Firefly Blu-Ray review thread by OPPYH

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Firefly Blu-Ray review thread

POSTED BY: OPPYH
UPDATED: Sunday, March 15, 2009 21:22
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VIEWED: 3278
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Saturday, November 15, 2008 2:10 PM

I watched the 2 part pilot, and the Train Job.
I can't recommend this set enough. Of course I thought it would look pretty, but.....wow!! When I watched the pilot, I realized that I was in a whole new league of Firefly.

The picture: Watching the first episode I was in awe. Captain Malcolm Reynolds and the gang simply shined in every scene.
I picked up details never meant for the world of standard dvd. Whether it be beads of sweat from our captain, or the fabric of Inara's dress, everything is crystal clear. Black levels are solid. When Kaylee smiled early on in the episode, I had to smile too. I was seeing one of my favorite characters in HD so perfect, and distant from the S-DVD that it was a new experience for me!

Speaking of improvement that leads me to the audio:
The 5.1 DTS audio track will have your surround sound system thanking you. It's audio tracks like this that every system would hope to attain. I have it running through my optical audio cable. Definately a new surround mix that utilizes each speaker perfectly. You will absolutely know this when you listen to it, and pick up sounds(clinks, clanks, and whatever) that you never knew were there.
I also watched the Roundtable: lunch with Joss, Alan, Nathan, and Ron(The hero of Canton wasn't there)). I will say it a bit weird without any of the gals, but a small gripe. Fascinating stuff. Two things 1. these guys are good friends, and 2. Joss could have another job as a comedian. He's funny.
I love this set, and wish all my fellow Browncoats
can witness the beauty of it, if you already haven't already.

Please post your own review if you want. I'd love your opinion about it too.

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Monday, November 17, 2008 7:23 AM

SHINYGOODGUY

I will be submitting a review later this week as I am in the process of getting a Blu-Ray player and the BDS.

BTW I read several reviews regarding the best Blu-Ray player out in the market today. Get this: It is the Sony Playstation 3 (surprise, surprise). Independent reviews gave it high marks and very little drawbacks.

I just thought I would pass that on.

P.S. Thanks for your review.

SGG

Shiny! Let's be bad guys!

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Monday, November 17, 2008 9:07 AM

OPPYH

Quote:
Originally posted by Shinygoodguy:
I will be submitting a review later this week as I am in the process of getting a Blu-Ray player and the BDS.

BTW I read several reviews regarding the best Blu-Ray player out in the market today. Get this: It is the Sony Playstation 3 (surprise, surprise). Independent reviews gave it high marks and very little drawbacks.

I just thought I would pass that on.

P.S. Thanks for your review.

SGG

Yeah, I have a PS3 and haven't had any issues with any Blu disc, and pretty fast loading times. My friend has a stand alone player from Sony, and it takes nearly 5 minutes to load a movie(even with the latest firmware update)...Yuck.

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Wednesday, November 19, 2008 12:58 PM

STAPLES

I was wondering about the commentary tracks. Were there any new ones, or just the same as the normal DVD? And the other special features...are they worth the money?

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Wednesday, November 19, 2008 1:22 PM

NCBROWNCOAT

Blu Ray BDS is in the mail and working on a player. I can't wait to see it.

http://fireflyfaninnc.livejournal.com/

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Wednesday, November 19, 2008 4:25 PM

ASARIAN

Not that I'm not potentially thrilled, but these positive reviews are in stark contrast with this one:

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=2&t=35606

According to Cozen the video quality basically sucks, and is far below Blu-Ray standards. So, I'm a mite confused now.

--
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam

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Wednesday, November 19, 2008 4:38 PM

ASARIAN

Quote:
Originally posted by Shinygoodguy:

BTW I read several reviews regarding the best Blu-Ray player out in the market today. Get this: It is the Sony Playstation 3 (surprise, surprise). Independent reviews gave it high marks and very little drawbacks.

Well, I wouldn't say it's the absolute best, picture quality-wise. There's some very expensive Sony standalone players that do a bit better. Still, I think the PS3 is, by far, the best Blu-Ray player choice on the market to date. If for nothing else, because of its powerful Cell processor, which basically makes it the most up-to-date, compatible player in existence. And it stays up-to-date, and is not hindered by pesky hardware ROM limitatitions.

Plus, if you built a nice several Terabyte media center, like yours truly, it makes for a heck of a smooth ride for streaming your Full-HD content, too.

--
"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam

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Wednesday, November 19, 2008 10:54 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Fair to say? This bluray is far inferior to HD? Could we be more shocked and amazed?

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Thursday, November 20, 2008 9:48 AM

OPPYH

Quote:
Originally posted by asarian:
According to Cozen the video quality basically sucks, and is far below Blu-Ray standards. So, I'm a mite confused now.

I had the standard dvd playing side by side to the Blu-Ray. The Blu-Ray has a far superior image.

I don't know what else to say other than it's a very large upgrade in image quality over the S-DVD.

