Troy is a reference quality transfer, meaning it is a stunning example of what high definition movies should look like on the format. Color levels, fine detail, film grain, every aspect is crisp and almost three-dimensional. It helps that the cinematography, locales, and costume designs are top notch; the movie simply looks fantastic. The audio is presented in uncompressed PCM 5.1 format and a Dolby Digital track; hopefully your receiver can handle the lossless format because the surround experience and general sound experience here is phenomenal and needs to be experienced as cleanly as possible. There are a number of short featurettes that go behind the scenes and are appreciated in the fact that they are all presented in 1080p. While Troy is definitely not true to the literature it borrows from it is a great movie and is a top notch Blu-ray to own.
Part two of this article will focus on what the top Blu-ray players are on the market currently as well as looking at the Blu-ray formats available. Of course the remainder of the top ten Blu-ray list will also be concluded. Stay tuned.
Article comments
1 - bananar
Hay, great little write up, very knowledgable. Good eye too... I also noticed how nice the film grain looks in Fifth Element (only movie I have in this list). In some transfers film-grain is ruined by bit-starving, but it's nice and defined here with the AVC encode averaging in the high twenties.
Looking forward to the next part, and Ratatouille better be in there. ;) The "Lifted" short film on that disc has the cleanest, sharpest image I've seen on my tv.
2 - Rack 'em
This is the worst list of movies i've ever seen! The only movies good on this list are Spider-man and Pirates of the Caribbean and you said Spider-man 3 was the worst of the trilogy!? It may not be the best but not the worst! I don't care how good all those other movies look or sound, if they suck who wants to watch them? You need to go buy some new movies, seriously! If you think those sorry movies are good you need to get Iron Man. It looks better than any of those movies and its not agonizing the movies on your list. You'll probably piss your self! Lol!
3 - Michael Prince
I agree about Iron Man, I now own it, but this list was created before Iron Man even came out in the theatres. As to the movies picked for this list I mentioned in the first part of the article that I was picking movies that show off the wow factor the Blu-ray format can deliver.
Immersive audio, drop dead visuals, tons of extras are what I was looking at as well as a great movie. Oh and if you are saying Blade Runner, 2001 and Close Encounters are not good movies, then you have probably never watched them.
4 - Chris Gibbs
The Polar Express is a must own for any Blue Ray owner. I bought it this past weekend and it has one of the best pitures I've ever seen. Ever detail is given and the movie is not itself is not bad either.
5 - Clark
The Dark Knight (Batman II) must surely top all Blu-ray discs. It's actually cheating a bit. Not only are you getting Blu-ray, but the image owes a huge part of it's purity to the movie's acquisition on IMAX film, rather than 35mm. The IMAX-filmed sequences are unbelievably beautiful. While that is this BD's strength, it is also the weakness of this movie. It is extremely annoying to watch a movie as it switches aspect ratios from scene to scene. Letterboxed 2.35:1 in one shot and 16:9 widescreen in the next. Rather than shooting anamorphic or super-35, the non-IMAX scenes should have been shot in regular 35mm to at least keep a constant aspect ratio throughout the film.
Anyway, check out the IMAX scenes!! You'll rarely see anything so beautiful (unless they make more IMAX cameras and filmmakers start shooting every film with it).
6 - bingo prime
Hey man. Props for including Sunshine, a fantastic and underrated film.
I would include Apocalypto on this list. Shot on HD video, the picture quality is absolutely amazing.