Old films on Blu-Ray - worth it?

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I've recently got a Blu-Ray player so have been looking at what's available and notice that a lot of old films - '60s and even earlier - are available on Blu-Ray.

I know that even 1960s cinema was higher quality than SD television, but is the quality of such films noticeably better than on normal DVD?
 
yes deffinatly, you'll be very impressed especially very early titles like The Wizard of Oz, Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs or Gone With The Wind - they look like they were filmed yesterday
 
Its about time some Stickys were placed on lots of forums to stop this question coming up almost every week.

Theatrical films have been made on 35mm and better for about 80 years and the format can offer quality that far exceeRAB that of our current HD standard which is why films as old as The Wizard of Oz can look breathtaking.

Some companies are letting the format down by removing the grain inherent in many films using artificial techniques and a side effect of this is to reduce the detail.

The US Bluray of Spartacus is a perfect example of how inferior quality control can leave you preferring the dvd.

But when done well the results can be awesome.

Dr No is great demo material.
The riverside sequence of Bond and Honey washing themselves down delivers such incredible amounts of detail that you start to actually pay attention to the natural surroundings as they are so crystal clear.

Needless to say , plenty of Blurays do not look as good


BTW- if you want Its A Wonderful Life on Bluray get the US one.
The UK one has B&W and colour versions squeezed onto one disc but the US one splits them onto 2 and it also has bonus features that were on the dvd's but do not appear on the UK Bluray
 
I have been a little dissapointed with older films.

I have Close Encounters on blu-ray and whilst there is undoubtedly more detail present - the graininess is also more pronounced.
 
Lots of useful answers here - thanks everyone.

Italian Job, Zulu (both already mentioned here), and Bullitt are three I'm considering getting (Amazon doing so good deals atm).
 
Thanks for all the replies. Seems like it's worth buying them then :D



That's the sort of thing I was wondering about - the defects being clearer too. Also, with many older films the colours seem washed out compared to modern films so I wondered if that might affect the quality achievable on Blu-Ray.
 
It's A Wonderful Life was released in the UK and US by different companies which accounts for missing features.

Casablanca is a Warner disc and they generally offer the same discs worldwide - one of the obvious advantages for them of not using region coding.

They do often use better packaging with additional things like books etc in the US but the disc itself will usually be identical even down to the US Federal Prison warning at the start so the UK one should be ok.

But Warner have shortchanged UK fans of great boxsets of Harry Potter , Blade Runner,Dirty Harry, Wizard of Oz and more , not forgetting their digibook releases which comprise a hardback book in full colour with 48 pages of info and stills , a very nice souvenir.

North By Northwest got one as did the 1981 Clash of the Titans and Poltergeist .

Next one up is The Exorcist - no news yet on whether the UK gets the book but it looks unlikely
 
Some movies that I have on BR from the 60s look better than stuff filmed this year.

I'm thinking of the likes of Zulu, The Italian Job etc.

Stuff from the 80s is probably the most hit and miss, with a lot of them just being upscaled instead of a new HD transfer. One that I bought that was noticably better than the regular DVD version (upscaled) was The Goonies, which looked fantastic on BR.
 
I have the US digibook of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The flyer on the back (disc sheet) comes off and wont stay on but it is a superior packaging to the UK Blu Ray.
 
I've been impressed by North By Northwest, Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, Live And Let Die, Moonraker, The Battle of Britain, It's A Wonderful Life and The Italian Job, all of which date before 1980 and which I have.

In fact, the best Blu Ray picture in my whole collection is Moonraker, without a doubt. It is stunning.
 
Read reviews, check out sites like avsforum as well. I think they have a picture quality tier thread.
Film has far higher resolution that hdtv, how much varies on film quality/lens/restoration quality etc. But the potential is there for you to see it in higher quality than most anyone has in generations. Its amazing stuff when done right.

Even more crazy are old tv shows like star trek the original series restored from the film source to bluray. In that case you literally see it in higher quality than anyone did in its day.
http://www.cinemasquid.com/blu-ray/...the-original-series-season-1?movieid=3095#top
click to see full size
 
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