me myself would rate the x10 as 3 stars and now its as low as £525 then possibly 4 stars.after reading so many reviews of buyers from products that these guys have rated 5 stars and product buyers have rated them less stars.i sometimes wonder if they get paid to big up products.hope not..i now what hi fi people will come back at me with the same old stoey that they rate products on the value but when your giving 5 stars for products its makes people think that the product is hot.e.g the x10,the sony 360,come on guys sort yourselfs out...

Compared the first court scene and Gordons meeting with Dent in TDK on BR and DVD. Also compared the start, until the joker leaves the bank.

Bank scene looked better, i think, on BR but then i remembered it was shot in imax which may have made some diference on bluray that it didnt on DVD(?).

The other scenes -  i really struggled to see a difference. Cant say for sure that i did or not.

i was sat about 5 foot away, my gear is in my sig.

EDIT - sound not really relevant as i was just using the TVs speakers. Couldnt really tell a difference tho.

manicm:

From what I can gather, you'd be wasting your money on Bluray titles older than about 2 years - otherwise stick with DVDs for your old stuff.

Obviously there will be exceptions to this - I'm sure Mr Lucas is BDing Star Wars as we speak, and of-course LOTR.

Need to use discretion for older titles.

And, people tell me, the Bonds.

a few quick points.

a few people on here rave about the pioneers plasmas while they may be very good most companies have now switched to lcd and led.

only pioneer for the moment is making plasma so  consumer demand and quality of product has forced manufactures to stop producing plasmas. as i remember there was a lot of poor quality plasmas with shorter life span than lcd  back in the early days.

originally plasma was better than lcd but not now

also most films are shot on 35mm or hd etc and all transfers on bluy ray should be top quality.

the problem you have is rushed releases or just lazyness by the studios.

think about you have never seen a grainy move at the cinema ( think starwars in 1977) and look at the size of the movie screens

lee37:

only pioneer for the moment is making plasma so  consumer demand and quality of product has forced manufactures to stop producing plasmas. as i remember there was a lot of poor quality plasmas with shorter life span than lcd  back in the early days.

Actually, Pioneer is no longer making plasma, but the likes of Panasonic, LG and Samsung still are...

andrew i stand corrected.

ia actually saw some samsung plasmas last week in currys, first thing to go is the memory !!!!

lcd and led  still have the majority of tv`s sold with plasma looking like it going the way of the dodo

Andrew Everard:

Hence one of the reasons Panasonic is pushing 3D so hard, and saying that only plasma screens are good enough to show it properly...

Given the way panasonic are shifting plasma displays & the plasmas continued preference by many I can't see the technology being binned very soon, in fact panasonic must have a very juicy almost niche market, LED-LCD hybrids or OLED may supersede it in time but right now you can't do much better than viera in many peoples opinion and right nows what matters...

Interesting article BTW thanks, seems the 3D has a lot of issues to iron out and I'm not surprised, going down to the bfi imax for a half-hour showcase is all well and lovely and quite a giggle but I'm not sure I'd want to see a whole film with what they have to offer.  Or even that it'd add anything to films that aren't crash-bang action movies.  Is there a thread on 3D BTW?  Can't find one.