Video Asylum

Posted by Duilawyer (A) on December 17, 2007 at 22:47:06

Training Day on Bluray – Joshua Zyber, DVD Talk – “The HD DVD released a few months ago is one of the finest discs on that format, its popping High Definition imagery so vivid you feel like you could just step into the movie. The Blu-ray isn't quite that good, but it's close. Obviously sourced from the same master (but compressed here with MPEG2 encoding instead of the superior VC-1), the Blu-ray maintains an excellent sense of detail in both close-ups and wide shots. …Colors are great, and unlike many Blu-rays it looks like High Definition from the first frame to the last. Judged on its own, this is a fine disc and probably the best thing I've seen on Blu-ray to date. …Directly comparing the movie on both formats (and it would be disingenuous not to), the HD DVD edition indeed looks a bit better. On that disc, I found myself marveling at the clarity of even the tiniest details in every shot. I didn't have quite that reaction to the Blu-ray, which is slightly softer and duller, with a little less depth. The difference isn't huge, but it's enough to be noticeable. …The MPEG2 compression has only one significant flaw that I noticed. The opening shot of a sunrise exhibits serious color banding. The HD DVD has a similar problem but to a much lesser extent. It's barely noticeable on that disc, but extremely glaring on this one. Otherwise, I didn't find any compression problems worth noting (a true rarity for Blu-ray), which speaks well for the care that Warner puts into their transfers.”