Band of Brothers blu-ray box set

manman

This series completely missed me somehow... I had never heard about it until recently when a friend of mine linked me to an amazon goldbox deal on it for 35 bucks. I checked out the description and noticed that it had ALL 5 star reviews! That plus the fact that it was over 50% off list price just made me go for it.

Now that I've started watching it, all I can say is WOW! Now I see what all the praise is about. Not only is it a great entertaining series, but on blu-ray it is just amazing, especially the sound. I only put my HT setup together recently, and so far this has made the most impressive use of my surround setup than anything else I have.

Anyone else get a chance to check this out on blu?

acsubie

i have been netflixing them...very entertaining for sure...i should have picked up on that $35 deal to really get more out of the series instead of a quick one time view

doggie750

got the regular DVD dts version and fell inlove with it. BLU will be awesome but I'll settle for what I got for now.

cheddar

Outstanding series. Was hooked from the first episode and just had to see them all the way through. The amazon blu-ray set at 3 and change per episode was about as good as it gets and it was the second time they had the set for sub thirty something. An absolute no brainer purchase for a quality WWII epic at that price...if you've only started watching it...it only gets better...even with repeat viewings. The action happens so fast and chaotic at times that I found I missed a lot in the first go...

cheddar

edit: I meant thirty something, not sub thirty. Under fourty dollars was a great price for this set.

manman

Yeah, I just finished the second disc today and I'm loving it. Repeat value really does look high, not just to absorb the story more, but becasue of all the extras. PIP commentary with some of the actual soldiers portrayed, interactive timelines with information and pictures that fit with certain scenes- really good stuff. I sometimes check out a 'making of' on my movies but I'm not really big on extras. But I'll definitely be going back for all the extras in this set.

Retro152

manman wrote: »

Yeah, I just finished the second disc today and I'm loving it. Repeat value really does look high, not just to absorb the story more, but becasue of all the extras. PIP commentary with some of the actual soldiers portrayed, interactive timelines with information and pictures that fit with certain scenes- really good stuff. I sometimes check out a 'making of' on my movies but I'm not really big on extras. But I'll definitely be going back for all the extras in this set.

manman, how many disc's in the blu-ray set?

manman

6 discs. The first 5 are the series, 2 episodes per disc- and the 6th disc is extras.

Retro152

I'll have to grab it. I have Full Metal Jacket blu-ray, which is pretty decent, another 5 star entry i heard was Patton.

emoxley

I have the regular dvd set of these. Will probably get the blu ray set when I ever get an HDTV and BD player. This is my all time favorite WW II story. Tom Hanks and Steven Speilberg did a fantastic job with this. I was surprised that Hanks didn't act in it too. David Schwimmer did a very good job of being an SOB.............

cheddar

retro152 wrote: »

I'll have to grab it. I have Full Metal Jacket blu-ray, which is pretty decent, another 5 star entry i heard was Patton.

Yes, George C. Scott turns in an epic performance to make Patton a classic. The video is outstanding for a catalog blu-ray title, but the sound is a little limited because of the original sound track. Still great for a title of this age, though.

Very different movie from the Band of Brothers series where the entire cast elevates each episode and the emphasis is on constantly putting the viewer in the middle of historical, accurately crafted combat sequences. Patton just painted crosses and stars on the side of whatever army's tanks they were using as extras. But it is still one of my favorite WWII movies...

AndyGwis

This series was pretty amazing. I remember watching bits and pieces when it first came out on HBO. Finally bought the SD-DVDs a year or so ago and love watching it. I would stay up until 2am watching episode after episode.

I'd love to get it on BluRay if they come back down to $35. I can always regift the SD-DVDs to my dad for father's day

If anyone sees them for $35 again, let me know!

AsSiMiLaTeD

I FINALLY got my hands on the HD DVD import set. I'm going to do a comparison with the Blu Ray set this weekend, will let you guys know how it goes.

I've heard the HD DVD video transfer is better, we'll find out soon enough.

polkatese

there is a long thread on avsforum.com comparing these two versions of BOB, complete with snapshots..HD-DVD is more detailed, BD is softer.

