Video Asylum

Posted by cfraser (A) on May 01, 2011 at 17:36:18

In Reply to: RE: DVD's posing as Blurays posted by barryb on May 01, 2011 at 07:47:21

There were a lot of crappy BDs put out at the beginning. Lots were titles which as DVDs had been in the bargain bins for the better part of a decade (like Total Recall)...they put no effort into them for BD. OTOH, BD is just a medium and it's perfectly OK to put SD material on them, happens all the time. In fact, lots of people are requesting that large TV DVD sets be re-issued on BD, in DVD res, just to save shelf space. So being on BD has absolutely no relation to resolution or quality, contrary to what "they" would like you to think; all you can do is read the package specs, but they are pretty good at casually not mentioning anything that may be bad, obviously. I even think Total Recall (among many titles) is basically an upscaled DVD.

By "DVDs posing as Blu-rays", I originally thought you meant those DVDs that are *packaged* to look very like BDs, with transparent blue DVD cases or blue-edged slipcovers etc. They are often placed right beside BDs in lots of stores too. There are tons of them out there. From the other side, Disney has this IMO bizarre practice of often offering BDs in DVD packaging too. The best reason I can think of is the DVD cases are stronger so may be better for kids.