If you have a Blu-Ray player, judge for yourself. You'll see:)

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Thursday, November 20, 2008 6:16 PM

SHINY

Quote:
Originally posted by Staples:
I was wondering about the commentary tracks. Were there any new ones, or just the same as the normal DVD? And the other special features...are they worth the money?

There is one new commentary, for Our Mrs. Reynolds, featuring the same group that is in the lunch roundtable: Joss, Nate, Alan, and Ron.

I personally think it looks much crisper than standard DVD for well-lit scenes, but of course this being Firefly, there are lots of dark scenes (literally and figuratively) where the picture is grainy.

---

I don't need a gorram back-spaceship driver!!!

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Saturday, December 27, 2008 9:44 PM

DAVIDSTALLARD

I just got a blu-ray player for Christmas and I watched the Firefly pilot today. Sadly, I would have to side with Cozen. While some shots do look nice and crisp, many others are overly soft. There's one shot which is full of tiny blue specks and just looks horrible; clearly a mistake. I also noticed a few shots containing lens flare where the smallest flare was solid blue for some reason, so you have this blue dot moving around the screen as the camera pans (causing the lens flare to shift).

It makes me want to throw in my regular DVD and see how the upconverted 1080p picture compares to native blu-ray. Doing that might make me appreciate the BD picture a bit more, but based on what I saw, I half-expect the upconvert to look better than the BD version, even though that's counter-intuitive.

My player is a Sony BDP-S350, just for reference. It has all the firmware updates so is a Profile 2.0 player.

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Saturday, December 27, 2008 11:25 PM

SHINYGOODGUY

Yes. I agree, some shots were grainy and on the flares in some scenes it did seem to throw off the BD quality. But for the most part the overall quality was sharp and crisp.

My guess that the shots with the flares, and others, was intentional by Joss and would show up no matter the viewing medium. I was watching a BR version of Stargate about a week back and saw some similar flare shots that had similar results. It also depends on how you have your TV monitor set up for viewing.

When I was watching The Dark Knight (which BTW had the opening sequence shot in IMAX) I found the picture and sound to be quite clear and detailed. But you must remember that both these movies and series were shot totally different.

The couple of eps I watched were quite beautiful to watch.

SGG

Tawabawho?

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Sunday, December 28, 2008 5:07 AM

ECGORDON

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity.

I have a PS3 and have been watching Firefly on Blu-Ray for the past week. I'll be watching "Heart of Gold" tonight, "Objects in Space" tomorrow night, then buying Serenity on Tuesday.

There are good and bad things about the BR release. In the roundtable discussion Joss mentions the look he was going for, the rough '70s western movie feel, nothing "hi-def" (his words). So in essence, trying to transfer that to a HD format was bound to show up some of the cinematographic techniques that he and David Boyd used. The dark scenes can be grainy and possibly not even as sharp as the standard discs, but in any well-lit scene the superiority of the BR image is unquestionable. The audio is also superior on the new release, and I'm just listening to it through my tv's speakers. I haven't noticed anything wrong with the lens flares though, so it might just be the player you are using and not the discs themselves.

The extra commentary is nice, but I wanted more. I'd love to hear Sean and Summer talk about "Safe," or Sean, Summer and Adam on "Ariel." And Nathan and Christina on "Trash" would have been hi-larious. One of these days, whenever the next generation video format is introduced, maybe we can get multiple commentaries on every episode, the way they did with Freaks and Geeks.

I haven't heard anyone mention the menu screens, which I like a lot more than the original dvds. Also, they've corrected at least one subtitle error. One they didn't correct is at the end of "Ariel" when Mal says the word smooth, but he didn't articulate it well and the captioner had the word "scruth," whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. But in "The Message," when Tracy backs out of the bridge and grabs Kaylee, the original caption reads that he shouts, "You're a rabbit, Mal," but that is now corrected to what we knew he said all along, "Gorrammit, Mal!"

As I said in another thread recently, I don't think it matters on which format you watch Firefly, standard dvd, Blu-Ray, or a VHS tape from the original FOX broadcast or off Sci-Fi. It's still the best gorram show out there, and I will continue to support the show, Joss and all the other BDHs no matter how many times the series is released. Same goes for the Big Damn Movie.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

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Sunday, December 28, 2008 7:35 AM

OPPYH

Wow!
Can't believe all the negative reviews.
Of course it isn't the best looking blu-ray on the market, but over the standard dvd it's a noticeable upgrade.

The DTS HD audio track is the icing on the cake. I'm very impressed with this set.

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Sunday, December 28, 2008 8:57 AM

ECGORDON

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity.

Quote:
Originally posted by OPPYH:
Wow!
Can't believe all the negative reviews.

Not sure if you consider my report negative, but I don't. Just trying to be as honest as I can. I have absolutely no regret about buying this.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

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Sunday, March 15, 2009 9:22 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Where did this thread go? I kept looking for it. guess I found it for now.

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