AsSiMiLaTeD

The complaints I've heard about the Blu version all relate to the picture being too soft. In some cases a soft picture isn't bad, but not in a WWII movie.

cheddar

I think they applied a slight touch of digital noise reduction to the blu-ray release. Sometimes studios get overzealous with trying to get rid of grain, etc. A lot of times the grain is supposed to be there as it makes it appear more film like. So I believe if you are doing a direct comparison between the hd-dvd import and the blu-ray you will notice a difference. But if you're not doing a side by side, the slight DNR application shouldn't detract from enjoying the blu-ray set. It's not like they scrubbed it down to dvd resolution. It's still a good picture.

AsSiMiLaTeD

That and the HD DVD set is $200 compared to $40 for the Blu Ray set. I paid much less for my HD DVD set, but still twice what the Blu Ray set goes for.

Having said that, IMO Band of Brothers is the best thing that's ever been put to film, so I want the best picture possible, even if it's only marginally better at twice the price.

cheddar

No argument here. Studios don't seem to know the difference or care between cleaning out specks and dirt and eliminating grain and detail. If I had the choice, I'd go for the better quality transfer too for an excellent series like this even for a little bit more.

Retro152

cheddar wrote: »

Yes, George C. Scott turns in an epic performance to make Patton a classic. The video is outstanding for a catalog blu-ray title, but the sound is a little limited because of the original sound track. Still great for a title of this age, though.

Very different movie from the Band of Brothers series where the entire cast elevates each episode and the emphasis is on constantly putting the viewer in the middle of historical, accurately crafted combat sequences. Patton just painted crosses and stars on the side of whatever army's tanks they were using as extras. But it is still one of my favorite WWII movies...

Yes, George c. Scott's performance is captivating. But your right, completly lacking in realism as far as Armor,equipment,etc. Read **** armor scenes were actually Italian made tanks with like you said: "Painted crosses and stars on the side of whatever army's tanks they were using as extras" LOL. Still a great flick.

manman

interesting comment about the 'noise reduction'. I think I do notice what you are talking about. I'm not sure why they call it noise reduction though, because it seems to INCREASE noise... my tv has a similar setting and when it's off the picture looks much smoother than without it. Maybe I'm confusing that with 'detail enhancement' but I have noticed some scenes where there appears to be a kind of processed noisy look. It's pretty infrequent, and doesn't bother me much. The effect is kind of the same thing you see in 300- but all the time in that movie. I also have to say I don't find it soft at all though, it looks pretty crisp to me.

Didn't know there was an HD-DVD import though, that's cool.

cheddar

Film grain is actually a property of the film stock used in production. Directors choose to have a certain amount of film grain in their pictures because of artistic decisions related to shooting on film. Just like they control the color palette, etc. When you see a completely digital picture like Kung Fu Panda, you can see a difference where everything looks pristine with no visible noise whatsoever unless they purposely introduce it to make a scene look 'old'. That's why people often say that animation looks best on blu-ray. Probably from people who don't appreciate stuff like film grain and like their prints to look as clean as possible.

When blu-ray first came out, many people complained about all the dirt and specks picked up from the original film print (completely different from film grain, probably just didn't clean the original master properly after bringing it out of storage) of Fifth Element and they even had to rerelease it to keep the grumbling down during the height of the format wars. My guess is that because of these early experiences, studios figured it was better to digitally remove anything that could be mistaken for a dirty print, including film grain, damaging the sharpness and original artistic decision of the director, to keep the masses from complaining.

I've heard that the band of brothers import hd-dvd has quite a lot of grain (like you say about 300) especially in the dark scenes. Again, just a guess, but I would think the difference in versions is mainly due to a slight application of noise reduction during digital processing to make this grain less pronounced. I would rather have the grain and all the extra detail because it's how the director originally intended it to look. They could have done the same thing with 300, but then I think it would have a completely different type of 'video' feel to it. However, I don't think you would notice any softness in the BOB blu-ray version if you don't have the hd-dvd to compare it to.

Assimilated, any comparison between the sound tracks? Does the hd-dvd have a lossless option? Are they the same? I've read nothing but great things about the blu-ray sound track.

manman

I think we might be talking about different things. I'm not sure if 300 was even shot on film or digitally, but from what I have read about it, the effect in 300 is not a result of film grain, but due to a large amount of post processing, and was actually intentional. That's just what I've read, so I'm not positive, but it makes sense to me because even films that have not been remastered or had a lot of processing done do have film grain, but don't show anything like that speckled noise effect of 300.

