Are you running the sound through your home stereo? If so, do you have a center speaker? If not, is there a setting that will emulate a center speaker or, alternatively, which will set a preference for speech or dialogue on your TV or stereo?
The problem is that the music and special effects are strongly coded for stereo, but the speech is strongly coded for a center speaker. If you don't have a center speaker or the center speaker is balanced too low, you'll have trouble hearing the dialogue.
We have a Blu-Ray player for about a year now, and we think carefully about which movie is worth having as a Blu-Ray. So far we've found that animated movies are always worth the higher costs of a Blu-Ray, "normal" movies aren't unless they have a strong emphasis on the pictures (like Lord of the Rings).
And old movies aren't worth it because the technology just wasn't what it is today.
And old movies aren't worth it because the technology just wasn't what it is today.
That's interesting. I don't own a Blu-ray player, so I can't comment from experience; but friends of mine who have seen Metropolis on Blu-ray say it really is a noticeable improvement over the DVD.
Of course, the question is what exactly you mean by "old movies". For movies from the 1980s and 1990s, you're probably right. But for movies from the 1910s thru the 1960s, probably even the 1970s, the analog film that was used then actually had an extremely high resolution, even higher than the best digital video technology of today. The high resolution was wasted on the projection equipment available at the time; but it makes sense that these films might gain a lot from being viewed with the high-resolution technology we have today.
I'm guessing it has to do with "A note in the package warns that if the disc is newer than my player, I might need to get a software update for it to play properly."
I have TWO(2) Blu-Ray DVDs and the computer runaround associated with getting a playable DVD hard copy for "STAR TREK" was SO bad that I spent money on a strictly DVD-format copy, which plays with no problems. I'm with you, DVD all the way.
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The problem is that the music and special effects are strongly coded for stereo, but the speech is strongly coded for a center speaker. If you don't have a center speaker or the center speaker is balanced too low, you'll have trouble hearing the dialogue.
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And old movies aren't worth it because the technology just wasn't what it is today.
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That's interesting. I don't own a Blu-ray player, so I can't comment from experience; but friends of mine who have seen Metropolis on Blu-ray say it really is a noticeable improvement over the DVD.
Of course, the question is what exactly you mean by "old movies". For movies from the 1980s and 1990s, you're probably right. But for movies from the 1910s thru the 1960s, probably even the 1970s, the analog film that was used then actually had an extremely high resolution, even higher than the best digital video technology of today. The high resolution was wasted on the projection equipment available at the time; but it makes sense that these films might gain a lot from being viewed with the high-resolution technology we have today.
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Are there any cases in which you don't have a choice? I'm not aware of any movies available on Blu-ray and not on DVD; are there any?
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