I personally am one of those who don't find a problem with regular film grain. I think most of BOB looks normal, but I just see that noise effect come out in a few scenes (and when it does they are usually darker or faster moving scenes). The majority of BOB looks very smooth and crisp to me though.

cheddar

manman wrote: »

I think we might be talking about different things. I'm not sure if 300 was even shot on film or digitally, but from what I have read about it, the effect in 300 is not a result of film grain, but due to a large amount of post processing, and was actually intentional.

That's the point I was trying to make. Directors know that using certain kinds of lighting and film stocks will cause grain effects. In the case of 300, I'm sure that after they replaced all those green screens with digital backgrounds, the movie looked very detailed, smooth, and video like. But the director wanted it to look more like it was shot on film, so they inserted digital grain. A stylistic choice to make it appreciated more like they actually filmed big sets and locations instead of dropping them in digitally.

Now studios are scrubbing the grain out of their movies to make them look more like live video HD without all the grain. And as a result, they are sacrificing detail and the 'film' look of the original print. Not my preference. I'd rather enjoy the original grainy film look that shows in theaters.

AsSiMiLaTeD

I sat down over the weekend and compared the two. While I preferred the HD DVD version, my wife actually likes the Blu Ray version better, said it looks 'cleaner'. I'm like "Yeah, but it's not supposed to look 'clean'.

What you guys are saying about grain is especially true here. HD DVD has a sharper picture, but it does look more grainy than the blu ray version, and sometimes by a good amount. I prefer this in this series, and think that's probably what they were going for. The Blu Ray version looked more smooth at times, maybe that's what others are calling soft, I don't know.

As for the soundtracks, I wasn't really able to compare them because I'm using a 2 channel stereo setup on equipment without hdmi connections, so I doubt I'm getting the best sound on either version.

AsSiMiLaTeD

By the way, did I mention that this is the best thing ever put on film? I've watched the whole thing straight thru 3 times now, and I've watched it in pieces several more times over.

wingnut4772

Just started watching this on Blu Ray ala Netflix. So far it's awesome. Thanks .

polkatese

Heard it on the Nightly News just now that the real Shifty passed away on June 17th, 09 from cancer....RIP

messiah

polkatese wrote: »

Heard it on the Nightly News just now that the real Shifty passed away on June 17th, 09 from cancer....RIP

That's sad. RIP Shifty. My GF and I watch the series all the time, as it is one of our favorites. Will definately pick up the blu-ray version too!

cheddar

I know some of you were waiting for this set to get deep discounted again. Amazon dropped the price to $39.99 today. Amazon has been great with pricing blu-rays this holiday season. There were under 10 buck deals on recently released top tier titles on black friday. But if you missed those, almost all their blu-rays, including recently released ones, are under $20. Many good deals at $12-$15. And for those new to blu-ray, there are older movies that go for only $7.99 or so. Then there's the good deal on a nice box-set like Band of Brothers. Really a quality series to have, especially at this price.

StantonZ

There's a follow-up series coming out in 2010 called "Pacific" (guess which part of the WWII it's about). I'm waiting to pick-up "BoB" when they release "Pacific" later this year. With any luck, they'll package the two series together in a WWII collection or something. I'm not a war buff, but I think these series (along with "Saving Private Ryan") are the most visceral representations of WWII in the last 20 years.

MrGlobe

cheddar wrote: »

I know some of you were waiting for this set to get deep discounted again. Amazon dropped the price to $39.99 today. Amazon has been great with pricing blu-rays this holiday season. There were under 10 buck deals on recently released top tier titles on black friday. But if you missed those, almost all their blu-rays, including recently released ones, are under $20. Many good deals at $12-$15. And for those new to blu-ray, there are older movies that go for only $7.99 or so. Then there's the good deal on a nice box-set like Band of Brothers. Really a quality series to have, especially at this price.

Just to add to your post, I just ordered the planet earth blu ray set for $40 off amazon as well. Great price on a great series

EDIT: Should have looked around before ordering because the series is the same price everywhere apparently. $40 local at BB, so I guess I only saved the ~$3 sales tax